Thoughts on cryonic preservation & revival

[lproven]

This is a rather long reply to a post from ciphergoth. The question being, is it plausible that, in future, we will be able to resurrect people from their head, cryonically frozen post-mortemI am keenly interested in the prospect of whole-brain emulation, which strikes me as potentially plausible, with reasonable probability. For one thing, I think that this

Comments

[reddragdiva]

I assume you've read our lovely RationalWiki article? Lots to chew through there, and on the talk page ...

I was neutral-to-positive until I actually looked into it (prompted by Paul's posts) and rapidly concluded it was - and here's a useful new word - pseudotechnology. Arguing with cryonics advocates on the talk page has some small entertainment value as well.

Don't forget, the answer to every object is "nanobots."

[reddragdiva]

Every objection.

[lproven]

As godlike genius author ianmcdonald put it in his novel /Necroville/ (AKA /Terminal Café/):

Never mind supercomputers & universal fabricators, the first thing we get with nanotechnology is resurrection of the dead.

I paraphrase, & I think he might have been quoting someone else.

Either way, he's right.

OTOH, I remain far from convinced that proper full-on 1-stop-short-of-grey-goo-apocalypse nanochines, the self-reproducing miracle universal gadget type, will ever be possible.

I sincerely hope I am wrong, tho'.

[reddragdiva]

As an actual nanotechnologist explains on the RW Cryonics talk page, the idea of something like an industrial robot except one millionth of the size, with its own computer, is ridiculously wrong.

Obviously nanobots can exist - we call the present examples "cells" and "viruses". Much as strong AI can obviously exist, we call the present examples "human brains." And cells don't work like industrial robots a millionth of the size and human brains don't work like computers.

But (a) getting from here to there (b) presuming having gotten from here to there takes just a little more than handwaving. And strong objections require a rather better answer than "but, NANOBOTS!!"

[ciphergoth]

"explains" is a little strong. "asserts" would be closer to the mark.

[lproven]

Google as ever reveals all... From the frontispiece of Terminal Café:

"Watson's Postulate: Never mind turning trash into oil or asteroids into heaps of Volkswagens, or hanging exact copies of Van Goghs in your living room, the first thing we get with nanotechnology is immortality."

"Tesler's Corollary: The first thing we get with nanotechnology is the resurrection of the dead."