X-Message-Number: 25092
From: 
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 16:04:25 EST
Subject: survival--freezing and philosophy

Richard B.R. wrote in part:
Freezing does not 
appear to preserve any neural circuits at all,

This is not correct. There is lots of evidence of freeze-hardiness of 
synapses. Also, the Sixties work of Suda, Kito, and Adachi showed fairly good 

corticograms after prolonged storage of cat brains at the unfavorable 
temperature of 
- 20 C, as well as not hopeless ones at lower temperatures. Also, Audrey 

Smith's work with hamsters, half the water in the brain changed temporarily to 
ice, 
resulted in normal behavior after rewarming. Also, Dr. Pichugin did some work 
for CI with rabbit brain pieces, showing coordinated electrical activity in 
networks of neurons after rewarming from liquid nitrogen temperature. 

As for the survival question, the short answer is that it remains open, and 
anyone who thinks he knows the answer is kidding himself. We don't yet know 

enough about either physics or biology--about the nature of time and space, and
about the anatomy and physiology of qualia.

My forthcoming book will have a lot more on this, but a short version of my 
tentative suggestion is that there is no "qualia experiencer" and this term is 
not even meaningful. (Cf. the homunculus problem.) Put another way, the 

experience and the experiencer are the same. The qualia are not attached to the
person, but constitute the essential person. A quale has extension in time and 

space, and therefore overlaps its predecessors and successors, and this is what
gives (possible) validity to our concern for the future and attachment to the 
past. 

Robert Ettinger


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