One approach that might work rather than simulating physics backwards (which strikes me as implausible given the nature of quantum mechanical effects) would be to analyze the information coming back from interstellar dust particles. This would tend to be impacted only by sources of light and gravity at a given precise distance.
Thus a crude model of the large planetary bodies of the solar system at a given moment could be calculated by triangulating information from the correct set of dust particles, which could be refined over time, as new data points are added, to indicate large land masses, and eventually resolved into human bodies and their individual atoms. This should be sufficient to resurrect everyone from their moment of death, as well as restoring every memory they ever forgot.
I don’t see this as a good substitute for cryonics because there are plausible universes where FAI is e.g. self limiting in a way that would prevent it from converting the solar system (perhaps the galaxy) into computronium, which I think would probably be a minimal prerequisite to actually pulling something like this off. I also think an intelligence explosion scenario is not inevitable (may be impossible or extraordinarily unlikely for some reason), and that cryonics can work with incremental human-level improvements in technology.
Even in the high-speed fooming FAI class of scenario, such tasks as converting the galaxy to computronium, and collecting enough data from enough points, are limited by the speed of light factor and might take hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions. In the mean time, those who are cryopreserved could be up and walking around, forming new experiences and laying the groundwork for future civilization. They would also be more likely to have opportunities to take part in early interstellar and intergalactic colonization efforts.
One approach that might work rather than simulating physics backwards (which strikes me as implausible given the nature of quantum mechanical effects) would be to analyze the information coming back from interstellar dust particles. This would tend to be impacted only by sources of light and gravity at a given precise distance.
Thus a crude model of the large planetary bodies of the solar system at a given moment could be calculated by triangulating information from the correct set of dust particles, which could be refined over time, as new data points are added, to indicate large land masses, and eventually resolved into human bodies and their individual atoms. This should be sufficient to resurrect everyone from their moment of death, as well as restoring every memory they ever forgot.
I don’t see this as a good substitute for cryonics because there are plausible universes where FAI is e.g. self limiting in a way that would prevent it from converting the solar system (perhaps the galaxy) into computronium, which I think would probably be a minimal prerequisite to actually pulling something like this off. I also think an intelligence explosion scenario is not inevitable (may be impossible or extraordinarily unlikely for some reason), and that cryonics can work with incremental human-level improvements in technology.
Even in the high-speed fooming FAI class of scenario, such tasks as converting the galaxy to computronium, and collecting enough data from enough points, are limited by the speed of light factor and might take hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions. In the mean time, those who are cryopreserved could be up and walking around, forming new experiences and laying the groundwork for future civilization. They would also be more likely to have opportunities to take part in early interstellar and intergalactic colonization efforts.