Open Thread, June 16-30, 2012

OpenThreadGuy

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, even in Discussion, it goes here.

Thank you for gathering these. Sadly, much of this reinforces my fears.

Ken Hayworth is not convinced - that's his entire motivation for the brain preservation prize.

“Do current cryonic suspension techniques preserve the precise wiring of the brain’s neurons?” The prevailing assumption among my colleagues is that current techniques do not. It is for this reason my colleagues reject cryonics as a legitimate medical practice. Their assumption is based mostly upon media hearsay from a few vocal cryobiologists with an axe to grind against cryonics. To try to get a real answer to this question I searched the available literature and interviewed cryonics researchers and practitioners. What I found was a few papers showing selected electron micrographs of distorted but recognizable neural tissue (for example, Darwin et al. 1995, Lemler et al. 2004). Although these reports are far more promising than most scientists would expect, they are still far from convincing to me and my colleagues in neuroscience.

Rafal Smigrodzki is more promising, and a neurologist to boot. I'll be looking for anything else he's written on the subject.

Mike Darwin - I've been reading Chronopause, and he seems authoritative to the instance-of-layman-that-is-me, but I'd like confirmation from some bio/medical professionals that he is making sense. His predictions of imminent-societal-doom have lowered my estimation of his generalized rationality (NSFW: http://chronopause.com/index.php/2011/08/09/fucked/). Additionally, he is by trade a dialysis technician, and to my knowledge does not hold a medical or other advanced degree in the biological sciences. This doesn't necessarily rule out him being an expert, but it does reduce my confidence in his expertise. Lastly: His 'endorsement' may be summarized as "half of Alcor patients probably suffered significant damage, and CI is basically useless".

Aubrey de Grey holds a BA in Computer Science and a Doctorate of Philosophy for his Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory. He has been active in longevity research for a while, but he comes from an information sciences background and I don't see many/any Bio/Med professionals/academics endorsing his work or positions.

Ravin Jain - like Rafal, this looks promising and I will be following up on it.

Sebastian Seung stated plainly in his most recent book that he fully expects to die. "I feel quite confident that you, dear reader, will die, and so will I." This seems implicitly extremely skeptical of current cryonics techniques, to say the least.

I've actually contacted kalla724 after reading their comments on LW placing extremely low odds on cryonics working. She believes, and presents in a convincing-to-the-layman-that-is-me manner, a convincing argument that the physical brain probably can't be made operational again even at the limit of physical possibility. I remain unsure of whether he is similarly skeptical of cryonics as a means to avoid information-death (i.e., cryonics as a step towards uploading), and have not yet followed up with him given that she seems pretty busy.

Summary:

Neuro MD/PhDs endorsing cryonics: Rafal Smigrodzki, Ravin Jain
People without Neuro-MD/PhDs endorsing cryonics: Mike Darwin, Aubrey de Grey
Neuro MD/PhDs who have engaged with cryonics and are skeptical of current protocols (+/- very): Ken Hayworth, Sabastian Seung, kalla724.

Sebastian Seung stated plainly in his most recent book that he fully expects to die. "I feel quite confident that you, dear reader, will die, and so will I." This seems implicitly extremely skeptical of current cryonics techniques, to say the least.

Semantics are tricky because "death" is poorly defined and people use it in different ways. See the post and comments here: http://www.geripal.org/2012/05/mostly-dead-vs-completely-dead.html.

As Seung notes in his book:

Irreversibility is not a timeless concept; it depends on currently av

... (read more)

7Synaptic14y

It's useful to distinguish between types of skepticism, something lsparrish has discussed: http://lesswrong.com/lw/cbe/two_kinds_of_cryonics/. kalla724 assigns a probability estimate of p = 10^-22 to any kind of cryonics preserving personal identity. On the other hand, Darwin, Seung, and Hayworth are skeptical of current protocols, for good reasons. But they are also trying to test and improve the protocols (reducing ischemic time) and expect that alternatives might work. From my perspective you are overweighting credentials. The reason you need to pay attention to neuroscientists is because they might have knowledge of the substrates of personal identity. kalla724 has a phd in molecular biophysics. Arguably, molecular biophysics is itself an information science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_biophysics. Depending upon kalla724's research, kalla724 could have knowledge relevant to the substrates of personal identity, but the credential itself means little. In my opinion, the more important credential is knowledge of cryobiology. There are skeptics, such as Kenneth Storey, http://www4.carleton.ca/jmc/catalyst/2004/sf/km/km-cryonics.html. There are also proponents, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Fahy. See http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/coldwar.html. ETA: [...] Semantics are tricky because "death" is poorly defined and people use it in different ways. See the post and comments here: http://www.geripal.org/2012/05/mostly-dead-vs-completely-dead.html. As Seung notes in his book: [...]