The only logic flaw I see is that dying in a fire doesn’t seem conducive to having a well-preserved brain—being on fire is sure to cause some damage, and as I understand it buildings that are on fire are prone to collapsing (*squish*). (There is an upside: If cryo was common, there’d likely be a cryo team on standby for casualties during a fire that was being fought. That wasn’t obvious to me when I first thought about it, though.)
Are you serious? You conflated the fame of a firefighter who dies in the line of duty (which doesn’t even last very long) with the immortality of actually living forever.
Ah! Thanks for the clarification—I don’t know why people thought I was talking about fame, but given that they did, that would certainly account for the down votes!
What I mean is that in most cases where you die in the line of duty, your body will be recoverable and brain preservable. Yes, there are ways for this to not happen—but there are also ways for it to not happen when you die of old age. Any claim that cryonics makes taking hazardous jobs irrational from a self-preservation viewpoint would have to provide some basis for believing the latter to have better odds than the former.
First, the only certainties in life are death and taxes. Cryonics aside, we should talk in probabilities, not certainties, and this is true of pretty much everything, including god, heliocentrism, etc.
Second, cryonics may have a small chance of succeeding—say, 1% (number pulled out of thin air) - but that’s still enormously better than the alternative 0% chance of being revived after dieing in any other way. Dieing in the line of duty or after great accomplishment is similar to leaving a huge estate behind—it’ll help somebody, just not you.
Third, re senile dementia, there is the possibility of committing suicide and undergoing cryonics. (Terry Pratchett spoke of a possible assisted suicide, although I see no indication he considered cryonics.)
If cryonics feels like a wash, that’s a problem with our emotions. The math is pretty solid.
Cryonics aside, we should talk in probabilities, not certainties, and this is true of pretty much everything, including god, heliocentrism, etc. Second, cryonics may have a small chance of succeeding—say, 1% (number pulled out of thin air) - but that’s still enormously better than the alternative 0% chance of being revived after dieing in any other way.
Did these two sentences’ adjacency stick out to anybody else?
Good eyes! And it drills down to the essential problem with the but-it’s-a-chance argument for cryonics: is it enough of a chance relative to the alternatives to be worth the cost?
You are strictly correct, but after brain disintegration, probability of revival is infinitesimal. You should have challenged me on the taxes bit instead :-)
If you represent likelyhoods in the form of log odds, it is clear that this makes no sense. Probabilities of 0 or infinitesimal both are equivalent to having infinite evidence against a proposition. Infinitesimal is really the same as 0 in this context.
I accept this correction as well. Let me rephrase: the probability, while being positive, is so small as to be on the magnitude of being able to reverse time flow and to sample the world state at arbitrary points.
This doesn’t actually change the gist of my argument, but does remind me to double-check myself for nitpicking possibilities...
I don’t have a problem with that usage. 0% or 100% can be used as a figure of speech when the proper probability is small enough that x < .1^n (4 (or something appropriate) < n) in 0+x or 1-x. If others are correct that probabilities that small or large don’t really have much human meaning, getting x closer to 0 in casual conversation is pretty much pointless.
Of course, a “~0%” would be slightly better, if only to avoid the inevitable snarky rejoinder.
I’m curious, what’s the flaw in my logic that the downvoters are seeing? Or is there some other reason for the downvotes?
The only logic flaw I see is that dying in a fire doesn’t seem conducive to having a well-preserved brain—being on fire is sure to cause some damage, and as I understand it buildings that are on fire are prone to collapsing (*squish*). (There is an upside: If cryo was common, there’d likely be a cryo team on standby for casualties during a fire that was being fought. That wasn’t obvious to me when I first thought about it, though.)
Are you serious? You conflated the fame of a firefighter who dies in the line of duty (which doesn’t even last very long) with the immortality of actually living forever.
Ah! Thanks for the clarification—I don’t know why people thought I was talking about fame, but given that they did, that would certainly account for the down votes!
What I mean is that in most cases where you die in the line of duty, your body will be recoverable and brain preservable. Yes, there are ways for this to not happen—but there are also ways for it to not happen when you die of old age. Any claim that cryonics makes taking hazardous jobs irrational from a self-preservation viewpoint would have to provide some basis for believing the latter to have better odds than the former.
Ah, your original comment makes more sense with that explanation.
I had originally interpreted your statement
as meaning that the risks/costs and rewards of cryonics was a wash, and with that framing, I misinterpreted the rest of it.
First, the only certainties in life are death and taxes. Cryonics aside, we should talk in probabilities, not certainties, and this is true of pretty much everything, including god, heliocentrism, etc.
Second, cryonics may have a small chance of succeeding—say, 1% (number pulled out of thin air) - but that’s still enormously better than the alternative 0% chance of being revived after dieing in any other way. Dieing in the line of duty or after great accomplishment is similar to leaving a huge estate behind—it’ll help somebody, just not you.
Third, re senile dementia, there is the possibility of committing suicide and undergoing cryonics. (Terry Pratchett spoke of a possible assisted suicide, although I see no indication he considered cryonics.)
If cryonics feels like a wash, that’s a problem with our emotions. The math is pretty solid.
Did these two sentences’ adjacency stick out to anybody else?
Good eyes! And it drills down to the essential problem with the but-it’s-a-chance argument for cryonics: is it enough of a chance relative to the alternatives to be worth the cost?
Pardon me, now I’m the one feeling perplexed: where did I screw up?
0% is a certainty.
Cf. “But There’s Still a Chance, Right?”.
Expressing certainty (“0% chance of being revived after dieing in any other way”).
You are strictly correct, but after brain disintegration, probability of revival is infinitesimal. You should have challenged me on the taxes bit instead :-)
If you represent likelyhoods in the form of log odds, it is clear that this makes no sense. Probabilities of 0 or infinitesimal both are equivalent to having infinite evidence against a proposition. Infinitesimal is really the same as 0 in this context.
I accept this correction as well. Let me rephrase: the probability, while being positive, is so small as to be on the magnitude of being able to reverse time flow and to sample the world state at arbitrary points.
This doesn’t actually change the gist of my argument, but does remind me to double-check myself for nitpicking possibilities...
I like epsilon and epsilon-squared to represent too-small-to-be-worth-calculating quantities.
I don’t have a problem with that usage. 0% or 100% can be used as a figure of speech when the proper probability is small enough that x < .1^n (4 (or something appropriate) < n) in 0+x or 1-x. If others are correct that probabilities that small or large don’t really have much human meaning, getting x closer to 0 in casual conversation is pretty much pointless.
Of course, a “~0%” would be slightly better, if only to avoid the inevitable snarky rejoinder.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/1mh/that_magical_click/1hp5