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

[ciphergoth]

BTW please let me know if there's a part of your argument relevant to the technical feasibility of future reanimation given current cryonics practice that I've failed to address - thanks!

[lproven]

I am going to have to get back to you on this after about 2-3 days' worth of reading, at the current rate of rapid Firefox tab multiplication

[ciphergoth]

Thanks, this is really useful.

One slight wrinkle: while I'd love a point-by-point rebuttal, even a much more focussed rebuttal on just one particular cryonics claim would move things forward a lot for me. That doesn't counter the point you're making, it's just a wrinkle.

[watervole]

This kind of post is why I read LJ rather than Twitter.

[ciphergoth]

For me, Twitter is part of how I find this kind of post...

[lproven]

Concur. It's how I found your blogpost on the subject, as I am afraid I do not generally read LJ any more. Mine is something approaching the obfuscated-C or Perl of blogs: a write-only medium.

[lproven]

I think you said that last time I posted a long 'un. :-)

While I do take your point, Paul's is also a valid 1. & they're not mutually exclusive!

P. S. Thanks! ;-)

[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!!"

[lovingboth]

[1] On the timescales I think even the optimists are talking about, I wouldn't bet on the survival of the USA, never mind an American company.

[2] I can imagine historians / anthropologists wanting to.

[lproven]

Actually, yes, good points both.

The "time capsule" argument /had/ occurred to me - honest! - but I'm not sure it's something I'd particularly want for myself. But hey, better'n the alternative!

P. S. Happy birthday!

[reddragdiva]

Note that one cryonics facility already went bust (leading to the thawing of the frozen corpses) and cryonics advocates are themselves concerned that the existing two are small and not financially robust.

[ciphergoth]

Whether or not I'd bet on the survival of the USA depends very much on the odds you're offering.

[waistcoatmark]

I would have thought that if you can build a nano-level set of sensors capable of aptruring the entire brain, you're capable of building a computer that could "run" the result.

Certainly in 2-D mircro-processor(1) land the technology required to build a sensor net on top of a CPU that could detect the charge levels on each transistor/capacitor while that CPU is running is way in advance of the technology to build the CPU.

(1) shouldn't we be calling them nano-processors these days?

[lproven]

:¬) Good points, well made!