[ExI] Essential Upload Data

[John Clark]

On Mon, May 18, 2020 at 7:17 AM Re Rose via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

 > *Well, yes, a full genome sequence is meaningful in context, but useless
> without tools to understand the hierarchical tiers of information in it,*
>

No it is not! Even if I had no understanding whatsoever of how it worked a
full genomic sequence is sufficient for me to make a twin of you, granted a
twin of you is not you but it's not useless either. And if the genomic
information was augmented with your brain connectome information then I
could make another you even if I didn't understand why all the intricate
details of your genome or your connectome fit together and had to be the
way they are for you to be you. I don't need to know why I just need to
know how. I don't need to understand a book to Xerox a book.


> *> unavailable information from the genome, by the way - and other
> peculiaritiies of earthly biological evolutionary strategies, like
> essential metals and other external nutrients,*
>

Hydrogen carbon and Iron are just atoms, the difference between life and
death is just a matter of how those atoms are orientated .

*> And then there are epigenetic marks,*
>

Just more atoms in certain orientations.

*> Without all the additional external information that is not present,
> plus knowledge of coding sequences, delineation of exons and introns,
> control sequences, error-correction mechanisims, etc, the organism simply
> cannot be reconstructed. *
>

To duplicate the organism you'd have to know what those things were but you
would not have to know why they had to be that way, you'd only have to know
that they did. And to duplicate what makes you be you, your memory
intellect and consciousness, it would be unnecessary to duplicate the
entire organism. Most of what a brain neuron does is unrelated to brain
function, it's just basic metabolism that every cell on earth needs to do
just to stay alive that is no different from what goes on in a cell in your
big toe or in the cell of an earthworm.

> *My contention (I state again) is that the neural copies we are talking
> about likewise do not contain all the information necessary to recreate the
> person. *
>

But you seem to concede that it would be enough information to convince an
outside observer that the copy was you, it would even be enough to convince
the copy that she was you, but for some vague unspecified reason you claim
that would not be good enough. You even say information on the momentum and
position of every atom in your body (including those in your big toe) would
not be enough information. When pressed to explain where that missing
information resides every example you give without exception can always be
boiled down to just more atoms in various positions with various momentums.
Although you haven't used the word it sounds to me like the thing you
believe can't be duplicated and contains unobtainable information is the
soul, but I don't believe in the soul or any other form of vitalism.


> > *The smallest dendritic spines and many of the mid sized ones are not
> readable, and may be damaged due to their size*
>

I don't know if the smallest dendritic spines are important but if they are
then you'd want to use ASC (aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation) because
it preserves them with less distortion than the method Alcor currently uses
as has been proven by pictures taken with electron microscopes.

John K Clark
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