But this logic to me has the same flaw as Pascal’s wager.
Pascal’s Wager, quantifying the complexity penalty in Occam’s Razor, has a payoff probability on the order of 2^-bits(Christianity). Imagine a decimal point, followed by a string of 0s the length of the Bible, followed by a 1.
Cryonics simply “looks like it ought to work”. The technical probability seems better than one-half, excluding the probability that humanity itself survives.
The problem with Pascal’s Wager is not the large payoff but the tiny, unsupported probability.
Cryonics would be a decent bet even if it only paid off an extra hundred years; though I admit that in this case I would probably not spend the money, because the whole endeavor would take on a different meaning.
Tell me again: you advise a person to spend on their personal cryonic preservation before they donate to SI?
Now that would be hypocrisy. I worked for SIAI for four years, and on the Singularity for a total of eight years, before I signed up for cryonics.
If you like, consider it this way: It was necessary that I be able to advocate cryonics, and it was easier to simply sign up for cryonics than to explain why I myself wasn’t signed up. That was the primary driver behind my actual decision—I got tired of explaining—and would suffice even in the absence of other reasons.
But the moral aesthetics of the secondary reasons are rather complicated:
I perceive a fundamental tension between personal goals and goals that transcend the personal.
If we are here to help others, than what are the others here for? Take away the individuals and there is no civilization. Individuals need selves. It’s not the same as being selfish. But neither is it the same as having no center. Transform into centerless altruists, and we would have destroyed a part of what we fought to preserve.
I observe nonetheless that it is possible to sign up for cryonics, not because you wish to live at others’ expense, but because you believe humanity needs to move forward and get over the Death thing, and you want to do yourself what you have advocated others do.
Similarly, if you advocate that humanity should retain their selves, you may try to rejoice in your own immortality because that is what you advocate others do.
Like I said, the moral aesthetics of the secondary considerations are complicated. It was quite a struggle to express them.
But this logic to me has the same flaw as Pascal’s wager.
Pascal’s Wager, quantifying the complexity penalty in Occam’s Razor, has a payoff probability on the order of 2^-bits(Christianity). Imagine a decimal point, followed by a string of 0s the length of the Bible, followed by a 1.
Cryonics simply “looks like it ought to work”. The technical probability seems better than one-half, excluding the probability that humanity itself survives.
The problem with Pascal’s Wager is not the large payoff but the tiny, unsupported probability.
Cryonics would be a decent bet even if it only paid off an extra hundred years; though I admit that in this case I would probably not spend the money, because the whole endeavor would take on a different meaning.
Tell me again: you advise a person to spend on their personal cryonic preservation before they donate to SI?
Now that would be hypocrisy. I worked for SIAI for four years, and on the Singularity for a total of eight years, before I signed up for cryonics.
If you like, consider it this way: It was necessary that I be able to advocate cryonics, and it was easier to simply sign up for cryonics than to explain why I myself wasn’t signed up. That was the primary driver behind my actual decision—I got tired of explaining—and would suffice even in the absence of other reasons.
But the moral aesthetics of the secondary reasons are rather complicated:
I perceive a fundamental tension between personal goals and goals that transcend the personal.
If we are here to help others, than what are the others here for? Take away the individuals and there is no civilization. Individuals need selves. It’s not the same as being selfish. But neither is it the same as having no center. Transform into centerless altruists, and we would have destroyed a part of what we fought to preserve.
I observe nonetheless that it is possible to sign up for cryonics, not because you wish to live at others’ expense, but because you believe humanity needs to move forward and get over the Death thing, and you want to do yourself what you have advocated others do.
Similarly, if you advocate that humanity should retain their selves, you may try to rejoice in your own immortality because that is what you advocate others do.
Like I said, the moral aesthetics of the secondary considerations are complicated. It was quite a struggle to express them.