Since E8′s predictions about a few new particles also violate currently known physical laws, that interpretation of ‘pseudoscience’ would include E8 - but in my rough definitions above, I’ve included E8 as coming closer to proto-science than pseudo-science; so I’m going to have to disagree with you about your described criterion matching the dividing line I’m trying to draw.
So why did you mention not violating known physical laws as a criterion for cryonics not being pseudoscience?
It seems worthwhile to determine what the relevant null hypothesis /is/, before determining in which direction the burden of proof lies.
Seriously? Somebody claims they have invented a method to achieve nigh-immortality, except they can’t demonstrate that it works right now, and it’s success conjunctively depends on a large number of highly questionable assumptions, and people with relevant domain expertise either ignore it or actively distance themselves from it. I wonder what the relevant null hypothesis might be...
(Either that, or one could try a Feynman estimate. A 0.5% chance of success seems too low; and a 10% chance seems too high; so somewhere around 3% seems within the right order of magnitude.)
You mean Fermi estimates, and they don’t work by pulling numbers out of your hat as you seem to be doing here.
I haven’t had the time to read it yet
I’ve read the introduction of the first one. It seems that the author is taking the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, adding a special extra term (the “quantum potential”) and massaging it to get the Schrödinger equation.
That’s doesn’t strike me as particularly surprising, since it is well known that the Schrödinger equation is mathematically similar to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. The “Hamiltonian operator” in the Schrödinger equation is called that way for a reason, and the Schrödinger equation converges to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation in the classical limit.
So why did you mention not violating known physical laws as a criterion for cryonics not being pseudoscience?
Seriously? Somebody claims they have invented a method to achieve nigh-immortality, except they can’t demonstrate that it works right now, and it’s success conjunctively depends on a large number of highly questionable assumptions, and people with relevant domain expertise either ignore it or actively distance themselves from it.
I wonder what the relevant null hypothesis might be...
You mean Fermi estimates, and they don’t work by pulling numbers out of your hat as you seem to be doing here.
I’ve read the introduction of the first one. It seems that the author is taking the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, adding a special extra term (the “quantum potential”) and massaging it to get the Schrödinger equation.
That’s doesn’t strike me as particularly surprising, since it is well known that the Schrödinger equation is mathematically similar to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. The “Hamiltonian operator” in the Schrödinger equation is called that way for a reason, and the Schrödinger equation converges to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation in the classical limit.