I am raising this topic as a kind of whimsical table talk for a comparison of the promise of Cryogenics AND Mummification (essentially drying) and also as a way of outlining the pitfalls of both.
One obvious comparison for example, is the dependence on external resources. A cryogenically maintained body must have a support structure that is relatively complex along with a staff of "devotees” willing and able to maintain the equipment. Mummies don't take so much high-end maintenance.
A second aspect is that ALL of the oldest DNA sample we have from paleontological records comes from both of these methods so from that perspective they both offer some form of preserving at least the specific DNA signature of the original individual across ten of thousands of years and perhaps in the case of mummies millions. I can make this claim because we have found mummified dinosaurs that have provided DNA with which to analyze.
I guess there is a third technique we should examine and that would be crystallization, as demonstrated by encasement in amber. This last technique has some problems but it also offers some benefits of freezing, and drying, as well as a kind of built "on" shelter from environmental factors.
Now before wondering down this path too far lets make some practical comparisons:
If you are going to just preserve the "brain" how do you know the memory is encrypted in a physical manner that will survive storage?
Now before we go to far into theory lets start off honest, we don't know that it can. This is an area we are learning about still and there is too much to learn yet to call any claims more than speculation. But since we are speculating: Why would a frozen brain hold more memory than a dried brain? If you have destroyed cellular structure to preserve chemistry why do you have any reason to believe experience as a specific memory for an individual will remain intact?
But if we alter chemistry subtly to preserve cellular structure would that offer the possibility of the desired result? Again this is all speculation so we don't know, anymore than we know how to revive the dead but the perspective opens up some intriguing possibilities.
So now I would add, if we are rebuilding bodies and preserving memory why are we committed to the first body? The information can be reassembled from the genetic signature, it is the "memory” that we want to reinstall with the body upon reawakening. So why assume freezing will do this? And anyway if a transfer is possible then why aren't we first of all looking to "extract" the memory, then preserve it, then look at how to reinstall memory in a living organism. These are only logical steps for validating the assertions claimed by those offering "hope".
This last set of questions returns us to the discussion of "uploading” a process that will be facilitated by the development of such devices as the hippocampal implant. But it begs more questions then it answers. What and where is our "experience of self (memory)" stored, and how is it stored?
Yes I know that by poking around and damaging parts of our brains we are making assumptions about what is by what isn't after we damage a lobe but this is not proof, only rational conjecture based upon "loss" of function. In other words, a best guess or better yet an “educated guess” but it is not true comprehension of the processes involved.
I am also aware of the imagery we use to monitor informational processing but this is like trying to figure out how to make and project a movie of supreme quality by solely watching the movie. We see the energy exchanges like "light” flashing on a screen, we can begin to decode the colors, the sequence of signal strength, the areas of the brain that function for different kinds of reasoning processes, maybe even the language that the image is displayed in, but we aren’t appreciating the process by which the retain of memory is stored on the “film” at the source of the projection, or the finished product as it leaves the “editors” lab. Please don’t take this analogy too literally, it is a metaphor only, and a way of describing the problems we are facing by making too many assumptions about what we already (don’t) know.
So back to mummies versus corpsicles: the track record on both is impressive. “Ötzi” the Iceman is a five thousand year old corpsicle that we are examining in a laboratory and his DNA is in remarkably good condition and forensic paleontologists are trying to recreate his life as their personal life’s work, but how would we resurrect this one long dead individual and how could we look into his brain to capture his memory?
Now by comparison the Egyptian mummification processes are useless because they have removed all the organs (including the brain) and essentially destroyed them because they do not really preserve them (though some examples of chemical storage appears to have been made) but we are also finding examples of mummies from other cultures that do not remove the organs so again why not test these brains and see what kind of memory can be extracted?
In fact take anybody recently dead and see if you can extract a memory.
Sounds futile, why?
This is exactly the same process that would be required to resurrect anybody that has been stored cryogenically and especially if you “believe” that by just storing a head this can be accomplished. This question of even replaying someone’s life has little to do with how we would preserve that memory until we can identify the medium it is contained in and reanimate (replay) the original copy (pun) such that we can project that information comprehensively and then translate that signal into a form that can be transmitted, stored, copied, and reinstalled in another brain.
If even this could be done then everybody now alive could have their entire life’s experience stored in a kind of “Spirit Archive” where their lives could be accessed again and again for future generations to study and a perfect record of history preserved from the perspective of the living. Of course this isn’t about reanimating the individuals involved, just preserving their experiences. After we can do that comes the second part of this quest; bringing the individuals back to life.
Once we can even “read a mind” then comes the ability to test many theories included whether or not memory is preserved after death, and how that process occurs and what is the best method for preserving individual experience. Then we can test whether a frozen brain preserves a memory or if a dried brain does as well, or if all we are doing is dancing with the dead like some ancient tribal Mozambicans having their rituals with their ancestors.
But back to mummies and corpsicles (again), nature offers a kind of track record in this respect but so does history. History says that without making the preservation of cryogenically stored bodies a memetic religion there is little chance that ANY business designed to accomplish this will survive for more than a few generations. This is not insurmountable but probability is weighted heavily against the corpsicles surviving the trauma of sociological change and vagaries of market dynamics. So I for one think this must also go into planning a system and selecting a technique for preservation.
It is also one reason that I prefer mummification to cryogenics as a method for insuring truly long term storage. It is also the case that I am train to mummify and understand how to accomplish this scientifically with the most modern methods of aqueous substitution to preserve cellular structure (not just DNA) by replacement of the water molecules in a manner to create a preserved body with a minimum of necessary upkeep.
But for me this is all little more than an intellectual exercise until the earlier questions are addressed because I am unconvinced that we aren’t just creating a new form of burial ritual with scientific sounding methods and pretexts if we don’t answer the other questions and ANSWER the questions raised about memory and experience first.
Since I don’t trust future generations or societies to remain intact any better then in the past I prefer to remain intact myself. I also suggest that there is a way that funding could be arranged to overlap our effort. There exists a sociological “need” to replay the memories of murder victims to know what transpired at their deaths and pursue the perpetrators. This is not a new suggestion but it becomes evermore a practical reality.
What if we could create a technique to extract memory form the recently dead and translate those memories into a comprehensible and incorruptible form such that the memories could even be used as evidence in a courtroom?
By just replaying the memory we are not causing the victim to relive the suffering, though arguably we must be considerate and concerned with the surviving family for they WILL be reliving the suffering over and over if this avenue is too indulged. I offer this as way of showing how a “need” can create and avenue of “invention” and how this form of creativity serves our longer term purpose.
Well people are you ready to even discard your religions of state and science? Because by developing the technologies we are seeking here we are beginning to tread on the memetic issues that are at the very heart not only of religion but of the memetic paradigms for the survival and advancement of our species. Oh? You say; why is that?
Let me repeat history “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”. Before you are convinced that I have gone all mystic on you hasn’t anybody else noticed how the issues we are working with parallel the origins of religious practice universally?
In the west why was Christianity such a powerful memetic force that it threatened the power of Caesar’s? Because the followers of Jesus claimed he was able to defy death and this is commonly consider proof of “holiness” transcendent of ANY political doctrine. Jesus isn’t just professed to have brought “the dead” back to life, but to have been able to do so himself. He isn’t the only example of a spiritual icon accomplishing this, but what’s important s that the MEME of practicing such art falls into a paradigmatic behavioral category that defines the most extreme examples ethical behavior, both good and bad. And for those of you that want to start a theological debate over this calm down I am not a Christian. I have a serious student’s perspective upon ALL the important characters of religious history and I do not place them hierarchically in importance, nor do I see them in competition; for me their stories are exemplary.
It should become apparent to us all that the parallels of behavioral choice are beginning to coincide with our efforts to a degree that I for one find remarkable and if you strip away the trappings of our personal perspectives and our claimed desire to appear “unique and objective” then it becomes almost disturbing how pragmatically we are working with the very core of all theological practice and its importance to social definition. How even such questions of cryogenics take on “ritual” significance in order to preserve the objects of such ritual for the proposed time necessary to complete the “spirit journey”.
I am looking forward to commentary on this but if you want to argue about are we Gods versus are we subjects of God then please open a separate thread. I agree a priori that we are walking on thin ice for the difference between forms of worship and devotion versus being worshipped and having devoted service but for this thread I want to make the discussion more specifically technical and I only raised the point to clarify how the subjects overlap.
