BEYOND NANOTECH

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Today we borrow a posting on Cryonet by Yvan Bozzonetti, a French engineer with an interest in cryonics. It is probably too technical for most readers, but potentially of much interest. I will therefore summarize it briefly, as I understand it, and then copy the original message, edited a bit because Mr. Bozzonetti's English is not perfect. The Cryonet posting is #14103, dated 15 July 2000, for those who want to see the original unedited.

Summary and rationale, as I (Robert Ettinger) see it:

The goal of cryonics is to preserve "dead" people with as little damage as possible, in hope of eventual repair, revival, and rejuvenation by future technology. There is extremely wide disagreement as to how much damage may still leave realistic hope. The most pessimistic think no one frozen by present methods will ever be revived, regardless of future technological progress. The most optimistic think that there is a law of conservation of information, so it is always possible, in principle, to infer (from the body and external information) all of the person's essentials, including personality and memories. To repair a patient frozen by imperfect methods--or one damaged badly by disease, age, or trauma--we may need a mature "nanotechnology" capable of engineering on a molecular scale.

Mr. Bozzonetti does not assert a law of conservation of information, but something that appears to me more or less equivalent. This appears as a consequence of quantum mechanics (QM), as he understands it, and when mastered should allow reconstruction even of extremely degraded systems (very badly damaged people).

One must note that some aspects or interpretations of quantum theory are vigorously disputed by the experts among themselves, so all opinions must be taken with a grain of salt.

Now Mr. Bozzonetti's message, slightly edited for English usage, for those technically inclined:

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This message is a bit theoretical, my motive here being to open a way beyond nanotech. I think there is a big risk that, when in the future someone conducts a "review" to evaluate the potential for recovery of a patient, and cryonics at that time is near reversible cryopreservation, some will be pessimistic about patients frozen earlier by cruder methods. The result could be bleak and some voices could say: "Why continue to spend liquid nitrogen and storage space for people with zero hope of recovery? Now that we know what must be done for real cryosuspension, all these old bodies have no more interest."

Today, research in cryonics enlists only biologists and biochemists; this is a good choice given the current objective, but we must know this is not the end of the road. When we get to the task of looking at reanimation of present day patients, nanotech will be an essential component of the research and microelectronics specialists will be better for that task than biologists (even if nanotech uses enzyme-like technology).

What if even brain or organ reader systems can't recover the original structure of a brain? What about a smashed brain? What about heavy brain destruction before death by degenerative illness?

I think we may need to ponder about a recovery step beyond the destruction level produced by freezing. Some have argued that cryonics research is not the best choice now: The argument is:

It is best to put the research money in the stock market and let it grow so that there will be more buying power some years later, in an environment with more advanced science and technology. Indeed, the reasoning goes, we do not have now the theoretical basis for a true research program in that domain.

I'll discard here all modern theories such as duality, supersymmetry, superstrings and the like (I don't understand them well :-). I discard too the so called second quantification, because it works in the relativistic domain and doesn't conserve particle number, a bad property when we look at building back a system made of particles assembled in a precise order. So I am left, on a theoretical basis, with the first quantum domain, a physics going back to 1930! This is the right domain because it comes just beyond classical physics, a sector explored at its limit by nanotech systems.

So, what we have here? First, the quantum space has 3 coordinate dimensions and 3 impulsion dimensions for each dot-like object. If an object is defined by a swarm of N dots, then there are 3N space coordinates and 3N impulsion ones, and the quantum space can accomodate an infinite number of dimensions.

Assume we have a dot D1 in that space called E1. We could have a function F1 able to move D1 in the position D2 of an image space E2. E2 is identical to E1 and superimposed on it, so a function F2 acting in E2 could move D2 to D3 in a space E3 and so on... We can write:

D2 = F1(D1) and D3 = F2(D2) = F2(F1(D1)).

This is the start of an infinite set of nested functions. I have learned many years ago in a math course for engineers that such a nested system is equivalent to the tensor formalism of differential geometry.

If D1 is a prototype dot in E1, then D2 is the prototype dot in E2 and so on... In quantum mechanics, F1 is a function and F2, the function of a function, is called an operator. In quantum mechanics, the space as defined above has no time element, so that time must be introduced as an exterior parameter. At first glance, we could make the function or the operator time dependent: D2 moves because F1 is no longer F1 after some time or D2 moves because it is another function, F'1 which applies to D1; this is because the operator F2 is not time stable. Both solutions move D1 to a time variable position D2 so that there is no way to say which one is correct.

Indeed, the wave mechanics of Schrodinger (classical mechanics in the Jacobi formalism + Planck's unit of action) assumes a time effect on functions. On the other hand, Heisenberg's matrix mechanics uses a time action on operators. There are formulas to pass from one mechanics to the other. This is mostly seen as a mathematical convenience; many QM users don't even use these formalisms-many others are indeed at hand.

In 1923, a peculiar state of (QM) was discovered: the so-called squeezed or tensor states. With them, the Schrodinger formalism is the rank 1 tensor QM, Heisenberg's matrix mechanics is the rank two QM; and more nested functions, not much taken into account, are higher rank tensor QM. Today, the technology allows one to select these tensor states and they can't be easily seen as different mathematical expression of a single reality.

That is interesting because we can have more than one time parameter in a quantum system. We could for example have a Schrodinger time running as the classical time and a squeezed time parameter at the Heisenberg level. In the ordinary world, squeezed states are very uncommon, so that there must be very few interactions at that level. That is, the rank 2 time parameter runs very slowly.

When we come to entangled states (interactions between systems) we could get a good picture of past interactons in high rank QM., even if these interactions have been erased for a long time at the Schrodinger level.

Put another way: If a system has been around for a sufficient time, so that there has been an interaction in high rank QM, then that system can be read in the relevant squeezed state even if it has been destroyed in lower rank tensor quantum mechanics. All you need is to keep the particles (atoms) of interest in any scrambled state you want (or can afford). If you have that technology at hand, recovery is always possible if you have a frozen patient, even if he/she is in the infamous hamburger state.

Yvan Bozzonetti.