Cells and organisms need not operate continuously to remain alive. Many living things, including human embryos, can be successfully cryopreserved and revived. Adult humans can survive cardiac arrest and cessation of brain activity during hypothermia for up to an hour without lasting harm. Other large animals have survived three hours of cardiac arrest near 0°C (+32°F ) (Cryobiology 23, 483-494 (1986)). There is no basic reason why such states of “suspended animation” could not be extended indefinitely at even lower temperatures (although the technical obstacles are enormous).
Existing cryopreservation techniques, while not yet reversible, can preserve the fine structure of the brain with remarkable fidelity. This is especially true for cryopreservation by vitrification. The observations of point (a) make clear that survival of structure, not function, determines survival of the organism.
It is now possible to foresee specific future technologies (molecular nanotechnology and nanomedicine) that will one day be able to diagnose and treat injuries right down to the molecular level. Such technology could repair and/or regenerate every cell and tissue in the body if necessary. For such a technology, any patient retaining basic brain structure (the physical basis of their mind) will be viable and recoverable.
I up-voted the post because you talked about two good, basic thinking skills. I think that paying attention to the weight of priors is a good thinking technique in general- and I think your examples of cryonics and AI are good points, but your conclusion fails- the argument you made does not mean they have 0 chance of happening, but you could take out of that more usefully, for example that any given person claiming to have created AI probably has close to 0 chance of having actually done it (unless you have some incredibly good evidence:
“Sorry Arthur, but I’d guess that there is an implicit rule about announcement of an AI-driven singularity: the announcement must come from the AI, not the programmer. I personally would expect the announcement in some unmistakable form such as a message in letters of fire written on the face of the moon.”—Dan Clemmensen
). The thinking technique of abstracting and “stepping back from” or “outside of” or using “reference class forecasting” for your current situation also works very generally. Short post though, I was hoping you would expand more.
If you actually look a little deeper into cryonics you can find some more useful reference classes than “things promising eternal (or very long) life”
http://www.alcor.org/FAQs/faq01.html#evidence
Cells and organisms need not operate continuously to remain alive. Many living things, including human embryos, can be successfully cryopreserved and revived. Adult humans can survive cardiac arrest and cessation of brain activity during hypothermia for up to an hour without lasting harm. Other large animals have survived three hours of cardiac arrest near 0°C (+32°F ) (Cryobiology 23, 483-494 (1986)). There is no basic reason why such states of “suspended animation” could not be extended indefinitely at even lower temperatures (although the technical obstacles are enormous).
Existing cryopreservation techniques, while not yet reversible, can preserve the fine structure of the brain with remarkable fidelity. This is especially true for cryopreservation by vitrification. The observations of point (a) make clear that survival of structure, not function, determines survival of the organism.
It is now possible to foresee specific future technologies (molecular nanotechnology and nanomedicine) that will one day be able to diagnose and treat injuries right down to the molecular level. Such technology could repair and/or regenerate every cell and tissue in the body if necessary. For such a technology, any patient retaining basic brain structure (the physical basis of their mind) will be viable and recoverable.
I up-voted the post because you talked about two good, basic thinking skills. I think that paying attention to the weight of priors is a good thinking technique in general- and I think your examples of cryonics and AI are good points, but your conclusion fails- the argument you made does not mean they have 0 chance of happening, but you could take out of that more usefully, for example that any given person claiming to have created AI probably has close to 0 chance of having actually done it (unless you have some incredibly good evidence:
“Sorry Arthur, but I’d guess that there is an implicit rule about announcement of an AI-driven singularity: the announcement must come from the AI, not the programmer. I personally would expect the announcement in some unmistakable form such as a message in letters of fire written on the face of the moon.”—Dan Clemmensen
). The thinking technique of abstracting and “stepping back from” or “outside of” or using “reference class forecasting” for your current situation also works very generally. Short post though, I was hoping you would expand more.