X-Message-Number: 7341
Subject: Re: My Senior Paper - Cryonics - Input requested (quick!)
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 15:28:14 -0600
From: Will Dye <>

Brian Wowk writes: 

> can anyone guess how to turn hamburger back into 
> a cow with existing technology?

Well, I suppose you could mix the hamburger into the 
feed of another cow, and thus recycle many of the 
original atoms.  You could also produce (through 
various techniques) a cow that has much or most of 
the original cow's DNA, thus preserving an important 
pattern that was in the original cow's atoms.  

Analysis of the hamburger could lead to several 
clues about the original cow's diet, lifestyle, 
stress levels, heirarchy in the herd, etc., which 
could be replicated with varying precision in the 
new cow(s), thus preserving a few other patterns 
that were in the original cow.  A little more 
detective work might track down where the original 
cow lived, thus providing many more opportunities 
to make the new cow(s) more like the original.  

Since none of this reconstructs stuff like memories 
of the original cow's torrid romance by the north 
feedlot last winter, I suppose that all these 
techniques would be little more than a consolation 
prize.  But at least it shows that there's a lot 
of information that's still in a hamburger, and 
some original atoms, to boot.  

Since there doesn't seem to be any single little 
bit that definitively defines an individual, then 
it seems plausible that _every_ little bit would 
be of at least some importance in reconstructing 
someone.  Emphasis, I believe, should be put on 
the bits that were historically stable, including 
historically stable patterns of changes.  

Bottom line: future "reconstruction specialists" 
will be more than fellows who talk about how to 
guess where the ice crystal pushed the atom.  
There will also be a lot of old-fashioned gumshoe 
detective work.  Every little bit counts.  

--Will


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