X-Message-Number: 5588
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
From:  (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: Neuro vs. Full Body
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 1996 03:21:25 GMT
Message-ID: <>

References: <4ch85p$> <> 
<> <>

Whoops!  Sorry, should have pointed out that I already know all these
answers you provided, you needn't have spent the time.  However, I will
comment that many of these answers don't satisfy those who bring up
the objections, for example...

>Merkle's chart handles this pretty well. You have no chance of being
>revived if you're not preserved (barring time travel or some
>unforeseeable new technology), but you have at least a small chance
>of being revived if your are preserved.

Sure, but if the person thinks it's very small, or more to the point not
demonstrably large enough, they will make a financial decision -- why
deprive your heirs of $50,000 or more?
>
>Another tact is to challenge the notion that "natural" is always
>"good", or "right". Are these people willing to shun other "unnatural"
>life extension technologies such as antibiotics, surgery, CPR, etc.?

Sure, but in this case they tend to think that the cycle of life and
death is right.   They're not even wrong.  Indefinite life for more than
a very small minority will cause immense change in the world, and it's hard
to predict if it will net out good or bad.  Some will be good, some will
be bad.  But the criticism is correct -- we do this for ourselves, for
the selfish (not a bad word) reason of maintaining our own lives, at the
risk of serious consequences to society.  However, the consequences of
nano are even greater.   Since nano does away with most of the "limited
resources" arguments, we must still consider the question of social and
intellectual stagnation and the vast social systems all predicated on
the elderly dying and the young taking over.   Like you, I would rather
be alive to deal with that question than lay down my life to keep the
cycle going.  But it is not irrational to question that goal.
>
>> 	4) These people are kooks, I mean freezing just your head?
>
>We'll see who gets the last laugh...
>
>The logic behind neurosuspension is sound, it just takes a little
>getting used to.

Yes, and this is the PR issue I brought up.  You can't start the public
with neurosuspension, they just won't get it.   And it prejudices them
against learning about it.   They may not sign up but it would be good
if they didn't *laugh* and quickly make a judgement that cryonics is
for kooks.  Don't tell me you haven't seen this.  One has to "sell"
cryonics not just to the technically literate (or believing) who can
understand molecular machinery, but to your mother and the person in
the street.
>
>> 	6) I fear the revival may be botched, trapping me in a living hell
>
>Sure, it could happen, but I don't think "production" revivals will
>occur until it's very safe, so the biggest risk will be to the first
>few experimental revivals.

Agreed, but I think that some cryonicists, while paying lip service to
the idea that it is far from certain, sometimes convince themselves that
it's quite probable.  My judgement, based on my knowledge of:

	a) How commonly technologies that everybody agrees are feasible
	   and/or inevitable actually have not yet come about or come
	   about far later or far differently from anticipated, and
	b) How volitile societies are, and
	c) How volitile small, speculative institutions are, even when they
	   have policies of conservative management.  (Sometimes even
	   because they have such policies)
	d) Our lack of knowledge about how much of the essential information
	   needed to rebuild the brain is being destroyed by current
	   suspension procedures

is that cryonics is a long shot.  Should I be suspended, I would not expect
that I have a better than 10% probability of waking up.  I agree that 10%
is better than nothing.  But others are making a decision tree analysis of
their own estimate of this probability, their own wealth and the other
factors.  It's not a binary thing.
-- 
Brad Templeton, publisher, ClariNet Communications Corp.	 
The net's #1 E-Newspaper (1,160,000 paid sbscrbrs.)  http://www.clari.net/brad/


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