X-Message-Number: 20970
Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 16:30:05 -0800
From: James Swayze <>
Subject: Some observations for my good friend Thomas
References: <>

> Message #20959
> Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 07:28:26 -0500
> From: Thomas Donaldson <>
> Subject: CryoNet #20917 - #20926
>
> This message is for Robert Bradbury:
>
> It would be good if you read rather than simply cited Ralph Merkle's
> piece. A physical nanodevice may work out locations of molecules,
> but the results of many such devices must SOMEHOW be put togher
> to work out the correct locations from the incorrect locations
> these devices find. Yes, they could all feed their results into
> a relatively large computer (not nanosized, if only  because the
> memory size wouldn't be large enough).


Perhaps the memory of _even_ infinite size need not be so large after all. See 
the following:

http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20000831S0019

[begin quote]
Quantum laser turns electron wave into memory

By R. Colin Johnson EE Times August 31, 2000 (2:39 p.m. EST)


ANN ARBOR, Mich.   How many electrons does it take to remember the entire 
contents of the Library of Congress?

Only one, according to University of Michigan professor Philip Bucksbaum. Since 
electrons, like all elementary

particles, are actually waves, Bucksbaum has found a way to phase-encode any 
number of ones and zeros along a
single electron's continuously oscillating waveform.


"Our work in quantum-phase registers is highly experimental, but theoretically 
there is really no limit to how
long a string of 1s and 0s you can store in one," said Bucksbaum.
[end quote]

> If we're going to be
> using nanodevices for repair of frozen brains, bringing in that
> computer is cheating.


Why so? I have said many times that if squeezing the hypersupercomputing power 
needed onto a single nanobot is

deemed impossible or too unlikely then let's not try to. Instead I have proposed
(several times) that we create

an army of bots with a similar military-esque hierarchical command structure. At
the lowest level we have single

bots built for single jobs or perhaps less than a dozen jobs. Suppose it is only
one job and we make a pvt

(private) bot called type K that has an affinity, due likely to its shape, to 
potassium bits. It's job is only to

pull potassium bits from a given location with other similar bots for all known 
substances.


Said location is given the 'pvt bot' by 'pvt 1st class' bots whose job is only 
to guide type K, type N, type S,

etc. bots to given locations prescribed to these 'pvt 1st class' bots by 
'corporal bots' and so on up the line

through sergeants, lieutenants, captains, generals, etc. until we get to the 
commander in chief who happens to be

a house sized ultra super duper hyper super computer named Ralph that 
communicates instructions over a vast

network of zillions of worker nanobots via whatever ethereal communication 
means, radio, laser, quantum black
magic, etc., is deemed feasible.


Why should any 'rational moral' (as opposed to dogmatic moral) means available 
to us be considered cheating?
Whatever works use it!

> The major problem with using ONLY nanodevices is that the structures
> (which are assumed broken and moved, NOT intact) will be much
> larger (1000 x) than the nanodevices that are supposed to repair
> them.


Thomas, picture in your mind a half a dozen masons building your house brick by 
brick. Now where you see a house

have that equate to a cell. The masons are certainly smaller individually than 
your house but by working together
they get the job done.

>  Our biochemical metabolism
> may have gone wrong enough that simply fixing apparent damage
> just temporarily heals the problem. But these are the same
> kinds of problems that current medical science must also deal
> with. Nanomedicine would transform them but not eliminate them.
>


I disagree. Consider the American hot rodder that takes an old broken Chevy V8 
engine and "blueprints it" back to

better than factory specs, better than because blueprinting implies following 
the instruction guide to exacting

standards not attempted on an assembly line--acheiving the engineer's designed 
goal, insert evolution here for

engineer. Once we blueprint the human body, cell by cell, eliminating all 
foriegn objects, how can there be any

process left that is misfiring? Simple logic dictates that by dealing with the 
human organism on a molecular

scale and perfecting it one cell at a time, though simultaneously surely, leaves
no possibility for disease to

remain. Now one may argue that our molecular tools may malfunction and cause 
diseases of their own but this

violates the logic by means of not meeting the criterion for cell by cell 
perfection. In other words, any disease

whether natural or nano caused necessarily means non cellular perfection. If 
cellular perfection is achieved then
there is no disease. It only remains then to keep the little buggers on task.

> Finally I will point out that at the level we're talking about,
> nanomachines will come to resemble biological entities much
> more than the machines we are used to (including computers) on
> a larger scale. I respect the effects of billions of years of
> evolution on the biochemical level. Not only that, but if you
> go small enough, you can even find wheels --- if you like wheels.
> I'm not claiming such devices would be identifical to those
> made by life forms, either. Just much more similar than a
> supershrunken computer.

And your point here is? Again, whatever works......

James
--
Cryonics Institute of Michigan Member!
The Immortalist Society Member!
The Society for Venturism Member!


MY WEBSITE: http://www.geocities.com/~davidpascal/swayze/ While there follow the
links to photos of me and some

of my artwork and a radio interview on Dr.  J's ChangeSurfer Radio program with 
me and the father of cryonics
Prof.  Robert Ettinger, author of "The Prospect of Immortality".
A RELIGION I actually recommend: http://www.venturist.org
A FAVORITE quote: Last lines of the first Star Trek the Next Generation movie.

Capt.  Picard: "What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived, 
after all Number One, we're only
mortal."
Will Ryker: "Speak for yourself captain, I intend to live forever!"

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