X-Message-Number: 4716 From: (Anders Sandberg) Newsgroups: sci.cryonics Subject: Re: Rebooting a suspendee Date: 02 Aug 1995 16:29:35 GMT Message-ID: <> References: <> <3veele$> Brian Wowk wrote: > In <> (Anders Sandberg) writes: > > Solutions include: > > a) Selective blocking and unblocking of enzyme active > sites to inhibit unwanted reactions during the > rewarming phase. The problem is: with what? There are plenty of enzymes in a cell, and that would leave us with a lot of blockers lying around. I assume they will be controlled by the nanites (or extensions of them), but if we are going to need even small nanites for a significant percentage of the molecules in the cell, things will get rather heavy. I assume the nanites can be built not to interfere with normal cell function (and inside a cell they don't have to cope with the immune system). > b) Crosslinking everything in place until rewarming > is complete. (Leaving the crosslinks in place > after rewarming also gives the option of true room > temperature biostasis.) Fun idea. If you have crosslinked everything in place, you might even get rid of some of the water to reduce volume - dehydrated people! :-) More seriously, this has the same problem as binding enzymes; we need to get rid of a lot of chemicals and nanites without upsetting the cells too much. > c) Continuous repair and reversal of unwanted reactions > on the way back up. This have some other uses too, since repair at -130'C will probably be rather slow and is very limited by its heat emissions. Of course, once the situation turns dynamic the nanites have to be faster than entropy to reverse damage, which may prove both energy consuming and exceedingly complex. (Apropos RF heating, this could be supported by the nanites to equalize for different conductivities and densities by laying out antennas!) > To summarize: Taken in the context of the > difficultly of the overall repair problem, the rewarming > problem is TRIVIAL. This should be obvious after the > most modest amount of thought. I might be very stupid, but I don't see how it could be trivial. When doing general repairs at -130'C, the nanites have lots of time, they can survey an volume, calculkate the best responses, put everything in place and add nanites for "postprocessing". It is complex, but essentially an immense optimization task where you can spend an arbitrary time finding the best solution. But as the body heats up, a lot of things are going to happen at once, the nanites obviously have to react in some cases and make sure the damage is not impossible to repair at body temperature in many other cases, cell machinery is going to come online if it is not properly fixated and if it is fixed you have to remove the fixation gently enough not to cause any harm - this requires not only detailed knowledge of the biochemistry, but also how to control it dynamically. Hardly impossible to learn if you have nanotechnology, but repair seems simpler IMHO. > >This is of course yet another argument in my opinion > >for uploading - > > Aye, and there's the rub. I don't think you > gave this problem much thought because you simply saw > it as an opportunity to post some uploading propaganda. Actually not. I was genuinely interested in the question. > Forgive me, but after years of being told > that cryonics is obsolete and uninteresting because > we are going to have uploading *real soon now*, I'm > starting to develop a real disdain for uploaders. > > I do agree with you, though, that uploading (when > it becomes available) will mostly likely be done with > the brain in some kind of biostasis. This is of course > yet another argument in my opinion for cryonics. :) I think it is odd that there should exist animosity between uploaders and cryonicists, in my opinion the two areas are so interlinked they are hard to distinguish. To get uploading we need a biological know-how, computer power and technology not far from cryonics, and the knowledge gained from uploading research is obviously applicable to cryonics. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4716