X-Message-Number: 15265
From: 
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 22:41:49 EST
Subject: opinions and probabilities

Again I postpone the continuation of the Alcor "vitrification" series for a 
bit, to make another point.

Yesterday Platt wrote:

>My personal opinion (which has been stated many times before) is that any
>patient who is cryopreserved using standard CI procedures is unlikely to
>emerge from storage, under any circumstances, ever. I think maybe half of
>the patients at Alcor have some chance, depending on the circumstances of
>their deaths, and depending on future development of nanotechnology, which
>remains a totally speculative topic.

From the general tenor of his remarks over time, it is perfectly clear that 
he thinks his personal opinion is worthy of respect, whereas mine is not. As 
to the degree of respect he thinks may be due to the opinions of most 
cryobiologists, he has been rather equivocal and changeable. What is the 
average reader to make of this, if he considers it at all?

First, it must be remembered that the average cryobiologist--for the record, 
at least--believes the chance of success, with any current methods including 
21CM's most recent, is zero or so close to it as to make no difference. There 
are exceptions--see our web site for more optimistic opinions, with 
accompanying explicit reasons, by respectable professionals, including at 
least one whom Platt and others have singled out for praise. 

Second, as Drexler has noted, cryobiologists are not the people best 
qualified to make predictions about the future, even in the field of 
cryobiology. They know the current state of the art (at least in their own 
subspecialties), and they can make more or less reasonable guesses about the 
near future in the field, but beyond that they are no better off than the 
layman. Worse off, actually, because they have delusions of grandeur and 
cannot just look at the sweep of history, as a layman can. 

The specialist gets bogged down in the details, whereas the layman might just 
say to himself: "Well, we have done a lot of things that used to be thought 
impossible, so maybe we'll do this too. After all, it's just hard, not 
impossible as far as anyone knows." That's not very deep or complicated 
thinking, but it has more validity than the specialist's. And that 
broad-brush thinking has been backed up in recent years by a lot of detailed 
work on nanotechnology. Again, see our web site for many links.

Platt says that the "future development of nanotechnology...remains a totally 
speculative topic." That is simply not true--a patently false and misleading 
statement. (I will not say "deliberately misleading" because that would be a 
Plattitude.) The term "totally speculative," if it means anything, means it 
is pure guesswork or flight of imagination with no facts or calculations to 
back it up, and that is light-years from the actual situation. There are 
reams of facts and calculations to back it up. See our web  site.       

it must be remembered also that the average cryobiologist, or physician--or 
mathematician for that matter--has never made an actual calculation of 
probability. Typically, expressions of pessimism are cloaked in 
pseudoscientific language to give the appearance of authority. These 
people--like Platt--have the effrontery to talk about odds or probabilities 
without having even claimed to display a calculation. 

Well, I happen to know a little about probability theory, and in fact have 
made a technical contribution to it. (I never bothered to try to have it 
published in a professional journal; it was in a thesis for the master's in 
math, and was pronounced kosher by a professional in the field on the Wayne 
State U. faculty. It even had some practical importance.) That doesn't mean I 
claim "authority"--all claims of authority in any contentious field must 
necessarily be bogus. "Authority" is legitimate only when a professional is 
passing on non-controversial information to an inquirer.  

Of course, this leaves the layman in an uncomfortable position. What can he 
do? Poll the alleged experts--allow himself to be VOTED into the grave? Yet 
if not that, how can he make his own judgment in a technical field?

One obvious answer is that he doesn't have to make a technical judgment, only 
a common-sense judgment. If he feels the sweep of history suggests that the 
chance of success is not zero, and if he thinks the potential reward 
(open-ended life in an unlimited future) would be worth the cost in money and 
effort, then that's good enough, and my guess is that most people in cryonics 
have used exactly that reasoning. 

There is also an intermediate course. If the right kind of instruction is 
available, the layman can put in a little work, familiarize himself with at 
least some facets of the simpler technical material, and use that to sharpen 
his estimates. 

I think I have provided the necessary instruction in the basics of 
probability theory, including its application to cryonics. It will certainly 
not be persuasive to those who have a contrary vested interest, emotionally 
or otherwise, but it may be useful for some. See our web site; go to 
"Contents," then "Cryonics: The Probability of Rescue."

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

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15265