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?
Paul Christiano recently suggested that we can use neuroimaging to form a complete mathematical characterization of a human brain, which a sufficiently powerful superintelligence would be able to reconstruct into a working mind, and the neuroimaging part is already possible today, or close to being possible.
Paul was using this idea as part of an FAI design proposal, but I'm highlighting it here since it seems to have independent value as an alternative or supplement to cryonics. That is, instead of (or in addition to) trying to get your body to be frozen and then preserved in liquid nitrogen after you die, you periodically take neuroimaging scans of your brain and save them to multiple backup locations (1010 bits is only about 1 gigabyte), in the hope that a friendly AI or posthuman will eventually use the scans to reconstruct your mind.
Are there any neuroimaging experts around who can tell us how feasible this really is, and how much such a scan might cost, now or in the near future?
ETA: Given the presence of thermal noise and the fact that a set of neuroimaging data may contain redundant or irrelevant information, 1010 bits ought to be regarded as just a rough lower bound on how much data needs to be collected and stored. Thanks to commenters who pointed this out.