[MURG] RFC - necessary neuron info

[digfarenough]

Neurons, being living cells, have varying amounts of
machinery dedicated to simply keeping them alive.
Also, they have a certain amount of machinery that is
needed for the biological aspect of their information
processing, but is all of that detail necessary for
mind uploading?

I'd say its beyond questioning that some basic
information is needed: cell shape and connectivity,
receptor concentrations in various parts of the cell,
and other things likely.

But what information isn't needed?

I propose that ionic concentrations aren't essential.
I think it's possible that more details are also not
essential and would like comments from others on
possibilities as well as on the following argument.

People seem to be able to survive seizures. As proof,
consider all the people that survive seizures.
Seizures, in limited brain regions, are synchronized
firing of neurons that take them away from their
normal information processing. Since neural activity
is really just ionic concentrations (and
conformational changes of ion channels and such),
surviving seizures means we can survive limited
randomizing of ionic concentrations.

Of course, I imagine it's possible to die from a
sufficiently extensive seizure. But I imagine (but
don't know for a fact) that this is caused by activity
spreading to areas like the brain stem where normal
activity is essential for things like respiration and
heart rate. Because an uploaded person wouldn't need
such things to stay alive, this is unlikely to be a
problem.

The immediate problem is that if no ionic
concentrations or ion channel conformations are
scanned, then how will any activity start? Without any
actual proof, I have a feeling that neurons such as
pace-maker cells in the brain that have intrinsic
activity will be enough to restart neural activity
once the upload is running and allow the brain to
'boot up' normally. This would quite likely cause a
period of amnesia and mental cloudiness until
everything is back to normal functioning.

So that's my thinking on that. If I'm wrong, I'd love
to hear why. Either way, I'd like to hear other ideas
of what is and isn't needed. Other things to consider:
proteins that have been made but are en route to their
final site at the time of uploading, transcription
activity in the nucleus, or general
concentrations/amounts of enzymes and other second
messengers and effectors within the neurons.
 -Eric

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