X-Message-Number: 12110 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: more on nanotechnology and my opinions, for Bob Ettinger Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 23:28:13 +1000 (EST) Some comments for Bob Ettinger: First of all, I am NOT deprecating smaller and faster computers. I'd be glad if by whatever means we can get such computers, and have done a good deal of programming etc myself. (Specialty: parallel computing). What I am saying is that such computers will not by themselves take us 1 micron closer to improved cryonic suspensions or means to revive people from cryonic suspension. WE'LL have to be the ones to do that. Second, I was making a statement about US Federal funding and nanotechnology. I do not see how you can disagree that such funding will not automatically bring us means for revival from cryonic suspensions. Again, WE'LL have to make that step... unless, as I said, cryonics became a far more politically powerful movement than it is now. I will also add to what I was saying. There are other nanotechnologies than those advocated by Drexler and Merkle. To do repair it is not at all necessary (though it would certainly be convenient) to have computers which fit well inside a human cell. Lots of different roads to repair exist, all of them using some kind of nanotechnology. It will be very interesting to see how this issue works out in reality as distinct from the forecasts of some Nanotechnologists. Just what variety of nanotechnology might be needed for repair will depend not only on what is available but also what we learn about the precise damage one kind of suspension method applied to a patient will cause. In some cases we may discover that the patient had been destroyed by his/her suspension. In others we may find that comparatively small modifications to the abilities of the neurons and glial cells will allow repair to proceed almost by itself. And lots of other cases are likely to exist. I will not continue in this vein, not because I cannot but because it would take more time than I now have. I will, however, point out that brain repair will probably involve repair of neurons with axons that can extend for centimeters and more; this means that NO purely local method of repair will work. If we have nanosized repair machines, then they must also have means to communicate with one another. It's not that local repair is useless, but that the targets of one particular axon are likely to be important, and we'll have to trace that axon to come anywhere near to finding its targets. Locally there is likely to be very little evidence of just which cut end among several must be linked with which other cut end. (Yes, we can do some things by working out just which neurochemicals the axon was carrying, but that may not be enough at all). Best and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12110