Letters to the Editor To the Editor:
A
s the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy suggests, “Don’t Panic.” Despite the title of this issue’s feature story, “The Failure of Cryonics,” I don’t believe that cryonics has failed and I don’t believe that it will fail. Why am I printing this article then? Because I do believe that the cryonics community holds valid opinions besides my own. As I promised from my first issue, Cryonics is aimed at all cryonicists, not just at Alcor’s directors, members, or magazine editors. Almost by definition, cryonicists are independent thinkers; if they are to make the most of this trait, they need as much information as possible. I’m pleased to note that in the last few months the readers of Cryonics have conveyed an increasing number of their “independent thoughts” to me. While I haven’t yet received the rich cross-section of ideas that I might want, I have received more letters than I can publish in existing magazine space. If you sent me something but don’t find it in this issue, please forgive me; sometimes I will print a letter just because it fills the right number of column-inches.
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Cryonics
Your readers may have noticed certain sharp disagreements in Cryonics (2nd Qtr. 1998). In that issue, Author 1 calls for further study of how freezing damage could be repaired by nanomedical technologies. He notes that this effort “...need not actually solve [the problem of inferring neural connectivity] in practice,” which would be beyond current technological abilities, and asks instead for scenarios that start with “the damage that really occurs, then specify the biochemicals or other concrete items” enabling the required inference. Author 2, in contrast, argues that “only solving the problem theoretically would be cheating,” and asks not for specifications, but for “experiments” in this area. He criticizes those who “believe we need take no special effort to improve our cryopreservation methods” in order to achieve suspension reversible with future technologies, and ridicules this and associated technical views as being essentially religious. Undaunted by this attack, Author 1 notes the view “that nanotechnology will provide, someday, a solution even for those frozen with our current primitive methods,” and concurs: “If nanotechnology includes all the different methods we use now and may use in the future to manipulate matter on molecular scales, I would certainly agree.” In ridiculing assorted ideas regarding the future, Author 2 writes “Rather than God we have Nanotechnology, which will put us into Heaven. All the nations will live at peace with one another for 1000 years, followed by the end of the world...” Perhaps some actual, non-straw person has advanced this notion, or perhaps the nanocritic, Author 2, is merely attacking some imaginary nano-crazy, Author 3, in an attempt to discredit the nano-optimist, Author 1. I wish the best of luck to these warring authors in sorting out their conflicts, and hope that Author 1 ultimately wins the war of ideas — he fights fair, and I agree with
• 3rd Qtr, 1998
him. Oddly, both authors share one article and byline: Thomas Donaldson. —K. Eric Drexler Thomas Donaldson replies: It seems to me that my statements are quoted out of context, and in many cases context is important. First of all, there is an issue of what “nanotechnology” is to include. If nanotechnology means the manipulation of matter on a molecular scale, chemists have now done that for over a century, and their abilities to do so have increased a great deal. Biochemists have come on the scene and proceeded to manipulate those chemicals which play a major role in our own chemistry — and in many ways, since that chemistry is quite complex, have moved very far. For instance, it’s commonplace to use modified viruses as tools, and our use of these tools has increased in sophistication. The day will come when we will design bacteria, also, and use them as tools too. And building on that, we will design entire creatures, again to manipulate the biochemicals of human beings. There are some who want to limit nanotechnology to only particular methods. They argue that those methods will give them great power over matter; at present their arguments are theoretical alone, while various other scientists have proceeded to get their hands dirty and produce something that will actually work and do something. Certainly this does not save the world, but a relatively simple application, such as a modified virus, is still a good tool. And while I am optimistic that our understanding and control of the world will increase to a level at which we’ll know how to repair damage to cryonics patients, I doubt that any single research direction will allow us to do that. After all, biotechnologists have run into lots of unexpected problems even while modifying viruses; I doubt that we can deal with such problems purely theoretically, no matter what our idea of