tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post116192187505462054..comments2011-11-18T22:28:09.618-08:00Anne Corwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940566603711834053noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post-1162004731755398152006-10-27T20:05:00.000-07:002006-10-27T20:05:00.000-07:00Talking in tandem with Mark Plus's response, I believe Aubrey de Grey is a scientific advisor to Alcor. If I am not mistaken, he contends that many anti-cryonics stances, like those of Dr Arthur Rowe, are not necessarily grounded in scientific reasoning. When one considers the brain simply as an organ, one whose physical processes include the property of cognition, it seems unreasonable to simply chuck it when there is even a small chance of reviving function down the line. <BR/><BR/>The subject of biases reminds me of a quote by Thomas Pynchon from the introduction of his book of short stories called Slow Learner. He writes, "The trouble with many of us is that we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance. Ignorance is not just a blank space on a person's mental map. It has contours and coherence, and for all I know, it has rules of operation as well. So as a corollary to writing about what we know, we should add getting familiar with our ignorance." <BR/><BR/>Getting familiar with our ignorance strikes me as synonymous with the subject of cognitive biases. Overcoming these errors requires one to reason around the fallacies in thinking we tend to stumble into by default. In my experience, for most people I talk with on the matter, the notion of radical life extension falls into such uncharted mental territory. And so it is incumbent upon life extensionists to take a rational approach to this peculiar notion of longevity that seems to emerge so out of the wilderness, as it were. I'm certainly finding this page to be an excellent resource in improving my own arguments for the rational foundation of radical longevity.Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654099861500105247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post-1161963054471188202006-10-27T08:30:00.000-07:002006-10-27T08:30:00.000-07:00Regarding the role of errors in scientific progress, I take that attitudes towards criticism of both cryonics and SENS from the allegedly scientifically knowledgeable. Very well, I ask, so you claim X won't work; how would <B>you</B> go about solving this problem, given what you claim to know?<BR/><BR/>For example, I don't have any big cognitive investment in the validity of SENS. If Aubrey's ideas fail to stop aging, we'd like to find that out sooner rather than later so we can search for better strategies.<BR/><BR/>The same goes for cryonics. I'd like for my cryonics services provider to make its mistakes on other members, learn from them and then do it right when my turn comes.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com