X-Message-Number: 30242 From: Mark Plus <> Subject: Re: Prophets/resuscitation/oil Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 20:34:50 -0800 In Cryonet #30237, Mike Donahue writes, >I presume that should civilization continue we will develop a strong set of robust tools that will comprehensively make these resuscitations viable. Molecular scanning, Nanotech repairbots, quantum computers capable of the necessary calculations are all theoretically viable. Gross damages will be easier to calculate and restore than molecular level damages I would imagine using such computing power. I also suspect that by the time people are resuscitated it will be done only when these powerful tools are available. I don't have the citations handy, but I recall predictions during the height of enthusiasm for Eric Drexler's ideas in the 1985-1995 decade that we'd have nanotech assemblers and nanocomputers doing tangible work by now. Then some scientists with more relevant expertise in the nano-world like Nobel-prize winning chemist Richard Smalley looked at these proposals and found some fundamental scientific problems with them. The real work in "nanotechnology" today doesn't resemble Drexler's speculations that much, and he has become nearly persona non grata in the field. Recent pronouncements by cryonics organizations seem to want to distance cryonics from that '80's vision of nanotech, given its declining scientific reputation. >However, a labrat friend of mine claims that engineered microorganisms may repair such damage much more easily than nanobots, pointing out that organic chemistry already does or is capable of all of the work necessary for such repairs if it can be designed and directed to do so. He laughs at the nanotechnologists, saying, cells already do all of these things why are they trying to make machines to do these things cells are already doing perfectly well? Thomas Donaldson argued in favor of hacking biological systems to get them to perform medical repairs, for example, in his 1988 essay (20 years ago!), "24th Century Medicine": http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/24thcenturymedicine.html As for electric cars, the record suggests technological stagnation. Inventors like Thomas Edison started to work on them a hundred years ago, until the far superior power/mass ratio of gasoline burned in an internal combustion engine won the day. If we had to use electric cars for a century and then discovered bountiful petroleum today and invented engines to burn it, we would abandon electric cars in short order. People in the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's found way more petroleum in all kind of unexpectable places than the world's economy could have used for many decades. That hasn't happened for a long time now, but when it did, it came the closest we've ever gotten to science-fictional speculations about "free energy." For some historical perspective on how long ago people began to work on "alternatives" to petroleum, read "Peak Oil - Peak Technology": http://www.communitysolution.org/pdfs/NS4.pdf "There was a time before reason and science when my ancestors believed in all manner of nonsense." (Narim on "Stargate SG-1") Mark Plus _________________________________________________________________ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=30242