X-Message-Number: 4451
From: Brian Wowk <>
Date: Thu, 25 May 1995 15:38:05 -0500
Subject: Uploading

Yvan Bozzonetti <> writes:

>There is now a Cryonet rule against uploading : It is not the place to 
>write about that subject. As a french citizen living in a country where law 
>prohibits good conservation, uploading is the only possible issue. After 
>many hours of ischemic room temperature "conservation", information may be 
>recovered, on the other side,, nanotechnological repair is impossible. So, 
>now I know I'll not sign up until there is a cryonics organization working 
>firmly on the upload subject.

        Bob Ettinger just reported his Ukrainian researchers are getting
electrical activity back from brain slices at -90'C.  (This does 
not merely replicate Suda's work-- it exceeds it by far.)  
Greg Fahy has apparently recently obtained electron micrographs that
show untrastructure in brains frozen to -196'C that are indistinguishable
from controls.  A non-toxic vitrification protocol now exists for
kidneys, and may soon be applicable to brains.  We are now closer
than ever before to PERFECT brain preservation (preservation requiring
NO repair at all), and the resources required to reach this stage
have been TRIVIAL by conventional medical research standards, and
NON-EXISTENT by physics research standards.

        Now you are saying that because you live in a country where
prompt cryopreservation is not possible, you want to spend millions
(probably billions) of dollars over many decades to develop a 
technology for uploading instead of cryopreservation.  You then
further criticize US cryonics organizations for not abandoning
their research and following the same plan.  Is this logical?  
Why do you believe that European authorities will allow you
to detonate a thermonuclear x-ray laser near the head of a sick
person when they won't even allow you to freeze their dead body?

        If you want to really increase your life expectancy, the
most logical thing you could do is move to the US (which should be
no problem for a bright physicist like you).  If you want 
to increase your life expectancy in France, you should promote
cryonics in Europe, and build a local rescue capability.  With
enough effort, there is no law that cannot be overturned,
circumvented, re-interpreted, or if necessary ignored to acheive 
your objectives.

>Potential US users are not in a better place : Blind nano repair with 
>billions nano robots is no better than any religious faith. Any real scheme 
>would start with an upload of the full body (not simply the brain) in a 
>computer-like system to define a repair strategy, identify the problems and 
>direct apropriate nanosystems at the rigth place. 

        This is absurd!  Nature already grows whole bodies starting
from a single cell without "full body uploads" or billions of mechanical
nano robots.  The brain cells of cryonics patients are in many cases
so close to natural viability that purely biological (diffusion-driven)
healing approaches may be sufficient for revival (especially once
the cracking problem is elimated).

        In-situ nanorepair will always be possible, even for patients
who are severely injured.  If you have a technology that is adequate
for reading out, and reproducing in some form elsewhere, the
molecular information of a person's brain (i.e. uploading) then 
you also implicity have the capability to "reproduce" the new
brain at the same location and using the same raw material as the
old brain.

        Yvan, if you persist in your obsession with uploading instead
of making cryonics arrangments, this is what will happen: You will
one day get sick, lose all energy and motivation, die, be buried
or cremated, and the information you so desperately want to upload
will be lost forever.  This is as certain as the Earth's rotation
on its axis.

---Brian Wowk


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