[ExI] cryonics vs. chemopreservation

[Joshua Job]

It is really hard to slice a glass or ice into micron thick sheets without
fracturing, and that's a necessary step when tracing the connectome. That,
and they also have to dye the brain tissue before putting it under the
microscope, and you can't do that with a frozen brain. Cyropreservation
probably also changes the morphology of the neurons a good deal too (either
due to ice crystal formation or dehydration) whih would make figuring out
the connectome harder (though obviously not impossible), and it's already a
hard enough task.
-Joshua Job.
On Jan 14, 2013 11:49 AM, "John Clark" <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 10:39 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <
> rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Cryonics is available now and almost certainly preserves the material
>> underpinnings of a mind
>
>
> That could very well be true and I certainly hope it's true but I think
> its pushing it to say its almost certainly true.
>
> > chemopreservation at present does have significant technological
>> problems at the preservation stage, with concerns about preservative
>> delivery, and questions about whether the synaptic weight information
>> can be adequately recovered.
>>
>
> When neuroscientists try to trace out all the connections in the brain, as
> in the very ambitious Blue Brain Project, they first use chemicals to
> preserve the brain and then slice it into very thin slices; they don't
> freeze the brain, so I guess they think chemopreservation works better than
> cryonics. Perhaps there is a practical reason Alcor doesn't offer it, maybe
> it's too expensive, I could be wrong but I don't see why it should cost
> more than cryonics.
>
> At any rate I'd still like to know what Alcor's official position on
> chemopreservation is.
>
>   John K Clark
>
>
>
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