From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Aug 29 2002 - 10:35:20 MDT
On Fri, 30 Aug 2002, Avatar Polymorph wrote:
> Does Drexler's estimate of intra-cellular nanotech supercomputer repair odds
> have relevance to this? He claimed that error rates to dna due to cosmic ray
> damage could be repaired without external memory sources for billions of
> years through cross-checking and information exchange within the body (i.e.
> between the c.60-100 supercomputers inside each cell).
Have you got a concrete reference for this (I don't remember reading this
number anywhere).
In contrast to Eugene's comments, yes if you had sufficient error checking
ability you could maintain a genome in a "pristine" condition for a very
long period. Mind you *we* don't have this now -- the best one could
probably cite is the DNA repair capability of Deinococcus radiodurans and
that much of that capability probably relies on the fact that it typically
has ~4 genome compies per cell so it has a lot of redundancy.
> This would appear similar to the quantum problem you mention.
No, I'd have to agree with Eugene here -- quantum tunneling occurs
at a *much* lower rate than either normal heat or radiation induced
damages.
> If the internal cellular (and
> intra-cellular) supercomputers can repair each other and damaged cell
> molecules including dna via their memory systems (moreso if there is an
> external system to augment the body every few billion years) does this solve
> the problem???
Robert Freitas has told me that he intends to write a paper regarding total
replacement of cellular DNA next spring. So we will have more details on
reprogramming our cells then. However the "billion" years claim should be
subject to some serious eyebrow raising. Lowering the accident rate to
get us to even 10's of thousands of years (I think this number shows up
in the Spike) is *very* difficult. As I pointed out at Extro 3 the only
way you get close to "immortality" is distributed self-replication.
If you want to live a long time you are going to have to learn to live
with more than one copy of yourself.
Now, for some people on the list, more copies of them, would certainly
be a welcome addition. But for others....
Robert
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