X-Message-Number: 9145
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 09:14:53 -0800
From: "Joseph J. Strout" <>
Subject: Re: Cryonet #9113 (uploading)

[I sent this out last Thursday, but it never appeared on Cryonet, so I'm
sending it again...]

In Message #9113, Thomas Donaldson <> writes:

>To Dr. Strout:
>What do you mean by uploading? Into what? With what machinery/devices/biotech?

First, it's "Mr." Strout, please, or simply "Joe" (we're all friends here).
I'm working on the "Dr.", but haven't gotten it yet -- I don't want anyone
to be deceived about my official qualifications.

As to what I mean: I mean the configuration of an artificial device into
something functionally equivalent to your brain.  This would require
microtechnology (i.e. microelectromechanical systems) for handling the
tissue, and high-resolution scanner technology such as EM or perhaps some
proximal probe microscopy to recover the relevant data.  But it would not
require nanotechnology (IMHO).

>If it is possible to recover the information specifying ME (or you), then
>why should it remain impossible to recover, repair, or recreate us as we were?
>We will have our DNA, and the ability to regrow whole bodies or brains.

I can easily believe regrowing a body, or a new brain, but to regrow a
brain in exactly the same configuration as a previous one -- this is a
stretch.  It's *extremely* far-fetched to suppose you can grow a brain with
a specified synaptic pattern, where "grow" implies standard developmental
processes (chemotaxis, etc.).  That leaves constructing a brain, bit by
bit.  But when the bits are proteins and lipids and enzymes (oh my!),
well... this is not a trivial construction job.  It would seem to require
full-scale Nanotech, capable of holding squishy substances in place atom by
atom as new layers are added, and finally (somehow!) removing your
scaffolding and starting the whole thing up before it collapses into jelly
or otherwise dies.

I'm sure it's not impossible, but to me, it seems clear that it requires a
much more advanced technology than simply building an artificial device out
of whatever materials are most convenient for the job.

>Certainly you may wish to argue that we can be improved (somehow) by uploading
>rather than restoration.

Not at all.  Early uploads are probably going to be clumsy, numb, slow, and
sensory-impaired, and even advanced models are unlikely to run 10,000 times
faster than realtime (as has occasionally been suggested).  I wish only to
argue that uploading is at least as likely, and perhaps more likely, to be
the first and easiest means of recovering a cryonics patient, as compared
to biological restoration via nanotech.

Best regards,
-- Joe

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
|    Joseph J. Strout           Department of Neuroscience, UCSD   |
|               http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~jstrout/  |
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