A view on cryonics (was Re: [extropy-chat] Bad Forecasts!)

Brett Paatsch bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au
Sun Sep 12 08:42:07 UTC 2004


Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:

> Brett Paatsch wrote:
> 
> >This does not mean that I believe in souls or spirits I don't. 
> >I am a materialist.  I just think that I am a material thing that
> > is biological and has grown. I am made up of atoms sure 
> > but far more relevantly to what makes me me I am made
> > up of cells. I don't think that any cryonics procedure can
> > disassemble me to the cellular level and put me back 
> > together again. I think I would be destroyed in the wholesale
> > disassembly process and that the wholesale disassembly
> > process cannot be gotten around because at the time the
> > cryonics "freezing" process is initiated I would have been 
> > composed of   organic highly perishable cells. And cells 
> > aren't structured in efficiently evolved biological organisms
> > so as to leave service lanes for nanobots (on the contrary
> > the brain is protected by a blood brain barrier precisely
> > to reduce the opportunity for entry disease). Evolution 
> > didn't design my brain to rebuilt it, it gave it some capacity
> > for repair and adaption but ultimately evolution will be 
> > perfectly happy to start again and grow another. The me
> > bit encoded in my brain is entirely expendable from 
> > evolutions standpoint.
> >
> >I don't accept the information theoretic criteria of death.
> > I think the information theoretic criteria of death is a hurdle
> > that is chosen specifically because IT savvy folk feel 
> > confident that it could be jumped over. I don't think the
> > information theoretic criteria of death has any other 
> > applications other than to satisfy an understandable
> > yearning (I'd like to avoid dying too) to avoid dying.
> >  
> >
> >
> ### Ah, the old identity thread again! Let's pound this nail
> even deeper!

Hi Rafal.  OK :-)
 
> Do you think that your concept of personal identity (about
> cells, blood brain barriers, etc.) is the only correct one
> (leaving all others to be mere rationalizations, if not insane
> mutterings), or maybe there are many possible concepts,
> which may be chosen, or believed in without automatically
> consigning the believer to the ranks of the hopelessly 
> misguided morons? 

I am not going to call you or anyone a hopelessly misguided
moron just for disagreeing with me even if you ultimately do.

I do think all members of the species homo sapiens have their
sense of self inherent in the structure of their cellular brain. I 
think that it is a mistake to think that someone who is now a 
homo sapiens can be abstracted out of their cellular substate
and yet somehow continue to exist as disembodied pattern 
and then to be re-instantiated again. I think that the self is
lost in the process. 

I don't want or need to call people who I think are mistaken
misguided morons. 

 > In the latter case, identity would be a
> matter of  taste, discussed and politely disagreed on, but 
> not an obstacle to mutually respectful relationships. In the
> former case, having a certain type of identity belief could
> put a person in the same category as the Raelians and
> Rastafarians, which does limit the range of interactions 
> possible.

I don't think my identity is a matter of taste, its a matter of
fact. You as an other may present to me as a pattern but I
don't present to myself as a pattern. 

> --------------------------------
> 
> > I can relate to the wanting to hope but I can't pull off belief in
> > cryonics with intellectual integrity any better than I can pull
> > off belief in reincarnation or the resurrection.
> >
> ### Well, there is a difference between the information-theoretic
> (IT) concept of identity, and the belief in resurrection by 
>  supernatural means. 

It doesn't seem that big a difference to me. In both cases the
person thinks that they can survive somehow despite a
comprehensive disassembly of the cellular substrate. I am my
cellular substrate, I think you are yours. If you think you are not
then I think you are mistaken.

> We IT's do not postulate the occurrence of any extraphysical 
> events which rely for confirmation on stories written by bearded 
> half-literate peasants two thousand years ago.

But you ITs do postulate that you can exist as disembodied
information don't you? 

> The IT belief is merely my *decision* to be satisfied with certain
> physically feasible states of  the world (future world states which
> contain sentient structures largely identical to my present mental
> setup, or structures derivable from this setup by volitional means),
> and to value all such states equally, whether the future structures
> appear by physical continuity with my current physical manifestation,
> or by means of information transfer. The only difference between 
> you and me is that you are dissatisfied with states which contain
> only the IT-derived structures - so it's a matter of attitude, not a
> belief about material facts.

I think the difference between us is that you think that you can in 
some sense survive as a sort of disembodied pattern despite the
fact that all the cells that make you up are destroyed in order to
determine that pattern. 
 
> A question of value, not fact.

That I exist as a biological being is a fact. That you do probably
is also a fact. 
 
> -------------------------------------------
> 
> >Now that I have reached a conclusion on cryonics I feel in
> > much the same way towards transhumanists that still think it
> > will work and still suspend disbelief to hold hope as I once 
> > felt towards friends and family that remained religious when
> >I grew out of it. I like them. I respect them when they argue
> > sensibly and I don't put much stock in their beliefs but am
> > interested in their values. Its the cryonics thing that makes 
> > transhumanist and extropes look a bit cultish and so easy
> > to parody in my opinion.
> >  
> >
> ### Remember, religious people make scientifically
> unsupported statements about facts, which leads them to
> bizarre beliefs about  values. This is much different from
> cryonicists, who rely strictly on science for facts, and fit 
> their values accordingly.
 
> --------------------------------
> 
> 
> >And I have seen embryonics stem cell scientists differentiate
> > their work in front of public audiences by pointing at the
> > Raelians as the irresponsible unbelievable face of cloning 
> >but I've also seen them talk of cryonics in the same way.
> >
> >Cryonics as a meme is out there - the meme has been given
> > a fair shake by some pretty persistent and impassioned 
> > advocates over quite a period of time. And I'm glad that it
> > has been. But scientists and the public know about it.
> >Scientists as a class are not indifferent to means of
> > prolonging or extending their own surivival.
> >Those that are not signing up are not all not signing up 
> >because they are ignorant some of them, like me, are not 
> > going for it because they are confident that it cannot work.
> > And their confidence I think comes not from conservatism but
> > from an understanding of biology.
> >  
> >
> ### As a practicing scientist (molecular neuroscientist) I can
> assure you that the confidence of academic detractors of cryonics
> comes purely from ignorance.

Thats not a very scientific thing to say. How could you possible know
that all academic detractors views come purely form ignorance? 

How could you even be sure that you know who all the academic
detractors are? 
 
> If you disagree, point out a single scientific, biological argument
> for why cryonics cannot work, and you could score a convert to
> your attitude.

Raf there is no evidence anywhere ever that a homo sapiens can
survive separate from the cellular substrate that makes up their
brain. 

I'd like to discuss this in good faith with you because I think the 
subject matter warrants it. Its important. 

But I don't know that I can show you that cryonics won't work
for *you* unless I know what the word cryonics means for *you*.
 
It could be that you have a different understanding of it to others
that I have read. It could even be that you have no precise notion
of how it would work in practice at the level of capturing synaptic
structural information. 

If you do have a precise notion of how it could work step by step
then, if your notion is internally inconsistent I could possibly point
that out to you. If its not internally inconsistent and its step by 
step - perhaps you'd have persuaded me. 

With religious notions definitions are slippery. The reason that
things cannot be disproved is often because the believers can't
or won't define what they believe in in the first place.

Believing is powerful evolutionary mojo. The Christian church
has been around for around 2000 years - a lot of empires don't
last that long.  It intend no insult when I say that I suspect that
the propensity to believe make be at work amongst intelligent
people causing them to think that cryonics might work and 
allowing them to overlook that they have no specific step by
step process in mind that can be shown not to work. 

If you can't say what cryonics is for you, and outline a path at
least as good as Ralph Merkle in his paper then it might be that
I can't find an internal contradiction for you because your idea
is not developed enough to be demonstrably wrong. I mean no
insult by that. It just *may* be like trying to show someone that
god can't exist because their concept is internally inconsistent
and then finding out that their concept is not even static but
keeps getting redefined even as you try to discuss it. It can
end up that they are using a word and declaring a belief in
something for which they have no particular cogent referent 
at all. 

I'd written a different response to this post but accidentally
deleted it before posting. Sorry if the rewrite is sloppy.

Cheers,
Brett 




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