HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: tomg@mishima.mn.org (Thomas Greenwalt)
Subject: Re: Person on a stick
Organization: Alternative Realities
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 23:53:09 GMT

wag5@quads.uchicago.edu (john peter wagner) writes:
> 	However, the brain is a very delicate organ.  Removing one neuron
> can have very profound effects.  Mis-timing could also wreck a system.
> A functioning mature brain, to be recreated, would also require an
> exact duplicate of not only the orientation and mapping of the cells,
> but also complete duplication of the states of those cells and of the
> chemical environment in which those cells live.  By adding chemicals
> to the brain which lessen the hazards of tissue destruction during
> freezing, one overbalances the system.
> 
> 					J. Wagner
> 

Actually I've been under the impression that the brain (in fact the whole
body) is rather robust and fault tolerant.  For example the case of a miner
who had a tamping rod driven by an explosion up through his left cheek and
existed through the right upper skull removing a fair amount of his brain
in the process.  No apparent memory lose or physical disfunctions.  Only
noticable change was emotional mood swings, depression.  Actually extremely
lucky.

Also there are apparently neurons on standby so to speak.  These are 
paritally developed and sit idle until a trigger occurs that finishes 
their growth and they apparently take on the duty of a recently demised
neighbor.

The whole idea of reannimating a frozen person has been discussed
in some detail in sci.nanotech using nanoassemblers to reconstruct damaged
tissue and restart the body.  The success of reanimation of the brain will
probably depend mostly on how long term memory is stored and how resilent 
it is to deteriation.  I suspect that any short term memories and recently
acquired long term memories would be lost.  That the most often duplicated
memories in the brain would survive best.

All the above is fluff.  I am not a neurobiologist and what I know about
the brain is stuff I picked up studying neural nets and AI.  Feel free
to correct me if you know better, I am always ready to learn something
new or correct faulty data.

-- 
Thomas S. Greenwalt (Tom-Too)                                  (612)866-1344
7300 Nicollet Ave. South                         tomg@mishima.mishima.mn.org 
Mpls, MN  55423
-------------- You only live once, so goodness sake inhale. ----------------
From: caross@acsu.buffalo.edu (Christian Ross)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: Quantum eraser vs cryonics
Date: 21 Jul 92 23:24:42 GMT
Organization: UB

To date, and in the forseeable future, humankind has had NO LASTING
IMPACT ON THE UNIVERSE, and I question how you could begin to define a 
"positive impact on the universe". It may be aesthetically pleasing to think
that by freezing yourself, you accomplish something, but, unless humanity
progresses far beyond its present level of existance, then everyone is in
the same boat, doomed to be forgotten by the future, whether or not they
sustain their physical bodies cryogenically. You can't outwit entropy, only
bargain with it.
-- 
Christian A. Ross                |               Student (Physics/Mathematics)
caross@acsu.buffalo.edu          |     State University of New York at Buffalo
-- 
 "A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
From: tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman)
Subject: The virtual choice
Date: 22 Jul 92 11:31:04 MDT
Organization: University of Utah, CompSci Dept


  It is conceivable that cryonic reanimation would take place in a society
short on resources.  The society could opt for reanimation into virtual
space- where resource consumption would be extremely low for the newly
revived patient.  So it may become a choice- reanimation now into a virtual
place, or waiting for a future with more resources- how would you choose?

  Virtual space reanimation means that a person would come back to life and
have all of their neurons hooked into a computer system.  A human would only
consume energy for driving their brain, and the cost of driving the host
computer.  The synthesized experience would be at least as good as todays
technology- which can perform with incredible realism in high end systems.
Possibly, the synthesis would be as good or better than "reality".

  Such a revival would allow a person to hook into any accessible information
flows.  Thus, on a space station one could instantly look out any of the
telescopes or exterior cameras, even seeing whatever wavelengths were being
recorded (such as ultraviolet).  One would of course be able to monitor
local information traffic, such as television, radio, networks, etc.

  Many other revivals (and probably citizens) would be within the computer
network- meaning one could hang out with old friends and enemies, play them
games, learn and teach with them, and even punch and wrestle.

  If you are interested in learning about the current state of virtual
reality, a good book to read is Howard Rheingold's "Virtual Reality".
Even if a cryonic revival doesn't have to choose virtual life or continued
suspension- they will come back in a world where this technology has
been well developed and have great social impact.
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
From: higgins@fnalf.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: Reanimation time capsule
Date: 21 Jul 92 11:08:52 GMT
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Just discovered this group.  Sure is busy for having been in existence
so short a time!  I think it's silly but I'll play along...

In article <1992Jul15.081037.19521@techbook.com>, szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes:
> I propose
> storing a time capsule along with the patient/corpsicle.  
   [containing:]
> * A complete CAT scan
> * A complete medical history, including blood serum levels, white
>   cell counts, etc.
> * Video of the patient performing their best skills (whether music,
>   acting, telling jokes, cooking, etc.)
> * Video of patient's relatives?  (This could be quite stressful
>   since they will probably be long dead).
> * Personal effects: wallet including ID, 
> * Documentation and artifacts related to patient's profession, education, 
>   and hobbies (eg baseball card collection, favorite books, etc.).
> 
> The general theme here is providing redundant information to allow 
> reconstruction of the patient's memories in case of memory loss 

It occurs to me that this might also be used to evaluate candidates
for revival.  Were I preparing such a package, I would do my utmost to 
appear to be Fun To Be With.  "Hey, this guy plays the ukulele, let's
thaw *him* out!"

Another poster suggested keeping a diary.  Why not just collect your
lifetime Usenet postings?

     O~~*           /_) ' / /   /_/ '  ,   ,  ' ,_  _           \|/
   - ~ -~~~~~~~~~~~/_) / / /   / / / (_) (_) / / / _\~~~~~~~~~~~zap!
 /       \                          (_) (_)                    / | \
 |       |     Bill Higgins   Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
 \       /     Bitnet:     HIGGINS@FNAL.BITNET
   -   -       Internet:  HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV
     ~         SPAN/Hepnet:      43011::HIGGINS 
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
From: pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger)
Subject: Re: Possible thawing process?
Organization: /usr/local/lib/news/organization
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 15:28:53 GMT

In article <1992Jul31.003529.21726@klic.rain.com> keithl@klic.rain.com (Keith Lofstrom) writes:
>>>if the thawing process could be accomplished using some sort of
>>>complex microwave system (please, let's not start with the jokes :) ).
>
>>The real problem isn't in warming the body up. The problem is that
>>cells are critically damaged and need to be repaired -- this will
>>likely require nanotechnology.
>
>I would be very surprised if the biggest problem in reanimation wasn't 
>heating, but COOLING.  We are talking about trillions of little nanomachines
>rooting around in there, and trillions of MIPS of computing - I would guess
>that most of it is going on external to the body itself, simply for heat
>removal.  Every time you probe a molecule with a little grab and shake, or
>put two things together in an exothermic reaction, a little bit of heat
>is released.

Not a real problem, since you can take 20 years if you like to do the
repair provided you can do it at a low enough temperature. At worst,
you can use the patient's own circulatory system as a cooling duct
system, once you've made some minor temporary adjustments to it.

>It will be easier to work without a lot of thermal motion - the
>actual repair process probably would occur at liquid helium
>temperatures or colder.

Its almost impossible to find anything that operates effectively at
liquid helium temperatures; designing functioning nanomachines that
operate near the glass transition temperature at -130C is going to be
hard enough. As for "colder" than LHe, its very hard to get anything
colder than liquid helium. There are no gasses at that temperature to
use as working fluids for conventional cooling techniques. Maybe you
could use some sort of strange Peltier effect device, but if you could
I haven't heard of it -- hell, I'm not even sure that things like the
Peltier effect still operate as advertised down that cool, (everything
starts acting strange that close to absolute zero -- liquid helium is
a superfluid, many if not most metals start superconducting, anyone
know if the Peltier effect or other similar effects still function?)
and certainly building equipment at those temperatures is a bitch.
Thermal motion is not really a problem -- your body works fine,
doesn't it, and its full of nanomachines. Drexler's arguments about
this in EoC are pretty solid. Another problem is that getting that
cold causes even more thermal stresses on large inhomogeneous objects
like humans -- thermal stress cracking is bad enough just at LN2
temps.

Since you don't gain anything at all by getting that cold (indeed,
have no reason whatsoever to get things that cold for cryonics
purposes or biological repair of any sort), and since its bloody
inconvenient to get that cold, with large numbers of really really
really nasty problems cropping up, why would anyone want to do it?



--
Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
--
		  Just say "NO!" to death and taxes.
			 Extropian and Proud.
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Frequently Invoked Assholes
Date: 23 Jul 92 12:30:53 GMT
Article-I.D.: techbook.1992Jul23.123053.6998
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 644-8135

In article <2A6DE9EA.728C@tct.com> chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:

>Remember that the Nazis started with euthenasia.  Genocide came later.

First off, this whole comparison to Nazis is idiotic (N.B., Chip did not
start it).  Second, while we're on the topic the Nazi "eugenics" 
proceeded from sterilization to euthanasia to gas chambers.  All three
can be methods of genocide (the extermination of groups).


-- 
szabo@techbook.COM  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks
Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400, N81) 
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
From: tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman)
Subject: Re: Just My Brain?
Date: 30 Jul 92 16:15:35 MDT
Organization: University of Utah, CompSci Dept

>For
>you folks that are already members of a Cryonic Institute,
>have you arranged to have only your brain (i.e head) frozen,
>or your entire body?  Alcor charges roughly 3 times as much
>for whole body suspension and makes a case for regeneration
>of one's body from the preserved DNA.  Just curious to see if
>there is a consensus.

Currently, I am signed up for only brain suspension.  I expect that if the
revival technology is around, so will whole body regeneration.

However, I am going to change plans if I ever get out of poverty. The
spinal cord contains many "on board" functions which one would probably
wish to consider part of themselves.  Many reflex actions would be lost,
including many learned skills if the spinal cord were just thrown out.

Additionally, it seems certain that "more" can only be better in terms of
revival success.  They could test dethaw non vital organs to better
understand your tissue, they could find more copies of DNA, they could
gather whatever information was at large in the whole body system, and
generally have more to work with.  It may be possible to revive slightly
earlier with a whole body, which depends mainly on the advancment of
technology.

In the long run, if millions of people are undergoing suspension, then it
more reasonable just to store the heads, in terms of storage space and
economics for freezing
From: tsf@CS.CMU.EDU (Timothy Freeman)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: The "Life Force" Argument
Date: 27 Jul 92 22:16:21 GMT
Article-I.D.: U.TSF.92Jul27171621
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Originator: tsf@U.ERGO.CS.CMU.EDU

Charles Platt <71042.3557@CompuServe.COM> writes via kqb:

   They have a very strong 
   gut feeling that life cannot be as mechanistic as this. There 
   is a "life force" involved; not necessarily a spirit or a 
   soul, but something that cannot be explained so easily. 

Well, I've never successfully countered ideas about the life force, or
souls, or other frobby features of a world model that Occam's razor
would chop off if given the chance, but an approach did come to mind:

1. Admit that the evidence does not yet compel the materialist view.
(You admitted that in your post.)

2. Try to establish that the evidence does not yet compel the
life-force model either.

(Since the evidence doesn't compel either belief, we've left the field
of philosophy, and now we can move on to psychology.)

3. Ask "if you could either be a materialist or you could believe in
the life force, which would you do, and why?"  They will say they
would rather believe in the life force, but I can't guess why.  If
they believably say why, I'd really like to know what they said.

If I ask myself question #3, the answer I get is "I would rather be a
materialist, because I want to eventually achieve understanding and
control of things that are important to me (such as the continued
functioning of my mind and body).  If I believe that an important part
of how I work depends on a soul or the life-force, then I won't be
able to understand and control that part."  Are there materialists out
there with a different answer?

There are probably some people reading this who believe in souls or
the life force or something like that.  Maybe they can dispute point
#2 or answer question #3.

These questions are relevant to cryonics, but not to a sci. group.  I
argued against putting the cryonics group in the sci hierarchy back
when we were having the discussion.  Oh well.
--
Tim Freeman <tsf@cs.cmu.edu>    CompuServe ID 71045,2267 checked occasionally.
When they took the fourth amendment, I was silent because I don't deal drugs.
When they took the sixth amendment, I kept quiet because I know I'm innocent.
When they took the second amendment, I said nothing because I don't own a gun.
Now they've come for the first amendment, and I can't say anything at all.
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
From: mgoodfel@netcom.com (Michael Goodfellow)
Subject: What is the state of the art in brain scanning ? 
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 03:01:49 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 


Over dinner the other night I was explaining the idea of scanning and
simulating the frozen brain to someone and it occurs to me to wonder
what the state of the art actually is.  

Does anyone know what the resolution of an MRI scan of the brain is ?
How far are we from being able to scan a single cell.  Does MRI give
any information on chemical structure ?  I seem to remember reading
that it does.

Comments ?
Michael Goodfellow, mgoodfel@netcom.com
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Specific capabilities needed for reanimation?
Date: 25 Jul 92 09:30:59 GMT
Article-I.D.: techbook.1992Jul25.093059.9816
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 644-8135

>: ...Even in those cases whether we will meet
>: ultimately with success cannot be accurately predicted, and the
>: possibilities being discussed here are centuries off at best.
>
In article <w95mbdfl@csv.warwick.ac.uk> csuab@warwick.ac.uk (Steve Strong) writes:
>But we can do nanotech now...

Perhaps we should get away from the vague word "nanotech" and list
the specific capabilities needed for reanimation.  There are many
more qualified than myself to make such a list, but here's a sample:

* Repair various parts of cells from damage
  from cold (eg sharp freezing crystals)
* Remove bubbles from blood
* Restore or recall lost patient memories (eg reaquire skills,
  recall lost knowledge, aquire "identity", etc.)
* Etc.

It's not too early to begin designing speculative devices to accomplish
these tasks.  We should not restrict ourselves to a vague vision of 
"nanotech", but look at the entire spectrum of chemical, mechanical,
and biological tech to draw inspiration.

>There is nothing that we know of which shows us that time travel is
>possible - many good physicists are convinced that it isn't.

Physicists also have told as that FTL is impossible, but quantum
erasers can now transmit identical random data (eg encryption keys, 
synchronization signals, etc.) instanatenously across the universe
(as long as there is a receiver and was a common light source).
There still exists a remote possibility that gravity waves propagate FTL.  
There is still quite a bit we just don't know, one way or the other.


-- 
szabo@techbook.COM  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks
Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400, N81)
From: keithl@klic.rain.com (Keith Lofstrom)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: Possible thawing process?
Date: 31 Jul 92 00:35:29 GMT
Organization: Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits

>>if the thawing process could be accomplished using some sort of
>>complex microwave system (please, let's not start with the jokes :) ).

>The real problem isn't in warming the body up. The problem is that
>cells are critically damaged and need to be repaired -- this will
>likely require nanotechnology.

I would be very surprised if the biggest problem in reanimation wasn't 
heating, but COOLING.  We are talking about trillions of little nanomachines
rooting around in there, and trillions of MIPS of computing - I would guess
that most of it is going on external to the body itself, simply for heat
removal.  Every time you probe a molecule with a little grab and shake, or
put two things together in an exothermic reaction, a little bit of heat
is released.  I don't have many beliefs, but inefficiency is one of them.
In any case, I imagine a patient will be disassembled into tiny little pieces
(with edges carefully marked) then put back together.  I would hope they would
improve things a little bit and leave some seams, making it easier to do field
swaps of systems ("Can you lend me a hand over here?"  ;-) ).

It will be easier to work without a lot of thermal motion - the actual repair
process probably would occur at liquid helium temperatures or colder.  When
that is finished, you probably have a body full of repaired, dormant cells.
Each cell will probably have thousands of little globs of frozen chemicals
in ice, carefully prepared to release the right chemicals in sequence to get
things started.  Each glob will have a little heating charge, and a "fuse"
leading off to the central control.  Set off the fuses, and within a few
milliseconds your liquid helium temperature patient is at room temperature.
At this point, you can start the heart and the lungs, start testing nervous
subsystems, and finally wake up your - very disoriented - patient.

Of course, the first thing that will happen after the patient wakes up is
that they will try to get his/her consent to a whole bunch of improvements,
then take the patient back down to 4K to make them.  After all, it will be
easier to replace their bowels with a better design, rather than have to
build lavatories for them.  Etc.  I hope they ask first.

Keith
-- 
Keith Lofstrom         keithl@klic.rain.com       Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Power ICs
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
From: wag5@quads.uchicago.edu (john peter wagner)
Subject: Re: Person on a stick
Reply-To: wag5@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 20:17:13 GMT

Many of you seem concerned with functionally reconstructing a human brain
from dead or frozen tissue.  One would imagine that with the ability to
arrange tissue at the individual cell level, given a mapping, one could
recreate the source of the mapping.
	However, the brain is a very delicate organ.  Removing one neuron
can have very profound effects.  Mis-timing could also wreck a system.
A functioning mature brain, to be recreated, would also require an
exact duplicate of not only the orientation and mapping of the cells,
but also complete duplication of the states of those cells and of the
chemical environment in which those cells live.  By adding chemicals
to the brain which lessen the hazards of tissue destruction during
freezing, one overbalances the system.
	As one poster put it, it would be as easy to revive a mummy as to
'restart' a human brain which has been frozen.  It is conceivable that
one could make a close approximation of the original individual by
duplicating the factors which governed its growth and subsequent passage
into the maturity which preceded its 'death.'  We may be able to make a duplicate.
	By placing individual markers in each neuron of the brain which
have some unique marking and alter themselves in response to the state
of the host tissue, one could conceivably make a mapping of the brain.
Kill the subject in such a way that necrosis factor does not happen(
Tissue preservation-flood the body with preserving fluid via the
circulatory system), cut off the head, put it in a blender, a centrifuge,
and separate out the markers.  Have a computer analyze these markers and
reconstruct their host network. Thus there is a computer mapping of the
brain.
	Next a brain must be grown in the lab, through maturity.  The brain
of a baby would be given stimulation from a list of possible stimulations
stored in the computer. Those stimulations which tend to encourage
growth similar to that found in the mapping would be encouraged. The pathways
in those areas would develop.  The key is that the original markers must
be very sensitive to the original cells' age as well as orientation.
	In any case, through trial and error the computer may eventually
create a brain almost duplicating the original.  This is of course only
speculative but is in any case as realistic as any hope for defrosting
a corpse to life.

					J. Wagner

Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
From: tomg@mishima.mn.org (Thomas Greenwalt)
Subject: Re: The virtual choice
Organization: Alternative Realities
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 05:01:05 GMT

tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes:
> 
>   It is conceivable that cryonic reanimation would take place in a society
> short on resources.  The society could opt for reanimation into virtual
> space- where resource consumption would be extremely low for the newly
> revived patient.  So it may become a choice- reanimation now into a virtual
> place, or waiting for a future with more resources- how would you choose?
> 
Greg Bear described this sort of thing in his novels "Eon" and "Eternity".
Basically a person was permited two corporal bodies and then archived to 
the city memories, which was a giant super virtual reality system.

-- 
Thomas S. Greenwalt (Tom-Too)                                  (612)866-1344
7300 Nicollet Ave. South                         tomg@mishima.mishima.mn.org 
Mpls, MN  55423
-------------- You only live once, so goodness sake inhale. ----------------