X-Message-Number: 15401
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 06:00:39 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: on brains & cryonics openness

Hi again, once more:

I believe I made the matter very clear, but apparently I did not.

If we knew beforehand just exactly what a person would do in his (or
her) entire life, then we could indeed put together a picture of
this person which would use up a fixed set of connections (not
necessarily all N^2, but a fixed set). 

However we are not in such a situation when we consider the future 
of someone (including ourselves). The possible wirings still consist
of 2^N possibilities. This even remains true toward the end of our
lives, since unlike electrical systems, nerves change their connections.

The fact that at any instant we have a fixed number M of connections
means nothing at all in terms of either our future or our past. This
is especially so because our life does NOT consist solely of movements
and changes within our brain. Our life continually inputs data from
outside our brain, and without that input we'd basically go to sleep.

Would anyone who believes that N^2 connections would represent us
completely please explain? Part of our data input will always come
from outside us, and we won't be able to predict it. Just as with 
single-processor computers, we cannot represent all the possible
calculations one computer could perform without bringing in 2^N
possibilities. This remains true even though any single computer 
from its first use until its last would use N^2 (times a constant)
number of settings.

Second point, irrelevant to brains and computing but important
otherwise: Bob Ettinger put an important and interesting message on
the 21 Jan 2001 cryonet. I'd like him to give more information 
rather than simply refer to an internet site, and do so in the 
Immortalist also. Ideally this info should also be published in
scientific papers ... something which at least the Ukrainian lab
should be able to do. This would improve my sense of their silence
by orders of magnitude.

		Best wishes and long long life to all,

			Thomas Donaldson

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