X-Message-Number: 5607
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 01:28:05 GMT
From: Garret Smyth <>
Subject: Saving DNA (only)

> Dwight G. Jones:

> Eventually all of 
> our tissues must be replaced, brain and all. Since that is the case, 
> what is the ESSENTIAL difference between successful cryonic rebuilding 
> and regeneration from DNA seed? What is it about today's memories that 
> we MUST them to deem ourselves successful in this venture?

We know that the atoms that make us up are replaced over a regular period, but
they are not just shoved in higgledy-piggledy. Our *tissues* are the same, even
though the building block that make them up are changed. Water flows along a
river, but we still know which river it is from day to day (the river I live
by was written about by the Romans, and they are relative newcomers).

Memories remain even if the matter in our brains gets replaced. That is the 
point of recording what is in our brains. [I've mentioned before that
downloading, despite the amount of bytes it gets here hasn't yet reached a 
practical level, so let's leave it out, for the moment.] Recreating clones
really wouldn't be "ourselves" in any mental self.

If you just wish to get your genes into the future you are not any further
along than any other creature futher along than amoebae. Cloning is unsure,

high tech (and the tech isn't invented yet), probably expensive, and is probably
illegal (in the UK anyway, under the Human Embryo Act - which is amusing, since
cryonics wasn't touched, and the government *does* know about it). If you 
really have the urge to pass on your genes the cheapest, easiest, most legal,
and most fun way is the old fashioned one. Close friends of mine who have done
it, even the male ones, tell me it can be "fulfilling", whatever the hell that
means!

TTFN

Garret

-- 
Garret Smyth

Phone:  0181 789 1045 or +44 181 789 1045


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