I find it very much easier to imagine him being the sort of skeptic that considers cryonics on a par with homeopathy, though I would be delighted to be wrong.
You don’t have to convince me—I’m signed up with CI. But the point is that cryonics has a better chance of working than, say, placing a fried egg over your grave, and that’s something people find very hard to grasp or work with.
If the chance also has a huge payoff, then it can be worth it.
And yes this is very much like Pascals Wager, But Pascal’s Wager is a correct form of argument for a course of action, if the numbers come out right. It’s just a standard risk analysis.
Pascal’s Wager is fallacious when used as an argument for the truth of the matter.
“How could he turn down a chance, however slight, to debate Christian theology after returning from the dead?”
My answer is: At some point, “however slight” is “too slight.” I stand by my statement. Your initial statement implies that any non-zero chance is enough; that’s not a proper risk analysis.
I find it very much easier to imagine him being the sort of skeptic that considers cryonics on a par with homeopathy, though I would be delighted to be wrong.
Are you signed up, btw?
He can be highly skeptical, that’s fine. Cryonics doesn’t require faith for it to work.
He’s probably already undergoing expensive and unpleasant treatments that he considers to have low probability of success.
Cryonics is expensive but painless. And if it works, we can be pretty certain it had nothing to do with the placebo effect.
How could he turn down a chance, however slight, to debate Christian theology after returning from the dead?
You don’t have to convince me—I’m signed up with CI. But the point is that cryonics has a better chance of working than, say, placing a fried egg over your grave, and that’s something people find very hard to grasp or work with.
If a chance is sufficiently slight, it’s not worth putting a substantial amount of money into. You’re moving into Pascal’s Wager territory.
If the chance also has a huge payoff, then it can be worth it.
And yes this is very much like Pascals Wager, But Pascal’s Wager is a correct form of argument for a course of action, if the numbers come out right. It’s just a standard risk analysis.
Pascal’s Wager is fallacious when used as an argument for the truth of the matter.
“How could he turn down a chance, however slight, to debate Christian theology after returning from the dead?”
My answer is: At some point, “however slight” is “too slight.” I stand by my statement. Your initial statement implies that any non-zero chance is enough; that’s not a proper risk analysis.
Yes, with Alcor