X-Message-Number: 7885
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #7871 - #7882
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 22:03:37 -0800 (PST)

Hi guys!

Time for Uploading Chapter 3 (or is it 4?):

One major problem with any emulation by a DIGITAL computer, no matter how 
large, fast, small, etc etc is simply the chaos problem that I discussing in
my last posting. NO astronomer would claim that the Solar System is digital:
that is why we must spend so much effort to compute out its past for even
10 million years. I doubt very much that our brains are any more digital 
than the Solar System, and would say that they are very probably far less
so. If no good emulation can be created in the first place, the consciousness
problem for an emulation is moot.

However I'm not surprised that this point is not the end of the discussion.
In the very first place, we want a simulated Mike Perry to live in the REAL
(not simulated) world. We do this because it is the real world which produces
surprises and changes which we cannot imagine. Any world we created would
inherit our own limited ideas. So the simulated Mike Perry must live in the
real world, and therefore have eyes, finger, tongue, ears, hair, genitals,
hands, legs, ... the whole bit. All of these need not be constructed as our
own versions are constructed, but they must be there --- otherwise the
simulated Mike Perry is just sitting in a box doing nothing.

And here is where our simulation must become EXTREMELY good. All kinds of 
things can happen to this simulated Mike Perry. Painful things, wonderful
things, none of which the programmer of the simulation imagined beforehand.
It would be impossible for any person or any machine to do that imagination,
simply because reality is so multiformed and does not conform to our 
anticipations. All of the ways in which the real Mike Perry interacts with
the world and with other people would somehow have to be simulated in the
simulated Mike Perry. That's hardly an easy problem. Look at just one of
the simulated Mike Perry's simulated neurons (and remember that neurons 
are NOT just simple computer chips, you'd need a lot of memory and processing
power just to simulate one neuron at all well). What if Mike Perry gets
drunk (knowing Mike, that seems unlikely --- and I try not to get drunk
either: still, once I was in Japan and did not know just how much alcohol
was in the sake I was drinking, and learned how much when I fell into a 
ditch and had to be hauled out). His simulated neurons must deal with this
new and unexpected event.

The fundamental problem here is that we are trying to simulate a nondigital
creature with a digital creature. If we made actually running "neurons",
even more advanced ones than our own, they really could react to unexpected
events in a real way. Any digital simulation will ultimately have a limited
number of possible perceptions, actions, and abilities.... and so when 
something comes which it's designers had not imagined, poof! I am not a 
computer program. I am a collection of neurons, connected to one another
in various ways (quite complex, too, but you have the same property). It's
not that the simulated Mike Perry cannot have simulated feelings too, it's
that all those feelings will ultimately be limited. Because of the way 
my brain is put together, I am not a clockwork toy. Even if my reactions
aren't appropriate, I am put together to react to the real world --- and
so far as reality is bigger than any of us (or our machines) it will give
me an infinite character that no clockwork toy, no matter how complex, 
can every match. And as for awareness, consciousness, etc, simulated 
awareness does not match the real thing.

About embalming and uploading:

First, I dislike Nanotechnology, but have no objection to nanotechnology.
We capitalize God, and those who capitalize nanotechnology unwittingly
tell us something of how they feel about it.
 
There do seem to be serious problems in reading out enough information
nondestructively, NOW. If Mr. Coetzee has not noticed, we need to suspend
people NOW. Sure, I think we can someday deal with that issue, but if
Mr Coetzee or anyone else wants to wait until we can, he can just forget
about being suspended or preserved in any way at all. We are all suffering
from a disease which causes our immune systems to go bad, our body to
break down, and our brains to fall to pieces. This disease is called
aging. And we need something we can do NOW. 

I show my optimism by arranging for my cryonic suspension, not by
dreaming up other means by which I could theoretically be preserved.

As for formalin or any other such fixative, first of all it does not solve
one essential problem of cryonics. You cannot expect to be revived by 
some third party, say as a game. You must somehow ensure that however
you are preserved, you will be kept as well as possible from danger and
destruction, and ideally know that people are actually working on ways to
revive you. You need some kind of institution. This is a constant regardless
of the details of how you are preserved, and ultimately those details
may change a great deal.

Furthermore, even at this early date we know a great deal more about what
freezing in cryoprotectant does to your cells than we know about what formalin
does. If Doug Skrecky or others were to first do all the work required to
fully characterize the changes to preserved cells caused by formalin ---
and most important, show that no destruction of any information relating
to memory occurs --- and then present their results, they might get more
of a hearing. This issue about embalming has arisen often for the last
20 years, yet no one has tried to do more than make it a theory rather
than a set of facts and experiments. 

Among other points, I note that people who preserve tissue
with formalin do so to cut it into slices and look at it in a microscope;
it's very easy to get formalin to every cell of the brain if you do that.
After all, if you find areas lacking formalin when you cut the brain
into slices, you can just dunk them in more formalin. Enough injections
will certainly deal with the problem. But then where did the idea that
this would free our brains from damage go? And for that matter, just what
does this formalin do to the chemicals of our brains, IN DETAIL?

I would actually say that we preserve much more by freezing. That is 
fundamental. And if Doug or others study freezing in detail, they will
at least see why I say that. The chemicals will be preserved. Almost all
the cell structure will be preserved, with large pieces of it in working
order. Yes, we cannot preserve enough (right now) for us to revive 
someone, but any look at what happens should convince anyone that we
still preserve a great deal --- and thus make the repair problem much
easier. Sure, I can imagine (given that no critical chemicals have been 
destroyed by reactions with formalin) how we might revive someone who has
been (well-enough) embalmed. That's not the point. We want to make the 
job of revival AS EASY AS WE CAN.

			Long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson


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