[extropy-chat] Alternative to Cryo was The Amazing CellularRepair device

Robert J. Bradbury bradbury at aeiveos.com
Thu Oct 13 13:55:01 UTC 2005


On Thu, 13 Oct 2005, Brett Paatsch wrote:

> Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> > Does it *really* matter?
>
> Well yes of course it matters, unless the truth is irrelevant to
> the construction of your models about how to build a better
> world.

Granted but the discussion about how to get more people to
recognize that some form of information suspension will
likely work and get them to engage in thinking along those
lines is so much larger (I've tried this with my parents --
so far unsuccessfully).  And that discussion is still a
much smaller part of trans/posthumanism as a whole.

> If cryonics is prohibited by the laws of physics would you
> want to know that and deal with it or would you want to
> continue with an illusion ?

At some point in life you just have to say "trust me" or
trust the people I trust.  I trust Merkle and Freitas because
I've read most of everything they have written and know they
are both signed up for cryonic suspension.  I believe Minsky
is as well.

I have further thought about the problem myself from an
information theoretic and biological standpoint -- there
isn't a big problem here.

> What is your current level of understanding of the neuronal
> structure of the brain and how memories are stored in that
> structure ? What is the most recent fact you learned in this
> knowledge domain that made any sort of impression on
> you ?

I am not the neuroscientist that Anders is but I've got a
good understanding of how the brain works and how the information
is stored in it.  I've got a 1447 page book ("The Cognitive
Neurosciences") sitting beside my desk.  It is probably the
largest single volume book I own (and I own a *lot* of textbooks).
This isn't a topic one discusses by email.

> If your answer is that you don't care how much you lose
> some is better than nothing then I'd reply well why don't
> you just freeze some body cells and send a letter to the
> future requesting they clone you. That would be a heck
> of a lot cheaper and easier.

I may very well do that (and have discussed the need for
freezing self stem cell sources on the GRG list extensively).
I also have taken this to the level where I have a very different
perspective of "self-preservation".  I could be reconstructed
from fragments of my brain to fragments of my parents DNA
and the recorded history of my life.  One has to ask *How
much of "Robert" is in the Extropian archives?  I strongly
suspect that "killing" Robert is impossible unless one has
a destructive hard singularity take-off or all of the protons
in the universe decay.

> Okay what is your figure for the amount of computing processing
> power that is needed to rebuild the pattern in your brain?

I don't know.  But its a number one can deal with -- take 10^11
neurons, 10^3 synapses (average) per neuron, perhaps 10^2 receptors
per synapse, etc.  Dealing with the molecular complexity and
rearrangement is *way* below the computational capacity of what
an MBrain will have available.  (You have to think in terms of
the limits that I tend to think in.)  Bear in mind perhaps two
things.  First, that *most* of the information in the brain
is redundant -- i.e. the DNA in each cell, the protein sequences,
etc. Second, what is unique is the pattern of the cell structure.
Dealing with that from from an MBrain perspective is trivial.
One has a lifetime of trillions of years, so a "Robert" reassembly
process could be something done in its "spare" time.

> What is you figure for the economic cost of running that
> computerised process? Do you have a cost of your own or
> are you relying on someone elses projections?

There are no "real" costs once the hardware/software have been
designed.  You have to take the Drexler estimate of $1.00/kg
and then discount it because nanotechnology makes everything
cheaper, then discount it again because construction of JBrains
or MBrains make everything even cheaper.  The "economic" cost
is whether or not a JBrain or MBrain has something better to
do with its time than reassemble "Robert".

(When I speak of a "reassembly" I mean either the "wetware"
version or a "virtual" version.  This is the point where
I have differed sharply with others on the list in the past.
>From a computer science perspective if the file has the same
MD5 checksum the probability is high that its the same file
whether it is copy #1 or copy #10,000.  From a social (human)
perspective if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and
quacks like a duck -- I'm going to treat it as a duck.)

Robert





More information about the extropy-chat mailing list