On Sat, Jul 25, 2020 at 3:23 PM Lawrence Crowell < [email protected]> wrote:
*> This is no-go unless the problem of ice crystal expansion is solved.* True, but that problem doesn't need to be solved right now, it can be left to future technology to figure out. The key question right now is will my brain enter a turbulent state when it is frozen or will the fluid flow be laminar? If it's turbulent then small changes in initial conditions will result in large changes in outcome and I'm dead meat, even nanotechnology couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. But if the freezing process is laminar then figuring out what things were like before they were frozen would be pretty straightforward. Fluid flow stops being smoothly Laminar and starts to become chaotically turbulent when a system has a Reynolds number between 2300 and 4000, although you might get some non chaotic vortices if it is bigger than 30. You can find the approximate Reynolds number by using the formula LDV/N. L is the characteristic size we're interested in, we're interested in cells so L is about 10^-6 meters. D is the density of water, 10^3 kilograms/cubic meter. V is the velocity of the flow, during freezing it's probably less than 10^-3 meters per second but let's be conservative, I'll give you 3 orders of magnitude and call V 1 meter per second. N is the viscosity of water, 0.001 newton-second/meter^2, If you plug these numbers into the formula you get a Reynolds number of about 1. And 1 is a lot less than 2300 so it looks like any mixing caused by freezing would probably be laminar not turbulent, so you can still deduce the position where things are supposed to be. Actually to my mind the most serious obstacles to the success of my program are not scientific at all, they are these: 1) Will my brain really be frozen soon after my death? 2) Will my brain remain frozen until the age of nanotechnology? 3) When it becomes possible to retrieve the information in my frozen brain will anybody think I'm worth the trouble to actually do it? Concerning that last one, I think it will either be impossible to revive me or cheap and easy to do , the time when it will be possible but expensive will be very short. I'm willing to concede that my value to the Jupiter Brain that will be running things then will be almost zero, but my (perhaps hopelessly optimistic) hope is that it is not precisely zero. Anyway, given a choice between no chance and a slim chance I'll pick a slim chance every time. > *By the time brain cells are really frozen they are dead. * Both a cadaver and a healthy human being are made of atoms, the only difference between the two is how those atoms are arranged, so if information on the position and momentum them is preserved then one can be turned to another because atoms are generic; if you've seen one carbon atom you've seen them all. > >* You also have the problem that even if that can be worked around a > person so frozen, where I guess now it is just the head with the idea of > cloning bodies etc, has to be kept in some sort of endowment. Within a > century of so that will burn off like the morning fog.* Maybe so, but at least I have a chance, even if cryonic suspension doesn't work it won't cause me to be any deader than if I was eaten by worms or burned up in a fire. And how long I will need to be maintained at liquid nitrogen temperature depends on when the age of nanotechnology arrives; I would be astonished if it occured in just 10 years, I would be equally astonished if it didn't happen in 100 years. > Now, for those running ALCOR or related companies this might be for now a > cash cow. If enough people can be duped into this it might provide serious > profits. The first human cryonic suspension occurred in January 1967 (and the guy is still frozen in the ALCOR facility to this very day) and in all that time nobody has gotten rich off of cryonics or even gotten close. I wish somebody had. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv3aQOU%2BvROZaCOsYXymUiWKKSwzH6JMFTXRpZdZXgea2w%40mail.gmail.com.
