How does cryonics preserve the information in the brain?
It appears to me that given the amount of time required to get the body to
an appreciably low temperature, it would allow the chemical/ionic
potentials in the brain to approach something resembling equilibrium.
Since the brain structure is merely the hardware, wouldn't a brain in
equilibrium essentially be a blank slate? Cryonics sounds more like a
reboot of your brain rather than the popular long sleep scenario. At the
very least, it seems that you should suffer significant loss of pre-cryo
memory. Quick-freezing the brain (minutes, or maybe an hour or two) would
probably prevent this, but the current state of cryonics is many, many
hours to get to liquid Nitrogen temperatures.
Also, on a more technical side, is liquid Nitrogen capable of stopping
ion/molecular transport, or just slowing it down? If there was small but
finite transport activity, it would put a "shelf-life" on information
stored in a cryo-brain.
The neurophysiology inclined on this list may be able to answer this.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com