X-Message-Number: 8400
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #8384 - #8390
Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 13:20:38 -0700 (PDT)

Hi again!

Some comments on answers to Marty. (And I hope he follows through with his
present desire to join a cryonics society, stated in one of his latter
messages).

As many have said, our long term memories are not stored electrically. The
best current ideas for how such storage works is that it involves changes
in the connectivity of our neurons, including (possibly) changes in 
the individual synapses which mediate that connectivity. LTP, though it 
may be a means for somewhat longer-term storage, is unlikely to be the
means for storage of real long term memories. For one thing, most research
on LTP looks at our hippocampus, which is actually a very small part of 
our brain, unlikely to hold all our memories. What it can do, of course, is
allow much slower processes needed for real long term storage to take 
place --- after which it vanishes.

Second, even if we decide on uploading (to what? no current computer would
satisfy the requirements, and simple computing power is unlikely to be enough) 
we are likely to need much more understanding and technology to read out
memories from our brain. Some forms of nanotechnology may be needed to do
this, biological or other. Since our brain organization is not that of a 
computer, readout will require entirely new technologies based on how brains
work rather than how computers work. Understanding of how brains work, and
nanotechnology in any form, are NOT opposites. 

In PERIASTRON I have followed work on both memory and consciousness for 
years now, specifically because both are important for us as cryonicists. I
have no doubt that we will come to understand both quite well, but presently
we do not. Our understanding of memory has just started to gell; our
understanding of consciousness (as seen in how our brains work) is much
less firm. Naturally we'll need both: none of us want to be "revived"
if that revival does not include an accurate sense that we are the same
person (whatever same may mean!) as we were when we were suspended.

For some computer people reading this, I will add that no amount of good
theories of how cognition and feeling take place, and simulations in 
computers of each, will substitute for an understanding of how our brains
actually work. Sure, they may in some sense work according to these theories,
but we're unlikely to be able to do much with those theories until we
understand in great detail how actual brains behave at the cellular level.
Even if we decide on uploading, we must still understand how our brains
work, not just in theory but by actual knowledge of real brains.

			Long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

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