X-Message-Number: 21258
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 00:06:37 +0100
From: Henri Kluytmans <>
Subject: Artificial MNT replacements

Thomas Donaldson wrote :

>My central problem deals with their present ABSENCE. If you, 
>or Freitas, or Drexler actually makes a respirocyte 

But isn't this a rather strange demand, you knew from the 
start of this debate that we were talking about devices 
that should be theoretically possible. That we cannot make 
them yet is therefore not a valid objection. You will have to 
give a valid scientific argument against the possibility of 
these devices or the possibility of MNT technology.

But I wonder, why is Mr Donaldson a cryonist ? 

Because in cryonics too, a working demonstration is still absent!

The respirocytes are just an example of a detailed exploratory design 
of a device that can theoretically be produced with a technology that 
should be scientifically possible. And what I want to make clear is 
that it looks that they should be able to do much better than current 
biological devices.

Thomas Donaldson doubts the use of these MNT produced artificial red 
blood cell replacements. And I have my doubts too! But because of different 
reasons. In stead of replacing separate functions of the human 
body with better performing artificial replacements, why not replace the 
whole body at once. With advanced technology like MNT we could transfer 
the brain to a much better completely robotic body. And I don't mean 
a robotic body like the Borg in the Star Trek series, but an artificial 
body just as intricate as a biological one. And if wanted, this 
artificial body could be made to look indistinguishable from a natural 
biological body at the outside. 

In short, IMO the whole biological body will become outdated.

But why not just take the last step too, (and as Mr. Donaldson suggested,)
improve our thinking abilities, by replacing the brain with an artificial 
one. Exploratory designs of MNT produced computing devices seem to indicate 
an improvement of many orders of magnitude over "biological computing
devices". 

Probably Mr Donaldson will object against comparing the brain to a 
"computing device". Therefore I shall rephrase that last sentence into : 
MNT artificial neural networks should be able to perform thousands, maybe 
millions of times faster than comparable biological neural networks.

However if we could make a brain based on MNT artificial neural 
networks it will be able to run much too fast for interacting 
with real world in an acceptable way. In the real world everything 
will seem to be working much too slow, and it will be too boring to 
have to wait all the time for physical actions to unfold. (Unless, 
you slow your brain back down to current speed.) So for fast artificial 
brains we can expect the preferred environment to "interact" in, will 
be a virtual reality. 

However, it would be more efficient to do without a virtual reality 
all together, but that would require a redesign of the human brain 
at higher levels. Individuals that decide to redesign their brains 
into more efficient one's that don't need VR and should be able to 
outcompete the other ones. And I must say, I'm a little afraid about 
this last step too...

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