gwern comments on Open thread, Oct. 20 - Oct. 26, 2014 - Less Wrong

9 Post author: MrMind 20 October 2014 08:12AM

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Comment author: skeptical_lurker 22 October 2014 10:51:45PM 2 points [-]

Is there any chance that mummification preserves enough information for revival?

Comment author: gwern 23 October 2014 01:25:02AM *  5 points [-]

Given the part where they stir up and scoop out the brains, I would be extremely surprised if anything could recover them from their bodies (barring some sort of bizarre Tiplerian 'create all possible humans using infinite computing power' scenario).

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 23 October 2014 08:05:08AM 3 points [-]

Ok, I should have remembered that. But the Egyptians were not the only people who practised mummification, as well as accidental mummification. Any chance of them surviving? What about Lenin's embalmed body?

Comment author: gwern 26 October 2014 10:33:57PM 4 points [-]

It's been a very long time since I read Lenin's Embalmers, but the brain seems to be in pretty bad shape these days:

No one seems to know what's happened to Lenin's heart, but Soviet ideologists were sure that his brain was something special. They brought in a renowned German scientist to examine it for clues to the great man's genius, but nothing came of it. The brain is still kept at a Moscow institute. "But it's not easy to see it," Zbarsky said. "It's mostly dissected."

Or http://bookhaven.stanford.edu/2010/09/the-curious-and-complicated-history-of-lenins-brain/

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