X-Message-Number: 799 Date: Mon, 4 May 92 11:25:48 PDT From: uunet!parallax!eric (Eric Messick) Subject: Re: cryonics: #796 -- Brain Scan Question > David S. Stodolsky writes: > For instance, there has been discussion of the frozen brain being > pulverized, but the position of each fragment carefully recorded for later use. My personal scenario goes something like this: The patient's head remains stored at liquid nitrogen temprature. It is placed inside a scanner that contains a thin sheet of nano-machines which slowly passes through the frozen head. Each machine has an arm protruding from both sides of the sheet. On the leading edge, the arm is capable of removing and identifying individual atoms, molecules, or subsets of molecules. These it passes through the sheet, where they are reassembled by the other arm. Information about the type, position, orientation, and bonding of the molecules is transmitted to the edges of the sheet, and recorded. The reassembled head serves as the ultimate backup, but may not be required if there is sufficient confidence in the process. At this point, computer analysis reverses the freezing damage, and produces a neural map of the original brain. (We wave our hands violently at this point, as this is certainly not an easy problem.) A brain simulator is initialized with this neural map, and a reasonable neuro-chemical environment. The simulator is started inside a virtual reality representing a present-day hospital room, giving the patient a chance to recover in familiar surroundings. The patient is then informed of the available choices in bodies/uploads, etc, and can then be transfered into the latest in body fashion. -- eric messick uunet!parallax!eric Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=799