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JoachimSchipper comments on Neuroimaging as alternative/supplement to cryonics? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Its interesting to me that so much of the commenting and voting reveals a model of "neural self" that is very very attentive to micro-physical details without paying attention to the macro structure of thought patterns, memories, goals, etc. I think that nanoscale structures are quite likely to have something to do with the thing I'd be interested in transmitting into the future to be reconstructed as a participant in whatever happens in the future, but those nano-structures aren't essential to my model of who or what I am. What matters to me survives temporary inebriation due to alcohol and is fully recovered after I sober up. What matters to me survives going to sleep and awakening with significant restructuring of my memories.
Suppose I died by violence in the presence of cryo-positive medical personnel, for example, so that some of my "lower brain" was obliterated but the rest was reasonably well preserved. I think I'd be OK substituting in generic components that had the right "gross" parameters inferred from other contexts and meshed with what was known at high resolution. If I don't walk with exactly the same neurons firing exactly the same way, because details about my motor cortex was lost... I mean, I'd prefer not, but its not that big a deal in the big picture. My way of walking is part of me, but it isn't essential to who I am.
I've had conversations with a similar theme with LW people F2F in the past and was surprised by their feelings here (in those cases, the best intuition pump I've found used a discussion of possibility and value of reconstructing a plausible Tutankhamen from physical records, in the complete absence of detailed brain data -- I'm generally in the minority in thinking this is possible and probably worth eventually doing despite obvious limitations). I see the same detail-oriented mindset (that I predict would vote against King Tut) reflected in the comments and posting.
Having consistently different attitudes towards what's plausible or worthwhile is a sign of an educational opportunity. In my experience, the best way to approach such opportunities is to assume the defect is in myself, so... What am I missing?
Out of interest: how much more faithful do you think your reconstructed Tutankhamen would be than a talented and well-informed actor told to play Tutankhamen?
The physicality of the reconstruction alone would require impossibly good casting. A leg that's actually injured, a body with epigenetics consistent with the inferred diets of ancient Egyptian monarchs, food preferences consistent with dental wear marks... and so on. That leaves aside finding someone with the right physicality who can even act, and learn Egyptian, and so on and so forth. Which still leaves aside that there would be a lot in the actor that was not in Tut. Jim Carrey was not Andy Kaufman.