X-Message-Number: 5913
From:  (H Keith Henson)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics,sci.life-extension,uk.legal
Subject: Re: Virtue of suffering
Date: 11 Mar 1996 04:21:34 GMT
Message-ID: <4i09oe$>
References: <> <>

John Sharman () wrote:
: In article <>
:             "Keith Henson" writes:

: > John Sharman () wrote:
: > : In article <>
: > :             "Keith Henson" writes:


: [..]

: I have snipped all of this lengthy exchange except for the bit which, I
: feel, touches on the point which will decide whether or not cryonics
: ever gets to the starting line in the race for dominance among competing
: technologies.

John, dominance amoung *what* "competing technologies"?  Cremation?

: [..]

: > : > best estimates for getting to a nanotech based technology is in the
: > : > few decades range.  
: > 
: > : "A few decades"? Whose "best estimate" is that? How many weeks do you
: > : allow for us to find (a) a treatment and (b) an immunisation and (c) a
: > : cure for HIV?
: > 
: > Given mature nanotechnology, you have it right, weeks.

: Am I right in taking it that all the cryonicists accept that a "mature
: nanotechnology" is a requirement sine qua non for revival? 

No, even if you don't count that cryonicist disagree on *many* things.
However, a higher percentage of them would agree that it is likely to
be required for the ones suspended or "cryopreserved" in the early 
versions of the methods, or for those with a lot of damage.  There
is a possibility that fully reversible cryonic suspension of humans
can be done without any application of nanotechnology.  However, I
personally am rather skeptical.
                                                            And that that
: expression has a meaning independent of cryonics (i.e. "mature
: nanotechnology is not simply defined as "such technology as will permit
: the revival of deepfrozen corpses")?

No again.  Mature nanotechnology has meaning *way* beyond such minor
uses as reviving cryonics patients.  It means having virtually complete
control over the placement of atoms in everything people make.

: If that is right, what grounds have you for assuming that it will ever
: be available at affordable rates. Someone pointed out a while back in a
: related thread that the alchemists' goal of transmutation is now
: available but is hopelessly uneconomical. Capability and viability are
: not the same thing. Just what proportion of GNP do you see being pumped
: into the development of nanotechnology in order to "make it happen"?
: -- 
Good points!  A lot of sharp people have looked deeply into this
subject.  I can go into the energy and material budgets for nano-
machines (both modest) but the more significant factor is the
capital for the manufacturing machines, the time required for a 
factory to make its own mass of machines, and the cost of the
design.

No matter how expensive the design is, if you spread it over 
enough units, the cost gets close to zero.  For mechanical
things, smaller is faster.  That is why smaller bugs make higher
pitched sounds.  When you get down to placing atoms the ops
per second get up the millions.  Now, the reproduction time
for a whole nanotech factory to duplicate itself looks to be
in the tens of minutes to few hours range.  This is within
the range we see for bacteria, so we do have a natural example.

There is not a clear limit on how inexpensive nano machines
might get, but again, we do have natural examples.  Firewood,
which in complexity exceeds *any* manufactured product, costs 
about 10 cents/Kg.

To use a more familliar example take digital watches.  10
years before the first one was made, a national budget 
could not have bought one.  Ten years after they came on 
the market an hour at minimum wage would buy one.

If this sounds too good to be true, I can appreciate the
feeling.  It took me a long time to adjust to this view of
the future, but it has a sound base, requiring no new
science, only a heck of a lot of engineering.  

I talked today to Dr. Merkle, one of the researchers in the
field (he works for Xerox).  His best guess is that at least
$5M a year is being spent on stuff directly related to the
core of molecular design leading to nanotechnology, with a
doubling time of under 2 years.  (IBM and NASA are other 
players here, a *lot* of work is going on in Japan.)  
If it continues, that will result in a level of $100M a 
year in a decade.  This is a serious busines--Dr. Merkle
will be featured next month in Scientific American.  One
of the main reason why relatively small amount of money
accomplishes so much is that you don't need vast facilities
for this research, and it is leveraging off of the advances
in comnputers.  (Much of the work is computation intensive.)

Keith Henson


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