[extropy-chat] Re: Agreement on technical matters was [Science and Fools]

[Keith Henson]

At 10:33 PM 16/03/05 +1100, Brett Paatsch wrote:
>Hal wrote:

snip

>>What if I were to define "cryonics can work" as something like, a
>>person frozen with today's technology is successfully revived within,
>>say, 100 years, with substantially identical memories and personality.
>>I would give this odds of about 1 in 100.
>
>Sure, that would be a line we could explore. I mean the way you are
>operationaling the bet is a way that I imagine you, Robin, Damien or
>I would each start to do with *some* skill if any of us were challenged
>to put our money where our mouths are.
>
>But perhaps before we even go down that path it is worth asking could
>each of us accept the judgement of  *any* third party judging organisation
>however ideally configured with relevant expertise, (scientific, logical,
>linguistic etc) as being better than our own present judgement, and better
>than our own then, our future judgement (biased judgement) when such
>judgement is rendered?
>
>In practice, both now and then, there is only two practical choices in
>relation to cryonics for each of us: either we choose to sign up or we
>don't.

Ralph Merkle put it this way.  We are engaged in a medical experiment.  The 
people who are frozen are one group, those who die and are burned or buried 
are in the other (control).  We wait some time, 100 years (though that 
seems long to me) and see what percentage of each group are walking around.

The information gained from this experiment is interesting but not useful 
for making present day decisions.  So the question is which group you would 
like to be in?

snip

>I'm wondering if you can see that there is no point to trying to answer the
>question unless at least two of us, one from either side of the proposition
>would be willing to accept the decision of a judging organisation.
>
>My purpose here is somewhat "meta".  I'm interested in using cryonics
>as an example, and some slightly known to me different positions on it
>(yours, Robins, Damien's) as a sort of test to see if people whom I think
>respect each other yet hold different views can even in principle come
>up with a judgeable betting procedure on something like this.
>
>I'm interested in whether some matters ultimately cannot become matters
>for third party judging even in principle when two sides start out on the
>opposite sides of a question.
>
>We know judging can be imposed and begrudgingly accepted (without
>the need for us to agree with it) on some matters. I don't know if the likes
>of us can advance-accept the sort of judgement that would be made on
>"can cryonics work?" though.  And if we can't advance-accept it, then
>we can't get to agree.
>
>Does that make sense?

I think you have in mind some rapid process to come to a present day 
agreement about "cryonics can work."

You obviously hold a strong opinion about the subject so you feel "cryonics 
can't work."

I must state that I had a similar opinion at one time, liking a frozen 
person to a frozen tomato, looks great, but turns to mush when thawed out.

Eric Drexler had the same opinion prior to thinking about what could be 
done with molecular scale machines.  I wasn't an easy sell, it took 5 or 6 
years from starting to hear about nanotechnology before my family signed 
up.  I was eventually backed into an intellectual corner where I could find 
no reason for cryonics not to work at the technical level.  Of course I had 
a fairly deep science background of how molecular biology had developed 
over the previous 30 years.

I am increasingly confident over the last 20 years that the technical level 
of cryonics is sound.

I wonder what evidence you cite to support your opinion?

Keith Henson