Yikes. I ought to qualify that, because the better than zero chance is in fact one of the ways in which they sell it; it just doesn’t seem to be the favourite tactic.
My understanding is that the structural distinctions of the brain often correlate with cytoarchitectural and molecular differences. For example, the nucleus accumbens is a discrete brain structure with well-mapped anatomical connections. However, it is comprised largely of GABAergic neurons (called medium spiny neurons; they synthesize and secrete the neurotransmitter gamma hydroxybutyrate) and it receives largely dopaminergic input (its cells therefore strongly express dopamine receptors). I think you’re setting up a false dichotomy. I know nothing about neural networks–perhaps you could tell me a bit more about where you’re coming from with this? You’re suggesting that we could accurately model or upload somone’s personality in silico without much need for cellular integrity maybe?
The effects of psychoactive drugs on consciousness are well-documented and occur at the level of receptor-ligand interactions. Chemical ablation of the dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra by MPTP generates a Parkinsonian pathology. Is this sufficient evidence for the importance of cells and molecules in consciousness? I feel like I’m missing something.
Personally, I have to vote “advantage cryonics” over “advantage God.” I mean, there’s a lot of data preserved with the current neurosuspension and vitrification methods that Alcor uses, and they’re getting better all the time, whereas with ordinary death there’s no data preserved, as far as I can tell. Will we ever be able to actually to utilize that data to bring the suspendee back to life? I don’t know, but certainly there is a better chance of it happening if there’s some data to work with than if there’s none at all.
Of course, I think you’d have a better chance if you weren’t lying around for 48 hours before the procedure began. That’s definitely a bad thing.
And in any case, even if the whole thing IS snake oil, it’s not like you’re losing out on anything if God and/or the afterlife turns out to be real, unless cryonics somehow traps your soul inside your body.
That’s like saying, “the only reason I don’t believe in Santa Clause, as he is classically portrayed, is that I haven’t seen him.” This ignores a lot of other good reasons, scientific reasons, not to believe in Santa Clause like; reindeer can’t fly, even if reindeer could fly it would be impossible to stop at so many houses in one evening, men can’t shrink themselves to fit down a chimney, many houses don’t even have chimneys, no giant toy factory has been found on the north pole, many children have caught their parents do what Santa purports to do, and many parents will admit they themselves do what Santa purports. Collectively, this becomes more than just absence of evidence but evidence of absence.
Your statement might hold up for a deist god, but not for specific gods (the OP is Christian) who are supposed to have said and done, and continue to do, specific things. Once we lay out specific deeds, attributes, and logical ramifications of various statements made by a given god, one can then start to apply scientific scrutiny. When this is done those who remain followers have one of two choices, ignore the evidence or relegate their given gods deeds, actions and attributes closer and closer to the deist god.
I suppose that’s you prerogative.
Whether something nonphysical exists is a different question from whether or not your memories, your personality, your you if you will, will survive the complete decomposition of your cells. Science has a lot to say about the latter.
Cite?
The definition of a soul bounces around a lot and even after thousands of years of arguing theist still can’t agree on what it is. Any verifiable attribute I have historically seen given to the soul, I have seen explained better by biologists, sociologists and psychologists and none of that hints at survival, nor the possibility of survival, of said soul (or equivalent) after death.
Can we please have that argument somewhere else?
About neuron mapping viz-a-viz neural activation levels. It seems probable to me that the mapping alone would be sufficient to hold much of a persons ‘mind’. People can recover from long duration comas in which I susspect any chemical neural information will be largely degraded and be the same person as they were afterwards. My knowledge is from computational neural simulation though, so if any Medical trained person could give their view on the neural state of coma patients I would be pleased to hear it.
If thats the case, preservation by freezing might not be as good as some other methods such as pickling in formalin.
I nominate this for Post of the Month.
Right, this one is amusing
Imagine that a male has his foreskin frozen
Now he has topped it, but fortunately a rather adept 2020 scientist decides to clone
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he produces 100 fully functional foetuses in ‘Brave New World’ jars
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which one gets the ‘soul’
I don’t know where you are getting this “by definition somewhat unknowable” as god historically and/or allegedly went out of his way to be very knowable. What do you mean by “somewhat” anyway?
Regarding Christianity if they are fundamentalist Christian Preachers they either deceive themselves or are self deceived about inerrancy of the bible. If they are liberal Christian preachers they either deceive or are self deceived as to their being evidence remotely reasonable to support the claims they make.
Both are selling hope of survival after death. I know little about cryonics but I do know a bit about mans ability to deceive himself. I imagine the cryonics folks have a faith of sorts (if not good reason), to believe that future medical science will be able to undo all their damage which differs little the faith many preachers have that they are correct. Though I do not deny that the cryonics promoters don’t have a fair share of Benny Hinn’s either. The only real difference that I can see, is that cryonics is relatively new, and as such most probably aren’t indoctrinated from birth believing in it, which may shift the proportion of faithful vs. frauds a little.
If you had just argued that cryonics is unlikely to work, that would have been one thing, however in your OP you also stated…
”Now, setting aside my argument of absolutes for one moment, the people selling this service must be aware (or if not aware, then deluded to the point of true insanity) that they are emblaming a corpse that has (lets be generous) very, very incredibly slim chances of being revived, and yet, they’re selling it as if it’s just an afternoon nap, from which you’ll wake up feeling rather perky. Now, I know, it;s the job of salespeople to ‘talk up’ their product, but come on! - this goes way past simple enthusiastic exaggeration of the benefits; this is plain deceit.”
…which sort of begged of a parallel.
I did.
Nope; sorry, but the parallel was begged by your personal hobbyhorse.
Sorry but this is a non-question, if you had an identical brother would only one of you have a soul? If you beleive in souls then you almost certainly will say both have souls. Clones are no more the same person as identical twins are the same person.
I thought it was begged by a nice personal hypocrisy.
I’ll quote your gist.
“These guys who promise me an afterlife, who I don’t believe, are frauds.”
“These guys who promise me an afterlife, who I do believe, are honest.”
Never mind that evidence in favor of the latter is, at best, no better than that of the former.
If you think I said or implied something like that in this thread, then you are simply mistaken.
Below is a quote from your OP in which you make it pretty clear that you think those selling cryonics are deceitful. We can agree that these people are taking money by giving people a hope in the afterlife, can we not?
Yet, when I pointed out that religious people do the same thing, you said the following.
I don’t doubt that you will argue that preachers don’t do what they do for the money, but I think it is undeniable that these preachers do offer people hope in an afterlife, and it’s equally undeniable that they do take money from their parishioners for their services.
All that’s left to establish is that you don’t believe in cryonics, which your OP makes quite clear, and that you do believe in a religious afterlife. As I recall you are Christian are you not? So I ask you, what important details am I leaving out that makes my assessment mistaken?
You are imposing the false notion that I gave the preachers and excuse ticket because I believe them. Which is complete nonsense as a general claim.
Reanimation via cryonics and the various afterlives promised by the various religions cannot be fairly compared because they work on different standards of proof.
“Cryonics can preserve your corpse until we have the technology to bring you back to life.” It’s a scientific claim, and can be examined by scientific means, all of which are highly suggestive that cryonics cannot preserve the brain in a usable state, even with hypothetical super-advanced technology.
“The Word of God (or a religious vision, or whatever) tells us that there is life after death.” It is not a scientific claim. If there is indeed life after death, it is hidden from physical examination. It cannot be tested by scientific means. This fact alone merits the rejection of the premise by many, but many people are happy to accept their personal faith and religious experiences as proof enough.
Different systems of thought, different standards of proof.
The other difference is that the cryonics folk should know better. And likely do. They’re just taking the money. There’s no doubt that the vast vast vast majority of religious leaders believe what they’re preaching.
It’s interesting to actually go to the Alcor website and see what they’re claiming. Believe it or not, they have have a “myths” page that actually tackles the question of whether cryonics is consumer fraud. Interestingly enough, Alcor claims to be a nonprofit.
To go off on a tangent, Alcor provides a perfect example of a phenomenon that I’ve observed again and again over the years – that of boasting about the number of “experts” who support the mission, and then offering up a weird grab-bag of kooks from all over the world, whose qualifications, such as they are, have nothing to do with the thing being supported. In this case, Alcor claims that “more than 60 scientists and ethicists have signed a Scientists’ Open Letter endorsing the scientific basis of cryonics” and that “Signatories encompass all disciplines relevant to cryonics”-- and yet when you read the names, you see professors of astronomy and mechanical engineering and economics and public policy and humanities. My favorite is the “Dean of Education of the World Health Medical School.” What is the World Health Medical School, you ask? They make flashcards.
But you do believe them right?
If you examine the preachers claims of an aferlife with the same rational and skeptical mind that you use to examine that of the cryonics people, what compelling evidence do you have to support one over the other?