Interstellar Travel by Medicine rather than Propulsion

[WinkAllKerb'']

(( if you are going to go through the trouble of NOT tweaking the brain )) basically, can't happen, just sayin'

brain tweak itself 101% of time ...

also snacks ^^

 

Edited November 5, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''
let me translate, because it was innacurate ; ) but you can try ; ) and you will fail

[Nuke]

22 minutes ago, WinkAllKerb'' said:

(( if you are going to go through the trouble of NOT tweaking the brain )) basically, can't happen, just sayin'

brain tweak itself 101% of time ...

its a dynamic system. thats why you need a backup unit on every single neuron and they all need to be able to be activated at exactly the same time, and contain a data storage system as well. then you can scan out the (previously backed up) states at your lesure.

how to trigger all the cells to backup instantaneously? certain wavelengths of light can penetrate the brain, using a chemical trigger with a photoreactive compound, you can issue this trigger command to the backup system on each neuron, and more or less at the same time. light is much faster than the speed of neural signaling (some cars are faster). so you can get a full backup before the neurostate can change significantly. its still in the brain so other machinery needs to be added so that each neuron can be indexed and its state copied out.

genetically engineered machinery needs to exist within every neuron to store its state and connection info and an access/recovery system. you need to add this function to the cells without changing their capabilities (this is likely the hardest challenge).

scan can be speed up with parallelism. but what is scanned is the state stored in the backup machenery, not the current state of the neuron, which could be completely different by the time it gets read.

 

the scheme is kind of nuts and well beyond our current level of biotech. but i have a hunch that its going to be the next big thing. biotech is going to boom. i sense a revolution on the horizon.

 

Edited November 5, 2016 by Nuke

[WinkAllKerb'']

yup speed to process and amount of data, another fun stuff ; ) wich bring the concern of focus & ability to control each single bit anytime, but life find often a way or another like all leaf of a tree in the end of each single branch ^^ (remind me the galaxy sized computer thread :3)

Edited November 5, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[DBowman]

44 minutes ago, Nuke said:

just beam minds across space into pre-seeded clone ships

I am totally with you on the desirability of this but as far as I know each brain that grows has a huge amount of historical accident that controls the fine detail of how everything gets interconnected. It's not like a wiring diagram with everything laid out that produces an identical brain each time, it's more like a garden which gives the same overall impression but there are no 'same plants in the same place' - even in a clone.

The retina to visual cortex connection through the optic never is a good example of the kind of thing that is probably going on generally. The brain grows a vast excess of 'random' connections and then starts up some firing patterns in the retina and 'prunes' out the connections in the cortex that don't look like the pattern it's expecting. The distribution of cells in the retina and the cortex is 'random but with some density' and the 'right' connections survive, each brain is unique but has the property of having a geometry preserving mapping down the optic nerve.

To map the 'captured neuron state' into a 'desired recipient state' would require understanding exactly how it all works - and are only scratching the surface there. The closest we come I think is some work mapping the visual cortex to the point where we can tell that the 'test subject' is seeing a bird, and presumably therefore we could tickle the cortex to make them see one that's not there.

It sounds like it could well be easier to 'remove gross inefficiencies' at one level of the biology without really understanding how the cognition actually works.

Edited November 5, 2016 by DBowman

[WinkAllKerb'']

(( ))

speaking of retina by brain will:

you can close your eyes
you can't turn off taste
you can't turn off touch feelings
you can't turn off ear
you can't turn off smell

it's pretty amusing and ironic the sole sens we can consciously "emulate to" to turn off, is the one most peoples focus ; )

5+1=6 but a week is 7 day until next moan about the 8 infinity so nein nein nein ; ) let's stick in the hole not toten (you can use hexa because binary is a pain to read for human)

Edited November 5, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[Jonfliesgoats]

Existing technology, like the old NPDE proposal from the late fifties, are within he realm of consideration.  I can't get myself to rest my hopes on spice and psychoactive, telekinetic celestial navigators.

[WinkAllKerb'']

bah ^^ 

"In the millennia following the death of Leto II, Ix notably develops navigation systems to replace guild's navigators" https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ix

:hailprobe: xDr anyway Ix homeland of google, philae and cleverbot ^^ &etc&etc. ^^

Spoiler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(franchise)#The_return_from_the_Scattering

" In the aftermath of the fall of the God Emperor, ... ( In Chapterhouse: Dune (1985), the latest Duncan Idaho ghola suggests that Leto had never "suppressed" Ix because "He was fascinated by the idea of human and machine inextricably bound to each other, each testing the limits of the other.")...  the balance of power in the Empire rests among the Ixians, the Bene Gesserit, and the Tleilaxu. The Spacing Guild has been forever weakened by the development of Ixian machines  ..."

:3 :3 :3 (the best about dune is all but the 2 first tome but that's personnal ^^ it's start gettin' much more interesting when paul become a blind homeless just after the end of david lynch & de lorentis movie intro to the saga it's a shame we never get a descent adaption of the whole saga ... but not an easy task due to the huge amount of in depht socio-geopolitico-psycho-metaphorical content) 

dune tend to fall in the no religion-no politics thingies publisher/editor/1tv channel lasting from the pre-70's anyway imho

 

Edited November 6, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[YNM]

On 11/5/2016 at 11:18 AM, shynung said:

Lightspeed lag, if we're talking an earthbound operator. Horrible ping times.

Ah, yes, forgot about that...

[Aghanim]

On 11/1/2016 at 7:47 AM, Jonfliesgoats said:

There are surprising advances being made in locating and controlling the genetic factors behind human aging, cancer, etc..  If, in the future we see human lifespans range up to 200 year, it is entirely possible that fifty to one hundred year journeys at .1 to .2c become a possibility.  Freeze-drying or hibernating a crew becomes less important than having a room full of plants and animals, a room full of music and shag carpet, etc.  An interstellar, multi-decade flight to a nearby star with a long-lived waking crew may require the skills of great architects and artists as much as engineers and aviators.  My ideas are recycled from others, of course.  the point is the future is odd and we rarely predict things accurately. 

Next time we are drinking scotch and discussing flight, space flight and the near-religious commitment we have to these things, let's shift our attention away from propulsion for a night.  Some of the sillier ideas for soaceflight may be closer to fruition than "serious" spaceflight ideas.

Also, snacks.

I know how biologists freeze dry bacterias, but how do they even freeze dry people? Is it even possible?

[Jonfliesgoats]

Right now, I don't think it is possible to freeze dry a person without killing them.  Advances in crayon ice are being made all the time, however.  Rather than seeing entire crew preserved, I could imagine a stock room full of spare organs and/or stem cells.

With regard to freeze-drying per se, I don't think any techniques for freeze drying people like we do coffee are in the works.  Cryonics and preservation are not field of expertise, however.  Perhaps someone more informed would like to chip in?

[WinkAllKerb'']

(( amount a various micro, macro organisms in the [a complex bio being] (biped for exemple) machinery and how they react differently to temperature changes prolly and may be *shrug* a few thing might broke during the stase, or freezing and re heating phase ... ))

Edited November 7, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Rather than seeing entire crew preserved, I could imagine a stock room full of spare organs and/or stem cells.

Lego-crew. Combine the parts wisely and get a crew of your dream for Frankenstern deep space cruiser. Anyway, only maybe a brain really matters, other parts are interchangeable.

 

Also, they can be used to grow a bionic mega-starship...

Spoiler

... with the wisest minds ruling the ship...

Spoiler

... You'd just ask them, how.

Spoiler

 

[p1t1o]

6 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Right now, I don't think it is possible to freeze dry a person without killing them.  Advances in crayon ice are being made all the time, however.  Rather than seeing entire crew preserved, I could imagine a stock room full of spare organs and/or stem cells.

With regard to freeze-drying per se, I don't think any techniques for freeze drying people like we do coffee are in the works.  Cryonics and preservation are not field of expertise, however.  Perhaps someone more informed would like to chip in?

"Crayon Ice"? lol autocorrect?

 

With regard to freeze-drying - freezing biological material is hard enough on living tissue as it is, combine that with dehydration and you just multiply the damage. Dehydration is far far more destructive on its own than freezing. Compare a defrosted steak to a piece of beef jerky - which one more closely resembles fresh meat? Which process [drying or freezing] is more easily reversed? CAN you even "un-jerk" beef? Clue: nope. If you did attempt to re-hydrate beef jerky, what you would get would more closely resemble *cooked* beef.

If there are going to be advances in the cryonic preservation of living tissue, it will NOT be through freeze-drying.

Much of the chemistry of [what we call] life is dependent on being in water solution, and many components will be chemically changed by removing the water present, and many of those will not simply "re-hydrate" if water is re-introduced, but will remain changed.

That is not to say that freezing does not cause damage, but removing water as well increases it by an easy order of magnitude.

[Jonfliesgoats]

I think it would be pretty cool to have modular construction!

Specifically, I think it would be cool if I was made from interchangeable parts.  I could sail the cosmos, yanks bits of my brain out and put other bits in, remove and replace failing parts.  Could be nice.

[magnemoe]

11 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Right now, I don't think it is possible to freeze dry a person without killing them.  Advances in crayon ice are being made all the time, however.  Rather than seeing entire crew preserved, I could imagine a stock room full of spare organs and/or stem cells.

With regard to freeze-drying per se, I don't think any techniques for freeze drying people like we do coffee are in the works.  Cryonics and preservation are not field of expertise, however.  Perhaps someone more informed would like to chip in?

Just hibernation like hedgehogs do, combined with long living age would help a lot on an 300 year trip. Smart to add the hibernation function who is already done by mammals with the other changes. 
main problem with an generation ship is the huge size requirement, also pretty high power an maintenance demand during cruise. 
First the increased living age result in that you could send an crew who returned after 600 years to meet their grandchildren so no need for an giant colony ship, you have scientists and the crew. 
Say 50 sleepers and 5 active, rotate every 5 month. Plenty of cross training as the active crew is supposed to fix problems during cruise again no problem as the crew would have some hundred years experience. 
Jeb is captain but he is also passable in vacuum welding and pretty good in programming nanobots, rotate crew every 1-2 month. 

[WinkAllKerb'']

1 hour ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

I think it would be pretty cool to have modular construction!

Specifically, I think it would be cool if I was made from interchangeable parts.  I could sail the cosmos, yanks bits of my brain out and put other bits in, remove and replace failing parts.  Could be nice.

this ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_(1986_film) ?

[Jonfliesgoats]

That was actually crossing my mind!

[WinkAllKerb'']

you can eventually mix with this ^^: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innerspace and replace the pilot per ia ; ) why not why not ^^
(more or less the fifth element leloo reconstruction scene or not far)

Edited November 8, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''