X-Message-Number: 4379
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #4338 - #4350
Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 10:18:44 -0700 (PDT)

Hi!

To Mr. Clark:
If you only want to store yourself so that you can be revived after destructive
events, you need only the simplest kind of computer: one with LOTS of memory.
Just how much memory depends, of course, on what there is about yourself that
you consider essential, and on how far down in the hierarchy of neural parts
you wish to go ie. atoms? molecules (remember lots of biochemicals are quite
large, with many conformations)? explicit memories? etc etc. This hypothetical
computer requires only the processing ability necessary to receive you in 
coded form and store you.

I had thought that "uploading" involved much more elaborate computing: some
variety of computer which would not only accept you but actually give you the
sense of being awake and conscious, and a similar or greater control over the
outside world than that you have now. 

To Keith Lynch:
Do salamanders lose their memory? THAT experiment hasn't been performed. And
it would be very interesting to see the result. The closest experiment to 
that one was one in which parts of a frog brain were transplanted into a
salamander. In that case, the salamander became very confused in tryng to
behave like a frog.

The question lying behind such experiments is this: we may store our memory
in the connectivity of our neurons. HOWEVER since connectivity changes even
with simple time, are there ADDITIONAL ways in which we store our memory
or is connectivity the only one? If connectivity is the only storage method,
then loss of connectivity ==> loss of memory. If not, not. As you can guess,
that is a crucial question when we consider the current methods for cryonic
suspension. And if connectivity is the only store, then vitrification may get
one more vote: it's apparently less likely to cause that kind of disruption.

I also don't mean here to exclude external ways of inferring connectivity
after it has been broken. And perhaps (if salamanders do NOT lose their 
memory after this kind of brain disruption) that is exactly what their 
healing process does. Whether our brains could do the same is another 
question, but on the optimistic side current work on brain repair tends to
suggest that we cannot repair our brains because of chemical changes which
actively prevent regrowth, rather than because of a lack of information.
(But this is only a suggestion, not a truth).

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson
. 


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