X-Message-Number: 5884
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #5802 - #5810
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 23:42:25 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!

I know I'm replying kind of late, so that maybe the British lawyers have all
gone away. HOWEVER:

1. Bob Ettinger put the matter very well with telekinesis. Yes, there WAS
   something to it. And in those cases in which it could be investigated, what
   there was to it was either fraud or mistakes.

   I would be a bit kinder, though. We hear many stories of events which 
   may not fit our present view of the world. Flying saucers, again, are one
   such class of event. I would treat every one of these as observations,
   worth putting somewhere in our library and saving because we may someday
   discover a good explanation. Whether we should try to work out every one
   of these issues RIGHT NOW, however, is a different question entirely.
   An observation is not a theory, and the theories proposed, of either 
   telekinesis or flying saucers, look very shaky at best. Perhaps something
   better will come along, but everyone (including every investigator or
   scientist) will and ought to choose those observations which look most
   likely to produce some kind of useful result --- even if only useful for
   our understanding. There remains far too little that we understand for
   us to run after every observation which someone has made of some 
   phenomenon we cannot explain.

   When someone claims to have seen a flying saucer or telekinesis, they
   are not just giving you their OBSERVATION but also their theory of what
   they saw. I think both those THEORIES are 99.9999999999% certain to be
   WRONG. But that does not make me deny that these people saw anything 
   at all. 

   One historical observation might help here: for many years the idea of 
   meteors --- pieces of rock falling from the sky --- seemed quite 
   impossible. Most scientists denigrated the observations (among other
   reasons, usually it was an uneducated peasant who told about it, probably
   with various other statements which looked quite unlikely). Times 
   change, and we learn more, and one day we work out a valid theory for
   meteors and how they might happen.

2. As for the lawyers, they make a terrible mistake in their thinking about
   cryonics, though it is a very common one. It is simply poor thinking to
   believe that we must verify every medical act completely before we 
   will allow it, or do it ourselves. And I mean POOR THINKING.

   First, the logic involved in such thinking would forbid AIDS patients 
   from taking any drugs which MIGHT work until a full controlled experiment
   has shown that they WILL work on human patients. The simple result of 
   such thinking would be that lots of AIDS patients would die before 
   proof of the drug came through (remember that AIDS can take years to kill
   someone: it is not a swiftly killing disease). I would say that those
   who tried to forbid use of that drug would be guilty of murder once 
   it had been shown that the drug even HELPED, much less cured; before that,
   they are simply not thinking straight.

   Cryonics, of course, involves first the observation that the normal (and
   even the legal) definition of "death" is scientifically wrong, and second
   the observation that cryonic suspension MAY preserve enough for future
   recovery. If we suspend only those we can legally suspend (after "legal
   death"), then we may save someone's life. And someone who chooses 
   suspension may save their own life. This is exactly the same reasoning
   as with AIDS patients, just change the actors and the situation.

   Furthermore, if these lawyers decided that they would do nothing unless it
   had first been proven to be successful, they will have a very hard 
   problem doing anything in the real world. If they make an investment, 
   they are doing something because it MAY produce profit. If they wait until
   that profit has been proven, the possibility of the investment is gone.

   Or again: most people have flown in airplanes, and some have travelled on
   ships. In each case there are facilities to TRY to deal with terrible
   accidents which might happen: inflatable lifeboats, life vests, etc. If
   such an accident happens then I promise that Owen and the other British
   lawyers would get into to lifeboat: not because they knew in advance that
   they would be rescued but because their chance of being rescued, though
   quite unknown, looked better in the lifeboat than not. Or will they 
   decide instead that they will neither put on the life vest nor get into
   the lifeboat until rescue seems certain? Or even worse, will they actively
   try to stop others from doing that until proof arrives that it will lead
   to rescue? 

   I would expect that in each such case, the person who invests or gets
   into the lifeboat will at least be willing to learn something about what
   they are doing. I note that these British lawyers for some reason don't
   believe that is needed when they make their statements about cryonics.
   Most cryonicists have spent some time thinking and STUDYING the situation
   with cryonics; that is why they decided to take up cryonics despite the
   obvious fact that few people have made that choice. But in doing that
   we are not behaving in any unprecedented way: there is virtually NO
   decision in the real world which we can make with certainty that it 
   will work out as we hope.

   I myself had adopted cryonics 15 years before I fell sick with my brain 
   tumor --- because I knew that someday something would happen. And I 
   actively sought out a cryonics society; it was not as if someone came to
   me and with swift talking convinced me to join. If we have only 2
   alternatives, one of which is certain death and the other a possibility 
   of life, not to choose that possibility is very poor thinking 
   indeed. 

			Best and long long life 
				(even to Brits who don't think about it)

				Thomas Donaldson


Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5884