X-Message-Number: 11733
From: 
Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 22:45:02 EDT
Subject: Pascal, Smith, Kent, Nord, Crevier

Thanks to Dave Pascal, of course.
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Thanks to George Smith for his very interesting posts on lucid dreaming. This 
is one of several investigations I have been meaning to get into for years, 
but never found time for.
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Saul Kent wrote:

>A few months ago, I started a new research and development
>company called Advanced BioSciences (ABS).  The purposes of ABS are:  

>1) To acquire the rights to cryonics-related technologies and
>products from 21CM and other companies and institutions;  

>2) To conduct cryonics research to improve the state-of-the-art
>in the field;  

>3) To offer the latest cryonics technologies and products to  
>cryonics companies and organizations.  

>Right now, ABS is negotiating with BioTransport, a new cryonics
>service company, in order to provide BioTransport with the  
>ability to offer the latest cryonics technologies and products.   

>ABS intends to do everything it can to make the latest  
>advances in cryonics available to cryonicists throughout the world as soon
>as possible.  

As I understand it, BioTransport (BT) at first was conceived as a cooperative 
venture between Alcor on the one hand, and on the other CryoCare and related 
people and organizations (with other organizations to be invited in later), 
but the Alcor people and the others were not able to work together 
effectively. Currently BT (if I understand correctly) is at the attempted 
fund-raising stage, with nothing much expected to gel for at least a year or 
two. 

I have not heard what plans CryoCare has to replace BioPreservation (BP) when 
the latter's contract expires in June and Darwin exits the cryonic suspension 
business. Possibly ABS will replace BP? However, Saul's list of purposes of 
ABS notably does not include the actual provision of suspension 
services--only to "offer" "technologies" and "products" to cryonics 
organizations. Clarification would be welcome. It would also be interesting 
to know why availability of 21CM technology needs ABS as an intermediary, and 
what other companies, besides 21CM, might supply "cryonics related 
technologies" to ABS.

As I have said previously, Cryonics Institute (CI) is interested in offering 
to its members any and all available and appropriate options, to allow 
members the greatest degree of flexibility. We look forward to specifics from 
and about ABS, as well as BT.  
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Thomas Nord writes:

>Is it to early to promote us all we can, should we wait until
>better methods are tested? < [For newcomers, Mr. Nord's occasional small 
errors in English result from the fact that he is Swedish.]

The "research only" or "research 99%" people seem to think that a 
sufficiently dramatic breakthrough in freezing and revival will relieve the 
need for any promotion, and before that promotion is pretty much useless and 
maybe even unethical. But others have pointed out that acceptance of cryonics 
is minimal even among those who believe, erroneously, that dogs and mice and 
apes have already been frozen and revived. In any case, revival of adult 
mammals after freezing seems at least a decade away, even in the opinion of 
the most optimistic 21CM people, if I understand correctly.  

Most of us who are favorable to cryonics probably believe that promotion is 
useful, even ethically imperative. What form it should take, if individuals 
want to try, is another matter. Probably the easiest thing an individual can 
do, and possibly the best thing, is just to try to spread the word about the 
existence and accessibility of the web sites of the various organizations.
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To Daniel Crevier:

I had written (referring to earlier posts on gradual replacement of brain 
parts by computer simulation):

>More generally, if in the end nothing is left but a computer, it
>probably fails because it cannot bind time and space the way a 
>physical brain can. The "information paradigm" is only a conjecture,
>not a proven principle. 

Mr. Crevier's response to this was:

>Here you are rejecting my conclusion out of general principles: the 
>simulation has to fail because it's a computer. But we said that at
>any stage of the experiment, the subject could verify the integrity of
>his/her consciousness. In this case, how could he/she be unconscious at
>the end?

The whole point of a thought experiment is that it supposedly is possible in 
principle--that is, the outcome is known and only the practicality of the 
experiment is in doubt. That is not the case here. If Mr. Crevier's 
ASSUMPTION be granted--that the subject will be conscious at each stage and 
at the end, when no organic brain is left--then yes, a computer can be 
conscious. But if I am right, and the ground of consciousness is something 
like a standing wave unique to a brain, then at some point in the thought 
experiment the subject will lose consciousness. What is needed here is not a 
thought experiment, but a real experiment.

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

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