You know Big words are nice, we know your inteeligent and all but if your writing for the masses, it just isnt the way to go. While most IMMINST members can translate that junk, Who wants to? Could I take a paper like that to my friend and say hey look its about cryonics. They would be bored to tears.
Big words? You sound kind of sciphobic. What do big words have to do with it? First, this article is hardly using any "big words." It's a fairly simple explanation of a concept aimed at a technical audience. Second, this article is discussing a subject that should be of immediate interest to anyone interested in transhumanism.
This is from JET, they aren't writing for the masses. They are writing for a particular audience. You can't criticize an article as a populist work if it isn't intended to be one. (Neither is this article intended to be a technical explanation.)
My initial observation is that it seems strange they immediately associate a desire to continue to persist (extended life) with malchronia. I don't think they are the same thing. I do not feel I was born in the wrong time. I was born in today's era. I like now. I also believe that I would like to see the next era and so forth. This desire is not born from a sense of escapism, but from a desire to persist. I do not believe most supporters of cryonics would say they have been born in a "bad time." Instead, they simply want to see more time.
In the background, behind all of these particular and general dissatisfactions with the present is, no doubt, a concern with cheating time…with gaining immortality.
Again, this seems incorrect. The desire to gain immortality isn't driven from a dissatisfaction with the present, so much as a desire to live. To continue to enjoy what is so enjoyable about life in the present, or any future time.
Ah, now that I have read more I see my problem with this article is the author's attempt to explain what may very well be a legitimate psyschological condition (Malchronia) through the use of metaphor, reference to fiction, and analogy. When they describe the Noah character as a "Malchronic archetype" I begin to suspect the consistency of their argument. The argument is no longer based on a possible scientific explanation for Malchronia or any behavioral patterns that result from it, but instead becomes based on a kind of selective deductive reasoning. The authors choose to make a psychological argument using the selective interpretation of literature. That kind of argument might be interesting if treated as a conjecture, but makes me question the author's intent when delivered with a voice of authority. (Meaning, the conjectural voice would speak with less certainty, because they are building a case for research.)
Although, on the whole, cryonics seems more passive than bionics, both of these strategies for overcoming malchronesis fall under the aegis of a transcendent urge, an ideological compulsion for one-upping what exists in favor of what could take its place.
Again, this is a manipulative interpretation. It is the author's interpretation, instead of an observational analysis. Instead of saying "we interviewed X cyronics members who described their desires as Y therefore we believe Y may be a motivation" the author has chosen to suppose a motivation a priori. Which, again, is fine if argued from the point of view of conjecture. ("We predict that Y is a motivation...") The voice, though, is that of authority, not conjecture. ("We believe Y is the motivation.")
The interpretation is manipulative because of the use of loaded phrases like "ideological compulsion." What is an ideological compulsion? Is that a real psychological construct? If it is, how does this particular motivation qualify as one? It seems to me, the authors chose to use this phrase not because it adds value to their argument, so much as it adds emotional weight. "Ideological compulsion" implies behavior without thought. The basis for the author's argument is that individuals choose cyronics as the result of some desire to escape the now. In fact, most transhumanists think very carefully about the problems presented by human society and how to overcome them (using technology as one tool).
So again, that leads me back to my criticism of your post rjws. If you take an article like this and disregard it out of hand, you play into the position argued by the paper.
By aiming to eliminate certain salient features of the human condition, it also threatens to eliminate the conditions that make conventional morality possible.
This, I think, is the most frustrating statement of the paper. To think that anyone would make a statement like this without creating a framework for it makes me think that the art of philosophy is dead. You can't posit that morality is impossible under certain conditions unless you develop a framework in which that is the case. Such frameworks exist. Discussing them is interesting and productive. But this article makes no attempt to even enumerate them.
The author is saying that the human condition is a necessary condition for morality. In other words human suffering is a necessary condition for moral behavior. All forms of currently extant human limitation are necessary conditions for morality. (And if the author isn't saying this, how can I know? They don't support their claim or even reference a supporting ideology, so going with an obvious interpretation seems reasonable.)
How can that argument really have merit? If the argument was made in the year 1300, would it have merit? We have surpassed the biological and cultural limitations of the average human living in 1300. Is morality dead? If some elements of the human condition at that time were not necessary requirements for morality, what is the criteria for judging which elements of the human condition ARE necessary for morality?
Beyond all of that, the authors then devolve into making pot-shot arguments against cryonics that reveals the articles intent:
Moving on, we cannot ignore the fact that we might face a great risk of contamination in thawing out the victims of past epidemics: some would, no doubt, have died of diseases that future generations may no longer have natural immunities to.
This may be a legitimate argument when fully developed, but it doesn't seem to have any bearing on the overall discussion of "malchronia." It's a weakly developed attack on the legitimacy of cyronics. It reveals that the intent of the authors is not to actually have a reasonable discussion. Their intent is not to work toward a conclusion, but to ASSUME that conclusion and fill in the blanks with information that seems to get them from A to B.
Christopher Yorke is currently based in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Tokyo as a visiting research student and Ph.D. candidate from the University of Glasgow. Previous areas in which he has published include ethics, cosmopolitanism, and utopianism.
Lois Rowe is a practicing artist and writer currently completing her Master of Fine Arts at the Glasgow School of Art. She has exhibited her work internationally and written extensively on the role of intuition within creative action.
Oh, now it all makes sense. They're students. One is an artist. The other is a phd candidate in philosphy. Neither is a scientist. Most likely, neither is a rationalist. They are average people with an average person's reasoning ability making the kinds of arguments that average people make. They aren't attempting to add any value to the world through a reasonable, detailed analysis of their subject matter. They're just trying to get a good grade.
