X-Message-Number: 19760 Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 10:37:52 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #19741 - #19757 A bit more on the probability question: The difficulty with working out the probability of an event which so far has never happened comes exactly from that fact: it's never happened, at least not yet. The original Drake equation, for instance, tries to find a "probability" of extraterrestrial intelligent life. That's fine, but we have no case but our own (by definition, not extraterrestrial) to go on. And after only a few decades, some of the major original assumptions turn out to be flat wrong. (I refer to what we know about probability of "earthlike" planets). The same may be said of any probability calculations for the success of cryonics, either in a particular case or in general. Once we have some successes under our belt, we can THEN start working out probabilities. If Steve Harris or others know of any cryonics successes on which to base their calculations, then by all means they should tell us of them. For cryonics, to be short about it, the problem is even worse than for extraterrestrial civilizations. The time allowed for a successful cryonics revival runs into the thousands of years, at a minimum. Even if some event destroys ALL existing patients, that does not prevent future patients (depending on what happens and where), so that history isn't ended even if we all fail for "extraneous" reasons. Already, in a single normal human lifetime, we've seen the ability of revival of "dead" people pass from giving up on a patient when they weren't breathing, to heart and lung methods sometimes able to revive someone after 5 minutes, to (now) the latest techniques capable of reviving after 10 minutes. Or more. So what do you say about the probability of revival when its 1950, and what do you say now? WE DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND HOW LONG TERM MEMORY WORKS. It may work by a means that makes revivals difficult or impossible, or it may work by some other means. We'll someday find out, but even that won't completely solve the problem. It may just tell us what we can do with our "present" (as of the time we find out) technology. And so we start to revive people, but what about those we don't know how to revive (just then)? If you want to claim that their probability has become ZERO, no one will hit you but you're likely to be quite wrong. It is one thing to work out probabilities in card games, or in gambling, or simply on throwing (unweighted) dice. It is quite another to work out the probability of an event which so far has never happened. Basically you are trying to find a probability with no information about incidence of the event at all. Sure, you can dress it up with impressive language, like "Markovian" etc, but that's just a way to fool yourself and others. And as for probability of extraterrestrial life, we'll get an idea of that after we look at some section of the Galaxy which contains all the various possible star systems we know of. And we MAY get a better idea of the success of cryonics if we look at its success for (say) the next 500 years. Yes, neither one of these are things we can do now. Sorry, but that's the what the world gave us, and we must make the best of it. Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19760