X-Message-Number: 13320 From: Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 11:53:11 +1000 Subject: Molecular Nanotechnology BITES BACK!!!!! So the fashion has come about that it is cool to bash Nanotechnology. It is much more believeable that we just need U$10 million and we will have reversible Cryonics within 10 years - yeah sure!!! If everyone wants to sit and play nodding dog with the "authorities" on this then that is their business but I am still going to stick with what I believe in and defend it. I am not going to fall for the Religion claims since it clearly works both ways. I am not against research in Cryonic suspensions but I am against the representation of this being something that will result in anything other than small incremental improvements in quality of suspensions. The idea that we will have reversible suspensions in the next 10 to 15 years if only some money (U$10 to U$20 Million) were to be thrown at the problem is not any more valid than the arguments for Nanotechnology. I have seen researchers using any way they can think of to get funding and I am not biting unless I personally feel the goals and objectives are realistic and actually achievable all the while being worth while. I am not claiming any sort of Nanotechnology in the next 10 to 15 years like some, I would be surprised to see something worthwhile in 60 years and more realistically see it as 100 to 200 years away from achieving the level required to do a reversal of an existing suspended patient. By this time, I think most existing projections made now will be pretty much meaningless. The only things that are valid will be the absolute laws of science and even these are occasionally subject to revision. Irreversible loss of information may occur at present but there is no way to confirm or deny this. To look at micrographs and see a scrambled result and then run around like a headless chicken panicking is not constructive and certainly a VERY long way from conclusive. We do not know if this will be reversible - certainly todays "authorities" believe it will be difficult and most seem to believe it impossible. That does not mean that they are correct - it is just subjective opinion. They cannot claim the high ground UNLESS they can PROVE INDISPUTABLY that they are correct. I have seen way too many examples of supposed absolutes in science washed away by real facts. Two examples related to human physiology come to mind, the existence of bacteria in the stomach of humans was considered impossible and anyone suggesting otherwise was ridiculed - now we regularly cure stomach ulcers with antibiotics. New research has also overturned the belief that no new cells grow in the human brain after maturity - this was another non disputable that so called "authorities" were touting and G_d forbid anyone suggest otherwise. Yes there is a lot of quack medicine out there but truth seems to concentrate somewhere in the middle ground. The scientists are not always right and neither are the quacks but somewhere in the middle you will find a lot of answers. The best way to know where to look is to think for yourself and only take others opinions at face value and use them towards forming your OWN opinion. Another issue that has been bothering me is the idea that a person will be warmed up and then nanotechnology will get to work. This has never been an assumption of mine, why take the body out of the liquid nitrogen when it is in a completely stable state and when nanomachines are likely to work better (even optimally) in such an environment. Repairs can be completed and time will not be the issue, if computing power or repairs take a bit longer, no problem because there is no hurry this body isn't going anywhere. Nanomachines can even put in place protection mechanisms to help protect the body during warming which can also be done more quickly and uniformly with the help of nanotech. Further comments below. Regards Chris Benatar -------- Message #13301 Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 11:30:35 -0500 (EST) From: Charles Platt <> Subject: Quick Reply to Steve Jackson Steve Jackson is a very reasonable guy, and he's right that I may have overstated my feelings in response to the "Don't worry, be happy" *I certainly think you did! In the interest of uniformity, I will return the same. Extropian mindset. The trouble is, Steve, one feels a bit desperate after a while. If this were the first or even the tenth time I had seen someone proclaim with a voice of authority that "nanotechnology will take care of it," I'm sure I would reply in a very calm and measured manner. If the *Perhaps the persistence of such attitudes should tell you something after all an open scientific mind should be interested in finding the cause of this persistence nanotechnology true-believers would show any familiarity with the evidence which is easily available in the form of photographs of damaged brain tissue, and would concoct some kind of explanation as to the processes by which such tissue might be reconstructed, I would be placated. (I refer interested parties to Photo 8, for instance, at **This is where you start to become unrealistic, so you want someone to devise a technique for returning the tissue in the micrographs to their original state. Hang on ten minutes and I'll post it!!!! It is not argued that this can be done today OR that the techniques to achieve this are presently known. It will take years of research and probably hundreds of billions of dollars (if not more) to get near to such a technique, but you want someone to post it to this list!!! It is likely to be extremely complex and involve a large number of disciplines working together. It is a worn and tatty old phrase but "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" but many very reasonable people have drawn the conclusion that there is a finite and possibly even reasonable possibility of nanotechnology being up to the job. You may not have any evidence of nanotech being able to fix this but you also don't have evidence that new protocols and perfusates are going to do any better than those already discovered or for that matter that they will eventually lead to reversible suspension without nanotech. http://www.jps.net/cryonics/21cm/p3.htm --the web site maintained by the American Cryonics Society.) Note that while nanotechnology assumes progress in the ability to build very small devices, it does not, so far as I am aware, assume a very high level of onboard computing power in these devices; *According to my interpretation of Drexlers books, we should see onboard computing considerably more than todays average desktop. This is not unreasonable considering that computing power goes up the smaller the component sizes are. and while remote computing power presumably will be very powerful indeed, it will be forced to communicate with the assemblers via relatively low-bandwidth connections. Therefore, the *Just to make sure that the point is not missed, the remote computing power will most likely be unimaginable to most people involved in computers today - the further into the future you go, the more incredible it gets. *As for the issue of relatively low bandwidth, please explain where you come to this conclusion, bandwidth has been going up with computing power. What makes you think this will change? Even if bandwidth is not all you would want, 100 bytes of data transferred to another computer, processed through 100 pentillion iterations and returned as 200 bytes of data does not require high bandwidth. Expand this to meet the realistic situation of a suspension repair and you can see that the bandwidth will not be the issue. nanotechnologists should be able to provide some ideas about reconstruction techniques right now. I have never seen ANY serious attempt in this direction, beyond vague statements that are not much different from, "The knee bone's connected to the thigh bone, and that's what it's all about." Of course we do have Ralph Merkle's rather wonderful paper describing total disassembly and reassembly of the brain, but even he admits that this would entail some formidable challenges; and even here there is no attempt to discuss, for instance, the algorithms that will guide 3D construction work. So far as I am aware, such algorithms do not exist. *See ** above At the Institute for Robotics at Carnegie Mellon, Hans Moravec--for whom I have immense respect--is still working on the relatively simple problem of getting a robot to roll around a house cluttered with everyday objects. Since Hans now feels that really significant onboard computer power is needed to accomplish this basic task without error (which is the functional equivalent of a single assembler moving through the body without actually doing anything), I would be very interested to learn how the assembler is supposed to recognize and reconnected randomly scattered biological fragments, using less onboard computing power than our current desktop systems. There is a serious credibility gap, here. *A robot today that is remotely controlled by a human can do everything the human wants it to do and will get by just fine with a typical desktop computers power. The same can be applied to the nanomachines, they can have semi autonomous systems that interact with and external computing source that does the fine tuning control of the machine. The nanomachine also exists in a very different environment that may be more flexible towards a less intelligent nanomachine. Consequently, when I read breezy assurances that nanotechnology will save us if we get a "halfway decent suspension," which in turn is presented as a fait-accompli; and when the writer shows little if any awareness of the daily problems associated with maintaining a cryonics organization and its capabilities using volunteer labor...well, I get a bit impatient. *You seem to get impatient a lot...that is not a virtue. People are entitled to their belief and if you are going to insist that everyone volunteer their time and money and become actively involved in Cryonics in order to sign up, there will be very slow growth in numbers. Most people don't spend more than a minimalist amount of time related to their death - and now you are saying join Cryonics and save yourself, think about your death every day, confront your nightmares, put your life on hold and tackle cryonics....be actively involved. I think it is reasonable to assume that some people may prefer to just sign up and forget. In fact I would say that 99% of the population feel this way and you trying to force them to become actively involved is only going to dissuade them from cryonics all together. And getting back to Steve's letter, I don't see any virtue in suffering. I just feel that the people who pay annual dues and assume they have bought a ticket to the future are fooling themselves--and anyone else who is naive enough to believe them. *If I did not believe in the possibility of a nanotech revival I would have NO!!! interest in Cryonics until such time as a suspension had been reversed and since I think it unlikely to happen in my lifetime (I'm 34) I would drop the idea. Now if only you can convince me, you can get rid of me from the cryonics scene:). --Charles Platt ------- Message #13313 Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 12:34:06 +0000 From: Joshua Kane <> Subject: Nanotech You know what? I'm sick of nanotechnology being a buzzword in cryonics. *It is a buzzword for good reason, instead of fighting it, try finding out more about it, truely understanding it better and then you might see a reason why existing Cryonics is very likely a waste of time without it. Yes, maybe it can repair the freezing damage, but medical science has saved people who have fallen in below-freezing water. *Do some more research, these people did not freeze, it makes a huge difference, their core body temperatures were well above freezing. I'm sure it could also save brains that have been frozen in liquid nitrogen. *It does not come close - you are clearly new to the field, you need to do more research before you try knock nanotech. Even CP will disagree with you on this one. We must not wait until nanotechnology is developed. We must try to do it without nanotechnology first! *We should not consider only one approach, but we should try to get a bigger group signed up as this can help increase the chance of government and private industry funding. And another thing. Scientists seem to be forgetting to do what they always do when there is a new medical branch: Try it on mice and rats first! *Mice and Rats are sometimes used but they are not a perfect match and this is the reason that human trials are usually required by the FDA before a new drug is released. ------ Message #13314 From: Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 19:49:54 EST Subject: expert opinion We keep hearing that we should pay attention to the gloomsters who understand the details-the nature and degree of freezing and other damage to cryonics patients, and the obstacles to repairing that damage. Pay attention, yes. But accept their conclusions? Once more-enough is never enough in this area-we remind all concerned about the frequent failures of the best and brightest in their deprecatory roles. (Borrowed from Michael Murphy.) *I completely agree with you here, we have to think for ourselves if we are to find the truth. In 1943 someone said, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Guess who it was? Some ignoramus? It was Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM. In 1949 someone said, "We have reached the limits of what is possible with computers." Guess who? John von Neumann, one of the greatest mathematicians of the century. In 1981 someone said, "640,000 bytes of memory ought to be enough for anybody." Guess who. Bill Gates, no less. Don't let any majority vote you into the grave. And if any "experts" allow as how freezing is a waste of money and effort, get another opinion. Yours. *YEAH YEAH!!!!! Thank You! Robert Ettinger Cryonics Institute Immortalist Society http://www.cryonics.org ------ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=13320