Cryonics is also a good case to analyze what an outsider should think, given what they can see. But of course “they laughed at Galileo too” is hardly a strong argument for contrarian views. Yes sometimes contrarians are right—the key question is how outside observers, or self-doubting insiders, can tell when contrarians are right.
Outsiders can tell when contrarians are right by assessing their arguments, once they’ve decided the contrarians are worth listening to. This in turn can be ascertained through the usual means, such as association with credentialed or otherwise high-status folks. So for instance, you are affiliated with a respectable institution, Bostrom with an even more respectable institution, and the fact that EY was co-blogging at Overcoming Bias thus implied that if your and Bostrom’s arguments were worth listening to, so were his. (This is more or less my own story; and I started reading Overcoming Bias because it appeared on Scott Aaronson’s blogroll.)
Hence it seems that Yudkowsky’s affiliations are already strong enough to signal competence to those academics interested in the subjects he deals with, in which case we should expect to see detailed, inside-view analyses from insiders who disagree. In the absence of that, we have to conclude that insiders either agree or are simply unaware—and the latter, if I understand correctly, is a problem whose solution falls more under the responsibility of people like Vassar rather than Yudkowsky.
No for most people it is infeasible to evaluate who is right by working through the details of the arguments. The fact that Eliezer wrote on a blog affiliated with Oxford is very surely not enough to lead one to expect detailed rebuttal analyses from academics who disagree with him.
Well, for most people on most topics it is infeasible to evaluate who is right, period. At the end of the day, some effort is usually required to obtain reliable information. Even surveys of expert opinion may be difficult to conduct if the field is narrow and non-”traditional”. As for whatever few specialists there may be in Singularity issues, I think you expect too little of them if you don’t think Eliezer currently has enough status to expect rebuttals.
So, despite the fact that we (human phenotypes) are endowed with a powerful self-preservation instinct, you find a signaling explanation more likely than a straightforward application of self-preservation to a person’s concept of their own mind?
Given your peculiar preferences which value your DNA more highly than your brain, it’s tempting to chalk your absurd hypothesis up to the typical mind fallacy. But I think you’re well aware of the difference in values responsible for the split between your assessment of cryonics and Eliezer’s or Robin’s.
So I think you’re value sniping. I think your comment was made in bad faith as a roundabout way of signaling your values in a context where explicitly mentioning them would be seen as inappropriate or off-topic. I don’t know what your motivation would be—did mention of cryonics remind you that many here do not share your values, and thereby motivate you to plant your flag in the discussion?
Please feel free to provide evidence to the contrary by explaining in more detail why self-preservation is an unlikely motivation for cryonics relative to signaling.
An over-generalisation of self-preservation instincts certainly seems to be part of it.
On the other hand, one of my interests is in the spread of ideas. Without cryonic medalions, cryonic bracelets, cryonic advertising and cryonic preachers there wouldn’t be any cryonics movement. There seems to be a “show your friends how much you care—freeze them!” dynamic.
I have a similar theory about the pyramids. Not so much a real voyage to the afterlife, but a means of reinforcing the pecking order in everyone’s minds.
I am contrasting this signaling perspective with Robin’s views—in part because I am aware that he is sympathetic to signaling theories in other contexts.
I do think signaling is an important part of cryonics—but I was probably rash to attempt to quantify the effect. I don’t pretend to have any good way of measuring its overall contribution relative to other factors.
Cryonics is also a good case to analyze what an outsider should think, given what they can see. But of course “they laughed at Galileo too” is hardly a strong argument for contrarian views. Yes sometimes contrarians are right—the key question is how outside observers, or self-doubting insiders, can tell when contrarians are right.
Outsiders can tell when contrarians are right by assessing their arguments, once they’ve decided the contrarians are worth listening to. This in turn can be ascertained through the usual means, such as association with credentialed or otherwise high-status folks. So for instance, you are affiliated with a respectable institution, Bostrom with an even more respectable institution, and the fact that EY was co-blogging at Overcoming Bias thus implied that if your and Bostrom’s arguments were worth listening to, so were his. (This is more or less my own story; and I started reading Overcoming Bias because it appeared on Scott Aaronson’s blogroll.)
Hence it seems that Yudkowsky’s affiliations are already strong enough to signal competence to those academics interested in the subjects he deals with, in which case we should expect to see detailed, inside-view analyses from insiders who disagree. In the absence of that, we have to conclude that insiders either agree or are simply unaware—and the latter, if I understand correctly, is a problem whose solution falls more under the responsibility of people like Vassar rather than Yudkowsky.
No for most people it is infeasible to evaluate who is right by working through the details of the arguments. The fact that Eliezer wrote on a blog affiliated with Oxford is very surely not enough to lead one to expect detailed rebuttal analyses from academics who disagree with him.
Well, for most people on most topics it is infeasible to evaluate who is right, period. At the end of the day, some effort is usually required to obtain reliable information. Even surveys of expert opinion may be difficult to conduct if the field is narrow and non-”traditional”. As for whatever few specialists there may be in Singularity issues, I think you expect too little of them if you don’t think Eliezer currently has enough status to expect rebuttals.
I figure cryonics serves mainly a signaling role.
The message probably reads something like:
“I’m a geek, I think I am really important—and I’m loaded”.
So, despite the fact that we (human phenotypes) are endowed with a powerful self-preservation instinct, you find a signaling explanation more likely than a straightforward application of self-preservation to a person’s concept of their own mind?
Given your peculiar preferences which value your DNA more highly than your brain, it’s tempting to chalk your absurd hypothesis up to the typical mind fallacy. But I think you’re well aware of the difference in values responsible for the split between your assessment of cryonics and Eliezer’s or Robin’s.
So I think you’re value sniping. I think your comment was made in bad faith as a roundabout way of signaling your values in a context where explicitly mentioning them would be seen as inappropriate or off-topic. I don’t know what your motivation would be—did mention of cryonics remind you that many here do not share your values, and thereby motivate you to plant your flag in the discussion?
Please feel free to provide evidence to the contrary by explaining in more detail why self-preservation is an unlikely motivation for cryonics relative to signaling.
An over-generalisation of self-preservation instincts certainly seems to be part of it.
On the other hand, one of my interests is in the spread of ideas. Without cryonic medalions, cryonic bracelets, cryonic advertising and cryonic preachers there wouldn’t be any cryonics movement. There seems to be a “show your friends how much you care—freeze them!” dynamic.
I have a similar theory about the pyramids. Not so much a real voyage to the afterlife, but a means of reinforcing the pecking order in everyone’s minds.
I am contrasting this signaling perspective with Robin’s views—in part because I am aware that he is sympathetic to signaling theories in other contexts.
I do think signaling is an important part of cryonics—but I was probably rash to attempt to quantify the effect. I don’t pretend to have any good way of measuring its overall contribution relative to other factors.