X-Message-Number: 24905 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 09:29:55 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #24897 - #24902 And More on Biological Brains Hi everyone! A relatively minor matter: on Friday 22 October I completed the next PERIASTRON by mailing it out to subscribers and a few others to whom I've sent a copy, primarily for their help. It has one major typo: it is really Vol 7, No. 9, not Vol 7, No 8. After all my proofreading, I forgot to look at the top header. As for "biological" brains: the first point I would make is that we're still far from understanding how our brains work in the first place. Without such understanding, notions of improvements become speculations alone. If we don't preserve the memory of most things which happen to us, we're likely doing so for a good reason (why bother? for instance). As for "biological", it doesn't look to me that any version of a brain which successfully produces a consciousness and memory like ours won't have major features which we associate with biology: growth, and the ability to change neural connections among them. Without those features you're not going to get a brain which works at all like ours, and certainly not one into which you could transfer yourself. And NOTE: I did NOT say that such features must be implemented by biological means, simply that they were features that needed implementation. But I'd add that however it were done, any device/creature/person with those two features would LOOK quite biological. For many issues now, PERIASTRON has concentrated on advances in our understanding of how brains work. I don't really care if you subscribe to PERIASTRON when you make statements about how we might change our brains; however it is one way to learn about this issue in the detail needed for intelligent speculation. (I'd very much like to discuss vitrification in more detail too, but published sources are rare, especially compared to work on memories, consciousness etc). Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24905