X-Message-Number: 13356
Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 15:58:24 -0500
From: gary tripp <>
Subject: Why Cryonics?

John Grigg in "trying to deal constructively with the reality of our
situation....." quotes Robert Bradbury in:

>Presumably there could be states
>that lie between complete reanimation (i.e. memories intact)
>and clean-slate reanimation (functional w/o memories).
>The question becomes, *what* could people do while they
>are still alive to assist your reanimated self to be "reborn".

>These have a wide range.  They include NMR scans of the neural
>activity of the brain -- e.g. Doctor says "Think about ice cream",
>scan, "Think about love", scan, "Think about snakes", scan, etc.
>These images of mental activity could provide "clues" as to how the
>nanobots should re-wire things (so your reanimated neural activity
>matches your pre-cryo activity).

An NMR "snapshot" is very coarse and because new connections are being
formed and strengthened/weakened continuously it would be a herculean
task to utilize any of these data for the purpose of inferring the 
missing elements of a connection map upon reanimation. 
Moreover, the average human state may consist of as much as 10^14 bits
whereas a NMR scan is pitifully inadequate even for the purpose of 
gleaning a cursory overview of brain structure.

There can be no substitute for research and that is why the PROMETHEUS
project must be "reaminiated". Time is running out and we cannot 
take the risk of vacillating in our efforts. Certainly, we should not be
deflected by illusory, self-comforting and soothing assurances; this would
be tantamount to a prescription for annihilation.

/gary

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