From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Thu Aug 29 2002 - 14:35:13 MDT
Terry W. Colvin forwarded (Russell Evermore):
>[Me]>And even though I could right now specify the connections between
> >a million neurons (e.g. a cube of 1000x1000x1000 with all neighbours
>connected) no
> >one could make such a neuronal circuit.
>
>No one?? - as in today, next year, or did you mean for all time?
The issue here is a claim that:
A- Selling cryopreservation services for people is quackery
B- applying current technology to the preservation of human brains is
unscientific.
Posing the problem as one of information storage and retrieval doesn't
solve anything because we don't know what's the necessary information to
store nor how to test if we stored it. So even if we specified all
connections on cd we couldn't then check to see if it worked at replicating
the person.
[...]
> my memory of say - losing my virginity, is not precariously
>balanced upon the proper functioning of one or even a dozen neurological
>circuits. Exactly how much of me is required to feel like my old self may
>prove to be a rather abstract notion considering I purposefully try to live
>my life as though every single day I awaken as a new person.
The problem is that our brain is not just a bunch of memories. Although
fairly robust for such a complex machine, it is nevertheless a complex
machine. Brain damage can make you incapable of understanding speech, lose
part of your visual field, no longer be able to recognize faces, paralysed,
etc...
>As for your statement that we can't even freeze a kidney... - say what?
I thought it was fairly evident from context that I meant freezing so that
it remains viable to function as a kidney and not as barbacue...
> I
>can freeze a kidney any time, and if I thaw it out and fry it, it will
>probably taste very similar to one that is cooked fresh. Thus I suppose some
>types of information, namely the chemistry that determines its flavor,
>easily survives the freezing process
You mean that after it's cooked it doesn't make much difference if it was
frozen or not. Agreed, but this doesn't demonstrate that freezing did
little damage, but rather that cooking does a lot more. I don't think
anyone disputes that. If you wish, I'll concede that cooking the brain
would be an even worse way of storing it with present technology...
> - even without the application of
>cryoprotectants. But I'm teasing here because you seem to have missed an
>important consideration regarding cryonics - sure, freezing causes damage
>(though not necessarily information loss) but even that's no biggie unless
>you are overly obsessed with:
>
>1. Thawing the brain out BEFORE extracting its information.
>2. Making the original neurons "live again" instead of simply substituting
>new (probably better) biological or nanological ones.
The point of this discussion is that the statement "If I freeze a brain
with current technology eventually the personality of this individual can
be restored in some form" is pure speculation without any supporting
evidence. This is not science and to sell such service is fraud.
We can fantasize about all wonderful possibilities that future technology
will give us, and perhaps we can even get some of them right. But guessing
by itself is not science.
>Every time someone did something that advanced the human race - something
>that had never been tried before and thus had not been "proven", someone
>else stood on the sidelines and voiced a similar objection.
If someone had frozen a brain, retreived the information and rebuilt the
personality I would voice no objections. If brains could be frozen so that
no damage could be detected in the frozen brain, I would voice no objections.
However, something is being claimed as science and sold as such without any
actual results supporting such claims. It is not scientific to freeze a
brain without any idea of the damage we did and claim that in the future
someone will invent a way to get the person back. A statement based on no
data at all is fantasy or speculation, not science.
>May you make it to the Singularity long before you need Cryonics.
Thanks, I guess...
Ludwig Krippahl
-------------------------
> The issue here is a claim that:
> A- Selling cryopreservation services for people is quackery
I'll take a crack at this one.
1) With current tech, you can't revive the people-ciles (esp. when only
the heads are stored.
2) Enough of the structure of the brain is preserved by freezing that the
person is preserved. Neurons and axons get damaged but their identity and
connections are preserved.
So it is in principle possible that a technology could be developed to
fix the freezing damage and thaw without further damage, although it
is impossible with today's technology, and unlikely to be developed in
the next few decades.
If the people getting frozen understand this, I don't see the
quackery. If the ice cube company can't be relied on the keep the chill
going indefinetely, it would be a fraud. An unusual thing to do, and a
long shot, but if you're dying, what do you have to lose?
Jim Lund
-------------------------
Terry W. Colvin forwarded:
>[...] One perfectly reasonable cryonic reanimation scenario
>involves a destructive, slice by slice, readout of your information content
>using for example AFM's scanning the synaptic connections at the molecular
>level.
This may look perfectly reasonable on Star Trek, but the point is that it's
not science at this time. There is no adequately tested procedure to do
this, nor is there any way to guarantee with a minimum of confidence that
it will be possible to do this on a brain that is frozen with current
technology.
So to freeze human brains today in the hope that your "perfectly
reasonable" scenario will be feasible in the future is not a scientific
decision but merely a wild guess, and to sell such service is fraud.
>Actually, the kidney is a bad example because it is a highly structured
>organ. Brains are probably going to be easier to freeze and restore
>than kidneys.
Mmm... perhaps some brains... But most tend to be even more complex than
kidneys.
> For cryonics
>not to work one needs to make a very strong assertion that there is
>information loss in the freezing process that cannot be recovered.
This is if one were to claim that cryonics will never work. But such is not
one's claim. One's claim is that there is no evidence that current methods
of freezing brains are adequate, and so one cannot claim that at present
cyonics is working (even if only in the storage stage).
>The only way I can see that happening is if you force the brain through
>a spaghetti colander.
This would only be relevant if you had the ability to see and foresee any
and all possible problems. Lacking such ability, failure to see a problem
is not indication that it doesn't exist, especially if you don't even
bother to look...
>Until the molecular velcro holding the synapses together is degraded
>and/or the axons and dendrites are destroyed (a process that takes hours
>if not days) one still has the information content of the brain.
The information in the brain is not just which wire goes where, but the
kind of transmitter used, how much the neuron sinthesyzes and releases, the
response of the molecular receptors to the incoming impulses, the way
myelin affects the speed of transmission so groups of neurons can function
in a synchronized way, etc... And this is only what we found so far.
>It isn't "faith" which by definition rests on no evidence at all.
>(I can cite the steak example as evidence that freezing something
>does not "destroy" it.)
Mmm... nice reasoning. Freeze a steak. Cook it. Eat it. It tastes OK. Ergo
brains can be frozen without losing any essential bits of information.
I don't know... it still sounds more like faith than science...
> It is also not "quackery" since this is
>essentially a bet based on reasonable projections of technology
>developments based on historical trends (e.g. Moore's Law) and
>authoritative and informed opinions (e.g. Feynman, Drexler, Merkle, etc.).
A bet is not quackery. But it's not science. And selling a bet as a
scientific procedure is quackery. After all buying a crystal to cure some
cancer is also a bet that the cancer will disappear on its own (which is
not that rare in most cases). But selling cancer curing crystals is still
quackery, bet or no bet, because there is no evidence that it does any
bloody god (though you could test the crystal on the steak and upon finding
the steak free of cancer you could claim this as evidence too).
Ludwig Krippahl
-------------------------
James Lund wrote:
>[...]
>2) Enough of the structure of the brain is preserved by freezing that the
>person is preserved. Neurons and axons get damaged but their identity and
>connections are preserved.
This is the problem right here. It is stated as a fact when no evidence
supports such claim. There are brains being frozen since 1976, and even
today there is no demonstrated technique for freezing human sized brains
without leaving obvious structural damage, and no assessment at all of the
consequences of other damage (neuron dehydration, protein denaturation,
toxicity, lack of oxygen prior to freezing, etc...)
Even with hardy microbe cells you get at best around 90-95% viable cells
after freezing -- and this with a suspension of cells, where it doesn't
matter if cells shift position. But if you lose 10% of the cells in your
brain you're in deep sh**.
>If the people getting frozen understand this, I don't see the
>quackery.
Evidence indicates they are ruining the brains, yet they claim to be
preserving them. This is quackery.
> If the ice cube company can't be relied on the keep the chill
>going indefinetely, it would be a fraud. An unusual thing to do, and a
>long shot, but if you're dying, what do you have to lose?
That's precisely when quacks make the most money: when the patients are
dying and have little to lose. Especially in this case (if your brain is
too badly damaged we'll refund you immediately upon request, no questions
asked...)
Ludwig Krippahl
-----------------------
James Lund wrote:
>The damage that occurs when animals or cells are frozen and thawed doesn't
>tell us whether essential structures are preserved in a frozen brain.
Right.
[...]
> freezing causes damage, and thawing causes
>further damage, and for most large animals this is lethal. But the nature
>of the cells, their type and position is preserved in the frozen brain,
>and it could *in principle* be restored. Not practical today, perhaps
>never practical, but possible.
The data on freezing animal cells or tissues does not extrapolate well to
freezing a whole human body or skull. It is well known that the larger the
thing to freeze the worse it will be and the more damage it will suffer. So
I'm not confident that the brains frozen right now at Cryonics preserve
even the type and position for most cells.
More importantly you need a lot of physiological information besides type
and position and what connects where. Neurons adjust sensitivity at each
sinapse on the dendrites. The response of the neuron depends on biochemical
control of synthesis, breakdown and transport of neurotransmitters,
receptors, etc.. All this is crucial for the thing to work (in neural
network parlance, you don't need to know just where to connect but the
connection weights, the thresholds, the activation functions, etc...)
So to present this process of preservation as scientific they would have to
demonstrate that it does preserve cell type, position and connection
information. Is there any data on their methods for freezing complete human
skulls that supports this? (It's hardly the same as freezing an isolated
rabbit brain...)
Furthermore they would have to show some evidence indicating that the
biochemistry of the neurons survives the freezing process, and that
dehydration, protein denaturation, poisoning by the cryoprotectant etc
doesn't mess things up too much.
Without any evidence that their particular method is working they're merely
engaging in expensive wishful thinking. Which is not in itself bad, unless
it's sold as science.
>Buyer beware is always the watch word...
Sure, but it's still illegal to label a box of nails as "chocolate cookies"...
Ludwig Krippahl
--
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com >
Alternate: < terry_colvin@hotmail.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
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