X-Message-Number: 13353
From: "George Smith" <>
References: <>
Subject: Comment on ad hominum and clarification, respectfully submitted.
Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 11:09:30 -0800

Paul, I suspect that you undermine your credibility when you attack the
person instead of addressing the issue.

Calling my reply to your criticisms of some else's posting "guru supporting"
is simply ad hominum.

(I wonder if I spelled that correctly.  Never took Latin).

It is a common ploy in politics but is not intellectually honest.

Name-calling is less than useless in my opinion.

In Message #13349, From: Paul Wakfer, he wrote on the Subject: Re: CryoNet
#13342 "Biased viewpoints and guru supporting" in reference to my earlier
posting in Message #13342 on the Subject: "A few clarifications and
observations respectully submitted"

> >
> > Clarifications and observations interspersed below:
> >
> > In Message #13336 Paul Wakfer wrote on the subject:Re: CryoNet #13305
sound
> > bites
> >
> > >
> > > > Message #13305
> > > > From: 
> > > > Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 21:18:02 EST
> > > > Subject: sound bites
> > > >
> > > > [snip]
> > >
> > > Robert Ettinger pushed the following "viewpoint as 'the' key to
> > > life".
> > >
> > > > we can say some relevant things with
> > > > considerable confidence:
> > > > -----
> > > > If you don't try, you are less likely to succeed.
> > >
> > > This is a mere tautology
> >
> > Yet the tautology does describe a relevant truth we can state with
> > "considerable confidence".
>
> So does "If you try, then you are more likely to succeed",
> or "If you do not succeed, then you may not have tried".
> So what?

The balance of my comments addressed that question.

> > > > For the optimists to be right, only one approach need work. For the
> > > > pessimists to be right, every approach must fail.
> > >
> > > For cryonics to succeed, every individual part of a series of highly
> > complex processes must work
> > > correctly. For cryonics to fail, only one part of one of those highly
> > complex processes needs to
> > > fail.
> >
> > This is conjecture stated as fact.   It is actually only a personal
opinion.
>
> No. As stated, and lacking other conditions, it *is* a fact.

The "other conditions" you refer to are what I would call "reality".

In reality can you PROVE AS A FACT your assertion that "every part ... must
work".

Until you do so, it IS only an opinion.

> > For example, there seem to be non-linear patterns with redundancies
which
> > work despite failures.  A launched missile is over 99% of the time off
> > target but is corrects its trajectory as it goes.
>
> The "mid-course" corrections were already included as part of the "series
of highly complex processes".

You are seizing my metaphor instead of offering a different one to explain
your disagreement and support your claim.

My example is not identical to the issue.  You need to offer a different
metaphor to explain your position rather than merely attacking the limits of
my example and feeling (and implying) that you have thereby addressed the
underlying question.

> > The human body is constantly "failing" as cells die.  Yet we generally
> > continue breathing for quite a few years - another example of non-linear
> > patterns with redundancies as cells continue to reproduce and replace
the
> > failures in the highly complex process we call the human body.
>
> They are only "local" failures.

Yet they are complete failures for the cell.  The cell does die.  If all the
cells die, the whole body is dead, which was my point in this example.

> The operation of the human body is a "series of highly complex
> processes" which have been organized and developed by evolution over
billions of years.

Not everything requires millions of years of blind evolution.  Like the
computer I am using now.  That is what human technology is intended to do.
Produce something new that we want and do it sooner.

> Those processes
> are only acutely successful at fixing local failures. In time they fail to
prevent the chronic, global
> decline and disintegration of the system.

Yes, but again you are only attacking the limits of MY metaphor.  Please
also offer one of your own to explain your reasoning.  You still have not
supported your claim to fact over opinion with proof.

> The goal of life-extension sciences is to modify the body's homeostatic
processes, either internally,
> externally, or through migration to new hardware, in order to prevent the
chronic, global failure of the
> hardware which is the mind's container, processor, and interface to
external reality.

You state that hardware is the mind's "container" and this is a popular
assumption.  Please remember that we do not know this as a fact yet. You
could very well be right, but this still remains only popular speculation.
Stating it as established fact does not make it so.

Also you imply that we know as a fact that there is an "external reality"
which a separate "mind" has "interface" to.  We do not know this to be true.
If it is not true, then the shape of our work will be entirely different.

You are probably right IN MY OPINION but, again, if we proclaim our beliefs
as truths it blinds us to reality as it is.  This then blocks understanding
if we happen to be wrong in our beliefs.  The scientific method is NOT to
proclaim truths and then seek to prove them, but to establish HYPOTHESES and
seek evidence to support them, is it not?

> The goal of cryonics is to capture the state of the mind with as high
fidelity as possible and to store
> it until recovery, and life-extension sciences have the ability to restore
it to full function in
> hardware capable of chronic homeostasis.
>
> > > > In the sweep of history, the can-do surprises have overwhelmed the
> > can't-do
> > > > surprises.
> > >
> > > Nonsense! This totally ignores the myriad of inventions, processes,
> > businesses, discoveries,
> > > etc. which are never amount to anything and are, thus, never heard of
and
> > certainly not recorded
> > > by history. In science for example, negative results are seldom
published.
> > >
> >
> > The fact that these unknowns never amounted to anything is why they are
> > overwhelmed by those that have.
>
> Again you have missed the point. The number of unknown failures is vastly
more than the number of
> failures which were noted as "surprises".
> It is only the *noted* failures which were overwhelmed by the successes.
This is merely a result of the
> "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!" principle being
intentionally applied to highly
> important goals. It says nothing about lessor, or largely unpublicized
goals which might have lead to
> highly important ones if they had succeeded, but about which we know
little or nothing simply because
> the whole idea was a non-starter for one reason or another. It is possible
that reversible suspended
> animation by means of vitrification may become such a lost failure.
> For example, there are multiple ways to achieve space travel which have
never been tried. It is entirely
> possible that if we had taken the path to try one such many decades ago,
we might now be much further
> into space than we are. Similarly, if evolution had taken certain
different pathways millions of years
> ago, there might now be a race of near-immortal, sentient creatures
populating this planet.
>

I am sorry, sir, but I do believe that YOU have missed the point.

"In the sweep of history can-do surprises always overwhelm can't-do
surprises"

This is true.  You are only complaining about WHY it is true,

What is "unnoted" or never pursued, DIDN'T HAPPEN.

What didn't happen is certainly overwhelmed by what DID.

Failures failed.  They produced nothing.  That's why they are "failures".

That is the bottom line here and the clear intent behind the original quote
in question as demonstrated by the context of the original message.

> > > Paul Wakfer
> > >
> > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > It is all too easy to proclaim our opinions as facts.
>
> With a biased viewpoint, it is all too easy to think that real facts are
merely opinions and can somehow
> be invalidated by the force of one's mindset.

But if you proclaim something to be a fact this requires proof, not mere
assertion and certainly not ad monimum attacks.

> > It is even easier to miss what someone says when it clashes with our
present
> > beliefs.

Your response seems to validate this.

> It is still easier again to support someone's utterings because of their
"guru" status within a cult.

Ad hominum.

Name-calling is hardly appropriate in this or any forum of reasoned thought
as I stated at the beginning of this posting.  Mature discussion leaves no
room for such nonsense.

> > If you catch me doing either one in the future, please correct me as
well.
>
> This message is notice that you have been "caught" and corrected.

I don't see that you have done so whatsoever.

All I have read thus far is only your opinion, not facts with proofs.

The posting following yours, from Kitty Antonik-Raastad (message #13350),
seemed to agree.

But the truth is not based on popular vote.

We should all strive to express our opinions AS opinions, and not as
demonstrable fact if we are to accomplish anything here in MY opinion.

I will always try to do so and I challenge you to do the same.

George Smith
www.cryonics.org

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