X-Message-Number: 12822 Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 14:02:13 -0500 From: gary tripp <> Subject: Optimism, realism, science, faith, etc. Jeff Davis writes: >To all who live in these interesting times, > >Marty Kardon writes: >>For anyone to elect suspension at this time is ultimately >>an act of almost religous belief in the god of science. Of course the >>alternative is guaranteed extinction so why not give it a shot? >> >>My fingers will be crossed in the dewar. > >Gary Tripp responds: > >>Granted, there is much debate over the effectiveness of current >>suspension methods, but when the new 21cm miracles start showing up >>in suspension protocols we shall have justication for our faith. > Jeff, I was referring to the question "Is belief in Cryonics just faith?" You've misconstrued my intentions: >I would guess that Gary's response is framed to continue the "religious" >metaphor. The two, religion and cryonics, are comparable, however, only in >the sense that both can provide a defense against the unpleasant emotional >state caused by a fear of death. > Actually I was just employing a rhetorical flourish in my reference to the word "faith" in connection with our prospects for successful cryonic suspension. However since you've raised the topic let me clarify a possible misunderstanding. I'm not religious and I don't believe in a personal God. I do however believe in God in the sense that the universe is governed by mathematical and physical laws. This constitutes my definition of God. Also I believe that cryonics is very much a matter of "faith" as there is no scientific proof that it works. Science, as I'm sure you're aware, consists in devising the simplist mathematical model which explains all known facts and can be tested by formulating a set of experiments for which the negation of the theory would be highly improbable. Ergo, scientists never pontificate and always couch their ideas in the language of probability theory. The hippocampus slice project along with other projects which involve vitrification and subsequent analysis of larger sections of neural matter could provide scientific proof but not certainty. However, even when we cannot prove our conviction that cryonics will work someday, we may nevertheless adduce compelling evidence in support of our "belief". I think that the wonderful work by the scientists at 21cm lends credence to our contention that this "someday" may be very soon. (nb: by "cryonics will work" I am referring to cryonic perservation in an information theoretic sense without regard to the substrate upon which our identify would eventually be "reanimated" - uploading or whatever) Question: when can we expect to see the 21cm results in a cryonic suspension protocol? /gary Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12822