X-Message-Number: 7867
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #7857 - #7861
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 10:20:44 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!

This is Chapter 2 about uploading and cryonics, in case anyone wonders.

The first point to keep in mind about real cryonics is that patients are frozen
in all kinds of conditions. They may be frozen without cryoprotectant, because
we got to them too late. They may also be frozen with the very best techniques
available, because the suspension team was set up by their bedside and ready
to go when they were pronounced. Not only that, but right now the different
cryonics societies (primarily Alcor, CryoCare, and the Cryonics Institute,
not necessarily in that order) have been working on better means of suspension.
The first two strongly favor vitrification, and there is a very good chance
that vitrification can be accomplished in just a few years. (That is what
Wakfer's PROMETHEUS is about, and why he feels strongly about this issue.
It would be absurd if we fail to do this work and allow ourselves --- OURSELVES
--- not to be suspended by the best methods.

Among its other features, vitrification completely changes the problem of
revival. There are no more cracks, no more damage to cell membranes, etc
which might make revival a difficult problem. We may find some chemical 
damage occurring on the way up or the way down in temperature, and it may not
turn out to be easy. I expect a lot of thought will have to go into finding
the very best way for vitrification. 21st Century Medicine has funding now
to look into cryoprotectants for just that reason.

However, it does change the problem. A lot. It should become relatively
easy to revive a vitrified brain, among other points. No issue of uploading
versus repair need ever arise. Sure, we'll have to provide our neuropatients
with new bodies but we can keep them in storage until we solve that problem.
I've said frequently that I think it can be best solved by developing means
to get the heads (while unconscious) to grow new bodies, and that I don't
think this will require megatons of new knowledge: "just" an understanding 
of growth and development, and how to control it.

Does this end the issue of uploading versus repair? Not at all. The problem
of those who are NOT found or suspended in time for vitrification to work
on them will certainly remain. Sure, parts of that problem can be solved
very soon: Hara Ra is working on a system which will call your cryonics
society if you stop moving for any reason (just electronics and sensors,
available off the shelf). But this issue will remain.

Do I want to claim that IN ALL CASES repair will arrive earlier than means
to upload someone into a computer? No. It would be foolish to do so, 
considering the range of possibilities. I do believe, though, that for
those suspended even today, for whom their suspension went reasonably well,
repair will be a better choice. Uploading raises lots of problems which
its proponents have given no sign of confronting. One of the worst problems
is that most ideas to do so are destructive and can be done once only ---
which means that whatever is done must be done to a very high level of
perfection. And right now we have lots of errors etc in our computer
programs and our machine design --- which of course we try to solve before
we use them, and if we've already started to use them solve them as soon
as we can. But considering the amount of information involved, the likelihood
of error increases.

And the other problem I mentioned still stands: we're not going to be able to 
upload brains until we understand much better just how brains work. And that
understanding will bring with it a much better understanding (and tools, too)
of how to repair damaged brains.

Finally, about nondestructive reading of a brain (for John K Clark): The
problem is to read out the brain at the proper scale. You need to be able to
see every individual neuron, and the synapses on it, plus the chemicals 
involved. The neurons should not show up just as points, they should be
large enough to show distribution of synapses and distribution of nerve
transmitter chemicals (and possibly receptors, too). This is much more than
just a picture of our brains. While we can use X-rays to look at pieces of
brain (thin pieces, sliced off) this will become a destructive readout.

That is why I suggested what is basically a nanotechnological method for
readout. 

And finally, about modelling brains:

This is an amplification of my ideas, I agree with what Arkady said in his
shorter message.

First of all, a model or simulation is not the same as the thing itself, no
matter how good it may be. What we want to make is something which works
like a brain, not just something which seems to work like a brain. Yes, I
am sure I may get some disagreement here, but I do not expect a simulation
of me to be any more conscious than a photograph of me. 

And for this the computing power simply is not an issue. The main issue I
see is that of making devices which work like neurons --- not in a 
superficial way (we can do that now) but completely, not only in terms of
all the different nerve transmitters and their receptors but in terms of
an ability to grow and change. One major feature of neurons is just that
they do change their connections and even their shape over time. If we
had chips for our computers which did this, we would open our computers
to find them slowly moving about and changing their connections.  

I note
that a very large and fast computer, with lots of memory, might simulate
this to some degree (see comments above), but unlike real neurons there
would be limits on just how much movement and change these computed
neurons might have (and remember, we've got lots of neurons). Even for
just a simulation, you would find yourself programming in all kinds of
tricks to save memory, and ultimately you'd still run up against 
memory limits. That would still be a simulation, too, not the real
thing. One major design and programming problem here is simply that even
though your neurons don't adopt every possible set of connections and
conformation, you must somehow make it possible for them to do so. And
connections, in particular, may be added, the number does not stay constant:
not only that, but where and to what and the chemistry of the added connection
are likely to be important.

For simple animals which never learn very much I think this could be done.
For human beings I doubt it, simply because of the number of neurons we
have.

I'll also add that I see no physical reason why devices which do behave
like neurons cannot be built, and thus why brains cannot be built. But they
would not be computer chips. Perhaps they will be built, if only to produce
robots much more like those in science fiction, capable of acting and 
perceiving like human beings. 


			Long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson


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