X-Message-Number: 12650 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: some brief comments and a question Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 23:49:36 +1000 (EST) Hi everyone! A few comments: 1. About emotions in computers: I would actually agree with Mike Perry that the machine that wanders about the house and periodical plugs itself in could qualify as having feelings, but at best only at a very low level. A typewriter or a pentium computer with all the trimmings, however, DOES NOT. The first was designed to wander about and seek out power plugs, with about the insight and feelings of an amoeba. The second is a tool and nothing more, and even more advanced versions of the second would remain just tools. It's not the processing power that matters here, but whether or not (even in a very primitive way) the machine/device/creation has been given its very own goals. And to assume that because the first variety has its own goals, then the second MUST have them too is a big mistake. 2. I want to thank Saul Kent for his discussion of the policies for shareholders in 21st Century Medicine. And I also agree that it is US who have the job of funding research to improve our suspension methods. If Saul and Bill are also trying to support an organization to do cryonics work, that's important too. It wasn't entirely clear to me from what he said that he was doing that. After all, both of them are also cryonicists. Everything I know about cryobiology and the structure and functioning of our brains suggests to me that we have a good chance of finding means to suspend ourselves in the relatively near future. Sure, not everyone: there will remain plenty of cryonicists who we simply can't reach in time. And by "ourselves" I mean only our brains. Yet even so if we find out how to put ourselves in that situation, then we'll have made a big advance. 3. One point Mike Darwin makes is very interesting. I too tend to be a loner, but became involved in cryonics because it was very clear that cryonic suspension required SOMEBODY ELSE to suspend me and other people to keep me in suspension. OK, everyone: how many of YOU felt that way? What other organizations are you members of, not because it's useful to be a member (I was not so much a loner that I wouldn't join an organization with clear and immediate benefits to me, like a Health Plan) but because you WANTED to be a member? I'm asking this question particularly because there have been several different polls of cryonicists, generally taken by someone who is NOT a cryonicist, and so far as I know, NOT ONE OF THEM ever asked that question. And it may be a very important question, too. Best wishes and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12650