[extropy-chat] Cryonics without comprehensive brain disassembly?

Robert J. Bradbury bradbury at aeiveos.com
Tue Apr 20 17:38:59 UTC 2004


On Tue, 20 Apr 2004, Eugen Leitl, commenting on Brett's comments, wrote:

> > You need to move your self off your substrate in stages while you
> > are alive, (ie. no 12 hr plus EEG flatlines) - just like how you grew
>
> Is there anything qualitatively different between a 30 sec, a
> 10 min or a 12 h EEG lacune?

Eugen, is there any good data on precisely precise brain
decay per unit time with a flat-line EEG?  I'm not talking
about ischemia-reperfusion injury -- I'm talking about what
actually causes the flat-line (e.g. severe comas) and the
limits to dealing with it.

I would imagine one could have problems with ATP synthesis
and perhaps the proteosome and other methods of proteins
being degraded but is isn't clear to me that either of
those contribute directly to a flat-line so long as the
brain has sufficient nutrients.  This may be a question
along the lines of "what precisely is required to reboot
a brain?".  A different way of looking at it would be
*what* precisely would contribute to a loss of the
neuronal structure in the brain in a flat-line condition
but one that has sufficient resources to maintain the
neuronal structure?

I'm thinking along the lines of we may currently have the
technology to preserve the brain structure but we don't know
enough (yet) to perform a reboot (similar to the fact
that decades ago we didn't know how to restart a heart
that stopped beating).  In that case there is a clear
alternative to cryonics that might make Brett and/or
others happy.

Robert





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