X-Message-Number: 9527
From: Ettinger <>
Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 12:17:53 EDT
Subject: Pietrzak 5

PIETRZAK 5

It's a tar baby, but one is  reluctant to appear to concede the field, so I'll
comment again briefly on Mr. Pietrzak's Cryonet #9521.

1. I have not endorsed Koopman--only pointed out that, in some ways, his
approach is in practice not much different than von Mises'. Read it again.

2. Bayes does NOT take a "step away" from the "objective ideal." This is a
fundamental misunderstanding. Bayes is MORE objective (than the Fisher
approach, say), in that it does not ignore available data. Such data should,
if feasible and useful, be explicit; but it is often possible and useful to
use non-explicit data, or data not formally compiled into statistics. My
technical example (exponential life parameter) applies here. Read it again.

3. It is NOT "circular" to say, first, that many difficult projects of serious
technology have succeeded, while few or none have been proven impossible; and
then to conclude that the cryo-repair project has a good chance of success.
When I add to the web subsite, I'll list some of the previous successes and
look at possible counter-examples.

4. "…it is impossible for you to end up with a probability value that was not
already implicit in your intuitions…….CIRCULAR…."  There are two
possibilities. First, I use only my "intuition" (or rough guess based on
experience); in that case my guess was either near the mark or it was not.
Certainly there is a possibility of error. Second, I start with intuition or
guesswork and then decide to make it explicit by compiling statistics. In that
case, my result will be more reliable. But in neither case was there any
circularity. I started by looking at cases that were similar but different,
cases already on the record. Read it again.

5. I don't think Mr. Pietrzak has yet acknowledged that his Michelson-Morley
counterexample was wrong. The M-M experiment was not a failed project of
technology. M-M did exactly what it was designed to do--test the hypothesis of
the "luminiferous ether." The fact that the result may have been displeasing
to the experimenters is irrelevant. 

6. I don't think he has acknowledged either that his Fountain of Youth
counterexample was inapplicable. He said there have been many false claims of
a way having been found to cheat death, so one might reasonably conclude that
cryo-repair has little chance. This is completely spurious. A nutty claim of
something already achieved has no relation to a serious ongoing project of
technology. Anyone who has difficulty distinguishing between the two has a
problem. 

As I said, I will add a bit to the web subsite before too long.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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