X-Message-Number: 15908
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 08:50:37 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: answers to some statements, old & new

Hi everyone!

Some comments on Cryonet messages #15895-15902:

First, to Damien Broderick: In one sense, when we think about the future,
it IS quite unpredictable. However it seems to me that simply giving up
in terms of working out what the future will be like borders on simple
cowardice. Fundamentally, I do not think that we are advancing with 
a higher exponent than we were advancing 100 years ago ... it just looks
that way because the past is so totally accepted as something that
happened, and was so simple that the choices were all obvious ones.

As for the future, I doubt that at least for several hundred years
we will see such a marked change in humanity that we can simply give up
on predictions. Yes, the farther we go into the future, the more it
becomes hard to predict, but that's not an absolute, either.

Fundamentally, I do not think we'll see such a dramatic change in
human beings within the next few 100 years. Yes, we'll make advances
on all fronts, but not to a degree that makes the result simply
unreadable. And of course I am doubting the notion that we're 
advancing any faster than 100 years ago.

Second, to Mark Buddle: You may wish to look at past Cryonets.
Sorry but I can't give you any numbers, but means to get around the
laws against suicide have been discussed many times. 

For cryonicists who are to be suspended and know that they are dying
(in a way which will destroy their brains) the one method which 
works is starvation. This has actually been done by several patients.
Yes, it does cause damage in itself, but then not as much as the
kind of complete destruction of the brain caused, say, by a tumor
or any one of several brain diseases, Alzheimer's the most prominent.
One woman, whose brain was shot through with tumors due to an
original breast tumor, actually wanted to do this for ME. If you don't
know me that's OK; I'll just say that at one time I was the principal
in a lawsuit to allow suspension while still alive (it failed). The
cost of the lawsuit was paid by Alcor. I had a brain tumor; quite
fortunately for me, I survived ... though with some damage.

It's possible that we'll get some jurisdictions which will allow
suspension of living people relatively soon. What I am discussing
here is a form of "suicide" which does not cause the legal problems
that other forms do, and has actually been done and worked.

Finally, some time ago I raised problems about Turing machines as
models for us. One major problem was that of timing, since we are
highly parallel brains. Two people came back and said that this
did not declare Turing's ideas to be worthless. I should explain
myself here on this point: sorry, but it does cause problems. If
you want to accept a theory which suggests that in billiions of
years we can imitate the thinking of a human being neuron by neuron
for a perioid of 10 minutes, then go ahead and accept it. But in
practice the time it takes for computation will become MAJOR,
and anyone who wants to explain how human beings work "as computers"
needs to take that time into account. Moreover even imitation
needs some serious thought: our neurons are not all working 
simultaneously in simultaneous steps. This makes even the theoretical
modelling of a brain with a single computer a hard problem: different
neurons will send out messages sometimes virtually simultaneously,
and affect others simultaneously too. It's not obvious how to
model such events with a single computer, even if you forget
how long the calculations would take.

Yes, there are additional problems, too, but that's all for this
question right now.

		Best wishes and long long life for all,

			Thomas Donaldson

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