[extropy-chat] Scanning and simulation, rather than reconstruction after cryonic preservation

[Keith Henson]

At 05:06 PM 4/19/2007 -0700, you wrote:
>On 4/19/07, Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> >
> >
> > From: "Anders Sandberg" <asa at nada.kth.se>
> >
> > Brett Paatsch wrote:
> >
> > >> .. Would you classify yourself as a believer in cryonics?
>
>Brett, I appreciate the point you are trying to make and I don't want
>to get in the way, but I would like to initiate (possibly a brief)
>parallel discussion path.
>
>In my view, there is nothing in principle to prevent cryonic
>preservation followed by repair and revival, but I see formidable
>difficulties in terms of physical constraints such as managing heat
>generation (from the reconstruction process) over a reasonable period
>of time.

You have your finger on an engineering problem that has been there since 
the dawn of electrical engineering.

One approach is to fracture the brain into tiny pieces, map all the 
surfaces and expand it in LN2 or some other way of getting rid of the heat.

>So I would think that scanning the original and reproducing
>its patterns within a computing substrate is likely to be more
>practical.  Care to argue that aspect as well?

Gross as it might seem to us today, this might be the way.  I kind of doubt 
it since a 3D infiltration would work faster than a mess of 2D scans, but 
who knows?

Keith