Given that many older cryonicists now often signal their age by still talking about paleofuture ideas as cutting edge stuff, I wonder if the people who run cryonics organizations should perform some cognitive "housecleaning" every 20 years or so. Perhaps they should go through the literature they have posted on their websites, often written by members who have since gone into suspension, and label for readers which parts reflect outdated historical situations, beliefs, assumptions or scenarios. Then they could rewrite key documents to reflect a more updated understanding of the world.
I can think of several ideas long associated with cryonics, though not logically necessary for it, which should fall by the wayside. For example, I think we should retire the idea of cryonics as a means to reach an era of science-fictional space travel, because this whole "space age" idea makes people today think more of the 1960's than it does of the 20-teens.
Similarly, I think cryonics should also distance itself from empirically dubious ideas from the 1980's like "nanotechnology" and "mind uploading." Who would have guessed 20 years ago that an enthusiasm for those ideas would eventually signal someone's cognitive superannuation, along with talk about "the conquest of space" from a couple decades earlier?
Of course, if we actually had space colonies, tangible nanoassemblers and progress towards mind uploading in the real year 2011, instead of the fantasy 2011 from science fiction and "futurism," talking about these things now wouldn't signal cognitive superannuation any more than talking about your smart phone, your 3D television or your participation in a clinical trial of stem cell therapy to restore a damaged organ.
Currently the ideas of transhumanism and singularitarianism show up in association with cryonics. I suspect by the year 2030, if not sooner, people who still talk about these ideologies as the bleeding edge of "the future" will sound cognitively superannuated as well.
You could approach the cognitive housecleaning from another angle: If someone came up with cryonics now as a new idea, how would he argue for it, given current conditions? That means: None of the dodgy futurism from the middle of the 20th Century which sounds absurd now, but basing it instead on the best available thinking about science and technology and their likely trends.
Honestly I think it has more to do with how the idea is presented. If nanotech is presented as one of many possible reanimation scenarios, it retains credibility.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the strongest argument for reanimation (particularly when the discussion is limited to ideal cases) is the biotech argument. It refers to something which is familiar (biology) and for which present-day technological gains have been made (e.g. synthetic life, organ printing, stem cells).
There's a difference between holding an opinion and using that opinion as an argument against someone who is skeptical. I don't see any good reason to dismiss dry nanotech as implausible under cryogenic hard-vacuum conditions. But it's not the first thing to mention, given that biotech provides more concrete near-term evidence of progress -- as opposed to speculation.
If the argument were about whether hard cases such as straight-frozen individuals can be reanimated, nanotech would be a more helpful argument. But it is not. Skeptics of cryonics claim that even well preserved cases are hopeless. Recent advances in biotech strongly suggest otherwise.
" If someone came up with cryonics now as a new idea, how would he argue for it, given current conditions? "
ReplyDeleteWith accelerating change and ananotechnology.
I am not aware of what would be more appropriate than that. Please inform.
Mark Plus,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this blog post on the highly controversial and thought-provoking subject of cryonics. As someone also researching the area of cryonics I found these points in cryonics you entertained interesting; in particular about the inaccurate, out of date literature, the assumptions and scenarios. Do you have specific cited examples of this literature from these cryonics organizations have published that you believe in particular is inaccurate and out of date, etc?
What do you believe would be the guiding ethos of cryonics now into the next decade if someone were to come up with this life-extension concept of cryonics now instead of over 50 years ago with "freezer program", as it was called in Robert Ettinger's book (that inspired cryonics research), 'The Prospect of Immortality'?
I'm curious why you believe cryonics should distance itself from nanotechnology - when nanotechnology (along with genetic engineering) can serve as one of a few plausible solutions to life-extension in cryonics. Why do you also believe it is an empirically dubious idea from the 1980's, when the scientific progress made in this area has taken off significantly over the last few years. One only needs to do a little research to learn about the progress nanotechnology has made over the last decade. Spending on nanotechnology over the last 5 years by China, for example, was more than three times that it was between 2001-2005. 5 billion yuan on r&d of nanotechnology in 2006-2010 compared to a mere 1.5 billion yuan from 2001-2005. Much progress with enhancements with carbon nanotube technology, nano-based energy storage technologies, and gold nanoshell usage for in vivo cancer therapy; photothermal and chemotherapy to fight and remove tumors, and so on has been made.
I am looking forward to your responses! Thank you.
- Nathan
@Icebrand:
ReplyDelete"If nanotech is presented as one of many possible reanimation scenarios, it retains credibility."
If Drexler's "nanotechnology" gets the physics wrong from the beginning, the passage of centuries won't change that fact. I think cryonics organizations should emphasize things which don't violate physics and which can show some progress in a timely fashion, for example improving brain cryopreservation.
"Skeptics of cryonics claim that even well preserved cases are hopeless."
These "skeptics" just signal that they don't want to think about the problem, not that no one can ever solve it. A nonlazy skeptic willing to do some creative thinking would say something like, "You cryonicists have it all wrong," and then think about the problem laterally: If you could cryopreserve a brain in the way cryonicists want so that you could revive it with some plausible repairs, what would you have to do to it?
@Nathan:
ReplyDeleteDrexler has complained about how chemists and materials scientists have co-opted his term "nanotechnology" to try to make conventional research sound "futuristic" and attract more funding. I suspect a lot of the projects you mentioned deal with banal areas of science and engineering which have nothing to do with medical nanobots, nanoassemblers and similar fantasies.
I just marvel at how Drexler and his friends have managed to have pretend-careers based on essentially nothing, like the Seineld series. By contrast, a scientist like Craig Venter has something to show for his efforts.