CryoNet #32812 - #32819

CryoNet - Thu 2 Sep 2010

    #32812: Re: a proposal to stimulate cryonics research [benbest]
    #32813: Hooray...some fine postings on Cryonet! [Rudi Hoffman]
    #32814: [Perry Metzger] Re: Cryonet #32800 [MARK PLUS]
    #32815: Re: "Nano-nonsense [Keith Henson]
    #32816: Re: [LongevityReport] "Nano-nonsense: 25 years of charlatanry... [Keith Henson]
    #32817: Re: nano [Perry E. Metzger]
    #32818: Re: nano [Perry E. Metzger]
    #32819: Re  [LongevityReport] Nano-nonsense: 25 years of charlatanry [John de Rivaz]

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Message #32812
Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:34:49 -0400
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: a proposal to stimulate cryonics research

Nearly three weeks ago Douglas Skrecky posted
his message "a proposal to stimulate cryonics research":

http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=32767

to which this is my belated reply.

  The focus of Doug's message on cryoprotectant
toxicity shows that his heart and mind are in
the right place, so I hope that my acknowledgment
of this fact is not lost because I have some
criticisms of the details of his message.
In particular, I disagree with his claim that:

"By pulling out all the stops, expense be damned,
and actually using these less toxic but pricey cryoprotective
agents such as ectoin, DESO, and KF7G; fully reversible
liquid nitrogen cryopreservation of entire animals is
IMHO quite possible right now."

  KF7G is an anti-freeze flavonol glycoside, comparable
to anti-freeze proteins and ice blockers in its
mechanism of action. Although the 9oC freezing-point
depression of KF7G is more impressive than that of
any other ice-blocker, KF7G is not a cryoprotectant
and can do no more than assist cryoprotectants a bit
in achieving and maintaining vitrification.

Doug cites a single paper showing the effectiveness
of DESO as a cryoprotectant on a single organism,
the bacterium Escherichia coli. Although 85% viability
for 45% DESO concentration is impressive, it is not
the same as 100% viability and E. coli is not a
mammalian cell. The relative toxicities of the various
cryoprotectants varies remarkably with cell type:

http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/viable.html#toxicity

The University of Michigan does not have or
have access to the paper you cited for ectoin, although
I similarly note that 72% survival of a single
cell type is not the same as 100% viability for
all cell types.

As I have been saying for years, the greatest
breakthrough for cryonics would be the
elimination of cryoprotectant toxicity, and
the focus on research should be on understanding
what cryoprotectant toxicity is. If we do not
understand the mechanisms of cryoprotectant
toxicity, we are poorly equipped to eliminate it.
Current understanding of the mechanisms of
cryoprotectant toxicity is sketchy, in my opinion:

http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/viable.html#mechanisms

If we could have a Manhatten project for studying
cryoprotectant toxicity we could have a significant
chance of dramatically advancing cryonics. But this
requires lots of money and lots of recognition of
the importance of this problem.

Many cryobiologists have been aware for
many years that cryoprotectant toxicity is
"the central problem blocking successful
cryopreservation by vitification":

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3595164

but in cryobiology, as in cryonics, the money
and commitment have not been in place to solve
what is the most important problem. Nor has there
been sufficient understanding that it is the most
important problem. I appreciate, Doug, that you
have this recognition.

          -- Ben Best

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Message #32813
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2010 09:50:24 -0400
Subject: Hooray...some fine postings on Cryonet!
From: Rudi Hoffman <[email protected]>

--0016364c7cfdc1eb97048f32faa0

Now THIS is more like it...

I found the postings by Perry Metzger and Robert Ettinger most compelling on
this morning's Cryonet.

Observations by Mark Plus (I think...sorry if I got this attribution wrong,
Mark) about the unlikely emergence of nanotech in 25 years...not so much.

Having had extensive discussions with (nanotechnologist and Alcor board
member) Ralph Merkle regarding this very issue, and having been a Drexler
fan, and Foresight Senior Associate for a long time, and having read parts
of...but not fully understood, Rob Freitas's "Nanomedicine." this topic is
of personal interest.  And should be an obsessive interest to all serious
cryonicists.

There is a large gap between "nanotech fabric pants" (which I have on
currently as I write this, btw,) and true MNT.  Molecular manufacturing
technology...especially done in a non-liquid environment that will almost
certainly be necessary for cryonics resuscitation, is, as reported, sadly
underfunded and moving slowly.  Until spending several hours learning the
distinctions from Ralph Merkle, I did not really understand the differences
in "general nanotech" vs. non-liquid and cold temperature MNT.

Not surprisingly, Ralph is rather desperately looking for long term angel
funders for TRUE MNT research and development.

So, perhaps we should all be as precise as possible in our terms when
discussing the likelihood of "nanotech in 25 years."

For what it is worth, and I don't pretend to be anything but a well read
dilettante in this field, I think it will take 200 years of progress to
reach MNT.  But, as Kurzwiel cleverly presages, this 200 years of progress
will almost certainly occur during the next 25 years, due to accelerating
and overlapping research.  People who think this is nuts should subscribe to
the weekly feed from Kurzweil's push email.  Breakthroughs are happening
virtually every day...and eventually these will evolve and emerge as fully
developed nanotech.  As William Gibson has wriley observed, "The future is
already here...it is just unevenly distributed."

So, I am off to hop in the motor home to take a short trip celebrating my
wife's birthday, today!

Warm Regards to all sentient creatures reading these lines,

Rudi


-- 
Rudi Richard Hoffman CFP CLU ChFC

World's Leading Cryonics Insuror rudihoffman.com
Former Board Member Financial Planning Association fpafla.com
Board Member Salvation Army salvationarmy.org
Member Alcor Life Extension Foundation alcor.org,
Member Cryonics Institute cryonics.org
Certified Financial Planner(TM) CFP Board of Standards
Member World Transhumanist Association http://transhumanism.org/
Securities offered through Broker Dealer Financial Services Corp. Member
FINRA and SIPC.

--0016364c7cfdc1eb97048f32faa0

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Message #32814
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2010 08:05:28 -0700
Subject: [Perry Metzger] Re: Cryonet #32800
From: MARK PLUS <[email protected]>

>Let me start by saying that if nano is impossible, you are impossible, because you are made of molecular machines. How do you function if molecular machines can't function?

Yes, and the existence of the Hula-Hoop shows that a sufficiently
advanced civilization could build Larry Niven's Ringworld.

You'll have to try harder than that.

The "molecular machines" in biology don't incorporate principles from
macroscopic mechanical engineering, because those principles don't
work on that scale. Locklin and other critics like Richard Smalley,
Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, have pointed that out to the
Drexlerologists, but apparently to no effect on the True Believers.

>Sure, there are lots of people taking money for nanotechnology research -- materials scientists and synthetic organic chemists got a huge bonanza in funding by relabeling their existing work
"nanotechnology" -- but the number of people who are directly working
on molecular  manufacturing is so small the community could be wiped
out in a good car accident.

Drexlerologists have had a quarter century to make their case for more
people and more funding, in an era when other dubious ideas like
"green energy" don't seem to have trouble finding resources. What does
that say about Drexlerology's reputation? In the absence of tangible
results, you can play the can-rattling "Neglected Visionary" game for
only so long before you lose status, as Nikola Tesla discovered later
in his life.

As a rule of thumb, it seems to me that a new technology can progress
quickly if it exploits the correct principles of physics from the
beginning, something that I have yet to see demonstrated in
Drexlerology.

I get the impression that Drexler went out of his way to associate his
speculations with cryonics in the 1980's, when he didn't have to. From
hindsight he probably didn't do us a favor. Cryonicists' uncritical
embrace of Drexlerology (with the notable exception of Thomas
Donaldson) have led us down a blind alley for the last 25 years. If
Drexler had ignored cryonics instead, we might have had the
opportunity to do more constructive thinking about revival scenarios.

As an aside, I probably should have anticipated the level of passion I
would generate by bringing up this subject, given my layman's
knowledge of Terror Management Theory. Many cryonicists have become
dependent on Drexlerology for their anxiety buffers, so it upsets them
when someone inside the tribe, so to speak, exposes them to mortality
salience by questioning Drexlerology's validity.


-- 
Mark Plus
Life is short: Freeze hard!

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Message #32815
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2010 08:54:39 -0700
Subject: Re: "Nano-nonsense
From: Keith Henson <[email protected]>

On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 2:00 AM, "Perry E. Metzger" <[email protected]> wrote:

snip

> Let me start by saying that if nano is impossible, you are impossible,
> because you are made of molecular machines. How do you function if
> molecular machines can't function?

It's a good argument, same thing could have been said for a thousand
years about heavier than air flight because birds and bats do it.
Proof by example that it can be done.  Living stuff is proof that
molecular machines function.

> Let me also say that the characterization of Drexler's thesis is
> either the result of someone being unable to read it or the result of
> someone who feels like lying to stir up controversy is fun.

Or is just trying to be obnoxious.

snip

> Heck, the blog poster's opener is even a lie, Drexler doesn't even
> "invoke the Schroedinger equation" anywhere that I can remember. I'm
> not sure he even prints it in the book, though my copy isn't
> nearby. Why? Because pretty early on

Page 12

> he notes (correctly) that exact
> ab initio models are incapable of yielding much information about
> nanomachines because finding solutions to the Schroedinger equation
> for mesomolecular systems will always be computationally
> intractable. (He then spends a long time discussing what sort of
> mathematical models you need to use in order to understand the
> behavior of such systems.)

The Schroedinger equation is mentioned in passing on two other pages, 40 and 64.

> Believe whatever you like, however, including that you yourself don't
> exist.
>
> So, why hasn't Nanotechnology borne fruit? Because no one is working
> on it. That's a slight exaggeration, of course, there are perhaps a
> dozen of us working on it, but there need to be thousands in order to
> get anywhere. The average Intel microprocessor has several thousand
> engineers working on the design, and that's ignoring all the people
> that built all the machines needed to make those engineers
> productive. Even a simple MNT device is far more complicated than an
> Intel Core 2, but there's just about no one doing the work, so of
> course we're not getting anywhere.

Arguing from living devices, Venter recently made all synthetic DNA
and stuck it inside a cored out bacteria to generate a living one.
The code was a million base pairs.  I would not be surprised if the
code for a modern microprocessor is in that class.  But your point is
correct, MNT devices would take thousands of engineer working on them
and another army of support people to make the tools that make them
productive.  Also it takes highly evolved tools to produce
microprocessors after they have been designed.  How we get from what
we have to a full tool kit is not easy to envision (or we would have
done it already).

On the other hand, if the feature size in integrated circuits
continues to shrink, they will have to develop the tools needed for
MNT.

Keith

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Message #32816
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2010 09:09:11 -0700
Subject: Re: [LongevityReport] "Nano-nonsense: 25 years of charlatanry...
From: Keith Henson <[email protected]>

On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 2:00 AM, MARK PLUS <[email protected]> wrote:

snip

> I detect fallacious sunk costs reasoning in defense of Drexler's
> speculations. I have no emotional investment in Drexler's reputation,
> and if his ideas suck, we'd do cryonics a disservice by continuing to
> invest our money and hopes in them instead of looking for better
> ideas.

Drexler's work is not easy to understand and harder to implement but
it is based on the best understanding we have of the physical world.
That physical world included our bodies and those stored in LN2.  If
we are going to repair them, we have to gain access to the world of
the very small.

If you have better ideas, don't keep them secret.

Keith

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Message #32817
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2010 12:33:23 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: nano
References: <[email protected]>

"Freeposity" wrote:
> I find it interesting that with a simple google search you can find
> over 800 consumer products that are nanotech based. Perhaps the
>author is working from old data.

Anything can be called anything. I can say my product contains fairy
dust if I like. People might even believe that the marketing decision
to say the product contains "fairy dust" means it actually does even
if the idea is nonsense.

There are no products on the market that contain actual molecular
machines unless you count things like houseplants. Any product
currently on the market that claims to use "nanotech" is either
charlatanry or ordinary advanced materials being hyped for
advertising purposes.

Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger		[email protected]

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Message #32818
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2010 13:03:15 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: nano
References: <[email protected]>

Robert Ettinger wrote:
> I don't have the patience to list the references or expound the
> results, but even a cursory search will reveal many useful
> developments in nanotechnology, and many patents.

Most of the developments are in things that are labeled
nanotechnology rather than in actual MNT, which is what is required
to repair cryonics patients.

Once a huge amount of funding became available in the 1990s for
"nanotechnology" research, a lot of people suddenly "discovered" that
their work in materials, organic synthesis, etc., was in fact
"nanotechnology". Given the politics of funding agencies,
this is hardly surprising -- reviewers would inevitably come
from fields like that and would tend to support researchers
doing work they understand well. Virtually no money has gone
to real MNT research.

There are some arguable exceptions. One might regard current work in
synthetic biology as a sort of true nanotechnology research, though
for reasons that aren't worth getting into right now I don't think
synthetic biology is "interesting" from our perspective.

One might also regard the current work on DNA origami and similar
techniques as a sort of "true" nanotechnology, though there are as
yet no means to produce true machines by those methods. (That said, I
follow the DNA origami world's research because I might be wrong and
it might become critically important.)

However, if you want to talk about the people out there that are
working on actual molecular machines research, well, there aren't a
lot of them. 

> But even if there was or is over-optimism in  some quarters about
> the pace of progress, that does not affect the iron strength of the
> basic argument. 

The basic argument is indeed iron clad. Anyone who does not think
nanomachines and molecular manufacturing are feasible should look in
the mirror -- all living things are made of nanomachines.

As for the creation of a robust molecular manufacturing capability
that would permit the sorts of devices Robert Freitas has sketched
out in books like "Nanomedicine" and in his papers on devices such as
respirocytes, microbivores, etc.:

I don't think that the engineering obstacles to be overcome are
particularly beyond our reach as a technological society, even given
our current tools. The real issue is that we lack enough minds
working on the issue.

If we had a few hundred smart people in their early twenties working
full time on the problem, the outlook would be very different. As it
is, there aren't even professors for said young women and men to study
the field with.

If I had the power to go back in time and be perfectly persuasive to
just one person, I would return to the point where Eric Drexler got
his doctorate and convince him to get a faculty job, even if
necessary at a second tier university, rather than founding Foresight.
By now, there would be thousands of students who had taken classes
under him and dozens of graduated PhDs who had studied with him. That
would be enough for there to be a self sustaining research community,
conferences devoted to true MNT, a journal or two, etc., and the
community would be spreading.

Instead, any smart student who reads EoC or thumbs through
Nanosystems and wants to learn more has essentially nowhere to turn,
gets discouraged, and is ultimately lost to the field. That needs to
be fixed.

Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger		[email protected]

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Message #32819
From: "John de Rivaz" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re  [LongevityReport] Nano-nonsense: 25 years of charlatanry
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2010 22:44:03 +0100

Keith Henson asks for better ideas to assembler nanotechnology for cryonic revivals. I think because life itself is based on this technology, it is unlikely that anything else will achieve the desired results. Although macro based surgery can do wonderful things, it falls far short of repairing living systems.  It is like trying to repair a transistor radio using vacuum tubes. This is why cancer treatment using surgery, radiation or selective poisons may prolong life a bit but cannot alter or repair that fact that a particular patient's body is capable of becoming cancerous.

Mark Plus seems to like using his "layman's knowledge of terror management theory" to rattle a few cages, but doesn't seem to come up with solutions. His campaign to concentrate cryonicists around where he lives is based on global warming, volcanic eruptions, fuel shortages and other limits to global commerce. Has never included any constructive ideas for overseas people to do so within the law. This is despite comments from myself and others that maybe this would be more useful, or that migration is almost impossible for most people to achieve.

But still it is always useful to know what other people are thinking and the nano-backlash web sites are certainly interesting from that point of view. It may well be that these sites are written by people who have lost money in the mini-boom based on start up companies with the word "nano" in their titles.

>From the messages created by this cage rattle, I do not believe that assembler based nanotechnology is impossible. However I accept that because very few people are working on it, it is not going to appear as soon as some people may have hoped, or indeed as soon as it would have been physically possible with more effort.

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2010 09:09:11 -0700
Subject: Re: [LongevityReport] "Nano-nonsense: 25 years of charlatanry...
From: Keith Henson <[email protected]>

On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 2:00 AM, MARK PLUS <[email protected]> wrote:

snip

> I detect fallacious sunk costs reasoning in defense of Drexler's
> speculations. I have no emotional investment in Drexler's reputation,
> and if his ideas suck, we'd do cryonics a disservice by continuing to
> invest our money and hopes in them instead of looking for better
> ideas.

Drexler's work is not easy to understand and harder to implement but
it is based on the best understanding we have of the physical world.
That physical world included our bodies and those stored in LN2.  If
we are going to repair them, we have to gain access to the world of
the very small.

If you have better ideas, don't keep them secret.

Keith



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