X-Message-Number: 5261
From:  (Brian Wowk)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: Mind Uploading -> No revival of cryonics patients
Date: 25 Nov 95 19:39:04 GMT
Message-ID: <>

References: <46q9ef$> <> 
<> <> <>

In <>  (Brad Templeton) writes:

>In article <>, Brian Wowk <> wrote:
>>	I believe that it is a mistake to think that cryonics patients
>>are going to be revived because the world at large cares.  I also

>That is *exactly* my point.   However, there is some probability that
>cryo-revival nano could be developed by cryonicists, but I think it's
>pretty slim, and I think it's ridiculous to think you're sure that crynonicsts
>can develop cryo-revival nano unless the rest of society does 98% of the
>work by developing general medical nanotechnology, and cryonicists take
>it the last 2% to apply this to revival.

	It seems to me, Brad, that you are trying to play both sides
of the fence.  On the one hand you having been saying that society
is going change so fundamentally that everyone is going to upload
into cyberspace and disappear (losing all interest in developing
medical technologies to repair ancient 20th-century-style bodies). 
On the other hand, you are saying that in this society of hyperadvanced
computer technology (million minds on a desk?), subgroups of people
will remain forever confined to trivial pursuits (as they apparently
are today).

	I think there is a problem here.
The problem is that our very perception of what is audacious vs.
trivial is *defined* by the technological milleu in which we live.
Biomedical nanotech appears today like a man-on-the-moon (x100)
megaproject that will require major world effort over decades to
develop.  And indeed, as long we retain our biological bodies,
that is exactly how it will come about.  But what if everyone does
"upload" before biomedical nanotech is developed?  Does this mean
that biomedical nanotech development will still, and forever more, always
require 50% of (ever-increasing!) world economic output?  Nonsense!

	Even today I solve problems on my desktop that would have
tied up the entire mathematical/scientific establishment of the 19th
Century for decades.  Unfortunately (for my prestige:) these problems
now fall into a class of problems that at the end 20th Century      
are regarded as trivial.  So it will be with biomedical nanotech
at the end of 22nd Century (in the unlikely event that it's not
created sooner).  With increasing knowledge and information 
processing power, ANY finite task will eventually require an 
arbitrarily small amount of effort (compared to the total available)
if you wait long enough.

----Brian Wowk


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