[extropy-chat] Organ printing

[Brett Paatsch]

Adrian Tymes wrote:

> --- Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>> Adrian Tymes wrote:
>> > .. In theory, if one could coax a person's stem cells into
>> > the appropriate types of cells (which hopefully is mostly a matter
>> of
>> > finding the right series of chemical, electrical, and possibly
>> thermal
>> > cues), this device could then be used to pattern them into organs
>> for
>> > reimplantation.
>> 
>> Perhaps you could elaborate on how this device could do that using
>> an *actual* organ, any biological organ of interest to humans would
>> do fine. 
> 
> I could, but others have done so quite eloquently.  Google on "kidney
> scaffold" to find some of the writeups.  That's about what I was
> thinking of: same technique, finer control.
> 
>> >  An extreme end would be to print an entire new body
>> > for someone (say, a cryo patient) - although the brain would have
>> > to be transplanted and hooked up (and for cryo patients, working
>> > stem cells would have to be thawed out and restarted, then likewise
>> > for the brain after transplant), so this wouldn't help with
>> problems 
>> > inside the brain.  (Of course, there's the possibility of emulating
>> the
>> > brain in silico, then hooking that up to a reprinted body every
>> several
>> > decades.)
>> 
>> The "possibility" or the wild-eyed dreams are free and words are 
>> cheap speculation? Can you put a probability however small (0.1%
>> as opposed to 10% etc in the next X years) on this and explain 
>> your reasoning, or is this pure flight of fancy and speculation quite
>> without anything to do with reasoning at all on your part? 
> 
> The possibility, and neither. 

Then I know you can't know and aren't reasoning on the matter. 

> It's far enough in the future that to
> put a probability on it now would be meaningless - this is most
> certainly not something that's right around the corner - but on the
> other hand, such a thing is consistent with our current understanding
> of how neurons work, and there has been significant work done on it.
> Google on "brain prosthetic" to see some of those examples.  (Very
> early stage - we're talking artificial retinas, robotics controlled
> directly from the brain, and so forth, as well as mapping of the
> brain's functions by region.)
> 
>> You might think I'm pick on you. Well you composed the subject
>> header "Organ Printing", you advertised and I came to see, besides
>> you are pretty smart, you just might be able to do something with
>> a good question besides wet yourself.
> 
> I don't think you're picking on me, although I do think you could have
> phrased those questions a lot less offensively.  I also think it would
> have been better all around if you had tried a few search queries
> yourself before assuming I was dreaming. 

If my question is "Is Adrian dreaming" or alternatively "Does Adrian
have a clue on this matter" then the test is best served by putting it
to Adrian. 

I am interested in what you know not in whether you can Google.
I know I can. Telling someone to Google avoids having to
demonstrate knowing anything (it also allows ignorance to remain
hidden). 

> There's a reason they call it
> http://stopbeingsuchalazyfuck.com/

Yeah, marketing Google as a brand is most likely the reason.

It makes every adolescent smart arse able to appear to be an
expert on everything (which appeals to adolescent smart arses)
so long as its not important enough for the other to take the 
time to publicly tear them a new one for faking expertise.

Being able to Google no more makes a person knowledgeable
(in a world of bullshitters) than being able to speak makes them
make sense. 

Brett Paatsch