No problem, you can always try one more time, taking into account that moving around the world or even city is kinda restricted now. I live by myself in remote location, yet it doesn’t stop me from keeping in touch with friends, not due to activity but because they understand and accept me. Not sure i understand what do you mean by “strong shared activity”, we do share activity by deeply discussing lots of subjects here. Anyways, it’s up to you, imposing myself is not on my list of preferences.
By strong shared activity, I meant something like an MMO or a real-life activity. Being subscribed to the same website doesn’t seem quite the same, although I could be wrong about that.
After thinking a bit more about why I initially said no, I think it’s best for me to state the shape of my object level.
I’m fine with continuing to talk. This conversation is interesting.
I’m also fine with having more conversations, with no definite end in sight.
If that develops into a friendship, I’m also fine with that.
If it doesn’t, then that’s alright with me too.
My prior against you actually being able to understand and accept me is extremely low. Please don’t take this an accusation or an insult or anything.
What I don’t think will work is declaring myself to be your friend and vice versa, which is essentially what I’ve tried to do before. Yes, I can try again, but I have no reason to expect that anything will be different if I simply repeat the same course of actions as last time.
What do you think about simply continuing as we are and seeing what happens?
imho it is only from the perspective of the one who wants more energy and thinks that he’s alone and only, subjective, not objective perspective. Who knows how sun’s “wasteful” radiation and gravity affects everything around.
Sure, there’s no way to know with absolute certainty. But if I had to live in a world where the sun gets ripped apart to create a bunch of fusion reactors and one where we leave it burning just in case there’s some alien race on Neptune or something… I’m going to have to go with the former. If a problem crops up, I’m sure the hypothetical civ capable of putting out the sun can handle it, even if only by jamming all the hydrogen back together and restarting the reaction.
Removing death may well mean removing it’s opposite, birth. Also, sometimes this “bug” helps people to evaluate their actions and focus on more important stuff. Even the laws of physics, or rather their interpretation, sometimes turn out to be imperfect.
This strikes me as noncentral fallacy. When you say removing birth, that sounds bad, but if the reason nobody has any more babies is because everyone is immortal… is that really so bad?
As for the bug, yes, currently it can be helpful. That doesn’t mean it’s the only way to nudge people into evaluating their actions or focusing on what’s important. It seems extraordinarily unlikely that our current brain design is optimal for either of those actions, given how stupid a designer evolution is.
(Honestly, I find it difficult to answer who is more dangerous: Harry or his teacher).
What? Voldemort’s a bored sociopath god whose grand ambition is to play Civilization with humanity as the pieces. Harry’s dangerous but at least after HPMOR, he’s shackled by the Vow and his values are far nicer than Voldemort’s.
Wow. This is not what i said, but you might have a point. I said that structure of brain might define properties of energy it stores and this properties could mirror memory. And that destruction of brain might lead to release of this energy to the surroundings.
Ah. I didn’t understand what you were saying and took a stab at it (that I got wrong). I understand now. My gut says this pattern matches as “implausible pseudoscience”, but I don’t know enough science to refute or justify that claim. However, afaik Yudkowsky doesn’t support any view like this (he’s a big cryonics proponent) and so I think it’s unlikely that this is what he had in mind when he was deciding what HPMOR souls are.
As far as i know, brain of people in coma or even frogs frozen in water not “turned off” and show slight activity.
I knew the coma one, not the frozen one. That’s… kind of incredible, that there can be anything happening when it’s frozen. But by turned off, I meant being warm and losing oxygen flow and cells dying, or whatever exactly happens when your heart stops beating for a couple minutes.
As for human brain freezing it will likely cause cell membranes to be torn apart by asymmetrically freezing water, as it increases its volume while turning into ice.
This is true if you simply stick it into a freezer. However, “freezing” brains for cryonics is much more involved than brain + freezer. Technically speaking, the cryonics process is vitrification, which doesn’t create ice crystals.
By strong shared activity, I meant something like an MMO or a real-life activity. Being subscribed to the same website doesn’t seem quite the same, although I could be wrong about that.
Which MMO? I’m playing COD from time to time, mostly because it includes several building from my home city (Stadium, Airport and several more), so event in the game on some extent mirror what’s happening on the streets of my hometown, same way as events in country mirror what’s happening around the world and vice versa. Also i used to play MUDs ages ago (that’s where does my nickname came from), but i don’t think anyone play them now.
After thinking a bit more about why I initially said no, I think it’s best for me to state the shape of my object level.
What I don’t think will work is declaring myself to be your friend and vice versa, which is essentially what I’ve tried to do before. Yes, I can try again, but I have no reason to expect that anything will be different if I simply repeat the same course of actions as last time.
Ah, no no, it would be kinda strange to make friends simply be declaring so. You said that you would like to have friend that would tell you to move one when you lost somebody, and explain why it might be best solution. In this case i don’t have to know all of your story from very birth to play role of friend, i just have to be a empathetic human and understand your emotions, so you could use me as a mirror. I have some experience of losing loved ones and living the struggle of acceptance. Call it not a friend but a temporary companion, if correct terminology is more required than actions. Friendship is pretty confusing concept in the age of business and social networking.
What do you think about simply continuing as we are and seeing what happens?
Guess, this is best solution.
Sure, there’s no way to know with absolute certainty. But if I had to live in a world where the sun gets ripped apart to create a bunch of fusion reactors and one where we leave it burning just in case there’s some alien race on Neptune or something… I’m going to have to go with the former. If a problem crops up, I’m sure the hypothetical civ capable of putting out the sun can handle it, even if only by jamming all the hydrogen back together and restarting the reaction.
Actually, i thought that removing some big object from the cluster of stars could also affect all the nearest stars entangled together by gravity field. Not sure that jamming all the hydrogen back together and restarting the reaction would fix this issue.
This strikes me as noncentral fallacy. When you say removing birth, that sounds bad, but if the reason nobody has any more babies is because everyone is immortal… is that really so bad?
I not sure. Thing is human genetics works this way: male XY chromosome is prone to accumulate mutations as result to adaptation to changing environment, female chromosome due to its double nature is more stable and can fix bad mutations. So literally, process of death and birth is one of the main instruments of adaptation and evolution: men try to spread his genes, women try to pick most reliable by intuition, personal preferences or in some cases by making men confront each other. If you’re going to throw away birth-decay cycle, you will need to compensate somehow tool of nature which ensured species survival for millions of years.
As for the bug, yes, currently it can be helpful.
So let’s call it a feature:)
That doesn’t mean it’s the only way to nudge people into evaluating their actions or focusing on what’s important.
It is hard to argue that humanity makes a quantum leap only on the verge of total annihilation, same way as when child facing a possible humiliating punishment from a parent.
Ah. I didn’t understand what you were saying and took a stab at it (that I got wrong). I understand now. My gut says this pattern matches as “implausible pseudoscience”, but I don’t know enough science to refute or justify that claim. However, afaik Yudkowsky doesn’t support any view like this (he’s a big cryonics proponent) and so I think it’s unlikely that this is what he had in mind when he was deciding what HPMOR souls are.
It’s not a science at all, i just trying to find some possible scientific explanation to some unscientific stuff like “soul”, and probably i will burn in theoretical hell for doing so. Sure he is, as any living human being that put a lot of effort into building of its consciousness and adding changes into the world which will require much more time show up then human life allows. Pity he can’t join our conversation and share his valuable opinion on controversial questions we have risen here.
I knew the coma one, not the frozen one. That’s… kind of incredible, that there can be anything happening when it’s frozen.
Some frogs have a natural mechanism called cryoprotection, it surrounds cells with glucose, which prevents them from gradual drying out, which is a side effect of instant freezing. Unfortunately, our cells lack this mechanism. Also, I could not even imagine how much pain I would feel if someone freezes my head and then fastens it to another body. I think I could even lose all of my memories and remain with unconditioned reflexes only.
This is true if you simply stick it into a freezer. However, “freezing” brains for cryonics is much more involved than brain + freezer. Technically speaking, the cryonics process is vitrification, which doesn’t create ice crystals.
Thank you for an excellent article! It is funny that they say that “Cryonics is a belief”. Looks like science and beliefs are closer to each other than ever before.
Forsaken world. I don’t play anymore, but back when I did I had two romantic relationships and a bunch of friendships.
I’m playing COD from time to time, mostly because it includes several building from my home city (Stadium, Airport and several more), so event in the game on some extent mirror what’s happening on the streets of my hometown
That’s pretty cool.
You said that you would like to have friend that would tell you to move one when you lost somebody, and explain why it might be best solution.
Oh. There’s been a terrible misunderstanding. I meant that Harry was the sort of friend I’d want, someone who wouldn’t “move on” just because it was the standard script provided by society.
removing some big object from the cluster of stars could also affect all the nearest stars entangled together by gravity field
Alpha Centauri is the closest star system with three stars.
G is the gravitation constant, which is 6.6E-11
M1 is the mass of the first star, the sun, or 2E30kg
M2 is the mass of the second star, Alpha Centauri, or 4E30kg.
r is half of the distance between the two stars, or 4E16m
Put them all together and you get F = (6.6E-11)(2E30)(4E30)/(4E16^2) = 3.3E17. This sounds like a lot, but remember that we’re dealing with enormous masses. Plug that force into f=ma and you get an acceleration of 8E-14. Basically nothing, in other words.
So literally, process of death and birth is one of the main instruments of adaptation and evolution… If you’re going to throw away birth-decay cycle, you will need to compensate somehow tool of nature which ensured species survival for millions of years.
This may be currently true. However, by the time we’ve solved immortality, hopefully we won’t be using DNA anymore. Or, at least, we’ll be able to edit that DNA and fix mutations (among other things). We’re already unlocking this technology. Evolution is [evil](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MFNJ7kQttCuCXHp8P/the-goddess-of-everything-else#:~:text=your loved ones.-,I am the Goddess of Everything Else and my powers,the end of all ages.”) and the sooner we throw off its shackles, the better.
As for the bug, yes, currently it can be helpful. So let’s call it a feature:)
Let’s not. Death is not a feature; it’s an ugly workaround that’s only necessary because evolution is too stupid to solve the problem directly.
It is hard to argue that humanity makes a quantum leap only on the verge of total annihilation, same way as when child facing a possible humiliating punishment from a parent.
Okay, I misunderstood what you meant by creativity earlier (I thought you meant general creativity, not last-ditch efforts). This is very circular. Death is good because it… prevents death? I reject the entire circle and propose an alternative: fix the actual problem. What’s the problem, you ask? Humanity’s inability to think long-term, which forces us to make those quantum leaps or be annihilated. No, we can’t do this today; yes we will be able to eventually (and if we don’t, we’re probably doomed no matter how much death is around).
It’s not a science at all, i just trying to find some possible scientific explanation to some unscientific stuff like “soul”, and probably i will burn in theoretical hell for doing so. Sure he is, as any living human being that put a lot of effort into building of its consciousness and adding changes into the world which will require much more time show up then human life allows. Pity he can’t join our conversation and share his valuable opinion on controversial questions we have risen here.
Why bother? Just consign souls to the fantasy bin and wash your hands of the whole mess. Don’t you remember the part of the sequences where he explains that if you write your conclusion down first, it doesn’t matter what clever arguments you come up with to justify it?
Some frogs have a natural mechanism called cryoprotection, it surrounds cells with glucose, which prevents them from gradual drying out, which is a side effect of instant freezing. Unfortunately, our cells lack this mechanism.
Yes, our cells lack this mechanism. So what? That’s what technology is for.
Also, I could not even imagine how much pain I would feel if someone freezes my head and then fastens it to another body.
What? Why would you be in any pain? “Fastening” would integrate the nervous system of your head and new body. It’s not like you take the head and staple it onto a neck. No we can’t do this today. Yes we have precursor technology: hand transplants
By strong shared activity, I meant something like an MMO or a real-life activity. Being subscribed to the same website doesn’t seem quite the same, although I could be wrong about that.
After thinking a bit more about why I initially said no, I think it’s best for me to state the shape of my object level.
I’m fine with continuing to talk. This conversation is interesting.
I’m also fine with having more conversations, with no definite end in sight.
If that develops into a friendship, I’m also fine with that.
If it doesn’t, then that’s alright with me too.
My prior against you actually being able to understand and accept me is extremely low. Please don’t take this an accusation or an insult or anything.
What I don’t think will work is declaring myself to be your friend and vice versa, which is essentially what I’ve tried to do before. Yes, I can try again, but I have no reason to expect that anything will be different if I simply repeat the same course of actions as last time.
What do you think about simply continuing as we are and seeing what happens?
Sure, there’s no way to know with absolute certainty. But if I had to live in a world where the sun gets ripped apart to create a bunch of fusion reactors and one where we leave it burning just in case there’s some alien race on Neptune or something… I’m going to have to go with the former. If a problem crops up, I’m sure the hypothetical civ capable of putting out the sun can handle it, even if only by jamming all the hydrogen back together and restarting the reaction.
This strikes me as noncentral fallacy. When you say removing birth, that sounds bad, but if the reason nobody has any more babies is because everyone is immortal… is that really so bad?
As for the bug, yes, currently it can be helpful. That doesn’t mean it’s the only way to nudge people into evaluating their actions or focusing on what’s important. It seems extraordinarily unlikely that our current brain design is optimal for either of those actions, given how stupid a designer evolution is.
What? Voldemort’s a bored sociopath god whose grand ambition is to play Civilization with humanity as the pieces. Harry’s dangerous but at least after HPMOR, he’s shackled by the Vow and his values are far nicer than Voldemort’s.
Ah. I didn’t understand what you were saying and took a stab at it (that I got wrong). I understand now. My gut says this pattern matches as “implausible pseudoscience”, but I don’t know enough science to refute or justify that claim. However, afaik Yudkowsky doesn’t support any view like this (he’s a big cryonics proponent) and so I think it’s unlikely that this is what he had in mind when he was deciding what HPMOR souls are.
I knew the coma one, not the frozen one. That’s… kind of incredible, that there can be anything happening when it’s frozen. But by turned off, I meant being warm and losing oxygen flow and cells dying, or whatever exactly happens when your heart stops beating for a couple minutes.
This is true if you simply stick it into a freezer. However, “freezing” brains for cryonics is much more involved than brain + freezer. Technically speaking, the cryonics process is vitrification, which doesn’t create ice crystals.
Which MMO? I’m playing COD from time to time, mostly because it includes several building from my home city (Stadium, Airport and several more), so event in the game on some extent mirror what’s happening on the streets of my hometown, same way as events in country mirror what’s happening around the world and vice versa. Also i used to play MUDs ages ago (that’s where does my nickname came from), but i don’t think anyone play them now.
Ah, no no, it would be kinda strange to make friends simply be declaring so. You said that you would like to have friend that would tell you to move one when you lost somebody, and explain why it might be best solution. In this case i don’t have to know all of your story from very birth to play role of friend, i just have to be a empathetic human and understand your emotions, so you could use me as a mirror. I have some experience of losing loved ones and living the struggle of acceptance. Call it not a friend but a temporary companion, if correct terminology is more required than actions. Friendship is pretty confusing concept in the age of business and social networking.
Guess, this is best solution.
Actually, i thought that removing some big object from the cluster of stars could also affect all the nearest stars entangled together by gravity field. Not sure that jamming all the hydrogen back together and restarting the reaction would fix this issue.
I not sure. Thing is human genetics works this way: male XY chromosome is prone to accumulate mutations as result to adaptation to changing environment, female chromosome due to its double nature is more stable and can fix bad mutations. So literally, process of death and birth is one of the main instruments of adaptation and evolution: men try to spread his genes, women try to pick most reliable by intuition, personal preferences or in some cases by making men confront each other. If you’re going to throw away birth-decay cycle, you will need to compensate somehow tool of nature which ensured species survival for millions of years.
So let’s call it a feature:)
It is hard to argue that humanity makes a quantum leap only on the verge of total annihilation, same way as when child facing a possible humiliating punishment from a parent.
It’s not a science at all, i just trying to find some possible scientific explanation to some unscientific stuff like “soul”, and probably i will burn in theoretical hell for doing so. Sure he is, as any living human being that put a lot of effort into building of its consciousness and adding changes into the world which will require much more time show up then human life allows. Pity he can’t join our conversation and share his valuable opinion on controversial questions we have risen here.
Some frogs have a natural mechanism called cryoprotection, it surrounds cells with glucose, which prevents them from gradual drying out, which is a side effect of instant freezing. Unfortunately, our cells lack this mechanism. Also, I could not even imagine how much pain I would feel if someone freezes my head and then fastens it to another body. I think I could even lose all of my memories and remain with unconditioned reflexes only.
Thank you for an excellent article! It is funny that they say that “Cryonics is a belief”. Looks like science and beliefs are closer to each other than ever before.
Forsaken world. I don’t play anymore, but back when I did I had two romantic relationships and a bunch of friendships.
That’s pretty cool.
Oh. There’s been a terrible misunderstanding. I meant that Harry was the sort of friend I’d want, someone who wouldn’t “move on” just because it was the standard script provided by society.
That’s not how gravity works. The [formula](https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-physics/chapter/newtons-law-of-universal-gravitation/#:~:text=The mathematical formula for gravitational,G is the gravitational constant.) for the force between two stars due to gravity is F = (GM1M2)/r^2.
Alpha Centauri is the closest star system with three stars.
G is the gravitation constant, which is 6.6E-11
M1 is the mass of the first star, the sun, or 2E30kg
M2 is the mass of the second star, Alpha Centauri, or 4E30kg.
r is half of the distance between the two stars, or 4E16m
Put them all together and you get F = (6.6E-11)(2E30)(4E30)/(4E16^2) = 3.3E17. This sounds like a lot, but remember that we’re dealing with enormous masses. Plug that force into f=ma and you get an acceleration of 8E-14. Basically nothing, in other words.
This may be currently true. However, by the time we’ve solved immortality, hopefully we won’t be using DNA anymore. Or, at least, we’ll be able to edit that DNA and fix mutations (among other things). We’re already unlocking this technology. Evolution is [evil](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MFNJ7kQttCuCXHp8P/the-goddess-of-everything-else#:~:text=your loved ones.-,I am the Goddess of Everything Else and my powers,the end of all ages.”) and the sooner we throw off its shackles, the better.
Let’s not. Death is not a feature; it’s an ugly workaround that’s only necessary because evolution is too stupid to solve the problem directly.
Okay, I misunderstood what you meant by creativity earlier (I thought you meant general creativity, not last-ditch efforts). This is very circular. Death is good because it… prevents death? I reject the entire circle and propose an alternative: fix the actual problem. What’s the problem, you ask? Humanity’s inability to think long-term, which forces us to make those quantum leaps or be annihilated. No, we can’t do this today; yes we will be able to eventually (and if we don’t, we’re probably doomed no matter how much death is around).
Why bother? Just consign souls to the fantasy bin and wash your hands of the whole mess. Don’t you remember the part of the sequences where he explains that if you write your conclusion down first, it doesn’t matter what clever arguments you come up with to justify it?
Yes, our cells lack this mechanism. So what? That’s what technology is for.
What? Why would you be in any pain? “Fastening” would integrate the nervous system of your head and new body. It’s not like you take the head and staple it onto a neck. No we can’t do this today. Yes we have precursor technology: hand transplants