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advancedatheist comments on How do you tell proto-science from pseudo-science? - Less Wrong Discussion
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I got to meet Aubrey de Grey for the first time at the Venturists' cryonics convention in Laughlin, Nevada, last month, which I helped to organize. In his talk, Aubrey asks why people who accept in principle the idea that we could learn to cryopreserve viable organs like the human kidney think that the human brain has some spooky ability to defy this process and perversely die regardless.
Yeah, Bob Ettinger did us a disservice 40-50 years ago by linking cryonics to "immortality" and "becoming immortal supermen." I've tried to reframe the cryonics idea as trying to turn death from a permanent off-state into a temporary and reversible off-state by pushing hard on brain preservation with current and reachable technologies. Michael Shermer, the critic of pseudoscience and editor of Skeptic magazine, has implicitly supported this idea by becoming an adviser to the Brain Preservation Foundation.
We want a lot more precision restoring brains than from restoring kidneys-- it's conceivable that there's a limit which makes good enough restoration for kidneys possible, but not for brains, though I don't think that's the way to bet. It's plausible to me that restoring brains adequately is much harder.
This seems like a non-obvious statement to me. Kidney function is dependent on fine microstructure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renal_corpuscle
The size of each corpuscle is about the same as the size of a neuron.
Yes.
It's also true, though perhaps irrelevant, that we don't actually care whether kidneys are restored. If my kidneys are damaged and a surgeon successfully transplants Sam's kidneys into my body, I'm basically OK with that... I don't especially want my kidneys, I just want kidneys. I suspect that's true of most people.
If my brain is damaged and a surgeon transplants Sam's brain into my body, the corresponding thing is much less true.
That being said, I expect that >99% of my cognitive function, memories, etc could be replaced by Sam's and I would be OK with that as well, even if I make the OKness evaluation with my current brain. Identifying the <1% for which that isn't true is a tricky project, though. That being said, I expect I'm very atypical in this respect.
Moreover, human kidneys can't be reversibly cryopreserved by current methods.
I don't think that being open to testing a claim empirically in no way implies that you support the claim. Randi 1,000,000$ prize for psychics is also no endorsement of paranormal claims.
Sorry, you've made a bad comparison. Randi hasn't raised that money for a Paranormal X-Prize. The Brain Preservationists, by contrast, have strictly empiricist criteria for deciding who wins the incentive prizes.
Reference: http://www.brainpreservation.org/content/competitors
Randi runs a paranormal X-Prize. Are you saying that Randi hasn't strictly empirical criteria for deciding who wins his price?