X-Message-Number: 4450 From: (Thomas Donaldson) Subject: Re: CryoNet #4442 - #4448 Date: Thu, 25 May 1995 11:40:28 -0700 (PDT) To Ivan Bozzonetti: It's not at all clear that uploading will be needed for cryonic suspension. In the first place, the notion of uploading the position and shape of every molecule was stated by Ralph Merkle as something which could be done, not as something which would be necessary. In the second place, even though we don't yet have a full handle on it, the purpose of cryonic suspension is to preserve the ESSENTIAL features of our brain. Many cell structures can be destroyed without even touching those essential features, which include such things as memory and consciousness. (For instance, mitochondria are unlikely to play a role in memory preservation at LN temperatures). The main feature of our brains which must be preserved is their small-scale connectivity. Right now there is some dispute about this on cryonet, but it does give us a goal way short of total uploading. Vitrification, which some cryonicists are working on, will probably preserve this brain feature very well. It is still unknown to what degree we can preserve that connectivity without vitrification. Restoring it may require a good deal of AI to do the detective work required (for instance, synapses stick together while the actual connections may not. We may be able to work out just which neurons a given neuron attached to be looking at other chemicals involved: there are as many as 150 different types of neuron in our brain, and each one will have its own chemical signature). If you insist on uploading, you may as well give up. It's very unlikely that uploading at the scale required will become available within your lifespan ... unless, that it, we all learn how to increase our natural lifespan a good deal before then. Not only that, but current proposals for uploading (you might read Merkle's stuff) involve the total destruction of the brain in the course of working out its small-scale structure. This is not a procedure you could apply to yourself before suspension. Finally, as I hope you understand by now, most people who make arrangements for suspension do so not in the belief that they will certainly be revived but from the belief that their chance of revival is a great deal better with cryonics than with any other method. And it IS quite arrogant of anyone living now to make solid claims about what future medical science can or cannot do. Long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4450