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!" Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=20970