X-Message-Number: 348
From att!fernwood.mpk.ca.us!alc!alc.com!lovejoy Thu May 30 17:37:18 PDT 1991
Date: Thu, 30 May 91 17:37:18 PDT
From: 
Message-Id: <>
To: 
Subject: Re:  cryonics #347 - Re: Comments re: ... Nanotechnology, etc.

Eric Klein writes:

    "Would Eric Klien or some other exponent of this world view (theology?)
    explain in simple terms just what this Nanotechnology is?"
     
    Nanotechnology will give us lots of great stuff including the cure for
    the disease of aging.  It won't give us an unlimited source of 
    energy, though.  (Or enable us to break the speed of light, or travel 
    back in time...)
     
    "For instance, I had a very strange experience not long ago. Someone who
    (I think) is a Believer claimed that when Nanotechnology came, the
    tiny critters could be used to cure cancer. When I pointed out that 
    almost the same thing, and to the same effect, was happening now by experi-
    mental treatments in which lymphocytes were modified and cultured up in 
    large number to attack a patient's cancer, he seemed not to notice,
    shrugging it off with the statement that Nanotechnology will do much more."
     

    Nanotechnology is, of course, related to other scientific fields.  The 
    ability

    to modify lymphocytes IS the ability to modify small things.  Nanotechnology
    
    is the ability to build small things.  While there is some difference 
    between
    modifying and building something, the same principles are involved.

I comment:

Er, yes.  I would hope that those reading this mailing list would already know
as much, however.  I think the original point was simply that to some people,
it appears that other people have elevated nanotechnology to an exalted state
of mystic awe such that it becomes an object of religous worship and expected
source of Salvation.  Amen.  To paraphrase: "In the end, there will be 
Nanotechnology, and Nanotechnoloy will be God."  I guess that makes Drexler
the High Priest--whether he wants to be, or not.

So Eric, you are essentially being accused (not by me, please note) of having 
excessive Faith in Nanotechnology.   Your accuser is asking--rightly or
wrongly--for less hand waving and spell casting and more scientific meat.  I
imagine that he does so not because he actively disbelieves your thesis as 
stated above, but because he wants those of us in this in-group (immortalists, 
cryonicists, nanotech watchers, etc.) to exhibit the professionalism required
to gain and maintain the respect of the scientific/technical community.

-- alan

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=348