X-Message-Number: 25025
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 07:15:51 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #25013 - #25022

Hi everyone!

Although I got them and read them, Cryonets #25010-25012 disappeared.
Perhaps I erased them by mistake. 

For Doug Skrecky: Your references are interesting in the abstract, 
but I hope that you realize just how far the survival of single
cells lies from the survival of a whole person. The most immediate
experiment suggested by your references (for immortalists) would
be to see if ascorbyl-2-O-phosphate prolongs the lifespan of fruit
flies, then mice. Fruit flies you should be able to do; you know my
arguments about the importance of life prolongation tests on healthy
mammals.

And to RBR (Richard ???), some comments:
And now we come to SOULS: the very first thing I will say here is that
I will propose various experiments which in serious practical terms 
look quite impossible or very difficult to do. I do this more to 
clarify your idea of soul rather than as a simple criticism; however
I do think that you need to be much more explicit in your definition
than you have so far been.

The very first thing I'd say about your brain and my brain is that
just like our bodies the molecules making up our brains go through
constant turnover. In that sense neither of us retains the same 
brain for very long. So just what must be preserved given this
constant change? (If we were computers, such turnover would not
happen. One of many faults to the computer metaphor for our brains).

Moreover, only programs and data can be moved about in a computer
and from one computer to another. Our memories (ie. both data 
and programs, in the faulty computer metaphor) and personality
consist of the connectivity of our neurons. This means that if I
were to be uploaded into another brain, the connections between
neurons and even the exact number of neurons (and of course their
physical locations) would have to change. In that sense, what you
say about how our "soul" is inextricably attached to our brains
comes close to what I would say.

However, there is a problem. OK, so we are physical beings, and
with many different levels of construction: our individual cells,
their connectivity with one another together with their behavior
as individual neurons, and the general features of the circuitry
which result, can all (at least conceptually) be reproduced.

So what is it about a "soul" that makes it irreproducible? After
all, we can (conceptually only) reproduce your brain completely.
Yes, not totally: the atoms and molecules will be different, and
given very little time afterwards even if we put all the atoms
and molecules in the same places in your reproduced brain, they
will start to move differently. Moreover, if anyone tries to 
claim that the molecules and atoms must be the same as those
of your brain (ie. not just like them but the very same ones)
then with turnover your brain will cease to remain your brain
and your soul will cease to remain your soul. So our souls must
somehow continue to exist despite turnover of the molecules
making them up.... which essentially means that they ought to 
be reproducible.

               Best wishes and long long life for all,

                    Thomas Donaldson

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