X-Message-Number: 8913 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: Re: CryoNet #8897 - #8902 Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 22:00:14 -0800 (PST) Hi again! Since the topic was raised, I will chime in. It's clear that fixing many cryonics patients (at least those suspended up to now) will require some kind of nanotechnology. I see no way in which it would not. But that (unfortunately) isn't the end of the question, and Nanotechnologists (not the capitals) seem to consistent fail to realize that, at least in public. We also need to know that the information required to fix your brain is still there in some form and decodable. No one can sensibly claim that nanotechnology could fix someone who had been cremated. On the other hand, with Prometheus there is now an attempt to at least be able to preserve undamaged brains (ie. brains which require no special technology to fix) and possibly undamaged bodies too (which would mean that aside from the fact that you're totally old and run down, have no immune system to speak of, have muscles so weak that you need a cane to walk across the room, and suffer from the mental deterioration which eventually comes on us all (different from Alzheimer's, thank heavens, but still there) --- despite such problems, you could be brought back in about the same condition as when you were suspended). In other words, somewhere between cremated and perfected suspended animation there will lie one or more lines where the information required to make YOU becomes lost. It may be lost all at once, or it may be fuzzily lost, but it is lost. And once lost, no technology on the horizon can restore it. THAT is the problem which advocates of Nanotechnology in cryonics fail to address, the missing clause in their syllogism. And for anyone interested, that's why I personally have been so interested in what we know about memory and consciousness and how our brains work (cf any issue of PERIASTRON). After all, nanotechnology of any kind is just a technology. It will have limits just like any other technology: things can always go wrong, and no matter what materials we make our devices of, there will be environments which prevent them from working. Yes, I do have doubts about some kinds of proposed nanotechnology. Perhaps I am wrong in those doubts. Primarily I think that issues in the design of nanodevices cannot be settled by Pure Thought, no matter how much computing and Pure Thought you put into it. It's like writing a complex program: once I finish writing it out (assuming I do it all in one go, which isn't the best strategy if there is any way to avoid it) I read it once or twice and then decide it's done? No way. It's then time to debug it and find all the problems I missed and forgot about when I wrote it out. And making a computer simulation, no matter how involved, doesn't count as debugging -- you have to make a REAL DEVICE and show that it works. (Yes, there are uses for simulations, but this is not one. I am sure that my assertion here will be questioned, but I'll leave further discussion on this issue to when that happens). But fundamentally I don't really care what nanotechnology revives me so long as I am revived. If the nanodevices which do so have been made of mouse feces, that will not matter. I just want it to happen as soon as possible. And right now, Prometheus (or whatever it is ultimately called) looks to me to be the leading contender for achieving the research we need. Best and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8913