X-Message-Number: 8913
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #8897 - #8902
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 22:00:14 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!

Since the topic was raised, I will chime in. It's clear that fixing many 
cryonics patients (at least those suspended up to now) will require some kind
of nanotechnology. I see no way in which it would not.

But that (unfortunately) isn't the end of the question, and Nanotechnologists
(not the capitals) seem to consistent fail to realize that, at least in 
public. We also need to know that the information required to fix your
brain is still there in some form and decodable. No one can sensibly claim
that nanotechnology could fix someone who had been cremated. On the other
hand, with Prometheus there is now an attempt to at least be able to preserve
undamaged brains (ie. brains which require no special technology to fix) and
possibly undamaged bodies too (which would mean that aside from the fact that
you're totally old and run down, have no immune system to speak of, have
muscles so weak that you need a cane to walk across the room, and suffer
from the mental deterioration which eventually comes on us all (different
from Alzheimer's, thank heavens, but still there) --- despite such problems,
you could be brought back in about the same condition as when you were
suspended).

In other words, somewhere between cremated and perfected suspended animation
there will lie one or more lines where the information required to make
YOU becomes lost. It may be lost all at once, or it may be fuzzily lost,
but it is lost. And once lost, no technology on the horizon can restore
it. THAT is the problem which advocates of Nanotechnology in cryonics 
fail to address, the missing clause in their syllogism. And for anyone
interested, that's why I personally have been so interested in what we
know about memory and consciousness and how our brains work (cf any issue
of PERIASTRON). 

After all, nanotechnology of any kind is just a technology. It will have 
limits just like any other technology: things can always go wrong, and no 
matter what materials we make our devices of, there will be environments
which prevent them from working.

Yes, I do have doubts about some kinds of proposed nanotechnology. Perhaps
I am wrong in those doubts. Primarily I think that issues in the design
of nanodevices cannot be settled by Pure Thought, no matter how much 
computing and Pure Thought you put into it. It's like writing a complex
program: once I finish writing it out (assuming I do it all in one go,
which isn't the best strategy if there is any way to avoid it) I read
it once or twice and then decide it's done? No way. It's then time to
debug it and find all the problems I missed and forgot about when I wrote
it out. And making a computer simulation, no matter how involved, doesn't
count as debugging -- you have to make a REAL DEVICE and show that it 
works. (Yes, there are uses for simulations, but this is not one. I am
sure that my assertion here will be questioned, but I'll leave further
discussion on this issue to when that happens). 

But fundamentally I don't really care what nanotechnology revives me so
long as I am revived. If the nanodevices which do so have been made of
mouse feces, that will not matter. I just want it to happen as soon as
possible. And right now, Prometheus (or whatever it is ultimately called)
looks to me to be the leading contender for achieving the research we
need.

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

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