You could say that billions of dollars spent on cancer research is a huge waste of money because curing cancer has not been proven to work in small mammals. There is no proof that cancer can be cured. I am not being entirely sarcastic about this, but I would give a higher probability for success to most of the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence to achieve rejuvenation. Knowledge of the forms of damage that result in aging is the first step toward repairing that damage. With cryonics the problem is similar: there is damage to be repaired, and it is not unreasonable to believe that in 50 or 100 years the molecular repair technology will be available. It would be foolish to believe that humans will never be able to live on Mars until you see humans living on Mars. The ability to extrapolate from present technology to future technology requires more sophistication than simplistic empiricism.
If what you say were true—we “never cured cancer in small mammals”—then yes, the conclusion that cancer research is bullshit would have some merit.
But since we did cure a variety of cancers in small mammals, and since we are constantly (if slowly) improving both length of survival and cure rates in humans, the comparison does not stand.
(Also: the integration unit of human mind is not the synapse; it is an active zone, a molecular raft within a synapse. My personal view, as a molecular biophysicist turned neuroscientist, is that freezing damage is not fixable from basic principles (molecular drift over a few years is sufficient to prevent it completely). In my mind, the probability that some magical “damage repair” technique will be developed is within the same order of magnitude with probability that Rapture will occur. Cryonics is important primarily in the sense that it provides impetus for further research; but a radically different method of preservation is required before possibility of revivification reaches any reasonable level.)
I’m not quite sure what you mean by molecular raft, but do you think you need to record properties of molecular rafts or just properties of the population of molecular rafts in the neuron? (e.g. amount of each type)
Perhaps a better definition would help: I’m thinking about active zones within a synapse. You may have one “synapse” which has two or more active zones of differing sizes (the classic model, Drosophila NMJ, has many active zones within a synapse). The unit of integration (the unit you need to understand) is not always the synapse, but is often the active zone itself.
You could say that billions of dollars spent on cancer research is a huge waste of money because curing cancer has not been proven to work in small mammals. There is no proof that cancer can be cured. I am not being entirely sarcastic about this, but I would give a higher probability for success to most of the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence to achieve rejuvenation. Knowledge of the forms of damage that result in aging is the first step toward repairing that damage. With cryonics the problem is similar: there is damage to be repaired, and it is not unreasonable to believe that in 50 or 100 years the molecular repair technology will be available. It would be foolish to believe that humans will never be able to live on Mars until you see humans living on Mars. The ability to extrapolate from present technology to future technology requires more sophistication than simplistic empiricism.
If what you say were true—we “never cured cancer in small mammals”—then yes, the conclusion that cancer research is bullshit would have some merit.
But since we did cure a variety of cancers in small mammals, and since we are constantly (if slowly) improving both length of survival and cure rates in humans, the comparison does not stand.
(Also: the integration unit of human mind is not the synapse; it is an active zone, a molecular raft within a synapse. My personal view, as a molecular biophysicist turned neuroscientist, is that freezing damage is not fixable from basic principles (molecular drift over a few years is sufficient to prevent it completely). In my mind, the probability that some magical “damage repair” technique will be developed is within the same order of magnitude with probability that Rapture will occur. Cryonics is important primarily in the sense that it provides impetus for further research; but a radically different method of preservation is required before possibility of revivification reaches any reasonable level.)
I’m not quite sure what you mean by molecular raft, but do you think you need to record properties of molecular rafts or just properties of the population of molecular rafts in the neuron? (e.g. amount of each type)
Perhaps a better definition would help: I’m thinking about active zones within a synapse. You may have one “synapse” which has two or more active zones of differing sizes (the classic model, Drosophila NMJ, has many active zones within a synapse). The unit of integration (the unit you need to understand) is not always the synapse, but is often the active zone itself.