[extropy-chat] FWD (SK) 'Resurrection' and nanotech [was Re: Not the shroud of Turin again...]

Terry W. Colvin fortean1 at mindspring.com
Tue Mar 9 02:41:59 UTC 2004


"Scott D. White"
>I think it would be accurrate to say that "resurrection" would almost surely
>violate a lot that is known about information storage/processing.

Well, no, in that we really don't know very much at all about information 
is stored in organisms.

What's more, we really don't have a clue what the "right" information is in 
an organism. As a silly example, suppose there really was a soul that 
contained the actual, essential "being-hood." yank that out and all you've 
got left is a pile of meat, no matter how healthy it is otherwise. More 
realistically, what is it about the existence and interconnection of cells 
that makes a living organism different from a dead one? The fact is, we 
just really don't know yet.

>For sure, we can create a new
>living organism from DNA and living host cells. But this isn't resurrection,
>since we haven't given life to a dead organism, but instead used some of its
>parts to remake an already living one.

There are, of course, many philosophical fine points that can be endlessly 
quibbled over, and much of it comes down to definitions. If you find a way 
to put the consciousness of a dead person into a fresh living body, is that 
resurrection? If you bring the body back to life, but with a wiped brain, 
is that resurrection?

> > OTOH, we know for a stone cold fact that
> > life CAN arise from non-living matter.
>
>It happened at least once,

Er, no. It happens several million times a day.

>Not at all. Procreation is the process by which living things begat more
>living things.

And they begat those living things out of mostly non-living molecules that 
they've shoved down their pie holes.

>Have I misunderstood your point here? Because if you think that non-living
>things become living "all the time," then you vastly misunderstand a very
>basic concept in biology. Not trying to be snippy about this, but it's
>really tempting . . . Must retain respectful tone . . . . Must fight urge to
>spiral into name-calling snit fit . . .

Well, so will I if you can explain to me what part of the hydrogen, carbon, 
oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and a few other chemicals that we take in that 
the cells in our bodies convert to new living cells are alive. Otherwise, I 
just MAY have to resort to calling you "Skeezix." So be warned...

>Similarly, maybe there would be some way via microsurgery

My guess would be nanotech. Same thing nature does a zillion times a day, 
but purposefully engineered.

>to put molecules
>of a dead organism back in the right places and nudge them into just the
>right motion so that everything picks up right where it left off. Again, I
>don't have the background in information theory,

Well then, I'd suggest you might be a tad premature in concluding that 
resurrection is "every bit as impossible as perpetual motion," hmmm?

To be sure, reanimating a dead protozoa might be an engineering challenge 
we might not conquer for another 100,000 years, but that is most definitely 
NOT the same thing as "a physical impossibility." Perpetual motion is not 
HARD, it's IMPOSSIBLE.

>but it seems like a
>ridiculous proposition right up front, for several reasons. Like, even if
>the "instruments" for molecular scale "surgery" ever are invented, there
>couldn't possibly be enough space around the body for all the instruments
>needed to examine, diagnose, and then surgically restore enough molecules in
>even a single nerve cell, much less a whole animal.

Maybe you need to read up on nanotechnology. Like any other emerging 
technology, there are a lot of wild-ass claims made about it, but it's 
already starting to take shape in several labs. To a useful-sized 
nanomachine, a cell is the size of a house.


> > The only "biological law" that ressurection violates is "nature doesn't do
> > it that way."
>
>Is there some other kind of biological law?

Gosh, I hope so. Otherwise, a whacking great chunk of our practical uses 
for biology--like medicine--violate biological law.

>I guess there is no law of physics that makes it impossible for today's
>array of living organisms to have sprung up fully formed in their present
>states. Physics makes this so unlikely as to be negligable, I guess, but
>doesn't prevent it outright?

Right. Not actually impossible, just very very very unlikely (which of 
course is one of the dead horses creationists keep trying to ride).

>If you're after a law that says "biology couldn't do that, no matter what,"
>then I think we would have move over into physics instead.

Ultimately, EVERY science is physics, because physics describes how the 
basic gears and wires of the universe work.

>There are a lot of states of nature that resemble "death" e.g.,

Sure, but I think we're agreed that's not at issue here.

>Hibernation occurs among quite a few animals and is probably more relevant
>here. So I wouldn't doubt that an animal could be artificially placed into a
>state of very deep hibernation and later revived. While this state of
>hibernation may look to an observer like "death," I don't think that revival
>would reasonably be called "resurrection." So, in this case, I disagree that
>it would be a silly semantic argument to say, after the fact, "well then, it
>wasn't really dead."

Sure it would, because for somebody to have claimed it was "dead" in the 
first place would denote a serious lack of understanding of science. A 
person 500 years ago might have concluded that a hibernating animal was 
dead, but we have fancy shit like EEGs and such today that can easily 
confirm that there are still life processes going on.

As I say, I think we're in agreement that this kind of thing is NOT what's 
at issue here. We're talking about stone dead, zero vital signs, zero EEG, 
zero chemical fires burning in the cells, a funny smell starting to 
permeate the air...

>I'm trying to picture a scenario where a cell could be considered
>indisputably dead (i.e., cell function stopped throughout its simple little
>body) and then be "resurrected" so that this same dead cell becomes alive
>again.

Well, it WAS living once, no? And before that, it WAS a pile of lifeless 
chemicals at some point, no? So what part of this do you see as 
*impossibly* irreversible?

Yeah, once we start talking about complex organisms and sentience, the 
problem becomes MUCH harder. But a single cell? Feh. A chemical switch has 
been thrown somewhere, it's dead, it's alive. Maybe you have to send in 
some nanomachines to weld the mitochondria back together. Feed that dead 
cell into the body's internal wood chipper, and the body will happily make 
a new living cell out of the non-living debris. So what's impossible about 
simply switching the same cell back on (OK, maybe not "simply")?

And again, one can argue definitions. If we have the standard SF plot of a 
dead person's consciousness transferred to either a machine or a fresh 
body, isn't that a kind of resurrection?

>Well, I could be wrong, but I'd say that the certainity of death (in the
>commonly understood meaning) is as certain as anything there is in biology.

Fine, if you like. But that STILL isn't "as impossible as perpetual 
motion." There is a very definite and profound meaning to "physical 
impossibility," and the hard engineering problems of resurrection aren't 
even on the same planet.

Dave Palmer


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
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