X-Message-Number: 7411
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #7396 - #7403
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 1997 23:50:27 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!

1. To Bob Ettinger, in support of his comments, I will add that I own a very
   interesting history of the early days of flight. Lots of common ideas about
   what happened are false: for instance, Lilienthal was doing experiments,
   ultimately aimed at heavier than air flight but not intended to solve that
   problem as such, but more to understand it better.

   And guess what?!!! It turns out that the early (ie. end of 19th Century,
   beginning of this century) students of flight did pay close attention to
   birds. But they were more sophisticated than many might think: the notion
   that we might fly with flapping wings had become clearly out of the 
   question by about 1850. What students of flight were doing was looking at
   the flight of ALBATROSSES, which spend a lot of their time gliding, and
   which are also among the largest flying birds. They were interested in
   the shape of the albatross wings, to work out just how wings for flight
   should be shaped. And that turned out to be a useful piece of information.

   Not only that, but even though many seem to forget, we are working now
   with nanotechnology. We call it biotechnology, and anyone who reads a book
   about cell physiology and biochemistry will be very interested at all the
   things working on that scale. There is a great deal the nanotechnologists
   might learn if they looked closely at the working of living cells of all
   the many kinds there are. As for myself, I decided that repair would be
   someday possible not from reading Drexler but years beforehand, reading
   about biochemistry and possible biotechnologies --- some of which are 
   coming to fruition right now.

2. One added feature of head-only storage is safety. It saved the life of
   Dora Kent, quite literally. Heads can be moved about, concealed, and
   preserved much more easily than whole bodies. When TransTime moved its
   facility, it had to map out its route carefully on roads that were not
   highways, and do the moving very late at night and early in the morning.
   A dewar big enough for several heads can fit in the trunk of a car.
   We may yet see this become important again.

   Yes, the financial issues mix with safety also. The idea behind your
   suspension fund is that your money is invested to pay for your storage.
   We have no reason to believe that there is ANY investment which is totally
   safe, and on top of that, even with the best intentions mistakes can 
   happen. If you can afford a whole body but choose to be suspended as a
   head, then your suspension fund will withstand losses that a smaller fund
   could not.

   As for providing bodies, I will point out that right now there is lots
   of work aimed at understanding growth and development: the other side
   of genetics, how it happens that our genes somehow produce us, rather
   than a rhinoceros. This involves many questions with answers still to be
   found, and therefore doesn't get nearly the publicity of the latest
   genetic discoveries. But in technology it will mean that we should 
   someday know how to grow new limbs, and not long after new bodies on
   heads. (I will add that however repair is done, you will probably be
   unconscious while it happens, and wake up with a body even better than
   your previous one).

			Happy New Year and
				long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson


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