X-Message-Number: 7844 Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 23:09:46 -0500 From: Garret Smyth <> Subject: Timescale of cryonics & uploading Thomas Donaldson: "As for uploading yourself, I personally doubt that will become possible until some time after those frozen now have been revived." Joe Strout: "I find the prospect of repairing the brains and bodies of those now frozen to be much more daunting than copying their brains into artificial devices... ...So if you would kindly provide a bit more explanation and references, I would be much obliged." The question here is *how* are you going to copy brains into artificial devices? Learning is not simply a matter of whether there is a connection between one cell and another, but how easily the synapses are triggered. The threshhold changes with learning so affecting both "memory" and "processing" (in the Von Neumann architecture sense) are affected. To copy a brain in fine detail - and to upload a "person" as I'm sure even die hard uploaders will admit, will require a pretty high definition copy - would need a scan of the brain almost molecule by molecule. This would be so that ion gates and chemical receptors would not only be recorded numerically but also in terms of position. On top of this, current suspensions are pretty disruptive, so the scanning will have to be done on an even finer scale so that calculations can be made as to where things should have been. Okay, MRI might be able to do this scanning, but the knowledge needed to calulate what the information about fine brain structure means would need a knowledge of so much greater than we have know that it we'll probably need to have done a plethora of nano-scale experiments to get there. On top of this, gung ho neuro-patient that I am, I remain to be convinced that an uploaded copy of me would actually be me. Wimpy though you may think this point of view, you have to agree that my uploaded copy (version) would agree with me and so consider its ancestor cruelly murdered by the people that did the upload. So beware of angry robots that answer to my name seeking vengeance! TTFN Garret PS Sorry for the lack of references, but I don't think the information I drew on was too controversial (and its ages since I left University!) Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7844