X-Message-Number: 14325 Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 09:46:12 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: for Dave Pizer, and more Some comments: To Dave Pize, The general belief among those who actually consider and study how brains work would say that awareness is certainly needed. In that sense it's very important. However, if you aren't awake or aware, it's not obvious that the brain areas producing your awareness are doing anything. As for the possibility that we somehow NEED that awareness, we have to distinguish between the condition of someone who is frozen and/or vitrified, and a normal person. Freezing or vitrification means that you have no awareness. If the brain areas which play a role in that awareness (as distinct from those involved in your memory) happen to be absent, then they are likely to be replaceable. Replacing your memories looks far harder. There IS one way in which the awareness areas may turn out to be important too: we have no reason to believe that the circuits are the same in everyone, and hence we'd have to keep more information as to just what YOUR awareness circuits did (say, as compared to mine). This possibility presently looks unlikely, but perhaps the future will tell us differently. A second possibility, which looks a bit more likely, is that these brain areas do things other than produce awareness when given connections to brain areas which store our memories. Basically that might tell us that we have to keep those areas, too ... not because of their involvement in awareness, but for other reasons. About nanotechnology: As most readers of Cryonet know, I publish a newsletter about scientific issues of interest to cryonicists. Yes, a lot of it has dealt which scientific work on memory and awareness. However I have tried also to report on ACTUAL EXPERIMENTS developing nanotechnology ... as distinct from purely theoretical ideas. I cannot help but notice that all such experiments aim at finding other ways to do computing or other activities, and no time at all on finding out how to revive cryonics patients or suspend them in the first place. I agree here: whatever means cryonicists develop to suspend and revive themselves will have to be developed by cryonicists. The others will be busy doing other things. Perhaps I am even more pessimistic then some, but I'd also say that no SINGLE circumstance will cause most people to join a cryonics society and/or have normal hospitals and companies involved in cryonics. Yes, I believe that will eventually happen, but it will be far slower than many think, and involves lots more events than simply the discovery of a technology which gives us suspended animation. Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14325