Paul Crowley (
ciphergoth) wrote2010-01-21 11:14 pm
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Anti-cryonics links
I may not reply to everything in that 159-comment thread but thanks to everyone who participated. I hope people don't mind if I carry on asking for your help in thinking about this. I might post articles on specific areas people raised, but first I thought to ask this: my Google-fu may be failing me. I'd appreciate any links anyone can find to good articles arguing against signing up for cryonics, or pointing out flaws in arguments made for cryosuspension. I don't mean South Park, thanks :-) I'm looking for something that really intends to be persuasive.
thanks again!
Update: here's some I've found
thanks again!
Update: here's some I've found
- Ebonmuse, On Cryonics
- Ebonmuse, Who Wants to Live Forever?
- Why we'll never be downloaded
- Why Minds Are Not Like Computers - actually there's quite a lot of scholarly writing arguing that the idea of simulating a brain on a computer is not merely impractical but impossible in principle.
- Michael Shermer on cryonics
- Skeptic's Dictionary on cryonics
- Cryonics–A futile desire for everlasting life
- Quackwatch - Is Cryonics Feasable?
- Ben Best - Debates about Cryonics with Skeptics (Best is President/CEO of the Cryonics Institute, but this is a snapshot of a debate on the James Randi forums, with a link to the original forum debate)
- Frozen Stiffs, Ruth Holland, BMJ 1981
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Are cryo patients information-theoretically dead? Probably, as the procedure stands at the moment, although I wouldn't be too shocked to find that they weren't. I can see easily-imagined extrapolations of the procedure (better vitrification techniques to reduce tissue damage; less time between 'death' and vitrification; possibly even vitrification while still 'alive') that make information-theory death less likely. I do think that this offers a better chance of getting back the original 'consciousness' than any currently conceivable method of brain scan, followed by brain rebuild. I'm not sure I'd go anywhere near 'very plausible' without a lot more data, including but not limited to successful vitrification and revival of something like a cat or a dog. (Before you refer me to page 11 of that PDF you linked to, I'm not saying it's 'not science' with out that, just that I don't think it's 'very plausible' without that.)
Is it very unlikely that the technology to return them to life will ever exist? I haven't a clue. I can debunk a specific claim such as 'Transmission Electron Microscopy offers a likely method for mapping a complete brain', but I can't debunk a claim like 'in the next 100 years, we will invent a form of microscopy that can scan the complete brain'. It's too far from what existing technology can do for it to be reasonable to say 'plausible' or 'busted'. The route to it navigates Ant Country through a set of technological developments that rely on each other and we can't even begin to predict beyond the first few steps.
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Note that my first reply to your earlier post wasn't saying 'I don't want to do it because I don't think cryonics will work', but 'I don't want to do it because I'm quite comfortable with the idea of being dead'. I later had issues with some of the specific scientific claims being made, but I don't think any of that totally invalidates the idea. Even if I were sure it worked, though, I don't think I'd go for it.
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"However, this was not his most severe criticism, which he reserved for theories or theses so unclearly presented as to be untestable or unevaluatable and, thus, not properly belonging within the realm of science, even though posing as such. They were worse than wrong because they could not be proven wrong. Famously, he once said of such an unclear paper: Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch! 'Not only is it not right, it's not even wrong!'"
I don't say that about the whole of cryonics. I do say that about much of the 'scientific' evidence presented to support the more speculative bits.
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(It's probably also worth emphasising that I don't mean it quite a damningly as Pauli would have, although I do think that things that are 'not even wrong' are extremely tricky to debunk.)
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No, I'm closer to
It'd be really neat if cryonics worked, but I think there are too many obstacles in the way.
And unfortunately they are too big to fit in this coffee break....
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