Manifesto to discredit scientific cryonics. Texcoco file Press.
TEXCOCO.- (Texcoco Press) .- I woke up Saturday to discover a heartbreaking cover article in New York Times about a young terminally ill choice freeze your brain. I was attracted by a cottage industry driven “transhumanísticos” principles offered preserving human in liquid nitrogen immediately after death and the preservation of their bodies (or at least their heads) in the hope that they can be resuscitated or replicated . digitally in a technologically advanced future
Proponents of these techniques have added a veneer of scientific plausibility to the idea by the promise of new technologies neuroscience, particularly recent work in connectomics – a field that maps connections between neurons. Suggests that a detailed map of neural connections could restore a person’s mind, his memories and his personality by getting into a computer simulation.
The science tells us that a map of connections is not enough to simulate , let alone replicate, a nervous system, and that there are enormous barriers to achieve immortality in silicon. First, what information is required to replicate a human mind? Second, existing and foreseeable freezing methods preserve the data needed, and how to recover? Third, and most confusing to our intuition, does a simulation’d really “you”?
I study a little nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, which is by far the animal better described in all of biology. We know all their genes and every cell (just over 1,000). We know the identity and synaptic connectivity of all 302 neurons, and 30 years ago we know all this.
If we could “dump” or simulate just about any brain, should be that of C. elegans. But despite having the full connectome, a static model of the network of connections lacks most of the information needed to stimulate the mind of the worm. In short, the brain activity can not be inferred from the synaptic neuroanatomy.
Synapses are the physical contacts between neurons where a special form of chemical and electrical signaling (neurotransmission) occurs, and there are many varieties . complex molecular machines are made of thousands of proteins and lipids specialized structures. It is the accurate synapses and membranes in which they are embedded, which confers properties molecular composition. The presence or absence of a synapse, which is all that reveals the current conométrica, suggesting a possible functional relationship between two neurons, but little is known, if anything, about the nature of this relationship – which is just what you need to know to find simulate it.
In addition, neurons and other brain cells are in constant communication by signaling pathways that do not act through synapses. Many of the signals that regulate fundamental behaviors such as eating, sleeping, humor, pairing and social bonding are mediated by chemical signals acting on networks that are anatomically invisible. We know that the same set of synaptic connections can operate in very different depending on the set of signals present these forms at any given time. These problems underline an important distinction. The problem colossally difficult to simulate any brain in contrast to the extraordinarily difficult task of replicating a particular brain, which is required for personal immortality promised simulation
Features of your brain (and other cells) and synapses that make you to be “you” are not generic. The vast array of subtle chemical modifications, states of gene regulation and subcellular distributions of molecular complexes are part of dynamic flow of a living brain. These things are not details that are averaged into a large nervous system; rather are the components that make up the engrams (the physical components of memory).
While in theory it might be possible to preserve these features in dead tissue, certainly not plausible today. The technology for this, plus the ability to extract this information from such specimens not yet exist in theory. It is this deliberate conflation of what is conceivable in theory with what is possible in practical terms that exploits the vulnerability of people.
Lastly, a simulation’d really “you”? It is undeniable, but we can make a small incursion. Whatever our subjective “I” meaning, we assume that arises from the operation of the physical matter of the brain. We could also tentatively conclude such a way that consciousness is independent of the support: whether the brain may be aware, a computer program to do everything that makes a brain should be aware too. If one is willing to imagine an arbitrarily complex technology, then you can also raise a simulated brain to the synaptic or molecular level or (why not?) Atomic or quantum.
But what is this replica? Are you “you” or subjectively represents a new being independent? The idea that you can be aware in two places at the same time defies our intuition. Parsimony suggests that replication will lead to two different conscious entities. The simulation, if it should occur, would be a new person who resembles you but whose conscious experience would not have access.
This means that any suggestion that you can come back to life is simply ” snake oil “(I suggest thymus or tomfoolery). Transhumanists have answers to these approaches. In my experience, consisting of alternating between asking us to trust our intuition about not existing technologies (simulation would work) but to deny our intuition about consciousness (would not be).
No one who has experienced the disbelief of losing a loved one may avoid empathize with someone who paid $ 80,000 (more than 71,000 euros) to freeze your brain. But resuscitation or simulation is an unfortunate false hope that is beyond the promise of technology and certainly impossible with frozen and dead offering cryonics industry tissue. Those who benefit from this hope our anger and our contempt they deserve.
© 2015 MALDONADETTI
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