X-Message-Number: 17002 Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 22:37:17 -0700 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Cloning and Coming Back Olaf Henny, #16995, writes >While I believe, that there is a point in preserving recordings, >photos etc. in order to augment a memory, which might be left >"spotty" after revival, I see no benefit in keeping such records, >when only the DNA is preserved. If the purpose is to create a >clone, or several, of myself, then preserving genetic material may >be of some use. However the preserved recordings and photos will >do little to integrate themselves into the consciousness of a >clone, growing up in an entirely different environment than the >original, beyond being interesting historic information. The recordings and photos won't just "integrate themselves." *But* have you considered the possibility of not just creating a clone, a tabula rasa, and have it learn something from records as it grows up, but instead creating a *programmed* clone, that *starts off* with information derived from records and suitably encoded in its memory structure? There is also no reason why the new individual would start as a baby. Instead, nanotechnology should make it possible to create a fully formed and *in*formed adult, right at the start. Now granted, the reconstructed memories might be a bit skewed or pushed around, amplified or shrunken, from what would have been obtained from a good cryopreservation. Still it might be good enough to qualify as more-or-less the original person, even by hard-nosed critics (those who, at least, are willing to be lenient on the issue of original material). The reconstruction, if done properly, should produce an individual in no identity-critical way distinguishable from the original either by him/herself or others. That would follow just on informational grounds, if you assume that information is the deciding factor, as I do. So you'd be doing something right, and maybe it would be enough, depending on how you look at "enough." Mike Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17002