From: Eugene Leitl (eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Date: Mon Feb 28 2000 - 23:06:36 MST
Jim Hart writes:
> > > Freezing is largely nondissipative. No. Disagree strongly here.
>
> It doesn't matter how strongly you disagree; this is basic
> physics.
I guess this does mean you don't know your basic physics.
No. There is nothing simple about the freezing process in animal
tissue. The numbers of researchers are few (in toto about 250). There
are no good detailed models, especially molecular and mesoscale. There
is little published data.
I hate to argument from authority, but what are your credentials? You
must have obviously spent years of study in the matter, and be a
well-known cryobiologist with years of experience to be able to speak
in such a strong voice of authority. You seem not to be a member of
the Society for Cryobiology. What are your publications? You're not an
active poster on Cryonet. I haven't seen you on MURG nor on NEL. I
don't recall you from any of the nanotechnology lists. For all I knew
you could be a computer programmer, sorry, "software engineer". Or a
"system analyst".
> >Though not having to bear burden of proof,
>
> You, like myself and all other posters, bear the burden of proof
> to the extent you want to convince the list of your point of view.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Raising the dead is
fairly extraordinary in my book. Let's try to maintain at least a
weak pretense of remaining scientific, ok?
> As a practical matter, argument in favor of change from
> a traditional technique (in your case, from freezing to
> vitrification) bears more burden of proof.
Good point. But. Get out, and study the literature. Argue from basic
physics you're so fond of. You'll find out vitrification is the clear
winner. You can argue from ultrastructure, or use such weak, quaint,
relatively irrelevant metrics as viability.
> An argument for changing from a faith-based belief in a soul
> to belief in the efficacy of cryonics in general bears
> very little burden of scientific proof. The standard of care
> in the immortality industry is remarkably low. The cryonics
> industry with all its warts already meets a much higher
> standard than most immortality consumers demand.
Because consumers want to believe, obviously. There is a reason why
cryonics has been called religion. Perception of the reality and
inevitability of your personal demise is evolutionary not a desireable
trait.
> Not at all arguing against scientific study -- after all I
> consider myself to be a sophisticated consumer and want the
> best science possible for *my* body. But if the issue
> is the practical consumer choice of signing up for cryonics
> vs. succumbing to the promises of faith-based immortality,
> let's put this "burden of proof" thing in perspective.
This is not about not signing up because chances are slim. This is
about using your leverage as a consumer to demand better quality of
service. Remember that this is not normal business, because it is so
small and selects for weird personalities. You can try to compensate
if you're aware of that.
> > > damage Merkle's analysis may be too *pessimistic*: we can often use
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >This is a joke, no?
>
> No. MLE is a very inefficient way to solve the problem if one
> instead can solve most of the problem using pattern matching
> algorithms. (While according to Merkle's analysis we will have more
You can't use pattern matching algorithms on mush. Because the
resulting structure could have been the result of many, many previous
states. You don't have the information to choose which one of them has
been the right one. Because that information has become destroyed by a
dissipative physical process. Why is your knowledge of simple physics
suddenly so selective?
> than enough CPU cycles to do MLE, this is important if for
> other reasons, as you argue, the problem is harder than he states).
>
> >The cryptoanalysis analogy is btw perfectly valid if you attempt to
> >reconstruct the real thing by monitoring operation (say, using 10^9
> >nanoprobes in vivo), especially if including manipulative measures
> >(exciting subsystems and analyzing their activity dynamics).
>
> It would be even more useful if we had pre-deanimation measurements
> to test against. SPECT, EKG, and behavior videos may be crude by
I was in fact referring to obtaining low-level neurosignatures in
vivo, i.e. prior to suspension. Again, such technology is currently
unavailable, and is likely to stay unavailable during our remaining
life span. Reality is unfortunately quite impervious to wishful
thinking.
> future standards, but they provide a substantial amount of
> information on target neural dynamics that is currently being
> lost.
You're deriving sure lots of constraints, but not enough by far. A
metaphorical drop in the sea. You want to reconstruct the real person,
not somebody a bit like him.
> >It's just that a lot of people will die, perhaps all of us here
> >present, if we wait for the advent of this technology (if it indeed
> >arrives, which is far from being guaranteed). Nor is sustainability of
> >patient storage guaranteed.
>
> The probabilities are small, but the expected value is vast.
> A finite but still large version of Pascal's wager.
I'm not into stainless steel personal ornaments. There's a reason for that.
> >If you thought that typical cryonics patients look bad, don't even try
> >to look at straight freeze. Ugh.
>
> It does not at all matter how they "look" to an eye untrained
> in chemistry *and* computational reconstruction techniques.
Er, I do have a degree in chemistry (including physical chemistry,
organic synthesis, polymer chemistry, biochemistry and computational
chemistry). My background on computer science is autodidactic, but
relatively broad. It includes image processing and some medical
imaging. I've spent quite a few thought and shared many a discussion
about similiarly minded persons bout using DSP for removing freezing
artefacts.
To this particular eye, it still looks bad.
> >Your stainless steel bracelet does not guarantee salvation.
>
> Certainly not. That's where we fall back on faith in the
> Omega point. :-)
>
> >Ischaemia is being adequately addressed, also (especially,
> >considering the resources) by the mainstream. Brain vitrification is
> >not.
>
> This is a good point. I'm not arguing against vitrification
> in favor of freezing. I'm arguing that it makes very good sense
> to sign up even with the bad-looking freezing methods employed
Sign up, now, but demand accountability. Urge your CSP (right now
you've the exciting choice of one) to train the personnel and document
procedures, doing quality control, doing research.
> today. It makes good sense to support scientific research
> into techniques such as vitrification as well.
Indeedy. Sorry if I yelled at you, but I'm pretty emotional about the
matter.
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