On Sun, 6 Feb 2000, john grigg wrote:
> I still am amazed how being a transhumanist does not automatically mean that
> one is a cryonicist. I realize the techniques must be improved but with
> proper financial backing they will get there. Already, the 21st Century
> Medicine breakthroughs will make cryonics infinitely more likely to get us
> to the future we dream about.
John, without meaning to throw a wet blanket on your enthusiasm and
fully acknowledging Saul and Greg's efforts, I will state quite strongly
that progress in the suspension technologies are largely irrelevant
(though the spin-offs will make good business investments). [Yes,
Eugene, I know you will disagree with me....]
Most cryonicists are working off of the fundamental perspective that
was valid 15 years ago, namely you had to freeze your tissue and
unfreeze it while sustaining little damage. If you really really
understand nanotech capabilities, that perspective has to shift.
The only real question is whether or not the freezing process causes
a unrecoverable loss of information. I would argue that with the
information handling capacity and sensing capabilities we can expect
to have (in large part due to nanotech) in 20-30 years, will make
*any* damage that occurs during freezing largely irrelevant.
I get the feeling that most cryonicists are existing in the middle
ground currently of wanting to minimize the damage so nanotech
has as little as possible to clean up. That seems really pretty
ridiculous however. Go buy yourself a 1000+ piece 3D jigsaw
puzzle and assemble it. If you work on it long enough (3-4 days)
you *will* get it to go together. I'd argue that nanotech could
probably do the reassembly job even after a fair fraction
of your brain has been "crushed" (think of the octapus squeezing
its brain through very small spaces with no ill effects).
So long as you don't physically destroy the information content
I cannot see how nanotech would not be able, given enough time,
to put things back together. Hal and many others may believe that
freezing destroys some of the information content. I remain
unconvinced.
Hot news for the day: IBM announces 3-4 GHz processors should
be available in 3-4 years. I'll simply note that this is
more than *DOUBLE* the rate projected in the SIA roadmap!
Step by step, the singularity (picture the big Rock Creature
from Galaxy Quest) takes huge strides down the Texas highway....
Robert
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:03:31 MDT