X-Message-Number: 25130 Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 08:23:41 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #25121 - #25129 For Yvan Bozzonetti: You're being a bit unfair to RBR, even though I'd agree he's mistaken on other points. The problem with reviving someone who has decayed into a pulp comes from the fact that all this someone's brain, once complex with many kinds of molecules, now has a much more limited number of molecules. And within quantum mechanice we can't label atomic particles (electrons, neutrons, protons) so that there's no way to recover the former molecules, much less their former locations with respect to one another. So things do look grim for someone who's decayed for a week. I'll point out, though, that there's still a fuzzy area. Recently on Cryonet I pointed out some scientific work on neurons which suggests that someday we might be able to revive brains after 3 full hours at room temperature. As for Uploading I pointed out megatons of practical problems in actually doing so. The simplest such problem is that we don't work at all like present computers. Moreover even to make a computer (or probably very many computers) which together imitate a human brain raises lots of design problems, forgetting for a moment the philosophical ones: put very briefly, our biological hardware doesn't act like computer hardware, either. Uploading may someday become possible, but if you choose to base your life on that possibility, expect your demise before it comes. And I mean this even considering nanotechnology (or perhaps we should say biochemistry) and any other "modern" scientific wonder you might latch upon. Best wishes and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25130