X-Message-Number: 32304
From: "Jordan Sparks" <>
References: <>
Subject: Futility of cryopreservation?
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 09:58:55 -0800

No, electrical activity is definitely not needed.  This is well accepted
neuroscience.

"We know that secondary memory does not depend on continued activity of the
nervous system, because the brain can be totally inactivated by cooling, by
general anesthesia, by hypoxia, by ischemia, or by any method, and yet
secondary memories that have been previously stored are still retained when
the brain becomes active once again. Therefore, secondary memory must result
from some actual alterations of the synapses, either physical or chemical."
- Page 658, Textbook of Medical Physiology by Arthur C. Guyton (W.B.
Saunders Company, Philadelphia, 1986).

So you are mistaken.  This is THE most basic principle supporting the
science of cryonics, that the information in the mind is stored in the
physical arrangement of the neurons.

Jordan Sparks

-----Original Message-----

Message #32298
Subject: Futility of cryopreservation or chemical fixation?
Date: Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:37:34 -0500
From: 

I even fail to see how the electrical activity in the brain could be
preserved by either freezing it after it has ceased such activity, or taking
a snapshot of it similarly afterwards.  I may be mistaken but in the back of
my head is something about such ongoing electrical activity being what
preserves "memories" and such, as long as they exist.

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