[extropy-chat] Cryonics and uploading

[Alejandro Dubrovsky]

On Thu, 2006-01-26 at 04:50 -0500, Robert Bradbury wrote:
> The problem *isn't* the resolution. You could do atomic scale
> resolution scans now.
> I believe methods have even been developed to do less than atomic diameter
> measurements.

(The experts in the list seem to have dissapeared. Time for the hacks to
make some noise to fill the void) 
References? I think you can do sub-atomic  resolution scan of one layer
with electron microscopy, but I don't think you can slice atomically,
especially in the watery, amorphous looking slices that the brain would
produce.  APM won't give you atomic resolution (not down to the hydrogen
atoms), and again, you won't be able to make a neat slice to see what's
underneath the top layer.  You can pull out a silicon atom from a
silicon solid with it, but that doesn't mean you can yank an oxygen from
an amino-acid while leaving the rest intact. If, like some esoteric
theories predict, memories are partly stored in prion-like conglomerates
near the synapses, this could even be important information being lost.
Even if that's not the case, scanning resolution of large (ie
brain-size) watery 3d objects is not that great.  I can't see what's
going to give you sub-125 nm^3 voxels at the moment, and at that
resolution you might agree important information is being lost.  Which
leaves resolution as still part of the problem.