witness comments on Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Gondolinian 20 April 2015 12:02AM

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Comment author: witness 21 April 2015 01:59:47AM -2 points [-]

You know what he does for a living don't you?

Comment author: advancedatheist 21 April 2015 03:07:17AM *  8 points [-]

"Evolutionary developmental biology," which means Myers tries to understand biology that happens on its own. The cryonics idea, by contrast, involves trying to get human biology, and specifically the human brain, to do something it didn't evolve to do, namely, enter a state of preservation through vitrification. Basically Myers doesn't think about cryonics as an engineering challenge because he doesn't have experience or talent with that sort of practical problem solving.

Myers invokes his credentials as a neuroscientist to criticize cryonics; but then another neuroscientist, Kenneth Hayworth, started the Brain Preservation Foundation because he thinks that cryonics deserves a second look due to advances in organ vitrification. I would like to see these two go head to head (yeah, I see the pun potential there) in a debate.