111–120 of 363 posts
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It isn't that they die - it is that they die before they can realize many of their dreams, before they can change the world in the way they have been working towards, before they're done . We hate cancer because it takes from us those who wish to give so much without consideration. An indiscriminate killer that wastes our treasures away before our eyes, leaving us with only memories, partially realized dreams and the…
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I would; death sucks. At the very least, people should always be able to choose to live for another day.
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Why are you in favor of poverty and global warming, and against asteroid mining and starships? There's so much more you can do while you're alive than you can do while you're dead; and attempting to extend your time alive does not preclude enjoying it.
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The cell damage inflicted by the cryo process is readily acknowledged by its proponents. They argue that the neurological damage is not so large that the original brain can't be reconstructed either by scanning it while still frozen or by repairing it with nano-bots. Much like data from a wiped hard drive can still be recovered by digital forensics. As for the problem of outer layers freezing faster than inner layers…
That's complete nonsense. Nanobots cannot repair angstrom-scale freeze damages. You approach the classical limit, where protons are more wave than particle. And what's a brain antifreeze? Even biocompatible antifreeze proteins found in arctic oceans have a thermal threshold of 269K, which is no where near cryogenic temperature.
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The cell damage inflicted by the cryo process is readily acknowledged by its proponents. They argue that the neurological damage is not so large that the original brain can't be reconstructed either by scanning it while still frozen or by repairing it with nano-bots. Much like data from a wiped hard drive can still be recovered by digital forensics. As for the problem of outer layers freezing faster than inner layers…
The brain is like flash memory. Sure some of the conent is still possible to get at (electrical charge stays around for a long time) but the circuits between the flash cells are all dead. The connections are as important as the state. Not going to happen.
“We know that secondary memory does not depend on continued activity of the nervous system, because the brain can be totally inactivated by cooling, by general anesthesia, by hypoxia, by ischemia, or by any method, and yet secondary memories that have been previously stored are still retained when the brain becomes active once again. Therefore, secondary memory must result from some actual alterations of the synapses, either physical or chemical.” — Textbook of Medical Physiology by Arthur C. Guyton (W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia, 1986), page 658.
“Procedural and declarative memories differ dramatically. They use a different logic (unconscious vs. conscious recall) and they are stored in different areas of the brain. Nevertheless, these two disparate memory processes share several molecular steps and an overall molecular logic. Both are created in at least two stages: one that does not require the synthesis of new proteins and one that does. In both, short-term memory involves covalent modification of preexisting proteins and changes in the strength of preexisting synaptic connections, whereas long-term memory requires the synthesis of new proteins and the growth of new connections. Moreover, both forms of memory use PKA, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), CREB-1, and CREB-2 signaling pathways to convert short-term to long-term memory. Finally, both forms appear to use morphological changes at synapses to stabilize long-term memory.” — “Synapses and Memory Storage” by Mayford M, Siegelbaum SA, and Kandel ER. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, April 10, 2012, page 10.Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Hmm...except that cryopreservation is still, as of this point, a complete crock of shit. Trying to find a necromancer would be more productive. No, that's not very rational. Cryopreservation may have low chances of success, but it's like a billion billion billion times better than just dying (which has zero chance of success). Nobody is claiming that cryopreservation is very probable, but it's a lot better than noth…
> No, that's not very rational. Cryopreservation may have low chances of success, but it's like a billion billion billion times better than just dying (which has zero chance of success). Nobody is claiming that cryopreservation is very probable, but it's a lot better than nothing. That's basically Pascal Bet (if there's God you get infinite payoff, if there's no God you get finite negative payoff (wasted time caused…
Yes, and that's rational. If there's another preservation technology that's better than cryopreservation, we should adopt that. There's nothing irrational about that. You just need to first invent such technology, and then provide evidence that it's better than current vitrification tech.
This has happened in the past. A few decades ago the preservation method was changed from freezing to vitrification, after vitrification was shown to be better.
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If I'd been around 12,000 years ago to invest a few bucks, and it grew at a 2% APY since then, I would currently have enough money to end poverty and global warming, while mining the asteroid belt to build an Orion-class starship in orbit. Why are you in favor of poverty and global warming, and against asteroid mining and starships? There's so much more you can do while you're alive than you can do while you're dead;…
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The Player of Games is one of the few sci-fi books I recommend to readers interested in the genre.
Which Banks book should I start with? I was going to start with the Player of Games after your comment, but it turns out it's part of a series, and Consider Phlebas is the first one. Does it matter?
I'd suggest PoG as a starting point to explain what the Culture's about, which I think it does better than CP because the main character in that is not of the Culture. YMMV though.
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Sure, you may not want people to live forever, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the above comment; indeed, what you've said might be viewed as somewhat callous when considering the context that someone has revealed that they have terminal cancer.
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Which Banks book should I start with? I was going to start with the Player of Games after your comment, but it turns out it's part of a series, and Consider Phlebas is the first one. Does it matter?
I'd suggest Player of Games first; I found it better as an introduction to the Culture. They're not really a series as such; his Culture novels share a setting but don't share any characters (well, almost none) or any particular plot continuity, so you certainly don't have to read them in order. I'd suggest PoG as a starting point to explain what the Culture's about, which I think it does better than CP because the m…
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