Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: moncam!loki@relay.eu.net (Never Kid A Kidder) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Drexler on immortality, source of nano books. Message-ID: Date: 15 Mar 90 20:27:24 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: (n) The process of becoming an organ. Lines: 30 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article SXJ101@psuvm.psu.edu writes: Also, I was reading Drexler's "Engines of Creation". In it, he states that immortality is impossible because of the nature of the universe and decay. But I came across another book which advanced the idea that in the future we would be able to store our brains onto computers (tapes). By doing so, we would be able to make an exact duplicate of our brains and we could make several copies of the tapes as to never lose them. Because the information in our brains makes us what we are, it didnt matter if our bodies decayed and died. We could have artificial bodies (limbs, e.g.) and "download" our brain. This way we would never die, excluding natural disasters ,etc. I'm a wee bit shaky on thermodynamics, but I think that because entropy always increases, you would at some stage find it impossible to `store' the brain in a physical medium, simply because there would only be a uniform photon buzz (or something) at some stage. That's if we go on expanding. If we get a Big Crunch, then all information will be lost when the universe becomes one singularity. But then I suppose either way could be considered a natural disaster... Also, eternity is a long time (longer than the longest thing ever, and then some). [I opine that worrying about the heat death, or cosmological collapse, of the universe, now, is like a bunch of cavemen sitting around worrying what will happen when erosion has washed all the land into the sea and there's no land left. Eons before it happens, their knowledge and technological powers relative to the problem will have changed enough to make their speculations look silly. --JoSH]