I was quite surprised by the strong and negative reaction to my comment about cryonics being afterlife for atheists. Even EY jumped into the fray. It must have hit a raw point, or something. As jkaufman noted, the similarities are uncanny. So, it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but is heatedly advocated here and elsewhere to be a raven. The only reasonable argument (I don’t consider marketing considerations reasonable) is by orthonormal, who suggested that this is a surface similarity and paying attention to it amounts to a cargo cult.
Hence my question: how do you tell if a certain procedure is a cargo cult or something worthwhile, if there is no easy experimental test? If you find such a procedure, please apply it to something other than cryonics, so that it does not appear to be an ad hoc solution.
Oh God, please don’t say this; it’s an absolutely classic way to seem clever to yourself and lock in existing beliefs. Please don’t treat people reacting badly to what you say as evidence that it was a good and valuable thing to say.
Actually, my original suggestion (“it needs a catchy slogan”) was about promoting cryonics, actually, and the example I gave was the first thing that poped into my head, in a hope that others would come up with something better. Instead the discussion turned to the reasons why my suggestion was so awful. In retrospect, this was a classic pitfall, offering a single solution too early. I was taken aback by the reaction, and wanted to know what provoked it and how to tell whether the arguments are valid.
Oh, and I personally would sign up for cryonics, if only I could (not going to go into the reasons why I cannot at this time).
Actually, my original suggestion (“it needs a catchy slogan”) was about promoting cryonics, actually, and the example I gave was the first thing that poped into my head
In the grandparent, you wrote:
The only reasonable argument (I don’t consider marketing considerations reasonable) is by orthonormal
So, it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck
...but we understand in detail how it functions underneath, which screens off any surface impressions. What is the question that you want to answer? It doesn’t seem like you are asking a question about cryonics, instead you are considering how to promote it. Is it a good idea to draw attention to those categories? That is the question, not whether those categories somehow “really apply”.
Why do you ask for an easy experimental test? If the experiment is hard, such that you rely on third party reports, but the result is not in doubt, then the experiment serves just as well. Granting that experiments may be hard, if we are sure that they are reported honestly, here are two that are relevant to cryonics.
First is the well know point of food hygiene, that one should not refreeze frozen meat. Some food poison bacteria are not killed by freezing, and grow every time the meat is warm enough. If I were a salmonella bacterium I would sign up for cryonics, confident that I was using a proven technology.
Second is the use of hypothermia in heart surgery. The obvious deadness of the patients is very striking for some-one my age (51), brought up in a world where death was defined by the stopping of the heart. I imagine the equivalent for the Christian vision of resurrection to eternal life in heaven is that at most funerals the priest says the magic words and the corpse revives for 5 minutes to say final goodbyes and reassure the mourners that they will meet up again on judgment day. Since it is only for five minutes, not eternity, and since it is on earth, not in heaven, one may find it unconvincing, just as one may find the use of hypothermia in heart surgery unconvincing. It is not exactly the thing promised. Nevertheless, such partial demonstrations are important. There would be few Jews left if priests could work the 5 minutes thing and rabbis couldn’t.
There are various ways of stopping a corpse from rotting. The Egyptians had techniques of mummification. Burning and retention of the ashes prevents icky decay. Pasteurization, that is mild heating, to kill bacteria does something useful. Why are cryonicists wedded to cold? As we have seen, there are experimental reasons for the choice. This seems very different from the main religious practice of being Protestant, Catholic, Sunni, or Shia, and following the religion one was born to without expecting one path to have experiments that make it seem uniquely promising.
How do you tell if a certain procedure is a cargo cult or something worthwhile, if there is neither an easy experimental test that one has done oneself, nor a hard experimental test that one accepts as honest? That is an interesting question, but I don’t see cryonics as being so purely theoretical that it provides a vehicle for exploring the issue.
In fact all the replies you got related to marketing considerations because your comment was about marketing considerations. From that point of view, it had some obvious flaws, which people pointed out.
Do you actually want to discuss whether or not cryonics is a religion (or some improved formulation of that question)?
I think the question that should be asked is whether cryonics is a waste of hope, as many religions are, or if it’s viable (I’m still not sure if it would work, but it does seem plausible that it would)
That question should be asked, not flippantly implied. The comment linked above was targeted at pride, so it is no surprise that so many replied. Cryonics is a thing believed by many here, and if you take pot shots, the end result is clear.
Your phrasing is interesting, and phrasing like that is probably one of the factors contributing to the cryonics<==>afterlife for transhumanists association many people hold.
I was quite surprised by the strong and negative reaction to my comment about cryonics being afterlife for atheists.
You made a ‘suggestion for a catchy slogan’ for cryonics which actually constitutes an emotional argument against cryonics (that is, it affiliates it with something that is already rejected so implies that it too should be rejected). That makes it a terrible suggestion for a catchy slogan for cryonics advocates to adopt.
If you want to make a point about how cryonics has a feature that is similar to a feature in some religions then make that point—but don’t pretend you are suggesting a catchy slogan for cryonics when you are suggesting a catchy slogan to use when one-upping cryonics advocates.
What do you mean, “incorrect”? Matching a concept generates connotational inferences, some of which are true, while others don’t hold. If the weight of such incorrect inferences is great enough, using that category becomes misleading, in which case it’s best to avoid. Just form a new category, and attach the attributes that do fit, without attaching those that don’t.
If you are still compelled to make analogies with existing categories that poorly match, point out specific inferences that you are considering in forming an analogy. For example, don’t just say “Is cryonics like a religion?”, but “Cryonics promises immortality (just as many religions do); does it follow that its claims are factually incorrect (just as religions’ claims are)?” Notice that the inference is only suggested by the analogy, but it’s hard to make any actual use of it to establish the claim’s validity.
Cryonics can both be a good idea and pattern match onto something religious.
People want immortality. Religions have exploited this fact by promising immortality to converts. Then a plausible scheme for immortality comes along and it looks like a religion.
how do you tell if a certain procedure is a cargo cult or something worthwhile
Your best guess is all you have. More intelligent and knowledgeable you are, more likely it is, that your guess is correct. But you can’t go “beyond” this.
Considering cryonics … maybe some people don’t want to wake up in a future where the Alcor’s procedure is necessary. If you can’t wake me up from ashes … don’t even bother!
I was quite surprised by the strong and negative reaction to my comment about cryonics being afterlife for atheists. Even EY jumped into the fray. It must have hit a raw point, or something. As jkaufman noted, the similarities are uncanny. So, it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but is heatedly advocated here and elsewhere to be a raven. The only reasonable argument (I don’t consider marketing considerations reasonable) is by orthonormal, who suggested that this is a surface similarity and paying attention to it amounts to a cargo cult.
Hence my question: how do you tell if a certain procedure is a cargo cult or something worthwhile, if there is no easy experimental test? If you find such a procedure, please apply it to something other than cryonics, so that it does not appear to be an ad hoc solution.
Oh God, please don’t say this; it’s an absolutely classic way to seem clever to yourself and lock in existing beliefs. Please don’t treat people reacting badly to what you say as evidence that it was a good and valuable thing to say.
Actually, my original suggestion (“it needs a catchy slogan”) was about promoting cryonics, actually, and the example I gave was the first thing that poped into my head, in a hope that others would come up with something better. Instead the discussion turned to the reasons why my suggestion was so awful. In retrospect, this was a classic pitfall, offering a single solution too early. I was taken aback by the reaction, and wanted to know what provoked it and how to tell whether the arguments are valid.
Oh, and I personally would sign up for cryonics, if only I could (not going to go into the reasons why I cannot at this time).
In the grandparent, you wrote:
These statements seem to be in contradiction.
As I said, “I was taken aback by the reaction, and wanted to know what provoked it and how to tell whether the arguments are valid”
...but we understand in detail how it functions underneath, which screens off any surface impressions. What is the question that you want to answer? It doesn’t seem like you are asking a question about cryonics, instead you are considering how to promote it. Is it a good idea to draw attention to those categories? That is the question, not whether those categories somehow “really apply”.
Why do you ask for an easy experimental test? If the experiment is hard, such that you rely on third party reports, but the result is not in doubt, then the experiment serves just as well. Granting that experiments may be hard, if we are sure that they are reported honestly, here are two that are relevant to cryonics.
First is the well know point of food hygiene, that one should not refreeze frozen meat. Some food poison bacteria are not killed by freezing, and grow every time the meat is warm enough. If I were a salmonella bacterium I would sign up for cryonics, confident that I was using a proven technology.
Second is the use of hypothermia in heart surgery. The obvious deadness of the patients is very striking for some-one my age (51), brought up in a world where death was defined by the stopping of the heart. I imagine the equivalent for the Christian vision of resurrection to eternal life in heaven is that at most funerals the priest says the magic words and the corpse revives for 5 minutes to say final goodbyes and reassure the mourners that they will meet up again on judgment day. Since it is only for five minutes, not eternity, and since it is on earth, not in heaven, one may find it unconvincing, just as one may find the use of hypothermia in heart surgery unconvincing. It is not exactly the thing promised. Nevertheless, such partial demonstrations are important. There would be few Jews left if priests could work the 5 minutes thing and rabbis couldn’t.
There are various ways of stopping a corpse from rotting. The Egyptians had techniques of mummification. Burning and retention of the ashes prevents icky decay. Pasteurization, that is mild heating, to kill bacteria does something useful. Why are cryonicists wedded to cold? As we have seen, there are experimental reasons for the choice. This seems very different from the main religious practice of being Protestant, Catholic, Sunni, or Shia, and following the religion one was born to without expecting one path to have experiments that make it seem uniquely promising.
How do you tell if a certain procedure is a cargo cult or something worthwhile, if there is neither an easy experimental test that one has done oneself, nor a hard experimental test that one accepts as honest? That is an interesting question, but I don’t see cryonics as being so purely theoretical that it provides a vehicle for exploring the issue.
In fact all the replies you got related to marketing considerations because your comment was about marketing considerations. From that point of view, it had some obvious flaws, which people pointed out.
Do you actually want to discuss whether or not cryonics is a religion (or some improved formulation of that question)?
I think the question that should be asked is whether cryonics is a waste of hope, as many religions are, or if it’s viable (I’m still not sure if it would work, but it does seem plausible that it would)
That question should be asked, not flippantly implied. The comment linked above was targeted at pride, so it is no surprise that so many replied. Cryonics is a thing believed by many here, and if you take pot shots, the end result is clear.
Your phrasing is interesting, and phrasing like that is probably one of the factors contributing to the cryonics<==>afterlife for transhumanists association many people hold.
“Considered to be true” didn’t scan.
You made a ‘suggestion for a catchy slogan’ for cryonics which actually constitutes an emotional argument against cryonics (that is, it affiliates it with something that is already rejected so implies that it too should be rejected). That makes it a terrible suggestion for a catchy slogan for cryonics advocates to adopt.
If you want to make a point about how cryonics has a feature that is similar to a feature in some religions then make that point—but don’t pretend you are suggesting a catchy slogan for cryonics when you are suggesting a catchy slogan to use when one-upping cryonics advocates.
As I said in another comment, it started as a suggestion, but the reaction got me thinking about the similarity and how to tell the difference.
Maybe rationalists don’t like being casually labeled as something they are trying very hard not to be (religious)?
Then they should have a ready answer why pattern matching with a religious idea is incorrect.
What do you mean, “incorrect”? Matching a concept generates connotational inferences, some of which are true, while others don’t hold. If the weight of such incorrect inferences is great enough, using that category becomes misleading, in which case it’s best to avoid. Just form a new category, and attach the attributes that do fit, without attaching those that don’t.
If you are still compelled to make analogies with existing categories that poorly match, point out specific inferences that you are considering in forming an analogy. For example, don’t just say “Is cryonics like a religion?”, but “Cryonics promises immortality (just as many religions do); does it follow that its claims are factually incorrect (just as religions’ claims are)?” Notice that the inference is only suggested by the analogy, but it’s hard to make any actual use of it to establish the claim’s validity.
Cryonics can both be a good idea and pattern match onto something religious.
People want immortality. Religions have exploited this fact by promising immortality to converts. Then a plausible scheme for immortality comes along and it looks like a religion.
Your best guess is all you have. More intelligent and knowledgeable you are, more likely it is, that your guess is correct. But you can’t go “beyond” this.
Considering cryonics … maybe some people don’t want to wake up in a future where the Alcor’s procedure is necessary. If you can’t wake me up from ashes … don’t even bother!