[extropy-chat] Organ printing

Brett Paatsch bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au
Fri Nov 18 02:24:43 UTC 2005


Adrian Tymes wrote:

> .. In theory, if one could coax a person's stem cells into
> the appropriate types of cells (which hopefully is mostly a matter of
> finding the right series of chemical, electrical, and possibly thermal
> cues), this device could then be used to pattern them into organs for
> reimplantation.

Perhaps you could elaborate on how this device could do that using
an *actual* organ, any biological organ of interest to humans would
do fine. 

>  An extreme end would be to print an entire new body
> for someone (say, a cryo patient) - although the brain would have
> to be transplanted and hooked up (and for cryo patients, working
> stem cells would have to be thawed out and restarted, then likewise
> for the brain after transplant), so this wouldn't help with problems 
> inside the brain.  (Of course, there's the possibility of emulating the
> brain in silico, then hooking that up to a reprinted body every several
> decades.)

The "possibility" or the wild-eyed dreams are free and words are 
cheap speculation? Can you put a probability however small (0.1%
as opposed to 10% etc in the next X years) on this and explain 
your reasoning, or is this pure flight of fancy and speculation quite
without anything to do with reasoning at all on your part? 

You might think I'm pick on you. Well you composed the subject
header "Organ Printing", you advertised and I came to see, besides
you are pretty smart, you just might be able to do something with
a good question besides wet yourself.

Brett Paatsch




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