X-Message-Number: 32965
References: <>
From: Gerald Monroe <>
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 06:03:07 -0500
Subject: Re: CryoNet #32960 - #32964

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Well, to extend the analogy : this would be a world where lasers DID exist,
albeit weaker than synthetic ones.  Maybe in this world sharks really are
equipped with lasers to harm their prey.  After all, nanotechnology is real
: you and every other living thing has been built through flat out nanotech.
 Every atom of every part of every cell was precisely placed using molecular
manufacturing and convergent assembly.  All following a digital blueprint.
 Part of the problem IS religious : most people don't believe that blind
chance created these complex systems, and that we will someday be able to
duplicate and exceed their capabilities synthetically.

I've been reading nanosystems, and I do see what you mean by "physically
dubious assumptions".  Drexler fills the pages with math that is both
incredibly difficult to check, and numerous times he mentions exceptions to
the exceptions that he believes will result in a workable system.
 Nevertheless, it can be done - every living organism on the planet does it.
 Using some mechanism will be able to build a computer controlled system
that can create atomically precise structures and scan atomically precise
structures of a large size and complexity.  We already can do the scanning
extremely slowly, and nature already does the molecular assembly every
millisecond of every day.  Those of us in the "cult" would like to see that
age, even if it means undergoing a process that modern society sees as no
different than death.  I don't think anyone with an education who doesn't
have another agenda can deny the technology we will need to resurrect
cryonics patients will eventually exist : the only question is how long it
will take, and if the patients are still frozen that many decades or
centuries hence.

An assembly of a few thousand atomically precise gears and motors and rods
and pistons doesn't sound like sci fi.  Sure, it'll require tons of trial
and error to get designs that work at the nanoscale, and assembly of the
first prototype might be agonzingly slow.  But the whole point - the whole
reason that nanotechnology is attracts a cult following rather than the
fields of fusion or better chemistry or better batteries or better vaccines
or better computer chips - is that once you build the first working
assembler you can have it build more and with exponential growth nanotech
assemblers will be common and as cheap as dirt in a few months.  Nearly
every other science breakthrough typically results in a high cost product
that may not even be worth the incremental improvement over the previous
generation.

Also, nanotech promises to solve the main bottleneck that is stalling nearly
every other field of science.  The real reason we don't have flying cars is
because we DO have them - they are called helicopters and they cost millions
of dollars to produce a single quality aircraft.  We cannot replace bad
human organs with good replacements because we have no tools that work at
the level of cells, which requires atomically precise assembly.  The reason
we don't have artificial intelligence is because we cannot map the trillions
of synapses in a working human mind to see what it is doing in order to copy
it, because again there are too many synapses and they are too small.  We
don't have mass space travel for the same reason as well - the manufacturing
cost of a spacecraft is so high that it requires hundreds of human lifetimes
of labor to put a single astronaut in orbit.

Heck, the reason that people are dying in Africa is because the food and
medicine those people need isn't nearly free like it would be if you had an
effectively limitless supply of automated tools for manufacturing products.
 Ditto for why we don't have a defense system against a major nuclear
attack.

One final comment : the military and financial advantage of such a
technology is hard to overstate.  Effective molecular manufacturing is a
weapon more powerful than the hydrogen bomb.  In fact, a nation armed with
it and enough time to develop their infrastructure could probably build
enough defenses to neutralize enemy nuclear arsenals.  The United States has
such a defense - but each missile costs the government the lifetime work of
hundreds of people to manufacture.  A hermetic shield would need thousands
of these missiles, more than the economy can afford.  But if missile
components could be 'printed out' by automated equipment, with a separate
molecular manufacturing system making each individual missile thus creating
thousands of them in parallel, that capability could be reached in a matter
of months.

  A nation with self - replicating manufacturing tools could make drone
aircraft and missiles by the hundreds of thousands, maybe the millions.  So
I expect that once it is clear a self-replicating assembler can be built, we
will see global efforts comparable to the Manhattan project to make it
happen.  This could be a bad thing for cryonics, however - the technology
might be carefully controlled and restricted like nuclear secrets were,
and/or if a major war were to break out it could cause obvious consequences
as well.

Suppose someone published a description of the laser as a theoretical
> possibility in 1960, but nobody could build one despite all the
> impressive calculations and illustrations. What would we think of the
> laser idea if, 50 years later, we still didn't have lasers, but we had
> "laserololgists" who referred to the original text as something like
> scripture, wrote and talked about all the marvelous things they
> thought lasers could do if we could build them, held conferences on
> dealing with the social impact of lasers' arrival, warned the U.S. not
> to fall behind other countries' laser programs, solicited grants for
> more theoretical studies of "laserology," etc?
>
> A rational person who witnessed such a circus in 2010 would dismiss
> lasers as a fantasy and an exercise in rent-seeking, most likely.
> One, Babbage's machine would probably work because its design doesn't
> make physically dubious assumptions.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_engine
>
> Two, Babbage's ideas didn't lead to a cult movement in the 19th
> Century which wasted decades of other people's lives speculating about
> the miracles his invention would bring about. Instead the technically
> inclined people in the 19th Century directed their efforts towards
> more immediately practical things like railroads, applied chemistry
> and telegraphy. (I wonder how many "nanotechnologists" also consider
> themselves economically sophisticated, yet don't see their own
> diseconomic behavior?)
>
> Three, what about comparing nanotechnology to more apposite cases
> where the original conceptions led to new technologies quickly?
>
>

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