In my experience, it’s quite fruitless to get into the discussion of evidence on this particular problem. That’s because it’s absolutely clear that cryonics (on current evidence) does not work. The entire argument in favor of cryonics is based on projections for future discoveries and technologies, which any cryonics proponent will admit. Thus their argument is not really an argument based on evidence—it is more of an argument based on expectation. Now, this expectation may very well be solid and well justified, but in my experience, the LW community tends to really bastardize the argument and claim that the evidence is somehow solid and well worked out. To the extent that you should dish out a lot of money, starting now. This goes so far as to the IMO absurd idea in ciphergoth’s post above, whereby he states that the burden of proof or evidence should be put on the cryonics critics.
EDIT to look at it from another angle: it’s clear that the first serve in this discussion has to come from the cryonicists, since we’re the ones trying to change people’s minds. But cryonicists have served and served and served; there’s a massive literature arguing in favour, of which I’d pick out Ben Best’s “Scientific Justification of Cryonics Practice”. If you don’t feel that anything in that literature is enough to show that cryonics might be a good idea, you’re going to have to make some sort of actual return to those serves, at least to be more specific about what you feel is missing from them that could and should be there to justify signing up. Because as I’ve shown, no-one is even trying to return any of those serves.
I understand that there is work supporting the idea that cryonics/regeneration/etc. will eventually be successful. However, I don’t feel the need to respond to this work very directly, because this work, after all, is very indirect, in the sense that it is only making plausibility arguments. As a cryonics skeptic, I am not attempting to rule out the plausibility or possibility of cryonics. After all, it seems fairly plausible that this stuff will eventually get worked out, as with the usual arguments for technological advancement. As a cryonics skeptic, I am only asserting that there is insufficient evidence that it will work for my personal freezing/revival to justify my substantial investment.
The response to this might be to claim that I am unfairly or erroneously making “demands for particular proof”. I think that this point is an intelligent point, but that it is being somewhat abused or overused in this context. In areas like physics or biology, it is completely status-quo to believe nothing except that which has been shown by fairly direct evidence. You might even abstractly characterize the entirety of professional science as an area in which “demands for particular proof” are the centralizing, unifying, distinguishing feature. Seeing as how cryonics is essentially an area of physics and biology, I view it in much the same way. I expect to see more concrete proof of its ability before being willing to believe in it, invest in it, or rely on it for my supposed personal immortality.
I understand that there is work supporting the idea that cryonics/regeneration/etc. will eventually be successful. However, I don’t feel the need to respond to this work very directly, because this work, after all, is very indirect, in the sense that it is only making plausibility arguments.
In this case, indirect evidence is the only kind of evidence you can hope to obtain, so your current conclusion has to be formed based on indirect evidence. And this applies to any conclusion. If you believe that cryonics won’t work, this is also based only on indirect evidence. It has to be.
Now, in most cases, the prior of a given idea not working is high enough, so we have a “by default” argument, believing something is impossible until proven possible. But this is a matter of framing: is it possible to implement a manned expedition to Mars, say? Is it possible to travel faster than light? The difference is always in intuitive estimation of detail that goes into the question, and what exactly is being asked matters. The “impossible by default” heuristic is a good tool, but has apparent points of failure, and you have to be aware of these where obtaining explicit evidence is not expected.
You’re saying the level of confidence to look for is one that would be appropriate for any new medical treatment, rather than (say) the confidence you’d look for when making a change in foreign policy.
One reason we’re so demanding in the realm of medical evidence is because we can be, and since it can be life and death, if we can be we probably should be. In the case of a pill, we can do an RCT, providing high quality, repeatable statistical evidence on its efficacy—so anyone proposing I take a pill who doesn’t have an RCT backing them up is a bit suspicious. In the case of cryonics, I hope it’s clear that it’s not because of a lack of respect for evidence that we’re unable to show you an RCT.
There is absolutely insufficient evidence to have the same confidence in cryonics as we do in, say, ibuprofen for reducing inflammation. Because of this lack of evidence, we have great uncertainty. What we’re trying to ask is, in the face of that uncertainty, how will you make a decision? Is it always appropriate in the medical sphere to choose inaction whenever the evidence in favour of action is only weak and circumstantial?
The response to this might be to claim that I am unfairly or erroneously making “demands for particular proof”. I think that this point is an intelligent point, but that it is being somewhat abused or overused in this context. In areas like physics or biology, it is completely status-quo to believe nothing except that which has been shown by fairly direct evidence. You might even abstractly characterize the entirety of professional science as an area in which “demands for particular proof” are the centralizing, unifying, distinguishing feature.
That’s very much not the case. If one has a hypothesis we don’t care which method of bringing evidence for that hypothesis you do as long as it is actual evidence. For example, the neutrino was originally hypothesized based on very indirect evidence. That evidence then became progressively stronger. But at no point did anyone assert that they wouldn’t accept neutrinos unless a specific experiment was performed.
So following on from my other comment, I say to you: go ahead. Perform the experiment of whether
“believe nothing except that which has been shown by fairly direct evidence.”
or
“incorporate all available evidence to arrive at probabilistic beliefs and then calculate expected utilities”
is best. Go ahead and perform it in on yourself by not getting cryo. If you do this, and cryo works, then I will be revived and know that you and many others just got proved wrong catastrophically. If cryo fails, then I will be 80 cents a day poorer and I’ll be just as dead as you.
How is that an “experiment”? You don’t get to answer any questions because of performing specifically the described actions, as opposed to performing any other actions.
You have a point about the epistemology at work in the sciences. But the founders of this rationality movement actually think that they know better, that they are smarter than the average scientist, and that they can prognosticate probabilisitically about the future.
And really, I think that in this case, it isn’t too hard to be smarter than a scientist; scientists know a lot about science and mostly nothing about philosophy of science/epistemology. Scientists (especially biologists) mostly still work with a yes/no epistemology rather than a probabilistic one and so underperform versus a good probabilistic reasoner.
In areas like physics or biology, it is completely status-quo to believe nothing except that which has been shown by fairly direct evidence.
Investment and sociological acceptance seem to me separate from the purely physical and biological aspects. For example, I am signaling optimism about the future very strongly by signing up for cryonics. Even an extremely low probability rating for cryonics working would not change this fact.
But in any case, the specific proofs needed for at least some guarded acceptance in physics and biology are already available. We know cells survive in large numbers, memories are structural (not dependent on electric fields), and vitrification limits damage (to the point that a kidney can survive in working condition). If you want to be a scientific skeptic of cryonics you need to be begin as literate of these facts and refer to reasons why you are still skeptical.
The demand for reanimation of a whole human or complex animal is far in excess of what is necessary to prove this as a good bet based on physical and biological data. The cost of ignoring the evidence in favor of cryonics that can accrue before that particular demonstration is vastly disproportionate to the cost of a false positive.
That’s because it’s absolutely clear that cryonics (on current evidence) does not work.
Doesn’t work? It quite clearly gets heads and freezes them in a static state. You appear to be demanding evidence regarding functional medical nanotechnology, a rather different problem.
The extent of qualification necessary to clearly convey a meaning on here is absolutely unfathomable. No, it’s beyond unfathomable, it’s really utter rubbish, it’s exasperating and despicable how this happens almost every time one starts a substantive disagreement.
It’s perfectly clear from context that I am referring to the entire cryonics refrigeration and revival process, but in case that wasn’t clear, let that be clearly stated now. In case that was clear and it was intentionally or subconsciously disregarded, as I must shamefully and cynically suspect, then you can simply go fuck yourself.
On the other hand I suggest I understand you perfectly and have attempted to respond to the core objection I have with your comment. That is, it is a demand for unobtainable evidence.
The entire purpose of cryonics is to freeze a person pending the availability of future technologies. If that technology was, in fact, available now it would be evidence that cryonics was unnecessary.
You make the claim:
he entire argument in favor of cryonics is based on projections for future discoveries and technologies, which any cryonics proponent will admit. Thus their argument is not really an argument based on evidence—it is more of an argument based on expectation.
There is no other interpretation that can be made of that than a demand for unobtainable evidence. You explicitly include, “Thus their argument is not really an argument based on evidence—it is more of an argument based on expectation”. That is absurd. Projections are a form of (or, if you prefer, contain and depend on) evidence. If you question those projections then you can question the evidence they have. You can not assert that they are not basing their claims on evidence just because it is evidence about the future.
In case that was clear and it was intentionally or subconsciously disregarded, as I must shamefully and cynically suspect, then you can simply go fuck yourself.
I appreciate it when people can make their aggression explicit, rather than try to foist it off via whatever mechanisms decorum allows. In this case however, I’d like to point out that I am not signed up for cryonics and, while some of the reason for that is economic and akrasiatic factors, cryonics is still not a core element of my identity. I have little vested interest in supporting cryonics but something I do seem to take personally is aggressive, fallacious argument.
If you go reread your earlier post, take some time to think through what you are really trying to say, remove the overgeneralisations and sloppy reasoning and write your position down clearly and with some semblance of respect for your audience then I will almost certainly acknowledge your point.
I am something of a cryo-skeptic because I think at best all you will get is a copy of the person who was frozen. I am much more interested in SENS-style rejuvenation efforts. But I am curious about the source of your (and Sam Adams’) skepticism. Are you of the opinion that it would be impossible to set all those frozen molecules in motion again, or impossible to make a living copy of the frozen original? Do you doubt that the important information (memory, personality...?) survives the freezing process?
Contemporary science and technology are showing that nature permits atoms to be manipulated with extraordinary precision. Of course, your molecular structure is a lot more complex and dynamic than that of Carbon Monoxide Man. But then we would hardly need to get every atom back to exactly where it was, in order to make something a lot like you. We would just need tissues grown from cells containing your genome, and then arranged in a structure grossly resembling your current body. The brain is presumably the place where certain fine details matter the most. But I really don’t see what is to stop us from growing a decerebrated body in your image (having first synthesized a copy of your genome a la Craig Venter), and then carefully filling its skull, layer by layer, with synthetic neural tissue made in imitation of the microstructure of your frozen brain, assuming that we have it available.
That is a procedure for making a copy of you; but I would tend to think that something which reanimates the frozen carcass is also possible, albeit more difficult to describe. These things are very high technology by current standards, but how to do them is not an unfathomable mystery. It’s of a level of difficulty more akin to constructing an inhabited space station that will orbit Neptune. A big engineering challenge.
It’s perfectly clear from context that I am referring to the entire cryonics refrigeration and revival process
Ok. So you are talking about the entire process. What then is your objection to the refrigeration aspect? Do you think that the information is irretrievably destroyed? Do you think that the information is not destroyed but that the body is too far damaged to ever be restored in any useful way? Do you think that the preservation process does not do a good enough job at preventing ongoing damage? Do you think that the probability of thawing due to the catastrophic events or economic problems is too high? Or do you have some other objection that I have not listed?
Thus their argument is not really an argument based on evidence—it is more of an argument based on expectation. Now, this expectation may very well be solid and well justified, but in my experience, the LW community tends to really bastardize the argument and claim that the evidence is somehow solid and well worked out.
In my experience, it’s quite fruitless to get into the discussion of evidence on this particular problem. That’s because it’s absolutely clear that cryonics (on current evidence) does not work. The entire argument in favor of cryonics is based on projections for future discoveries and technologies, which any cryonics proponent will admit. Thus their argument is not really an argument based on evidence—it is more of an argument based on expectation. Now, this expectation may very well be solid and well justified, but in my experience, the LW community tends to really bastardize the argument and claim that the evidence is somehow solid and well worked out. To the extent that you should dish out a lot of money, starting now. This goes so far as to the IMO absurd idea in ciphergoth’s post above, whereby he states that the burden of proof or evidence should be put on the cryonics critics.
Could you break down your objection?
EDIT to look at it from another angle: it’s clear that the first serve in this discussion has to come from the cryonicists, since we’re the ones trying to change people’s minds. But cryonicists have served and served and served; there’s a massive literature arguing in favour, of which I’d pick out Ben Best’s “Scientific Justification of Cryonics Practice”. If you don’t feel that anything in that literature is enough to show that cryonics might be a good idea, you’re going to have to make some sort of actual return to those serves, at least to be more specific about what you feel is missing from them that could and should be there to justify signing up. Because as I’ve shown, no-one is even trying to return any of those serves.
I understand that there is work supporting the idea that cryonics/regeneration/etc. will eventually be successful. However, I don’t feel the need to respond to this work very directly, because this work, after all, is very indirect, in the sense that it is only making plausibility arguments. As a cryonics skeptic, I am not attempting to rule out the plausibility or possibility of cryonics. After all, it seems fairly plausible that this stuff will eventually get worked out, as with the usual arguments for technological advancement. As a cryonics skeptic, I am only asserting that there is insufficient evidence that it will work for my personal freezing/revival to justify my substantial investment.
The response to this might be to claim that I am unfairly or erroneously making “demands for particular proof”. I think that this point is an intelligent point, but that it is being somewhat abused or overused in this context. In areas like physics or biology, it is completely status-quo to believe nothing except that which has been shown by fairly direct evidence. You might even abstractly characterize the entirety of professional science as an area in which “demands for particular proof” are the centralizing, unifying, distinguishing feature. Seeing as how cryonics is essentially an area of physics and biology, I view it in much the same way. I expect to see more concrete proof of its ability before being willing to believe in it, invest in it, or rely on it for my supposed personal immortality.
In this case, indirect evidence is the only kind of evidence you can hope to obtain, so your current conclusion has to be formed based on indirect evidence. And this applies to any conclusion. If you believe that cryonics won’t work, this is also based only on indirect evidence. It has to be.
Now, in most cases, the prior of a given idea not working is high enough, so we have a “by default” argument, believing something is impossible until proven possible. But this is a matter of framing: is it possible to implement a manned expedition to Mars, say? Is it possible to travel faster than light? The difference is always in intuitive estimation of detail that goes into the question, and what exactly is being asked matters. The “impossible by default” heuristic is a good tool, but has apparent points of failure, and you have to be aware of these where obtaining explicit evidence is not expected.
You’re saying the level of confidence to look for is one that would be appropriate for any new medical treatment, rather than (say) the confidence you’d look for when making a change in foreign policy.
One reason we’re so demanding in the realm of medical evidence is because we can be, and since it can be life and death, if we can be we probably should be. In the case of a pill, we can do an RCT, providing high quality, repeatable statistical evidence on its efficacy—so anyone proposing I take a pill who doesn’t have an RCT backing them up is a bit suspicious. In the case of cryonics, I hope it’s clear that it’s not because of a lack of respect for evidence that we’re unable to show you an RCT.
There is absolutely insufficient evidence to have the same confidence in cryonics as we do in, say, ibuprofen for reducing inflammation. Because of this lack of evidence, we have great uncertainty. What we’re trying to ask is, in the face of that uncertainty, how will you make a decision? Is it always appropriate in the medical sphere to choose inaction whenever the evidence in favour of action is only weak and circumstantial?
That’s very much not the case. If one has a hypothesis we don’t care which method of bringing evidence for that hypothesis you do as long as it is actual evidence. For example, the neutrino was originally hypothesized based on very indirect evidence. That evidence then became progressively stronger. But at no point did anyone assert that they wouldn’t accept neutrinos unless a specific experiment was performed.
So following on from my other comment, I say to you: go ahead. Perform the experiment of whether
“believe nothing except that which has been shown by fairly direct evidence.”
or
“incorporate all available evidence to arrive at probabilistic beliefs and then calculate expected utilities”
is best. Go ahead and perform it in on yourself by not getting cryo. If you do this, and cryo works, then I will be revived and know that you and many others just got proved wrong catastrophically. If cryo fails, then I will be 80 cents a day poorer and I’ll be just as dead as you.
How is that an “experiment”? You don’t get to answer any questions because of performing specifically the described actions, as opposed to performing any other actions.
You have a point about the epistemology at work in the sciences. But the founders of this rationality movement actually think that they know better, that they are smarter than the average scientist, and that they can prognosticate probabilisitically about the future.
And really, I think that in this case, it isn’t too hard to be smarter than a scientist; scientists know a lot about science and mostly nothing about philosophy of science/epistemology. Scientists (especially biologists) mostly still work with a yes/no epistemology rather than a probabilistic one and so underperform versus a good probabilistic reasoner.
Investment and sociological acceptance seem to me separate from the purely physical and biological aspects. For example, I am signaling optimism about the future very strongly by signing up for cryonics. Even an extremely low probability rating for cryonics working would not change this fact.
But in any case, the specific proofs needed for at least some guarded acceptance in physics and biology are already available. We know cells survive in large numbers, memories are structural (not dependent on electric fields), and vitrification limits damage (to the point that a kidney can survive in working condition). If you want to be a scientific skeptic of cryonics you need to be begin as literate of these facts and refer to reasons why you are still skeptical.
The demand for reanimation of a whole human or complex animal is far in excess of what is necessary to prove this as a good bet based on physical and biological data. The cost of ignoring the evidence in favor of cryonics that can accrue before that particular demonstration is vastly disproportionate to the cost of a false positive.
Doesn’t work? It quite clearly gets heads and freezes them in a static state. You appear to be demanding evidence regarding functional medical nanotechnology, a rather different problem.
The extent of qualification necessary to clearly convey a meaning on here is absolutely unfathomable. No, it’s beyond unfathomable, it’s really utter rubbish, it’s exasperating and despicable how this happens almost every time one starts a substantive disagreement.
It’s perfectly clear from context that I am referring to the entire cryonics refrigeration and revival process, but in case that wasn’t clear, let that be clearly stated now. In case that was clear and it was intentionally or subconsciously disregarded, as I must shamefully and cynically suspect, then you can simply go fuck yourself.
On the other hand I suggest I understand you perfectly and have attempted to respond to the core objection I have with your comment. That is, it is a demand for unobtainable evidence.
The entire purpose of cryonics is to freeze a person pending the availability of future technologies. If that technology was, in fact, available now it would be evidence that cryonics was unnecessary.
You make the claim:
There is no other interpretation that can be made of that than a demand for unobtainable evidence. You explicitly include, “Thus their argument is not really an argument based on evidence—it is more of an argument based on expectation”. That is absurd. Projections are a form of (or, if you prefer, contain and depend on) evidence. If you question those projections then you can question the evidence they have. You can not assert that they are not basing their claims on evidence just because it is evidence about the future.
You’re Entitled to Arguments, But Not (That Particular) Proof.
I appreciate it when people can make their aggression explicit, rather than try to foist it off via whatever mechanisms decorum allows. In this case however, I’d like to point out that I am not signed up for cryonics and, while some of the reason for that is economic and akrasiatic factors, cryonics is still not a core element of my identity. I have little vested interest in supporting cryonics but something I do seem to take personally is aggressive, fallacious argument.
If you go reread your earlier post, take some time to think through what you are really trying to say, remove the overgeneralisations and sloppy reasoning and write your position down clearly and with some semblance of respect for your audience then I will almost certainly acknowledge your point.
I am something of a cryo-skeptic because I think at best all you will get is a copy of the person who was frozen. I am much more interested in SENS-style rejuvenation efforts. But I am curious about the source of your (and Sam Adams’) skepticism. Are you of the opinion that it would be impossible to set all those frozen molecules in motion again, or impossible to make a living copy of the frozen original? Do you doubt that the important information (memory, personality...?) survives the freezing process?
Contemporary science and technology are showing that nature permits atoms to be manipulated with extraordinary precision. Of course, your molecular structure is a lot more complex and dynamic than that of Carbon Monoxide Man. But then we would hardly need to get every atom back to exactly where it was, in order to make something a lot like you. We would just need tissues grown from cells containing your genome, and then arranged in a structure grossly resembling your current body. The brain is presumably the place where certain fine details matter the most. But I really don’t see what is to stop us from growing a decerebrated body in your image (having first synthesized a copy of your genome a la Craig Venter), and then carefully filling its skull, layer by layer, with synthetic neural tissue made in imitation of the microstructure of your frozen brain, assuming that we have it available.
That is a procedure for making a copy of you; but I would tend to think that something which reanimates the frozen carcass is also possible, albeit more difficult to describe. These things are very high technology by current standards, but how to do them is not an unfathomable mystery. It’s of a level of difficulty more akin to constructing an inhabited space station that will orbit Neptune. A big engineering challenge.
Ok. So you are talking about the entire process. What then is your objection to the refrigeration aspect? Do you think that the information is irretrievably destroyed? Do you think that the information is not destroyed but that the body is too far damaged to ever be restored in any useful way? Do you think that the preservation process does not do a good enough job at preventing ongoing damage? Do you think that the probability of thawing due to the catastrophic events or economic problems is too high? Or do you have some other objection that I have not listed?
Expectation can only be obtained based on currently available indirect evidence.
What ought we discuss if not evidence?
Cryonics either works, or does not; there’s no way for it to work “on current evidence” but not work on some other set of evidence. Perhaps you mean that cryonics hasn’t worked yet, but this is also what you would expect to see if it would eventually work.
In part, this seems to merely be a disagreement over the definition of “evidence”.