X-Message-Number: 5754
From: Marshall Rice <>
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics,sci.life-extension,uk.legal
Subject: Re: Death (was Donaldson MR and Miss Hindley)
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 96 12:17:24 GMT
Message-ID: <>
References: <> <>

In article <>
            "John de Rivaz" writes:

> I wonder if Marshall Rice would like to tell us what he thinks would be a 
> critera for there to be no longer any possibility of recovering the 
> information required. 
> 
> Or maybe he hasn't considered this point, having just focussed on restoring 
> the original body. It is facinating to see how we can focus on one aspect 
> of a discussion and miss other possibilities.

The criterion is the ONSET of tissue death which, in the case of the human 
brain, usually occurs about three minutes after disruption of the blood 
supply.

Let me draw an analogy. Imagine a shelf of books. Imagine that you began 
tearing out the pages and throwing them on the floor, then tearing the pages 
into individual sentences, then the sentences into words and finally the words
into letters. At the same time, imagine that someone was recombining fragments
in different order to the original, which you again tore up.

At what point could you say that the information in the books could never be
recovered? You could not say precisely, but you could be pretty certain that
that point would be passed, probably by the time the first few pages were
torn up and certainly by the time a few sentences had been recombined.

Imagine, then, the process taking place simultaneously with all of the books 
in a library containing more volumes than there are atoms in the solar system 
(as there are potential neural pathways in the human brain)...... 

Dream on!

-- 
Marshall Rice


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