X-Message-Number: 28179
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 08:24:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: human screener <>
Subject: Subject: Re: Times (UK) article-- DNA screen-- paradox-- anthony

	Anthony responded [1] to my question [2] about the
paradox involved in supporting a medical strategy that
would have precluded one's own existence had it been
applied to one's self. He also covered a number of
other related points [1] that I made [3] and I thank
him for that feedback. I'd like to focus on the point
about the paradox exclusively here, however, because
it's particularly interesting to me. 

	On this point-- the zygote-screening paradox, Anthony
dismissed the paradox by saying that the  biological
will to live  overrides the apparent  hypocrisy of
supporting a DNA screen that would have precluded
one's existence .[4] Anthony's counterpoint doesn't
fly, however, because the simple animal's biological
will to live-- in this particular case-- Mark Plus's
biological will to live--  is not the issue here--
rather it's the human cognitive understanding--
again-- Mark's understanding--  of one's own
retroactive possible non-existence if the rules that a
fertility lab uses on zygotes today were applied to
Mark as a zygote. 

	In any case, Anthony can now be said to hold the
paradox of supporting a strategy that would have
precluded his own existence-- the Zygote-Screening
Paradox. It reminds me of the time-travel paradox that
demonstrates the impossibility of reverse time travel
by pointing to the impossibility of preventing your
own birth. [4] My argument here is that it's just as
paradoxical to support a medical technology that would
have prevented your own existence as it is travel back
in time to prevent your creation. 

	Based on this paradox alone, the policy of the
fertility lab in London [5] that screens for 6,000
DNA-problems and simply discards zygotes that don't
meet their order-of-magnitude higher and broader DNA
standards needs to be yellow-flagged and reconsidered
more deeply because none of us would likely have met
their standards-- and yet we're pretty much okay.
After all, we're cryonicists! The point is that we
ought not support a policy that throws the proto-baby
out with the bad-DNA bathwater so cavalierly. On the
basis of the Zygote-Screening Paradox alone,
cryonicists should at least wonder about such a DNA
screen a little bit more than Mark and Anthony have.

[1] http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=28171
[2] http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=28166
[3] http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=28158
[4] http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/newtt.html
[5] http://www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/page3607.htm


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