X-Message-Number: 24507
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 10:34:49 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: For Yvan Bozzonetti (and others unnamed)

For Yvan Bozzonetti!

I've written on the relations between cryonics and nanotechnology
for some time; as you might guess, what I have to say is unpopular
among those who've welded their heart to nanotechnology.

Even a molecular scale map of our brain, if we get it, won't help us
rescue anyone. First, our brain molecules move around constantly, so
we'll need to understand how bigger & less labile structures normally
attach to one another. One thing freezing is likely to do is to
tear the connections between nerves. I am talking here about
structures which are 1000 times the nano size. So we'll need to
work out ways to put this broken brain back together again.
I will add that understanding such connections will very likely
involve us in understanding various molecules involved: for
instance, the fact that a dendrite belonged to one neuron instead
of another may show up in the chemistry of the neuron and the
dendrite. We could use nanotech to help us understand that
chemistry, but so long as we work it out somehow we're ok.

Moreover, a molecular map of a healthy brain will be unlikely to
tell us enough to repair a broken brain. Just like a jigsaw,
only with the addition that the different pieces, rather than parts of
a picture, contain different molecules to mark them and which should
help us fit them together. We still have to know what goes with what.
One problem here comes from the fact that each piece is unlikely
to distinguish itself so much that there will be only one candidate
to which it will fit: EVERYTHING we can learn about the jigsaw
puzzle will become important.

Yes, we would very likely to use some form of nanotech to map out
this jigsaw puzzle of a broken brain. All that information would
then go into a powerful computer to work out as well as possible
how it all fit together when that brain was NOT broken. Actually
fitting the pieces together again will require movements on a 
scale of micrometers, not nanometers (a single device able to
work out what happened within nanometers of itself would not
work alone here, even if we used millions of them). All that
data would need to be COMBINED. 

Fundamentally, the injury due to freezing does not occur on a 
nanometer scale. It is not CHEMICAL injury but more like 
mechanical injury on a micrometer scale. And because our memories
differ, knowing in general what a healthy brain looks like won't
tell us much about how to put together a broken one.

In any case, if we can vitrify rather than freeze our brains, all that
mechanical injury due to freezing simply won't exist, and we won't
need either the computer or the devices to tell us what the pieces 
are and where they lie. Vitrification avoids this problem entirely.

               Best wishes and long long life for all,

                      Thomas Donaldson

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24507