This whole article makes a sleight of hand assumption that more rational = more time on LW.
I’m a proto-rationalist by these criteria. I don’t see any reason cryonics can’t eventually work. I’ve no interest in it, and I think it is kinda weird.
Some of that weirdness is the typical frozen dead body stuff. But, more than that, I’m weirded out by the immortality-ism that seems to be a big part of (some of) the tenured LW crowd (i.e. rationalists).
I’ve yet to hear one compelling argument for why hyper-long life = better. The standard answers seems to be “death is obviously bad and the only way you could disagree is because you are biased” and “more years can equal more utilons”.
In the case of the former, yeah, death sucks ’cuz it is an end and often involves lots of pain and inconvenience in the run up to it. To the latter, yeah, I get the jist: More utilons = better. Shut up and do math. Okay.
I’m totally on board with getting rid of gratuitous pain and inconvenience that comes with aging. But, as I said, the “I want to live forever! ’cuz that is winning!” thing is just plain weird to me, at least as much so as the frozen body/head bit.
My first thought is that the number of years lived is relatively arbitrary. 100, 1000, whatever. I’d imagine someone smarter than I could come up with a logical number. Maybe when you could meet your great grandkids or something. Don’t know. 10 seems way too small & 1,000,000 way too big, but that is likely just because I’m anchored to 75-85 as an average lifespan.
I think my choice to cease conscious experience would involve a few components:
Realization of the end of true novelty. I’ve read some good stuff on why this might not be an issue given sufficient technology, but I’m ultimately not convinced. It seems to me a perpetual invention of new novelties (new challenges to be overcome, etc.) is still artificial and would not work to extend novelty to the extent I was aware it was artificial. I suspect it might feel like how a particular sandbox video game tends to lose its appeal...and even sandbox video games in general lose their appeal. All this despite the potential for perpetual novelty within the games’ engines.
I suppose this is related to the first, but it feels a bit separate in my mind… All risk would be lost. With a finite period of time in which to work, all my accomplishments and failures have some scope. I have the body and mind I’ve been given, and X amount of years to squeeze as much lemonade as I can out of the lemons life throws at me. With the option for infinite time, I’d imagine everything would become an eventuality. Once in a lifetime experiences would be mathematically bound to occur given enough time, of which I’d have an innumerable sum. I’d sum this component up by saying that games are not fun if you can’t lose… in fact, they aren’t even games. During a philosophical discussion, a former co-worker of mine told me he thought life’s meaning was in overcoming obstacles and challenges and finding joy in it. I thought that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard at the time, but now I basically agree. Infinite availability of time makes this whole purpose kinda moot, in my view.
One other component I can think of is a recognition of what death really means. It is only the end of my conscious experience. It is not, in a very real & literal sense, the end of the world. All that happens (presumably) is that I no longer observe. Period. Death isn’t nearly as scary or grandiose as we make it out to be.
Given a choice between remaining alive for as long as novelty and risk and challenges and obstacles to overcome and joy remain present, or dying before that point, would you choose to die before that point?
I’d imagine I’d like to live as long as life had the potential for those things, even if they weren’t present at a given moment. My concern isn’t necessarily that they’d run out, rather that they don’t really exist in a world where immortality is an option.
And again, being conscious vs. not being conscious is not a world-ending difference to me. I think consciousness is just a localized emergence from a particalur meat-computer. I enjoy/tolerate a persistent illusion of “self” that can change drastically with injury or illness. It is a fragile little state of affairs and I think it is weird (though very natural) to seek to solidify it in a (literally) permanent state.
being conscious vs. not being conscious is not a world-ending difference to me.
Sure. I’m clear on that part, I’m just trying to elicit your preferences on the matter.
My concern isn’t necessarily that they’d run out, rather that they don’t really exist in a world where immortality is an option.
Eh? I don’t really get this. I can understand how, in principle, immortality means that I might eventually reach a point where nothing is novel, or risky, or challenging, or an obstacle, or joyful. I don’t understand how the option of immortality means that right now nothing is novel, or risky, or challenging, or an obstacle, or joyful.
But, OK… I guess I can accept that this is the way it is for you, even if I don’t understand it, and therefore you would prefer not to have that option.
My concern isn’t necessarily that they’d run out, rather that they don’t really exist in a world where immortality is an option.
Eh?
I don’t really get this.
I can understand how, in principle, immortality means that I might eventually reach a point where nothing is novel, or risky, or challenging, or an obstacle, or joyful.
I don’t understand how the option of immortality means that right now nothing is novel, or risky, or challenging, or an obstacle, or joyful.
There would be some novelty at first. But as soon as you became aware life was of an infinite duration and could understand the implications, what would be the motivation for anything? Every conceiveable 1-in-a-billion occurance would become an eventuality. How does risk even make sense in this world? What is an obstacle or a challenge when infinity is realized as a possiblity? I’d imagine it would feel like a game you already know you are going to win… and that is very boring, in my view.
But as soon as you became aware life was of an infinite duration and could understand the implications, what would be the motivation for anything?
Enjoyment. It’s possible to enjoy something despite knowing exactly how it’s going to turn out. For example, when you’re about to take a bite of food you like, you know how it’s going to taste, but that doesn’t eliminate your motivation to eat it.
soon as you became aware life was of an infinite duration and could understand the implications, what would be the motivation for anything?
But we’ve already established that life needn’t be of infinite duration. I can end it at any time, that’s implicit in the question of when I would choose to die. It’s of indefinite duration, which isn’t the same thing at all.
That aside, though… what are your motivations for doing things now?
But we’ve already established that life needn’t be of infinite duration. I can end it at any time, that’s implicit in the question of when I would choose to die. It’s of indefinite duration, which isn’t the same thing at all.
I’m assuming you’d have the choice to end your life, or the option to continue it forever. Of course, if you were stuck living forever, that would suck. Do you agree? Why or why not?
That aside, though… what are your motivations for doing things now?
I assume the lionshare is in my animal-nature programming. I’m evolved to derive some pleasure from the sorts of activities that benefit the replicators I carry.
I’m assuming you’d have the choice to end your life
And, further, you’ve asserted that you would choose to end it when certain conditions arose, which on your view are guaranteed to arise eventually. So your life would be predictably finite.
Of course, if you were stuck living forever, that would suck. Do you agree? Why or why not?
Generally, I prefer to have choices about things. That said, there are situations where I would willingly give up certain choices, including the choice to die. So it would depend on the situation.
But sure, all else being equal, I would rather have the choice to die.
That said, I’d also rather have the choice to live, which the current arrangement is pretty much guaranteed to deprive me of pretty soon.
Because situations might arise in which I preferred death to continued life, and in the absence of that choice I’d be unable to effect that preference. That said, situations might also arise in which I transiently chose to die despite an average preference to continue living, so it depends on what alternatives I have available. I can imagine options superior to my having this choice.
Do you think anything similar to the “end of novelty” could happen within a human’s current lifespan? And by “end of novelty” I mean actual end of novelty, not something that could seem similar to it, like depression. Also, is novelty necessary to have a life with positive value? Could you not imagine yourself living a routine for x number of years (where x is less than the current human lifespan, but greater than 10) and being happy? If so, why do you think this would change for a sufficiently large value of x, and why don’t you think that you’d be able to find a new routine? Also, what would be artificial about a “perpetual invention of novelties”—what makes perpetual novelty artificial that isn’t also the case for current novelty?
If potential new experiences are created faster than you can experience them, does the problem remain? (E.g., Even if you read as many books as you felt comfortable reading, the total number of books unread by you would increase every year.) Also, why would immortality mean that you can’t lose? You can’t lose your life, but you can lose money, once-in-a-lifetime experiences, etc.
Death isn’t the end of the world in an objective sense, but it prevents you from enjoying anything you value—so, if someone said that they’d put you in a steel box with a lifetime supply of oxygen, food, and sleep medication (if you want to take it), then shoot you into space, would you object to that? It would be similar to death because the world would go on, but you wouldn’t be able to enjoy it.
Do you think anything similar to the “end of novelty” could happen within a human’s current lifespan?
I don’t think that could practically happen. Though I suppose people do often end up feeling that is the case in their own lives.
Also, is novelty necessary to have a life with positive value? Could you not imagine yourself living a routine for x number of years (where x is less than the current human lifespan, but greater than 10) and being happy?
I do think novelty is a key component in happiness. Not necessarily that you have new stuff in every moment or day, but at least that their is the potential for novelty.
If so, why do you think this would change for a sufficiently large value of x, and why don’t you think that you’d be able to find a new routine?
Perhaps for any non-infinite value of x, you’d be okay. Once x could be infinite, I think there could be the realization that everything is pretty meaningless. And I don’t see much reason why any non-infinite years as a lifespan is better than any other. I suppose reaching an age where you could have kids or grandkids might be a good benchmark. But the difference between 100 years and 200 seems arbitrary. As does the difference between 1000 and 1,000,000.
Also, what would be artificial about a “perpetual invention of novelties”—what makes perpetual novelty artificial that isn’t also the case for current novelty?
It’s a good question. I don’t know. I can just imagine coming to the realization that (a) I could live forever if I choose, and (b) everything could be done given enough time, of which I have a limitless supply. If these are the circumstances, every challenge would only appear to be a challenge.
If potential new experiences are created faster than you can experience them, does the problem remain?
This is the concept I’ve read which makes me wonder if supply of novelty might always be able to exceed demand.
Also, why would immortality mean that you can’t lose? You can’t lose your life, but you can lose money, once-in-a-lifetime experiences, etc.
I’m not smart enough to think through what “money” would mean in an economy where immortality is available. As far as once-in-a-lifetime experiences, they’d be cheapened necessarily. What were once a once-in-a-million-lifetimes experiences would be become bound to happen eventually. One-in-a-billion odds would mean nothing.
By “can’t lose” I meant that you couldn’t “bet” your life on things (i.e. invest your time) since you have an inexhaustable source of time. Playing games and winning is fun because losing is an option. Winning is meaningless without losing.
Death isn’t the end of the world in an objective sense, but it prevents you from enjoying anything you value—so, if someone said that they’d put you in a steel box with a lifetime supply of oxygen, food, and sleep medication (if you want to take it), then shoot you into space, would you object to that? It would be similar to death because the world would go on, but you wouldn’t be able to enjoy it.
I mean death isn’t the end of anyone else’s conscious experience. It does end yours. As Hitchens said, “It isn’t that the party is over. Rather, the party will continue, and you’ve been asked to leave.” This end of my personal conscious experience is only as big as my ego makes it. It really isn’t that big a deal.
I’m not smart enough to think through what “money” would mean in an economy where immortality is available.
Suppose tomorrow a philanthropist introduces a free shot that grants people immortality for as long as they want it. - so the world would be the same as it would be today, except everyone is immortal. Why would money disappear? People would still want goods and services, and having a medium of exchange would still be convenient.
What were once a once-in-a-million-lifetimes experiences would be become bound to happen eventually.
The birth of any particular person would only happen once—so the birth of your child would still be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You’d only see them grow up once. You’d only be able to meet someone for the first time once. Etc.
As for investing your time, you could still do that even if you have infinite time. If something goes wrong, you may get another chance at it (if it’s not a once-in-a-lifetime experience) but in the meantime, things could be quite unpleasant. If you gamble your house away, you could probably live long enough to make enough money to buy another house, but in the meantime you would have lost something, and that would be bad.
I mean death isn’t the end of anyone else’s conscious experience. It does end yours.
Yes, and the end of your conscious experience prevents you from enjoying anything ever again. Isn’t that an enormous loss?
Suppose tomorrow a philanthropist introduces a free shot that grants people immortality for as long as they want it. - so the world would be the same as it would be today, except everyone is immortal. Why would money disappear? People would still want goods and services, and having a medium of exchange would still be convenient.
I don’t know. Economy implies some scarcity. I suppose it would depend on what was required to remain immortal. Would we need some currency to pay for future injections or upgrades? In that sense, would we even be immortal? Wouldn’t we still be in a similar survival mode to what we are in now? Would only the rich truly be immortal while the poor had the potential, but not the ongoing means for eternal life?
The birth of any particular person would only happen once—so the birth of your child would still be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You’d only see them grow up once. You’d only be able to meet someone for the first time once. Etc.
Birth of immortal children? You could have a billion of them. You’d meet new people infinite times if you wanted.
As for investing your time, you could still do that even if you have infinite time. If something goes wrong, you may get another chance at it (if it’s not a once-in-a-lifetime experience) but in the meantime, things could be quite unpleasant. If you gamble your house away, you could probably live long enough to make enough money to buy another house, but in the meantime you would have lost something, and that would be bad.
I think we have very different view about a future that includes immortality. Probably my lack of imagination.
Yes, and the end of your conscious experience prevents you from enjoying anything ever again. Isn’t that an enormous loss?
No. Death is neutral. The idea that life is necessarily optimal is simply hardwired into your animal-nature. If it were another way, you wouldn’t have made it this far. This was my point orignally on this thread. The “lifeism” on LW, as I’ll call it, is weird to me. Life is really cool and I hope it continues for a while for me, but I do not view my death as “bad”.
Cryonics and the desire for immortality in tranhumanism circles reminds me very much of my background in Evangelical Christianity. Nowhere else have I seen such irrational fear of death (i.e. fear of no longer experiencing consciousness).
There would still be scarcity. Perhaps you would not longer need to eat or drink to live, but you would still want to do it for enjoyment from time to time, and resources would still be limited. If you want to buy a house, there is still a limited number of houses and good places to live. You’d want to be protected from criminals, so you’d want to pay for police and courts, etc. If you wanted to live out in the street without any clothes, you could do that for as long as you wanted, but if you want more than that, you’d run into scarcity much like you do today.
Birth of immortal children? You could have a billion of them. You’d meet new people infinite times if you wanted.
But they’d be unique children, and their birth would be a unique event. Just like now you could theoretically have 20 kids, but a moment with each would be unique.
The idea that life is necessarily optimal is simply hardwired into your animal-nature.
Sure, but why does that make it wrong? I like sweet and fatty food for evolutionary reasons too—does that mean that if it’s a result of evolution, my preference is wrong? But in the case of life, it goes beyond just being hardwired—enjoying good things is good, and death prevents that, so logically death is bad.
I think we have a profoundly different expectation for what a future with sufficient technology for immortality might be like. It seems you think it will look alot like 2014, but with immortality. I’d imagine it will be basically unrecognizeable from our current world, so much so that it is relatively useless to speculate about the details.
I also think you are discounting how powerful an aspect of experience novelty can be, and therefore how trivial giving birth to your 100th, let alone 10,000th child might be.
As far as taking pleasure from your animal-nature: Cool. It isn’t bad. I’d argue your desire for life is fundamentally identical to your love of fatty food. It serves an ultimate purpose (pass on the replicators), and simply basing your (wannabe eternal) existence off of the hedonistic side-effects of these sorts of drives will lose its appeal over the course of eons.
The idea that death is bad ’cuz good stuff could be happening in our potential lives after we are gone is not compelling to me at all. It’s an opportunity cost argument, right? Okay. Except you cease to exist in this particular case.
Anyway, good to chat with you. I’d love to hear any other thoughts you have. At this point, I’m tapping, as I don’t have anything else to say in this discussion with you.
I agree that a world in which immortality would be possible would look very different from today’s, but that’s because the development of immortality would require technological advances (maybe nanotechnology) that would change the world by themselves even if they didn’t lead to immortality. Immortality by itself wouldn’t make the world look that different, though—funeral homes would go out of business, and maybe hospitals as well, but other than that, it wouldn’t make a huge difference.
I think novelty is highly overrated as a source of value. Certainly, it’s nice to play a good new game or something like that, but as far as possible sources of value, it’s quite low on the list. Regarding having children, the parent-child bond is part of human nature, so I don’t think it’ll ever become trivial. As for hedonism, I don’t expect it to ever lose its appeal, especially as new fun things are created.
It’s an opportunity cost argument, right? Okay. Except you cease to exist in this particular case.
Yes, it is an opportunity cost, and the fact that you wouldn’t exist is the problem, because it means that instead of getting something positive, you’d be getting nothing.
While we’re alive, we want to keep on living. I recall moments—locked away for the moment, unreachable—when the idea of death caused feelings of intense terror. But one can also recognize an immutable biological component to this (immutable unless one is depressed or in pain, etc). To circumnavigate this immediate biological feeling about death, it is better to try and perceive, counter-factually, if you were already dead, would you care? I think it is interesting that the answers are different if we’re discussing tomorrow, or 100 years from now, or 100 years ago. (Tut recently shared this quote from Mark Twain.)
Sure, I recognize that there are all kinds of feelings one can have about immortality and death that are not captured, or even necessarily relevant, to one’s choices about living and dying.
I’m interested in the choices, and the factors that contribute to those choices, so I asked about them.
Others are of course welcome to investigate other things however they consider best.
I’m interested in the choices, and the factors that contribute to those choices, so I asked about them.
If you are specifically interested in the contexts of a person deciding that they do wish, or do not wish, to continue living in the current moment, then my comment wasn’t relevant.
However, I interpreted your question as a Socratic challenge to realize that one values immortality because they do not wish to die in the present moment. (I think these are separate systems in some sense, perhaps far versus near).
I understood (and my perspective changed quite a bit) as soon as I read about Miller’s Law in the exchange you linked. I really like having a handle for the concept (for my own sake, its usefulness is curbed by not being well-known).
I believe the default interpretation of the question you asked is the interpretation that I had (that you were using the Socratic method). The reason for this being the default interpretation is that there is an obvious, intuitive answer. (This question was a good counter-argument, which is why I think it was up-voted.)
… to deflect this interpretation, your question could be worded to be less obvious, and allow more nuance. Perhaps, “If you could remain healthy indefinitely, do you expect you would ever choose to die?”, or, “If you could remain healthy indefinitely, for which conditions would you ever choose to die?”
(nods) Yeah, that last one would have been a good alternative, in retrospect. I got there eventually but could have gotten there sooner. (The other one is a fine question, but I already had the answer.)
Though I suspect that it, too, would have been understood as Socratic in the closed-ended sense.
Upvoted for providing a clear counterexample to Yvain’s assertion that people would find immortality to be “surely an outcome as desirable as any lottery jackpot”.
This suggests that a partial explanation for the data is that “experienced rationalists” (high karma, long time in community) are more likely to find immortality desirable, and so more likely to sign up for cryonics despite having slightly lower faith in the technology itself.
This whole article makes a sleight of hand assumption that more rational = more time on LW.
Not particularly. If we found that people who spent more time at church are more likely to believe in Jesus, one possible explanation (albeit not proven to be causal) is that going to church makes one believe in Jesus. Likewise, if we find that people who spend more time on Less Wrong are more likely to take a strange idea seriously, one possible (unproven, but reasonable to hypothesize) explanation is that going to Less Wrong makes one more likely to take strange ideas seriously.
Although it’s perfectly reasonable not to want to sign up for cryonics (and I haven’t signed up myself) the high probability of success but low signup rate among newcomers versus the lower probability of success and higher signup rate among veterans suggests the variable changing is “taking ideas seriously”; this is orthogonal to whether you should or shouldn’t want to sign up for cryonics
(unless your claim is that veterans are more anti-deathist than newbies, which would also explain the data and should probably be tested on the next survey. But I think my point the the higher signup rate among veterans does not mean they are more credulous but reflects thought process change still stands)
“Rationalist” here is used to mean “exposed to rationalist ideas”, not “is a rationalist person”. I realize that’s confusing but I don’t have better terminology.
Although it’s perfectly reasonable not to want to sign up for cryonics (and I haven’t signed up myself)
Would you please explain your rationale?
“Rationalist” here is used to mean “exposed to rationalist ideas”, not “is a rationalist person”. I realize that’s confusing but I don’t have better terminology.
I understood, and then used, “rationalist” to mean “accurate map of the territory”. I’d agree exposure to LW helps eliminate some biases and, in that way, it is rationalist training that improves one’s rationality. I’m not yet willing to say Less Wrong = More Right in every case, however.
Maybe more time on LW leads to improved rationality… up to the point where it doesn’t? I find the dogmatic-ish acceptance of certain ideas around here reminds me of religion. It is funny to me you used that example...
I find the dogmatic-ish acceptance of certain ideas around here reminds me of religion
Did you actually look at the statistics? Whatever dogma you’re seeing isn’t there. It’s more likely you’re thinking some people you’ve had discussions with here are more representative of LW than they actually are.
As in the church, it isn’t too terribly important to dogma that it has widespread acceptance among adherents to a particular faith in order to be dogma.
What is far more important to establishing dogma is having de facto authority and/or status leaders accept it and voice their support.
I suppose this happens in the way you note. I don’t advocate labeling LW, or anyone else, a religion. I just meant to say certain aspects remind me of religion. Other aspects are nothing like religion.
I don’t think cryonics is impossible. In fact, I’m probably in the proto-rationalist group that doesn’t really understand the science but thinks it has a high probability of working someday. I just don’t understand why it is so appealing.
The dogma seems to be more that “cryonics and the option for indefinite life extension is good” more than “cryonics is possible”.
I agree with you that the article engages in sleight of hand; however, I disagree with you regarding immortality.
While I do believe that “living longer (assuming high levels of physical and mental health is always better” is too strong a statement, I would argue that “having the choice to live as long as you want is always better” is much closer to the truth.
There are many projects that I will leave unfinished when I die; many things I will never get to experience. If I had the choice to live long enough to finish everything I wanted to do, I would gladly take it. I fully expect that, by the time I’m done with all that stuff, I’ll find a lot more stuff that would require even more of my time—but I could be wrong, in which case I’d want the option to end my life voluntarily.
I fully accept that there exist people for whom 80 or so years (or fewer) would be enough. Perhaps they lead much more efficient lives than I do, or perhaps they lack imagination or curiosity, or perhaps their lives are so terrible that death would come as a welcome release. But I have difficulty believing that the majority of people are like that. I’m pretty average, so it seems more likely that most people are like me.
I’ve yet to hear one compelling argument for why hyper-long life = better.
It makes dying an optional choice, rather than an inevitable necessity. Talk to an 80 year old person about the “joys” of aging—any proper immortality means that you don’t age. With a longer lifespan, people will tend toward a long term view (at least a little). You can enjoy more things, or accomplish more things, with a longer life.
Even people who have said they’d rather die than live as an invalid, almost always change their tune when they become an invalid—so why should I believe that you’d rather die than live as a healthy man in the prime of life? Go ahead, research this one thing.
If as you fear immortality drains motivation, the immortals will be out-competed by the mortals, so the world won’t be harmed. And remember also that full immortality means finding a way around the laws of thermodynamics and the death of the universe—“forever” might necessarily be limited to a few billion years.
It makes dying an optional choice, rather than an inevitable necessity.
Yes.
Talk to an 80 year old person about the “joys” of aging—any proper immortality means that you don’t age. With a longer lifespan, people will tend toward a long term view (at least a little). You can enjoy more things, or accomplish more things, with a longer life.
Okay. Eliminating aging and all the negatives involved with it makes sense.
Even people who have said they’d rather die than live as an invalid, almost always change their tune when they become an invalid—so why should I believe that you’d rather die than live as a healthy man in the prime of life? Go ahead, research this one thing.
I’m not sure what research you think I should do. I accept that many circumstances we can imagine are much different when we actually have to deal with them in the present reality.
If as you fear immortality drains motivation, the immortals will be out-competed by the mortals, so the world won’t be harmed.
I’m not worried about the world being harmed by immortality, per se. I suppose there are lots of interesting implications that would arise, but I’m not concerned.
And remember also that full immortality means finding a way around the laws of thermodynamics and the death of the universe—“forever” might necessarily be limited to a few billion years.
Sure. That makes sense.
With a longer lifespan, people will tend toward a long term view (at least a little). You can enjoy more things, or accomplish more things, with a longer life.
This seems to be the argument. I don’t find it compelling it all. Can you help me understand why “tending toward a long view” is valuable? And how is accomplishing and enjoying more things always good indefinitely? I think enjoying and accomplishing things is cool, but I’d imagine there are some diminishing returns on almost anything.
I’m hearing… “death is obviously bad and the only way you could disagree is because you are biased” and “more years can equal more utilons”.
Am I off base? How?
Death is just the end of your conscious experience. You won’t know your dead. Life is cool, but it isn’t as if the stakes on the table are life or eternal torture. That would be a HUGE problem worth freezing bodies or severed heads over.
This seems to be the argument. I don’t find it compelling it all. Can you help me understand why “tending toward a long view” is valuable? And how is accomplishing and enjoying more things always good indefinitely? I think enjoying and accomplishing things is cool, but I’d imagine there are some diminishing returns on almost anything.
A longer term view is valuable because it would decrease things like “it’s OK to pollute, I’ll be dead by the time it gets bad”.
I’m hearing… “death is obviously bad and the only way you could disagree is because you are biased” and “more years can equal more utilons”.
It’s just that many of us don’t see any benefit to involuntary death. (Voluntary death also remains unpopular, even in surprisingly bad circumstances). In fact, I don’t know of any product which is marketed as being superior to another product due to having a shorter lifespan (“Because our product will cease to function unexpectedly, you can enjoy it more now before it does!”), while things like “lifetime guarantee” are routinely praised as positive. I mean, for houses, tools, toys, vehicles, pet animals, longer lifespan == better, and I don’t see why it should be different for my children.
As a thought experiment:
Most people would, if they could, take a pill that eliminated the effects of aging, but causes multiple organ failure at about their original life expectancy. You seem to agree that aging is inconvenient, so I assume you’d take this pill. Would you?
But what if that pill also extended your lifespan indefinitely, as well as curing aging? Not true immortality, of course, since your body would still be susceptible to disease and accident, but it would mean that every year you’re as likely to die as you were last year, ie your chance of dying doesn’t increase with age. Now, there are a lot of people who say death is a good thing. In the interest of pleasing these people, while also providing the elimination of aging, scientists develop a second substance, which causes multiple organ failure at about your expected lifespan. By combining this substance with the immortality pill, they create a cure for aging that does not have immortality as a side-effect. Which of these pills would you prefer, or would you reject both?
Now, if you’re not a consequentialist, the second pill no doubt seems like it has the stigma of suicide, even though its effects are identical to a previous example which perhaps seemed both positive and non-suicidal. This stigma would vanish, even if the pill were identical, if the pills had been developed in reverse order, with the immortality pill being a refinement of the anti-aging pill to remove a substance that causes eventual multiple organ failure. Or perhaps simply the existence of both options would make them both repugnant to you, one because it stinks of suicide, and the other one because you don’t want immortality?
On a different note, there are in fact some legitimate advantages of death by limited lifespan, and some that might be considered both advantageous and disadvantageous. A limited lifespan allows for permanent retirement. Solving death would be a huge problem for the politicians who have to kick people off retirement, with a risk that they’d rather go bankrupt than anger our elderly. A huge chunk of our taxes are estate taxes “aka death tax”. Death is a great equalizer: it will eliminate any specific tyrant and any specific individual who is accumulating “too much” wealth. Making death technically not inevitable would decrease our courage to do dangerous or violent things, such as soldiering, volunteering to test drugs, violent or non-violent resistance to a corrupt regime. The combination of immortal tyrant with decreased opposition from internal resistance or external liberators, is particularly worrisome. Unlimited lifespan will increase procrastination. Death eliminates old people set in their ways from positions of power and authority, making way for new ideas. Death makes all your problems go away or become someone else’s problems. With limited lifespans, you won’t outlive your friends by more than ~100 years. Even with all that, there’s an equally impressive list for the benefits of a longer lifespan, plus I can point to about 7 billion people who think living is better than dying.
As a thought experiment: Most people would, if they could, take a pill that eliminated the effects of aging, but causes multiple organ failure at about their original life expectancy. You seem to agree that aging is inconvenient, so I assume you’d take this pill. Would you?
I think I would, yes.
But what if that pill also extended your lifespan indefinitely, as well as curing aging?
I don’t think so, no.
stigma of suicide
More than a stigma, suicide is very consequential. It’s a deep trauma for many people surrounding the victim. I think it is a net zero for the victim, however.
Overall, I still see the main argument as this: If you lived forever, you’d be able to accumulated ulimited fuzzies and utilons. And that is objectively better than fewer fuzzie and utilons. Therefore, death is bad.
I’m not “for” death. But life is an accident, an unintended side-effect of physical laws and processes. While I think you point out some good practical examples of advantages and disadvantages for the option of immortality, I sense my objections are of a bit different sort.
We, as living things, have evolved to fight to live, and live to fight. You want to live because nature has designed you to want to live. That is it. We glean some pleasure and meaning in the process of fighting/living/surviving, and that is cool. I sense the novelty of this will run out eventually.
Death isn’t a problem. If future AI finds a way (and have some reason) to keep humans alive and torture them for eternity, then that is a big problem.
People all over the globe starving and enduring suffering via war, disease, etc. is a problem.
Aging leading to Alzheimer’s, et al, is a problem.
Death is empty of any value. It is neither good or bad. It isn’t a problem unless ego makes it one.
More than a stigma, suicide is very consequential. It’s a deep trauma for many people surrounding the victim. I think it is a net zero for the victim, however.
It may be zero for you. If you think it should be zero for others too, I’d like to see some reasoning. That I can’t experience death is obvious, but not convincing. If I only valued things I directly experience here and now, I don’t think I could have any plans whatsoever. The fact that my death is a trauma for others also motivates me not to die. Doesn’t it motivate you?
The fact that my death is a trauma for others also motivates me not to die. Doesn’t it motivate you?
Absolutely. But that is a completely separate issue.
However, I sense that is related to some of what is happening when people speak about death in regard to opportunity costs. When mourning the loss of a younger person, it is common to hear people say “S/he had so much potential that now is lost.” I’ve said that before.
But what are we really saying? What did somebody who is no longer conscious or aware in anyway really “lose”?
In reality, and as you point out, we the still living are the one who are losing something. We lose a friend or a family member. We may lose a bit of motivation when confronted with that reminder of our eventual mortality. Or maybe we lose some peace of mind (or add some anxiety) for the same reason.
It isn’t my argument that death isn’t bad for those who keep living. I would argue their loss would be mitigated if (a) the associated negative aspects of death (pain, trauma, aging, disease, etc.) were eliminated and (b) they meditated on the actual, practical implications of death for the deceased.
I’m not sure what would convince you or count as proper reasoning.
It’s basically an opportunity cost argument that is being made against death. That’s fine with me. I guess there isn’t much I can do to rebut that.
Opportunity costs only seem to make sense in terms of their effect on our current conscious experience.
If I chose not to travel after college when I was single and unattached, I might regret that now that I’m settled down and don’t possess that opportunity (or the memories and life experience I would have gained) given my current commitments and obligations.
If I chose not to invest in Google when I had the cash to do so, I rue that decision, since buying that stock would have contributed to all sorts of potential good things in my present and future, and make me feel less anxious right now.
But death negates all such considerations. If I were to snap my finger and you and I would be dead, opportunity costs would be practically absurd to speak of in our cases.
I concede that the math works for immortality—A years x B utilons/fuzzies per year = Total Awesomeness. As long as B is positive, then maximizing A always increases awesomeness, and making A infinite leads to infinite awesomeness.
If I only valued things I directly experience here and now, I don’t think I could have any plans whatsoever.
It is interesting you phrase it that way. I’ll ask in the spirit of Eckhart Tolle: Is there some way you know of to experience value in things outside of here and now?
Opportunity costs only seem to make sense in terms of their effect on our current conscious experience.
Are you sure the problem isn’t unusual use of language?
Is there some way you know of to experience value in things outside of here and now?
I meditate regularly, I know what you mean and the answer to the meaning of your question is no. I also think this kind of a question with this particular intended meaning is abuse of language, and insisting on using common language to describe the insights you’ve gained through meditation mostly yields nonsense. When people say future they mean future, not the present moment and if you insist otherwise you lose information.
I value things not here and now all the time. They’re just not yet here and now and don’t necessarily have to ever be.
Are you sure the problem isn’t unusual use of language?
Please say more about this.
I value things not here and now all the time. They’re just not yet here and now and don’t necessarily have to ever be.
I don’t understand. When is it that you find value in them? In what way can you experience anything, in the future or the past, outside of the present moment? Can you “value” something without “experiencing” it? If so, how do you define the distinction?
I’ll do so tomorrow with a fresh brain. I find my chances of communicating anything useful poor though. Specialized vocabulary would be nice. I suppose mindful religions have that, too bad it’s buried in religious scripture.
The fact that my death is a trauma for others also motivates me not to die. Doesn’t it motivate you?
Absolutely. But that is a completely separate issue.
However, I sense that is related to some of what is happening when people speak about death in regard to opportunity costs. When mourning the loss of a younger person, it is common to hear people say “S/he had so much potential that now is lost.” I’ve said that before.
But what are we really saying? What did somebody who is no longer conscious or aware in anyway really “lose”?
In reality, and as you point out, we the still living are the one who are losing something. We lose a friend or a family member. We may lose a bit of motivation when confronted with that reminder of our eventual mortality. Or maybe we lose some peace of mind (or add some anxiety) for the same reason.
It isn’t my argument that death isn’t bad for those who keep living. I would argue their loss would be mitigated if (a) the associated negative aspects of death (pain, trauma, aging, disease, etc.) were eliminated and (b) they meditated on the actual, practical implications of death for the deceased.
If everyone was immortal and healthy by default, do you think it would even occur to you suggest death as a harmless alternative?
If someone tried to convince you that a 50 year lifespan is better than what we have now, what would be your reaction? Don’t you find it interesting that your intuitions support a very narrow optimum that just happens to be what you already have?
Do you argue that “death is just the end of your conscious experience” in the case of anyone who dies prematurely? Try to imagine actual deaths in real life and their outcomes.
If everyone was immortal and healthy by default, do you think it would even occur to you suggest death as a harmless alternative?
Good question. I’d suggest death is a harmless alternative, and it would only be analogous with actual, literal, harmless alternatives. (Also, I notice you are conflating non-healthyness and mortality.)
If a reality like death didn’t exist, I guess it would be like any other non-existent, yet imaginable state. In fact, death is a state of non-existence, it is imaginable, and it is harmless.
If someone tried to convince you that a 50 year lifespan is better than what we have now, what would be your reaction?
Most arguments for which exact lifespan is better would seem arbitrary to me. I can see some merit to a lifespan that allowed you to have kids, or grandkids. Maybe a lifespan where you reached full, mature adulthood makes some sense. But 50 years, 100 years, 1000 years… arbitrary.
Don’t you find it interesting that your intuitions support a very narrow optimum that just happens to be what you already have?
Yes, very interesting. Though it is also your intuition, and intuition generally, that opposes (and fears?) death so intensely. It is part of our eons-evolved programming. This death-avoidance intuition exists so that we will be best equipped as vehicles for the replicators we carry. That is all is was designed for. The fact you are arguing for some intrinsic value to indefinitely extended consciousness beyond its instrumental value as a tool of the replicators is simply a glitch; a side-effect to the necessary importance every surviving organism and species must attach to surviving.
Do you argue that “death is just the end of your conscious experience” in the case of anyone who dies prematurely? Try to imagine actual deaths in real life and their outcomes.
I don’t “argue” it. That seems tacky, since I would be arguing only with the deceased friends or loved ones… since the deceased themselves would be...dead.
I do, however, think it is a helpful meditation to ponder the implications of death, immortality, etc. I read and discuss my understanding of Buddhism with lots of people (these, for example), and I find explorations to better understand the human desire for permanence and striving for lasting satisfaction to be very insightful and helpful.
From your cited fable...
Stories about aging have traditionally focused on the need for graceful accommodation. The recommended solution to diminishing vigor and impending death was resignation coupled with an effort to achieve closure in practical affairs and personal relationships. Given that nothing could be done to prevent or retard aging, this focus made sense. Rather than fretting about the inevitable, one could aim for peace of mind.
Today we face a different situation. While we still lack effective and acceptable means for slowing the aging process, we can identify research directions that might lead to the development of such means in the foreseeable future. “Deathist” stories and ideologies, which counsel passive acceptance, are no longer harmless sources of consolation. They are fatal barriers to urgently needed action....
...The argument is not in favor or life-span extension per se. Adding extra years of sickness and debility at the end of life would be pointless. The argument is in favor of extending, as far as possible, the human health-span. By slowing or halting the aging process, the healthy human life span would be extended. Individuals would be able to remain healthy, vigorous, and productive at ages at which they would otherwise be dead.
I did not read the whole fable, though I skimmed it (I get it, I think) and read the moral of the story.
What I notice is that the author appears to be conflating the nasty parts of aging with death. They are not at all the same. They are not the same problem, and the should not be confused.
I am 100% for bringing about technologies that eliminate gratuitous suffering. That includes much of what happens we humans age. People often end up in horrible mental and physical states for years, or decades, near the end of their lives. I am all for getting rid of Alzheimer’s, for instance. And, as a personal example, my grandmother spent the last eight years of her life effectively paralyzed and unable to speak due to a series of massive strokes—I am 100% for technology that would make this never happen to anyone ever again.
None of that has anything to do with the end of a human’s localized meat-computer-generated conscious experience. Healthyness does not = no death.
I love that he called it “Deathism”, the “ideologies that counsel passive acceptance”. I’ve often thought the sort of “stay alive at any cost” thinking I often encounter on LW could be appropriately labeled “Lifeism”, and now I feel validated for thinking so.
Let me ask: Can you imagine any scenario, say, a billion years into your life, when you might opt for permanently switching off your consciousness (i.e. death)? Why or why not? What would be different at one billion years vs. one million? One million vs. 100,000? 100,000 vs. 10,000? (I’m not asking rhetorically...)
Are you sure you didn’t think you were replying to someone else? You made a lot of false assumptions about my mindstate.
I’d suggest death is a harmless alternative
So what has made you decide to live so far?
Also, I notice you are conflating non-healthyness and mortality
I combined two situations because I thought that would be more acceptable to you. That doesn’t mean I’m conflating them. I do think there are good deaths and bad immortalities.
Most arguments for which exact lifespan is better would seem arbitrary to me.
If I couldn’t think of any interesting long term goals, I would have to agree. If that’s not how you mean it, then I don’t understand what you mean by arbitrary.
Though it is also your intuition, and intuition generally, that opposes (and fears?) death so intensely
It’s a value, and yes it’s programmed by the blind idiot god called evolution, but my core values don’t go away if I just think about them hard enough and why should they?
This death-avoidance intuition exists so that we will be best equipped as vehicles for the replicators we carry. That is all is was designed for
Why exactly does it matter why the value is there? It wasn’t designed for anything or by anything. It just is, and the genes were just selected for and thus they are. Genes have goals no more than they can plan and even if they did I have no reason to privilege them. Evolution is an unplanned process not optimizing anything in particular, how could it possibly glitch and why should I care?
“stay alive at any cost” thinking
Not my thinking.
Can you imagine any scenario, say, a billion years into your life, when you might opt for permanently switching off your consciousness
Any situation where my future could be expected to be net negative. Of course I can’t imagine such a scenario specificly, as I can’t reliably imagine what life is like even 20 years from now, so the extra years add nothing to the scenario. I can think of several situations that would make me end my life right now or a few years from now.
You made a lot of false assumptions about my mindstate.
Sorry.
So what has made you decide to live so far?
I’m alive. It is my default state.
I combined two situations because I thought that would be more acceptable to you. That doesn’t mean I’m conflating them. I do think there are good deaths and bad immortalities.
I’m talking about (1) aging and disease and suffering vs. (2) death. They have zero to do with one another and should not be combined in this discussion.
If I couldn’t think of any interesting long term goals, I would have to agree. If that’s not how you mean it, then I don’t understand what you mean by arbitrary.
Please give me an example of a long term goal that would require 10 Billion years? How about 1 Billion? 1 Million?
It’s a value, and yes it’s programmed by the blind idiot god called evolution, but my core values don’t go away if I just think about them hard enough and why should they?
Why exactly does it matter why the value is there? It wasn’t designed for anything or by anything. It just is, and the genes were just selected for and thus they are. Genes have goals no more than they can plan and even if they did I have no reason to privilege them. Evolution is an unplanned process not optimizing anything in particular, how could it possibly glitch and why should I care?
It does affect me quite a bit to know why my instincts and drives exist. Maybe it does nothing for you. Okay. That is interesting.
I meant only that I am alive, and I see no reason that death is preferable at this point.
If that’s how you want to have your definitions, I can live with that.
There is a difference beyond definitions here. We may have different definitions of death—I think it is the end of individual consciousness. But the suffering caused by aging and disease is separate from any definition of death. It is an important distinction that goes overlooked oft times.
No need for that. Just always have plans for tomorrow.
Fighting to live; living to fight. I see this a hamster wheel. It has some novelty, but I see no need to prolong it indefinitely. Or, if it can be prolonged, it shouldn’t be at the top of the list of problems facing humanity/the universe.
Why/how they exist and what for are different things. Conflating the two leads just to confusion in this case.
I’m not sure I understand what your point is.
I’m tapping on our conversation now. I’d be pleased to hear any responses you have.
I meant only that I am alive, and I see no reason that death is preferable at this point.
This could easily describe my preferences as well. Perhaps we just have different thresholds for logging out.
But the suffering caused by aging and disease is separate from any definition of death.
I fully agree with this distinction, but it doesn’t matter much to my preferences. I think permanent cessation of consciousness is bad. Some things in life are worse though, and could override this preference. Outcomes that we value don’t have to be directly experienced, and death is no exception. For example I don’t have to experience pain to want to avoid it. In addition living is instrumental to most of my goals.
It has some novelty, but I see no need to prolong it indefinitely.
I’m not bored yet. I can’t imagine how I could be. I wouldn’t choose immortality without the option of death however for various reasons. My ability to make long term plans will increase with technology. I might have million year plans, but can’t imagine what they could be. Imagination is a very limited tool.
I’m not sure I understand what your point is.
You seemed to think we exist for our genes. This is simply wrong. Evolution explains how we came to be, not what for. Cryopreserving some of your cells in a jar or backing up your sequenced genome in the cloud might maximize your genetic fitness but would feel strangely unsatisfying, don’t you think?
‘Let me ask: Can you imagine any scenario, say, a billion years into your life, when you might opt for permanently switching off your consciousness (i.e. death)? Why or why not? What would be different at one billion years vs. one million? One million vs. 100,000? 100,000 vs. 10,000? (I’m not asking rhetorically...)’
Yes*. And I can imagine it at one million as well, and 100,000, and 10,000. What I can’t do is know a priori which it’ll end up being, and I certainly wouldn’t want the decision to be made for me.
*Well, maybe. This actually might be one of the few scenarios in which I’d voluntarily undergo wireheading (as an alternative to death).
This whole article makes a sleight of hand assumption that more rational = more time on LW.
Yvain isn’t talking about rationality, he’s talking about membership in a rationalist group. (He says “training”, but he’s looking at time and status in community, not any specific training regime.) That “-ist” is important: it denotes a specific ideology or methodology. In this case, that’s one that’s strongly associated with the LW community, so using time and karma isn’t a bad measure of one’s exposure to it.
Myself, I’d be interested to see how these numbers compare to CFAR alumni. There’s some overlap, but not so much as to rule out important differences.
I dislike this usage, and in fact I find it offensive. Even with the “-ist” appended, It’s an appropriation of a term that has a general meaning of “thinking clearly” which gets redefined as a label of membership into a given community.
Personally, I’m more bothered by the fact that it shares a name with an epistemological stance) that’s in most ways unrelated and in some ways actually opposed to the LW methodology. (We tend to favor empiricist approaches in most situations.) But that ship has sailed.
Yvain isn’t talking about rationality, he’s talking about membership in a rationalist group.
My understanding is that one’s rationality (or ability to be rational) would increase as a result of participation in rationalist training. Hence, I see your disctinction, but little, if any, difference.
In this case, he assumes (1) LW is rationalist and (2) LW is good at providing training that makes a participating member more rational.
Karma does not necessarily have anything to do with rationality, being rational, rationalist training, etc. It is a point system in which members of LW give points to stuff they want more of. It has also been used as a reward for doing tasks for free for LW, mass blocks of downvoting for dissenting political views, and even filling out the survey we are talking about in this post.
This whole article makes a sleight of hand assumption that more rational = more time on LW.
I’m a proto-rationalist by these criteria. I don’t see any reason cryonics can’t eventually work. I’ve no interest in it, and I think it is kinda weird.
Some of that weirdness is the typical frozen dead body stuff. But, more than that, I’m weirded out by the immortality-ism that seems to be a big part of (some of) the tenured LW crowd (i.e. rationalists).
I’ve yet to hear one compelling argument for why hyper-long life = better. The standard answers seems to be “death is obviously bad and the only way you could disagree is because you are biased” and “more years can equal more utilons”.
In the case of the former, yeah, death sucks ’cuz it is an end and often involves lots of pain and inconvenience in the run up to it. To the latter, yeah, I get the jist: More utilons = better. Shut up and do math. Okay.
I’m totally on board with getting rid of gratuitous pain and inconvenience that comes with aging. But, as I said, the “I want to live forever! ’cuz that is winning!” thing is just plain weird to me, at least as much so as the frozen body/head bit.
But what could I know… I’m not rational.
If you could remain healthy indefinitely, when do you expect you would choose to die?
Why?
My first thought is that the number of years lived is relatively arbitrary. 100, 1000, whatever. I’d imagine someone smarter than I could come up with a logical number. Maybe when you could meet your great grandkids or something. Don’t know. 10 seems way too small & 1,000,000 way too big, but that is likely just because I’m anchored to 75-85 as an average lifespan.
I think my choice to cease conscious experience would involve a few components:
Realization of the end of true novelty. I’ve read some good stuff on why this might not be an issue given sufficient technology, but I’m ultimately not convinced. It seems to me a perpetual invention of new novelties (new challenges to be overcome, etc.) is still artificial and would not work to extend novelty to the extent I was aware it was artificial. I suspect it might feel like how a particular sandbox video game tends to lose its appeal...and even sandbox video games in general lose their appeal. All this despite the potential for perpetual novelty within the games’ engines.
I suppose this is related to the first, but it feels a bit separate in my mind… All risk would be lost. With a finite period of time in which to work, all my accomplishments and failures have some scope. I have the body and mind I’ve been given, and X amount of years to squeeze as much lemonade as I can out of the lemons life throws at me. With the option for infinite time, I’d imagine everything would become an eventuality. Once in a lifetime experiences would be mathematically bound to occur given enough time, of which I’d have an innumerable sum. I’d sum this component up by saying that games are not fun if you can’t lose… in fact, they aren’t even games. During a philosophical discussion, a former co-worker of mine told me he thought life’s meaning was in overcoming obstacles and challenges and finding joy in it. I thought that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard at the time, but now I basically agree. Infinite availability of time makes this whole purpose kinda moot, in my view.
One other component I can think of is a recognition of what death really means. It is only the end of my conscious experience. It is not, in a very real & literal sense, the end of the world. All that happens (presumably) is that I no longer observe. Period. Death isn’t nearly as scary or grandiose as we make it out to be.
Given a choice between remaining alive for as long as novelty and risk and challenges and obstacles to overcome and joy remain present, or dying before that point, would you choose to die before that point?
I’d imagine I’d like to live as long as life had the potential for those things, even if they weren’t present at a given moment. My concern isn’t necessarily that they’d run out, rather that they don’t really exist in a world where immortality is an option.
And again, being conscious vs. not being conscious is not a world-ending difference to me. I think consciousness is just a localized emergence from a particalur meat-computer. I enjoy/tolerate a persistent illusion of “self” that can change drastically with injury or illness. It is a fragile little state of affairs and I think it is weird (though very natural) to seek to solidify it in a (literally) permanent state.
Sure. I’m clear on that part, I’m just trying to elicit your preferences on the matter.
Eh?
I don’t really get this.
I can understand how, in principle, immortality means that I might eventually reach a point where nothing is novel, or risky, or challenging, or an obstacle, or joyful.
I don’t understand how the option of immortality means that right now nothing is novel, or risky, or challenging, or an obstacle, or joyful.
But, OK… I guess I can accept that this is the way it is for you, even if I don’t understand it, and therefore you would prefer not to have that option.
There would be some novelty at first. But as soon as you became aware life was of an infinite duration and could understand the implications, what would be the motivation for anything? Every conceiveable 1-in-a-billion occurance would become an eventuality. How does risk even make sense in this world? What is an obstacle or a challenge when infinity is realized as a possiblity? I’d imagine it would feel like a game you already know you are going to win… and that is very boring, in my view.
Enjoyment. It’s possible to enjoy something despite knowing exactly how it’s going to turn out. For example, when you’re about to take a bite of food you like, you know how it’s going to taste, but that doesn’t eliminate your motivation to eat it.
But we’ve already established that life needn’t be of infinite duration. I can end it at any time, that’s implicit in the question of when I would choose to die. It’s of indefinite duration, which isn’t the same thing at all.
That aside, though… what are your motivations for doing things now?
I’m assuming you’d have the choice to end your life, or the option to continue it forever. Of course, if you were stuck living forever, that would suck. Do you agree? Why or why not?
I assume the lionshare is in my animal-nature programming. I’m evolved to derive some pleasure from the sorts of activities that benefit the replicators I carry.
And, further, you’ve asserted that you would choose to end it when certain conditions arose, which on your view are guaranteed to arise eventually. So your life would be predictably finite.
Generally, I prefer to have choices about things. That said, there are situations where I would willingly give up certain choices, including the choice to die. So it would depend on the situation.
But sure, all else being equal, I would rather have the choice to die.
That said, I’d also rather have the choice to live, which the current arrangement is pretty much guaranteed to deprive me of pretty soon.
Why would it be bad to be unable to choose to stop living?
Because situations might arise in which I preferred death to continued life, and in the absence of that choice I’d be unable to effect that preference.
That said, situations might also arise in which I transiently chose to die despite an average preference to continue living, so it depends on what alternatives I have available. I can imagine options superior to my having this choice.
For example, it’s better to die than to be tortured forever.
Many questions:
Do you think anything similar to the “end of novelty” could happen within a human’s current lifespan? And by “end of novelty” I mean actual end of novelty, not something that could seem similar to it, like depression. Also, is novelty necessary to have a life with positive value? Could you not imagine yourself living a routine for x number of years (where x is less than the current human lifespan, but greater than 10) and being happy? If so, why do you think this would change for a sufficiently large value of x, and why don’t you think that you’d be able to find a new routine? Also, what would be artificial about a “perpetual invention of novelties”—what makes perpetual novelty artificial that isn’t also the case for current novelty?
If potential new experiences are created faster than you can experience them, does the problem remain? (E.g., Even if you read as many books as you felt comfortable reading, the total number of books unread by you would increase every year.) Also, why would immortality mean that you can’t lose? You can’t lose your life, but you can lose money, once-in-a-lifetime experiences, etc.
Death isn’t the end of the world in an objective sense, but it prevents you from enjoying anything you value—so, if someone said that they’d put you in a steel box with a lifetime supply of oxygen, food, and sleep medication (if you want to take it), then shoot you into space, would you object to that? It would be similar to death because the world would go on, but you wouldn’t be able to enjoy it.
I don’t think that could practically happen. Though I suppose people do often end up feeling that is the case in their own lives.
I do think novelty is a key component in happiness. Not necessarily that you have new stuff in every moment or day, but at least that their is the potential for novelty.
Perhaps for any non-infinite value of x, you’d be okay. Once x could be infinite, I think there could be the realization that everything is pretty meaningless. And I don’t see much reason why any non-infinite years as a lifespan is better than any other. I suppose reaching an age where you could have kids or grandkids might be a good benchmark. But the difference between 100 years and 200 seems arbitrary. As does the difference between 1000 and 1,000,000.
It’s a good question. I don’t know. I can just imagine coming to the realization that (a) I could live forever if I choose, and (b) everything could be done given enough time, of which I have a limitless supply. If these are the circumstances, every challenge would only appear to be a challenge.
I have to think about the first set of questions.
To the last two:
This is the concept I’ve read which makes me wonder if supply of novelty might always be able to exceed demand.
I’m not smart enough to think through what “money” would mean in an economy where immortality is available. As far as once-in-a-lifetime experiences, they’d be cheapened necessarily. What were once a once-in-a-million-lifetimes experiences would be become bound to happen eventually. One-in-a-billion odds would mean nothing.
By “can’t lose” I meant that you couldn’t “bet” your life on things (i.e. invest your time) since you have an inexhaustable source of time. Playing games and winning is fun because losing is an option. Winning is meaningless without losing.
I mean death isn’t the end of anyone else’s conscious experience. It does end yours. As Hitchens said, “It isn’t that the party is over. Rather, the party will continue, and you’ve been asked to leave.” This end of my personal conscious experience is only as big as my ego makes it. It really isn’t that big a deal.
Suppose tomorrow a philanthropist introduces a free shot that grants people immortality for as long as they want it. - so the world would be the same as it would be today, except everyone is immortal. Why would money disappear? People would still want goods and services, and having a medium of exchange would still be convenient.
The birth of any particular person would only happen once—so the birth of your child would still be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You’d only see them grow up once. You’d only be able to meet someone for the first time once. Etc.
As for investing your time, you could still do that even if you have infinite time. If something goes wrong, you may get another chance at it (if it’s not a once-in-a-lifetime experience) but in the meantime, things could be quite unpleasant. If you gamble your house away, you could probably live long enough to make enough money to buy another house, but in the meantime you would have lost something, and that would be bad.
Yes, and the end of your conscious experience prevents you from enjoying anything ever again. Isn’t that an enormous loss?
I don’t know. Economy implies some scarcity. I suppose it would depend on what was required to remain immortal. Would we need some currency to pay for future injections or upgrades? In that sense, would we even be immortal? Wouldn’t we still be in a similar survival mode to what we are in now? Would only the rich truly be immortal while the poor had the potential, but not the ongoing means for eternal life?
Birth of immortal children? You could have a billion of them. You’d meet new people infinite times if you wanted.
I think we have very different view about a future that includes immortality. Probably my lack of imagination.
No. Death is neutral. The idea that life is necessarily optimal is simply hardwired into your animal-nature. If it were another way, you wouldn’t have made it this far. This was my point orignally on this thread. The “lifeism” on LW, as I’ll call it, is weird to me. Life is really cool and I hope it continues for a while for me, but I do not view my death as “bad”.
Cryonics and the desire for immortality in tranhumanism circles reminds me very much of my background in Evangelical Christianity. Nowhere else have I seen such irrational fear of death (i.e. fear of no longer experiencing consciousness).
There would still be scarcity. Perhaps you would not longer need to eat or drink to live, but you would still want to do it for enjoyment from time to time, and resources would still be limited. If you want to buy a house, there is still a limited number of houses and good places to live. You’d want to be protected from criminals, so you’d want to pay for police and courts, etc. If you wanted to live out in the street without any clothes, you could do that for as long as you wanted, but if you want more than that, you’d run into scarcity much like you do today.
But they’d be unique children, and their birth would be a unique event. Just like now you could theoretically have 20 kids, but a moment with each would be unique.
Sure, but why does that make it wrong? I like sweet and fatty food for evolutionary reasons too—does that mean that if it’s a result of evolution, my preference is wrong? But in the case of life, it goes beyond just being hardwired—enjoying good things is good, and death prevents that, so logically death is bad.
I think we have a profoundly different expectation for what a future with sufficient technology for immortality might be like. It seems you think it will look alot like 2014, but with immortality. I’d imagine it will be basically unrecognizeable from our current world, so much so that it is relatively useless to speculate about the details.
I also think you are discounting how powerful an aspect of experience novelty can be, and therefore how trivial giving birth to your 100th, let alone 10,000th child might be.
As far as taking pleasure from your animal-nature: Cool. It isn’t bad. I’d argue your desire for life is fundamentally identical to your love of fatty food. It serves an ultimate purpose (pass on the replicators), and simply basing your (wannabe eternal) existence off of the hedonistic side-effects of these sorts of drives will lose its appeal over the course of eons.
The idea that death is bad ’cuz good stuff could be happening in our potential lives after we are gone is not compelling to me at all. It’s an opportunity cost argument, right? Okay. Except you cease to exist in this particular case.
Anyway, good to chat with you. I’d love to hear any other thoughts you have. At this point, I’m tapping, as I don’t have anything else to say in this discussion with you.
A last word from me as well, then.
I agree that a world in which immortality would be possible would look very different from today’s, but that’s because the development of immortality would require technological advances (maybe nanotechnology) that would change the world by themselves even if they didn’t lead to immortality. Immortality by itself wouldn’t make the world look that different, though—funeral homes would go out of business, and maybe hospitals as well, but other than that, it wouldn’t make a huge difference.
I think novelty is highly overrated as a source of value. Certainly, it’s nice to play a good new game or something like that, but as far as possible sources of value, it’s quite low on the list. Regarding having children, the parent-child bond is part of human nature, so I don’t think it’ll ever become trivial. As for hedonism, I don’t expect it to ever lose its appeal, especially as new fun things are created.
Yes, it is an opportunity cost, and the fact that you wouldn’t exist is the problem, because it means that instead of getting something positive, you’d be getting nothing.
I don’t think this question is a good way to investigate feelings about immortality and death.
This is somewhat related to Yvain’s post post about liking versus wanting / The Neuroscience of Pleasure.
While we’re alive, we want to keep on living. I recall moments—locked away for the moment, unreachable—when the idea of death caused feelings of intense terror. But one can also recognize an immutable biological component to this (immutable unless one is depressed or in pain, etc). To circumnavigate this immediate biological feeling about death, it is better to try and perceive, counter-factually, if you were already dead, would you care? I think it is interesting that the answers are different if we’re discussing tomorrow, or 100 years from now, or 100 years ago. (Tut recently shared this quote from Mark Twain.)
Sure, I recognize that there are all kinds of feelings one can have about immortality and death that are not captured, or even necessarily relevant, to one’s choices about living and dying.
I’m interested in the choices, and the factors that contribute to those choices, so I asked about them.
Others are of course welcome to investigate other things however they consider best.
If you are specifically interested in the contexts of a person deciding that they do wish, or do not wish, to continue living in the current moment, then my comment wasn’t relevant.
However, I interpreted your question as a Socratic challenge to realize that one values immortality because they do not wish to die in the present moment. (I think these are separate systems in some sense, perhaps far versus near).
Yeah, I often get misinterpreted that way.
Relevant earlier exchange here.
Any suggestions you have about how I could have worded my question to make it clearer that I was actually interested in the answer are welcome.
I understood (and my perspective changed quite a bit) as soon as I read about Miller’s Law in the exchange you linked. I really like having a handle for the concept (for my own sake, its usefulness is curbed by not being well-known).
I believe the default interpretation of the question you asked is the interpretation that I had (that you were using the Socratic method). The reason for this being the default interpretation is that there is an obvious, intuitive answer. (This question was a good counter-argument, which is why I think it was up-voted.)
… to deflect this interpretation, your question could be worded to be less obvious, and allow more nuance. Perhaps, “If you could remain healthy indefinitely, do you expect you would ever choose to die?”, or, “If you could remain healthy indefinitely, for which conditions would you ever choose to die?”
(nods) Yeah, that last one would have been a good alternative, in retrospect. I got there eventually but could have gotten there sooner. (The other one is a fine question, but I already had the answer.)
Though I suspect that it, too, would have been understood as Socratic in the closed-ended sense.
Upvoted for providing a clear counterexample to Yvain’s assertion that people would find immortality to be “surely an outcome as desirable as any lottery jackpot”.
This suggests that a partial explanation for the data is that “experienced rationalists” (high karma, long time in community) are more likely to find immortality desirable, and so more likely to sign up for cryonics despite having slightly lower faith in the technology itself.
Not particularly. If we found that people who spent more time at church are more likely to believe in Jesus, one possible explanation (albeit not proven to be causal) is that going to church makes one believe in Jesus. Likewise, if we find that people who spend more time on Less Wrong are more likely to take a strange idea seriously, one possible (unproven, but reasonable to hypothesize) explanation is that going to Less Wrong makes one more likely to take strange ideas seriously.
Although it’s perfectly reasonable not to want to sign up for cryonics (and I haven’t signed up myself) the high probability of success but low signup rate among newcomers versus the lower probability of success and higher signup rate among veterans suggests the variable changing is “taking ideas seriously”; this is orthogonal to whether you should or shouldn’t want to sign up for cryonics
(unless your claim is that veterans are more anti-deathist than newbies, which would also explain the data and should probably be tested on the next survey. But I think my point the the higher signup rate among veterans does not mean they are more credulous but reflects thought process change still stands)
“Rationalist” here is used to mean “exposed to rationalist ideas”, not “is a rationalist person”. I realize that’s confusing but I don’t have better terminology.
Would you please explain your rationale?
I understood, and then used, “rationalist” to mean “accurate map of the territory”. I’d agree exposure to LW helps eliminate some biases and, in that way, it is rationalist training that improves one’s rationality. I’m not yet willing to say Less Wrong = More Right in every case, however.
Maybe more time on LW leads to improved rationality… up to the point where it doesn’t? I find the dogmatic-ish acceptance of certain ideas around here reminds me of religion. It is funny to me you used that example...
Did you actually look at the statistics? Whatever dogma you’re seeing isn’t there. It’s more likely you’re thinking some people you’ve had discussions with here are more representative of LW than they actually are.
As in the church, it isn’t too terribly important to dogma that it has widespread acceptance among adherents to a particular faith in order to be dogma.
What is far more important to establishing dogma is having de facto authority and/or status leaders accept it and voice their support.
Doesn’t this apply to any system where power is tilted and the high status members have ideologies? Should we call them all religions?
I suppose this happens in the way you note. I don’t advocate labeling LW, or anyone else, a religion. I just meant to say certain aspects remind me of religion. Other aspects are nothing like religion.
I don’t think cryonics is impossible. In fact, I’m probably in the proto-rationalist group that doesn’t really understand the science but thinks it has a high probability of working someday. I just don’t understand why it is so appealing.
The dogma seems to be more that “cryonics and the option for indefinite life extension is good” more than “cryonics is possible”.
It may not be a religion but it sure as anything embraces a particular mythology.
I agree with you that the article engages in sleight of hand; however, I disagree with you regarding immortality.
While I do believe that “living longer (assuming high levels of physical and mental health is always better” is too strong a statement, I would argue that “having the choice to live as long as you want is always better” is much closer to the truth.
There are many projects that I will leave unfinished when I die; many things I will never get to experience. If I had the choice to live long enough to finish everything I wanted to do, I would gladly take it. I fully expect that, by the time I’m done with all that stuff, I’ll find a lot more stuff that would require even more of my time—but I could be wrong, in which case I’d want the option to end my life voluntarily.
I fully accept that there exist people for whom 80 or so years (or fewer) would be enough. Perhaps they lead much more efficient lives than I do, or perhaps they lack imagination or curiosity, or perhaps their lives are so terrible that death would come as a welcome release. But I have difficulty believing that the majority of people are like that. I’m pretty average, so it seems more likely that most people are like me.
It makes dying an optional choice, rather than an inevitable necessity. Talk to an 80 year old person about the “joys” of aging—any proper immortality means that you don’t age. With a longer lifespan, people will tend toward a long term view (at least a little). You can enjoy more things, or accomplish more things, with a longer life.
Even people who have said they’d rather die than live as an invalid, almost always change their tune when they become an invalid—so why should I believe that you’d rather die than live as a healthy man in the prime of life? Go ahead, research this one thing.
If as you fear immortality drains motivation, the immortals will be out-competed by the mortals, so the world won’t be harmed. And remember also that full immortality means finding a way around the laws of thermodynamics and the death of the universe—“forever” might necessarily be limited to a few billion years.
Yes.
Okay. Eliminating aging and all the negatives involved with it makes sense.
I’m not sure what research you think I should do. I accept that many circumstances we can imagine are much different when we actually have to deal with them in the present reality.
I’m not worried about the world being harmed by immortality, per se. I suppose there are lots of interesting implications that would arise, but I’m not concerned.
Sure. That makes sense.
This seems to be the argument. I don’t find it compelling it all. Can you help me understand why “tending toward a long view” is valuable? And how is accomplishing and enjoying more things always good indefinitely? I think enjoying and accomplishing things is cool, but I’d imagine there are some diminishing returns on almost anything.
I’m hearing… “death is obviously bad and the only way you could disagree is because you are biased” and “more years can equal more utilons”.
Am I off base? How?
Death is just the end of your conscious experience. You won’t know your dead. Life is cool, but it isn’t as if the stakes on the table are life or eternal torture. That would be a HUGE problem worth freezing bodies or severed heads over.
A longer term view is valuable because it would decrease things like “it’s OK to pollute, I’ll be dead by the time it gets bad”.
It’s just that many of us don’t see any benefit to involuntary death. (Voluntary death also remains unpopular, even in surprisingly bad circumstances). In fact, I don’t know of any product which is marketed as being superior to another product due to having a shorter lifespan (“Because our product will cease to function unexpectedly, you can enjoy it more now before it does!”), while things like “lifetime guarantee” are routinely praised as positive. I mean, for houses, tools, toys, vehicles, pet animals, longer lifespan == better, and I don’t see why it should be different for my children.
As a thought experiment: Most people would, if they could, take a pill that eliminated the effects of aging, but causes multiple organ failure at about their original life expectancy. You seem to agree that aging is inconvenient, so I assume you’d take this pill. Would you?
But what if that pill also extended your lifespan indefinitely, as well as curing aging? Not true immortality, of course, since your body would still be susceptible to disease and accident, but it would mean that every year you’re as likely to die as you were last year, ie your chance of dying doesn’t increase with age. Now, there are a lot of people who say death is a good thing. In the interest of pleasing these people, while also providing the elimination of aging, scientists develop a second substance, which causes multiple organ failure at about your expected lifespan. By combining this substance with the immortality pill, they create a cure for aging that does not have immortality as a side-effect. Which of these pills would you prefer, or would you reject both?
Now, if you’re not a consequentialist, the second pill no doubt seems like it has the stigma of suicide, even though its effects are identical to a previous example which perhaps seemed both positive and non-suicidal. This stigma would vanish, even if the pill were identical, if the pills had been developed in reverse order, with the immortality pill being a refinement of the anti-aging pill to remove a substance that causes eventual multiple organ failure. Or perhaps simply the existence of both options would make them both repugnant to you, one because it stinks of suicide, and the other one because you don’t want immortality?
On a different note, there are in fact some legitimate advantages of death by limited lifespan, and some that might be considered both advantageous and disadvantageous. A limited lifespan allows for permanent retirement. Solving death would be a huge problem for the politicians who have to kick people off retirement, with a risk that they’d rather go bankrupt than anger our elderly. A huge chunk of our taxes are estate taxes “aka death tax”. Death is a great equalizer: it will eliminate any specific tyrant and any specific individual who is accumulating “too much” wealth. Making death technically not inevitable would decrease our courage to do dangerous or violent things, such as soldiering, volunteering to test drugs, violent or non-violent resistance to a corrupt regime. The combination of immortal tyrant with decreased opposition from internal resistance or external liberators, is particularly worrisome. Unlimited lifespan will increase procrastination. Death eliminates old people set in their ways from positions of power and authority, making way for new ideas. Death makes all your problems go away or become someone else’s problems. With limited lifespans, you won’t outlive your friends by more than ~100 years. Even with all that, there’s an equally impressive list for the benefits of a longer lifespan, plus I can point to about 7 billion people who think living is better than dying.
I think I would, yes.
I don’t think so, no.
More than a stigma, suicide is very consequential. It’s a deep trauma for many people surrounding the victim. I think it is a net zero for the victim, however.
Overall, I still see the main argument as this: If you lived forever, you’d be able to accumulated ulimited fuzzies and utilons. And that is objectively better than fewer fuzzie and utilons. Therefore, death is bad.
I’m not “for” death. But life is an accident, an unintended side-effect of physical laws and processes. While I think you point out some good practical examples of advantages and disadvantages for the option of immortality, I sense my objections are of a bit different sort.
We, as living things, have evolved to fight to live, and live to fight. You want to live because nature has designed you to want to live. That is it. We glean some pleasure and meaning in the process of fighting/living/surviving, and that is cool. I sense the novelty of this will run out eventually.
Death isn’t a problem. If future AI finds a way (and have some reason) to keep humans alive and torture them for eternity, then that is a big problem.
People all over the globe starving and enduring suffering via war, disease, etc. is a problem.
Aging leading to Alzheimer’s, et al, is a problem.
Death is empty of any value. It is neither good or bad. It isn’t a problem unless ego makes it one.
It may be zero for you. If you think it should be zero for others too, I’d like to see some reasoning. That I can’t experience death is obvious, but not convincing. If I only valued things I directly experience here and now, I don’t think I could have any plans whatsoever. The fact that my death is a trauma for others also motivates me not to die. Doesn’t it motivate you?
Absolutely. But that is a completely separate issue.
However, I sense that is related to some of what is happening when people speak about death in regard to opportunity costs. When mourning the loss of a younger person, it is common to hear people say “S/he had so much potential that now is lost.” I’ve said that before.
But what are we really saying? What did somebody who is no longer conscious or aware in anyway really “lose”?
In reality, and as you point out, we the still living are the one who are losing something. We lose a friend or a family member. We may lose a bit of motivation when confronted with that reminder of our eventual mortality. Or maybe we lose some peace of mind (or add some anxiety) for the same reason.
It isn’t my argument that death isn’t bad for those who keep living. I would argue their loss would be mitigated if (a) the associated negative aspects of death (pain, trauma, aging, disease, etc.) were eliminated and (b) they meditated on the actual, practical implications of death for the deceased.
I’m not sure what would convince you or count as proper reasoning.
It’s basically an opportunity cost argument that is being made against death. That’s fine with me. I guess there isn’t much I can do to rebut that.
Opportunity costs only seem to make sense in terms of their effect on our current conscious experience.
If I chose not to travel after college when I was single and unattached, I might regret that now that I’m settled down and don’t possess that opportunity (or the memories and life experience I would have gained) given my current commitments and obligations.
If I chose not to invest in Google when I had the cash to do so, I rue that decision, since buying that stock would have contributed to all sorts of potential good things in my present and future, and make me feel less anxious right now.
But death negates all such considerations. If I were to snap my finger and you and I would be dead, opportunity costs would be practically absurd to speak of in our cases.
I concede that the math works for immortality—A years x B utilons/fuzzies per year = Total Awesomeness. As long as B is positive, then maximizing A always increases awesomeness, and making A infinite leads to infinite awesomeness.
It is interesting you phrase it that way. I’ll ask in the spirit of Eckhart Tolle: Is there some way you know of to experience value in things outside of here and now?
Are you sure the problem isn’t unusual use of language?
I meditate regularly, I know what you mean and the answer to the meaning of your question is no. I also think this kind of a question with this particular intended meaning is abuse of language, and insisting on using common language to describe the insights you’ve gained through meditation mostly yields nonsense. When people say future they mean future, not the present moment and if you insist otherwise you lose information.
I value things not here and now all the time. They’re just not yet here and now and don’t necessarily have to ever be.
Please say more about this.
I don’t understand. When is it that you find value in them? In what way can you experience anything, in the future or the past, outside of the present moment? Can you “value” something without “experiencing” it? If so, how do you define the distinction?
I’ll do so tomorrow with a fresh brain. I find my chances of communicating anything useful poor though. Specialized vocabulary would be nice. I suppose mindful religions have that, too bad it’s buried in religious scripture.
Absolutely. But that is a completely separate issue.
However, I sense that is related to some of what is happening when people speak about death in regard to opportunity costs. When mourning the loss of a younger person, it is common to hear people say “S/he had so much potential that now is lost.” I’ve said that before.
But what are we really saying? What did somebody who is no longer conscious or aware in anyway really “lose”?
In reality, and as you point out, we the still living are the one who are losing something. We lose a friend or a family member. We may lose a bit of motivation when confronted with that reminder of our eventual mortality. Or maybe we lose some peace of mind (or add some anxiety) for the same reason.
It isn’t my argument that death isn’t bad for those who keep living. I would argue their loss would be mitigated if (a) the associated negative aspects of death (pain, trauma, aging, disease, etc.) were eliminated and (b) they meditated on the actual, practical implications of death for the deceased.
If everyone was immortal and healthy by default, do you think it would even occur to you suggest death as a harmless alternative?
If someone tried to convince you that a 50 year lifespan is better than what we have now, what would be your reaction? Don’t you find it interesting that your intuitions support a very narrow optimum that just happens to be what you already have?
Do you argue that “death is just the end of your conscious experience” in the case of anyone who dies prematurely? Try to imagine actual deaths in real life and their outcomes.
Have you read this fable by Bostrom?
Good question. I’d suggest death is a harmless alternative, and it would only be analogous with actual, literal, harmless alternatives. (Also, I notice you are conflating non-healthyness and mortality.)
If a reality like death didn’t exist, I guess it would be like any other non-existent, yet imaginable state. In fact, death is a state of non-existence, it is imaginable, and it is harmless.
Most arguments for which exact lifespan is better would seem arbitrary to me. I can see some merit to a lifespan that allowed you to have kids, or grandkids. Maybe a lifespan where you reached full, mature adulthood makes some sense. But 50 years, 100 years, 1000 years… arbitrary.
Yes, very interesting. Though it is also your intuition, and intuition generally, that opposes (and fears?) death so intensely. It is part of our eons-evolved programming. This death-avoidance intuition exists so that we will be best equipped as vehicles for the replicators we carry. That is all is was designed for. The fact you are arguing for some intrinsic value to indefinitely extended consciousness beyond its instrumental value as a tool of the replicators is simply a glitch; a side-effect to the necessary importance every surviving organism and species must attach to surviving.
I don’t “argue” it. That seems tacky, since I would be arguing only with the deceased friends or loved ones… since the deceased themselves would be...dead.
I do, however, think it is a helpful meditation to ponder the implications of death, immortality, etc. I read and discuss my understanding of Buddhism with lots of people (these, for example), and I find explorations to better understand the human desire for permanence and striving for lasting satisfaction to be very insightful and helpful.
From your cited fable...
I did not read the whole fable, though I skimmed it (I get it, I think) and read the moral of the story.
What I notice is that the author appears to be conflating the nasty parts of aging with death. They are not at all the same. They are not the same problem, and the should not be confused.
I am 100% for bringing about technologies that eliminate gratuitous suffering. That includes much of what happens we humans age. People often end up in horrible mental and physical states for years, or decades, near the end of their lives. I am all for getting rid of Alzheimer’s, for instance. And, as a personal example, my grandmother spent the last eight years of her life effectively paralyzed and unable to speak due to a series of massive strokes—I am 100% for technology that would make this never happen to anyone ever again.
None of that has anything to do with the end of a human’s localized meat-computer-generated conscious experience. Healthyness does not = no death.
I love that he called it “Deathism”, the “ideologies that counsel passive acceptance”. I’ve often thought the sort of “stay alive at any cost” thinking I often encounter on LW could be appropriately labeled “Lifeism”, and now I feel validated for thinking so.
Let me ask: Can you imagine any scenario, say, a billion years into your life, when you might opt for permanently switching off your consciousness (i.e. death)? Why or why not? What would be different at one billion years vs. one million? One million vs. 100,000? 100,000 vs. 10,000? (I’m not asking rhetorically...)
Are you sure you didn’t think you were replying to someone else? You made a lot of false assumptions about my mindstate.
So what has made you decide to live so far?
I combined two situations because I thought that would be more acceptable to you. That doesn’t mean I’m conflating them. I do think there are good deaths and bad immortalities.
If I couldn’t think of any interesting long term goals, I would have to agree. If that’s not how you mean it, then I don’t understand what you mean by arbitrary.
It’s a value, and yes it’s programmed by the blind idiot god called evolution, but my core values don’t go away if I just think about them hard enough and why should they?
Why exactly does it matter why the value is there? It wasn’t designed for anything or by anything. It just is, and the genes were just selected for and thus they are. Genes have goals no more than they can plan and even if they did I have no reason to privilege them. Evolution is an unplanned process not optimizing anything in particular, how could it possibly glitch and why should I care?
Not my thinking.
Any situation where my future could be expected to be net negative. Of course I can’t imagine such a scenario specificly, as I can’t reliably imagine what life is like even 20 years from now, so the extra years add nothing to the scenario. I can think of several situations that would make me end my life right now or a few years from now.
Sorry.
I’m alive. It is my default state.
I’m talking about (1) aging and disease and suffering vs. (2) death. They have zero to do with one another and should not be combined in this discussion.
Please give me an example of a long term goal that would require 10 Billion years? How about 1 Billion? 1 Million?
It does affect me quite a bit to know why my instincts and drives exist. Maybe it does nothing for you. Okay. That is interesting.
Stop eating. Let’s see how default it is.
If that’s how you want to have your definitions, I can live with that.
No need for that. Just always have plans for tomorrow.
Why/how they exist and what for are different things. Conflating the two leads just to confusion in this case, because the what for doesn’t exist.
I meant only that I am alive, and I see no reason that death is preferable at this point.
There is a difference beyond definitions here. We may have different definitions of death—I think it is the end of individual consciousness. But the suffering caused by aging and disease is separate from any definition of death. It is an important distinction that goes overlooked oft times.
Fighting to live; living to fight. I see this a hamster wheel. It has some novelty, but I see no need to prolong it indefinitely. Or, if it can be prolonged, it shouldn’t be at the top of the list of problems facing humanity/the universe.
I’m not sure I understand what your point is.
I’m tapping on our conversation now. I’d be pleased to hear any responses you have.
This could easily describe my preferences as well. Perhaps we just have different thresholds for logging out.
I fully agree with this distinction, but it doesn’t matter much to my preferences. I think permanent cessation of consciousness is bad. Some things in life are worse though, and could override this preference. Outcomes that we value don’t have to be directly experienced, and death is no exception. For example I don’t have to experience pain to want to avoid it. In addition living is instrumental to most of my goals.
I’m not bored yet. I can’t imagine how I could be. I wouldn’t choose immortality without the option of death however for various reasons. My ability to make long term plans will increase with technology. I might have million year plans, but can’t imagine what they could be. Imagination is a very limited tool.
You seemed to think we exist for our genes. This is simply wrong. Evolution explains how we came to be, not what for. Cryopreserving some of your cells in a jar or backing up your sequenced genome in the cloud might maximize your genetic fitness but would feel strangely unsatisfying, don’t you think?
‘Let me ask: Can you imagine any scenario, say, a billion years into your life, when you might opt for permanently switching off your consciousness (i.e. death)? Why or why not? What would be different at one billion years vs. one million? One million vs. 100,000? 100,000 vs. 10,000? (I’m not asking rhetorically...)’
Yes*. And I can imagine it at one million as well, and 100,000, and 10,000. What I can’t do is know a priori which it’ll end up being, and I certainly wouldn’t want the decision to be made for me.
*Well, maybe. This actually might be one of the few scenarios in which I’d voluntarily undergo wireheading (as an alternative to death).
Yvain isn’t talking about rationality, he’s talking about membership in a rationalist group. (He says “training”, but he’s looking at time and status in community, not any specific training regime.) That “-ist” is important: it denotes a specific ideology or methodology. In this case, that’s one that’s strongly associated with the LW community, so using time and karma isn’t a bad measure of one’s exposure to it.
Myself, I’d be interested to see how these numbers compare to CFAR alumni. There’s some overlap, but not so much as to rule out important differences.
I dislike this usage, and in fact I find it offensive.
Even with the “-ist” appended, It’s an appropriation of a term that has a general meaning of “thinking clearly” which gets redefined as a label of membership into a given community.
Personally, I’m more bothered by the fact that it shares a name with an epistemological stance) that’s in most ways unrelated and in some ways actually opposed to the LW methodology. (We tend to favor empiricist approaches in most situations.) But that ship has sailed.
My understanding is that one’s rationality (or ability to be rational) would increase as a result of participation in rationalist training. Hence, I see your disctinction, but little, if any, difference.
In this case, he assumes (1) LW is rationalist and (2) LW is good at providing training that makes a participating member more rational.
Karma does not necessarily have anything to do with rationality, being rational, rationalist training, etc. It is a point system in which members of LW give points to stuff they want more of. It has also been used as a reward for doing tasks for free for LW, mass blocks of downvoting for dissenting political views, and even filling out the survey we are talking about in this post.
...(3) No one turns up as a newbie at LW having already learnt rationality.
That it, is in fact, the question Yvain is discussing.