X-Message-Number: 3810
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 1995 20:08:27 -0800
From: John K Clark <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Uploading

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 (Thomas Donaldson) Wrote:

	      >We live in a universe which operates at particular speed for
	      >particular  parts of it. Even if it were possible to have a     
	      >computer run a person,  it's necessary that the computer run 
	      >in real time . 
	       
I don't know what "real time" means in this context . The time
frame of a biological human brain does not occupy a preferred
position in the universe. The world operates at all levels from
pico seconds to billions of years, all equally valid.  Nature
built our brain  to solve problems, the time frame is irrelevant. 
If we can solve problems in one time frame we can solve them in 
another, Scientists do it every day.
		
	      >at least as fast as the biological person. 
	      
Well, not much chance of an upload running slower, speed is not
biology's strong point, it took it 4 billion years to come up
with us. Nerve impulses in the brain might reach 100 meters per
second if the axons have a thick myelin sheath around them, the
low bandwidth chemical signals that some think are so wonderful
are far ,far slower. Light moves at 300,000,000 meters per
second and the artificial neurons of the first upload would be
much smaller than natural ones, further increasing the speed 
advantage.

Speaking of long range chemical messages sent by neurons, that
would be one of the easier things for an upload to duplicate.
The information content in each molecular message must be tiny,
just a few bits , since it relies on diffusion it's not aimed at
any one particular neuron and it's slow as molasses . If your job
is delivering packages and all the packages are very small, your 
boss doesn't care who you give them to as long as it's in the
same zip code and you have gobs and gobs of time to do it in, 
then you don't have a very difficult profession. 
		   
	      >It would be good for those who insist on talking about
	      >uploading to first specify IN DETAIL just what they aim to be   
	      >uploaded into.
	     
I think your asking for a bit too much , if I could explain how
the uploading process would work IN DETAIL we could do it right
now and I certainly never claimed that. I will say that if we
understood the logical structure of the brain we could upload
into a computer of any architecture ,if it was big enough. We
could also rewrite it to get rid of natures bloated code, bugs,
inefficiencies and kludges.
	   
Understanding how the brain works at that level would not be
easy, so the first upload would probably use the artificial
neuron approach I talked about several posts ago. The beauty of
it is that you don't need to understand how the brain works, you
don't need to understand it's architecture, you just blindly
follow nature and replace natural neurons with artificial ones
that are much smaller and work a billion times faster .
	   
			      John K Clark             

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