From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Mar 30 2002 - 21:51:08 MST
On Sun, 31 Mar 2002, Colin Hales wrote:
> In the light of this, I'm starting to think that the Kurzweil version (no
> doubt borrowed from elsewhere!) of uploading may be nicer or easier [snip]
I think Ray's ideas are derived from Moravec's "Bush Robots" which
were discussed in Mind Children (though I've never seen him credit
Moravec as "good" scientists should do). Moravec documented the
ideas about a decade before Ray first started talking about them
I believe. It is always possible Ray developed them independently.
I think Marvin Minsky once told me that he had invented a similar
idea independently from Moravec. I sometimes make "amazing"
discoveries only to later realize that I had read it someplace
previously.
> (How these would replicate, say, a Purkinje
> cell with 200,000 synapses, beats the hell out of me!)
Synapses contain mitochondria. Mitochondria are the size of small
nanobots. Each neuron could contain many nanobots. They could
run carbene rods up and down the axons and get much faster transmission
velocities by "tapping" on the rod than current ion currents provide.
(A review of Nanomedicine might reveal even faster communication methods).
If Ray is suggesting nanobots the size of neurons that is one
*huge* nanobot!
> If all this technology is available, presumably one is able to fully repair
> the human body anyway - so why bother with upload?
Because it is doubtful you will be able to get too much additional
nanotech-based computational capacity into the brain with its
limited cooling capacity. You will always be able to tell
the upgraded humans with outmoded attachments to their "bodies"
because they will have elephant ears and (big) butterfly wings.
Robert
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