[ExI] Natasha​ Uploading and the New York Times ​

[John Clark]

In the September Cryonics magazine there is a very interesting report on
the research Natasha Vita-More did on the retention on long term memories
of nematode worms even after they've been cooled to liquid nitrogen
temperatures. So Natasha might want to write a letter to the New York Times
(letters at nytimes.com) in response to a very negative uploading and Cryonics
article in todays times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/opinion/sunday/will-you-ever-be-able-to-upload-your-brain.html?ref=opinion


In particular Miller says:

​"​
Our best current theories of how we store new memories without overwriting
old ones suggest that each synapse needs to continually reintegrate its
past experience (the patterns of activity in neuron A and neuron B) to
determine how fixed or changeable it will be in response to the next new
experience. Take away this synapse-by-synapse malleability, current theory
suggests, and either our memories would quickly disappear or we would have
great difficulty forming new ones.
​"​

And:

​"
It will almost certainly be a very long time before we can hope to preserve
a brain in sufficient detail and for sufficient time that some civilization
much farther in the future, perhaps thousands or even millions of years
from now, might have the technological capacity to “upload” and recreate
that individual’s mind.
​"

 Natasha's experimental results would seem to flat out contradict Miller's
hypothesis, unless human nerve cells are fundamentally different from the
nerve cells of other animals, and I don't know of any scientist who
believes that.

 John K Clark
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