X-Message-Number: 350
From att!cs.rutgers.edu!josh Thu Jun  6 18:14:28 EDT 1991
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 91 18:14:28 EDT
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Subject: Theology

Is nanotech a religion?

A recent letter from Thomas Donaldson to the cryonics list contained 
the following:

    3. "WHEN NANOTECHNOLOGY COMES..."

    This comment is a tangent more or less unrelated to the others. It has
    consistently disturbed me that many cryonicists, particularly those
    using the above phrase or its variations, speak about cryonics in very
    much the way 19th century born-again Christians might speak about the
    Millenium. I've heard a lot about nanotechnology, but just what is
    this Nanotechnology which is supposed to be coming? (The Christians,
    of course, had a different word for it. But that's OK. Just change the
    words and what do you have?).

    Would Eric Klien or some other exponent of this world view (theology?)
    explain in simple terms just what this Nanotechnology is? And please
    note the capital letter: as I said, I already know a lot about the
    uncapitalized form.

    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
    experimental 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.

This is a good question, and one that deserves a lot of thought.
A major reason for that is precisely to keep our meme complex trimmed
of the pseudo-religious memes that commonly attach themselves to any
similar vision.

It is vital to distinguish between a vision, which "Nanotechnology"
certainly is, and a faith, which it is not (and which we must constantly
guard it from becoming).  A vision, in the sense I'm using it here, is
a picture of some wonderful future development for which the visionary has
some reasonable grounds of belief.  I'm using "faith" to mean a belief
that is held despite any evidence or probability.

Now "faith" is often used to denote any belief by people wishing to 
denigrate that belief.  For example, I'm occasionally accused of having
a "faith in technological progress".  I do believe that technological
progress tends to make things better for people in general.  Detractors
of this point of view exhibit any number of social problems and remind
us that technology hasn't solved them.  This would be a valid argument
*if* I had a faith in technology of the religious sense; i.e. that it
would solve all problems.  Of course it won't--and indeed it does 
create some new problems:  If you cure a disease that was killing 
half the population (e.g. the Black Plague) you must now find a way 
to feed all these people you didn't use to have to worry about.  
I think it's better to solve the old problem and worry about the new one.

Thus one of the most obvious distinguishing characteristics between 
visions and faiths is that the object of faith is held to be a panacea.
Most religious paradises and many ideological utopias fall into this
category: "Once we get to X, there simply won't be anything wrong."

It is all too easy to take a vision and hang this meme onto it, which
makes it much less useful for either predicting or designing the future.
For example, take the vision which some people had around the turn of
the century of universal ownership of motorcars.  This is a good 
vision; we as a society and as individuals are considerably better
off than we would be without them.  However, it would have been silly
to imagine the result as idyllic.

The same is true of nanotechnology.  If you think our legal system is
a mess now, imagine it after any one, much less all, of the nanotech
developments that could greatly affect our way of life.  Imagine 
the scale of industrial accidents or terrorism, much less out-and-out
war.  It's virtually certain that if we do manage to increase our
intelligence, we'll increase the complexity of everyday life more
than enough to make up for it.  Even if I can buy a newly manufactured
body totally free from disease, I dread waking up the morning after the 
warranty runs out.

The next religious meme that we need to look out for is that of
believing that one's vision is unique, or the best, or other
characterization that causes you to dismiss alternatives without
serious consideration.  It is easy to see how this meme is
advantageous to a belief system in the fierce competition of a 
memetic ecology; it is also easy to see how unlikely it is actually
to be true.  This meme finds its ultimate expression in religious wars.

Note that if one is actually working to develop something, some
mechanism like this is necessary to focus the effort; but one should
focus the effort because the effort needs to be focussed to be
effective, rather than from an erroneous belief that all alternatives
are bad.

Now one can imagine self-reproducing robots using computer and 
mechanical technology not greatly different from what currently
exists; and molecular manipulation without self-reproducing robots.
One can imagine many of the effects we anticipate, being done
by biomolecular engineering, others by extensions of conventional
chemistry, AI being achieved by ingenious innovations in software 
instead of simulating brains, etc, etc.

Another view is that nanotechnology is simply a name for any
technique or group of techniques that manipulates matter at the 
molecular level.  In this view nanotechnology is unique because
it is all-inclusive.  The trouble with this definition is that
it allows one to call anything nanotechnology, e.g. chemistry.
If so, then we have nanotechnology now, and it doesn't do all the
things we claim.  A reasonable definition of nanotechnology must
include the notion of a broad and general ability to design,
build, and control molecular mechanisms across a very wide range
of possibilities. 

A third and final memetic attachment that makes a faith out of a vision
is some hook that relates directly to belief and propagation:  "Not 
only should you believe this simply because it is true, but you'll
go to Hell if you don't.  Furthermore, it's a sin *not* to try to
convince others of this belief."  In ideological faiths, this meme
expresses itself in the social castigation of the Politically Incorrect.  

This last meme, nanotechnology seems mercifully free of at the moment.
The others do seem to have this tendency to accrete, and it is our
responsibility to continue to scrub nanotechnology to keep it free
of them.

Nevertheless, I do believe that it is reasonable to put a fair
amount of faith, in the broad sense of the word, in the ability 
of advancing technology in general, to solve a broad range of
well-defined physical problems, among them the cure and/or
prevention of certain diseases, or indeed the aging process itself.
Such a belief is reasonable not only, or even primarily, because
we can posit particular mechanisms in the solutions, but because
we have a long history of success of science and technology for
just such problems, in general.

--JoSH

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