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

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