Is it really even as remotely likely that religious fanatics will take over and then do that as it is that cryonics would work? (I would think that discriminating against cryonicists, when no religion I am aware of has any real official anti-cryonics position yet, would be something like a billion places down on their TODO list.) Or are you just privileging the hypothesis?
Yes, because there are positive arguments for cryonics working and not having negative effects besides the well-known ones. Fantasizing about religious fanatics taking over during your lifetime is about as sensible as fantasizing about another group of fanatics taking over and cutting off healthcare to everyone who didn’t signup on the grounds that their revealed preference is to die sooner. (Notice the isomorphism here to issues with Pascal’s Wager and the ‘atheist’s god’.)
Yes, because there are positive arguments for cryonics working and not having negative effects besides the well-known ones. Fantasizing about religious fanatics taking over during your lifetime is about as sensible as fantasizing about another group of fanatics taking over and cutting off healthcare to everyone who didn’t signup on the grounds that their revealed preference is to die sooner.
I agree and that’s my main point: The case for cryonics depends on there being a decent chance that it will actually work. As opposed to some epsilon.
A useful point of comparison here is a part-per-million chance
Looking at the other actions which cost a micromort, I’d say that if the odds were worse than a part per million,
filling out the sign-up paperwork alone would outweigh the benefit. (My personal best guess is that the
odds are closer to 1%, which, for me, is close to the break even point, mostly due to the financial part of the costs.)
I agree with that. However the term “tiny” can be misleading -- 1% is pretty small compared to what I would think reasonable, but would still be a fair motivator for a $28k expenditure if your life is valued at >$2.8 million.
I don’t think so, since access to life-prolonging technology might keep you alive long enough to get access to even better life-prolonging technology, and so on.
But it which case you never get frozen, so I don’t see the point of this criticism.
Cryonics works like this: (1) you suffer “normal” death, (2) cryonicists move in to arrest all decay, (3) in the future, you may be revived using more advanced technology.
But if you live to see radical life extension, then step one never happens and so the others don’t either.
But it which case you never get frozen, so I don’t see the point of this criticism.
Well the question as I understand it is whether one can envision scenarios in which one would be far worse off for having signed up for cryonics, just like whether there exist scenarios in which one might be far worse off for having decided to accept Jesus. Agreed?
Not really. Pascal’s Wager’s domain is afterlives, about which we know nothing (either because they’re false or because no one can tell us anything). But cryonics has its domain over future possibilities, about which we can know things and so can assign meaningful prior estimates.
While we certainly can think of errant possibilia that make cryonics bad, they are notably errant, requiring us to posit a future incredibly unlike the present, the past and the kinds of changes we see in the world.
Not really. Pascal’s Wager’s domain is afterlives, about which we know nothing (either because they’re false or because no one can tell us anything). But cryonics has its domain over future possibilities, about which we can know things and so can assign meaningful prior estimates.
I’m not sure that this distinction is important to the argument. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that evidence is discovered which allows one to assign meaningful probabilities to the claim that accepting Jesus will guaranty a trip to heaven for eternity after one’s death. Let’s further suppose that this probability is roughly one in one billion. Would that change anything about the argument? I don’t think so. Pascal’s wager would still have the same basic flaws.
While we certainly can think of errant possibilia that make cryonics bad, they are notably errant, requiring us to posit a future incredibly unlike the present, the past and the kinds of changes we see in the world.
I’m not sure I would put it at “incredibly unlike the present.” After all, there is a lot of hostility to cryonics. And history shows that politics can be pretty chaotic.
Still, you seem to agree that one can make a meaningful estimate of the probability that future public policy will make people worse off for having chosen to sign up for cryonics. So what’s your rough estimate of that probability?
The problem with this is that, once we assign meaningful probabilities to Pascal’s Wager, the conceit succeeds or fails based on those probabilities.
I don’t see why that’s a problem. If somehow it were known that there is a 1 in 3 chance that accepting Jesus would lead to an eternity in heaven, then Pascal’s wager would start to make a lot more sense.
My estimate of a dystopian future in which you’d rather be dead than alive and, yet, somehow you are awakened into that world: basically zero.
That’s not an answer to my question, since it excludes some scenarios where you are worse off for having chosen cryonics even if you are never frozen. Besides, I don’t understand what you mean by “basically zero.” Is it greater than zero?
some scenarios where you are worse off for having chosen cryonics even if you are never frozen.
I don’t think I’ve seen any such scenarios explicitly displayed yet. Here’s one that I think might be plausible:
Assume that cryonics and organ donation continue to be technically incompatible
Assume that organ donation becomes “opt-out” rather than “opt-in” (true in some places now, e.g. Spain)
Assume that opting out for organ donation makes one ineligible to receive a transplant (not true now,
but I’ve heard it proposed) ( new information: something similar is inplace in Israel )
Under this scenario, the loss of eligibility for receiving a transplant would become a liability of cryonics,
even to those cryonicists who are never frozen.
My guess is that the odds of this happening are low, but not exceeding so. Perhaps 1% 10%? (updating odds for similar policy no-give-no-take policy to go into effect in the U.S.)
The scenario I had in mind (which is probably more far-fetched than yours) is that (1) good life extension technology becomes available; and (2) in deciding who should get the benefit of this technology, the powers that be decide to categorically exclude anyone who has ever signed up for cryonics.
It certainly could happen—but mostly cryonics is too small to be on anyone’s radar. If the powers that be decide to categorically exclude a group, it is more likely to be a larger group, and perhaps a group that is more of a direct opponent to the powers. (Also, I think you can omit (1) from your scenario—exclusion from current medical care would do much the same thing, with similar political questions, but without needing to posit a technical advance.)
It certainly could happen—but mostly cryonics is too small to be on anyone’s radar
Possibly, but it’s also possible that cryonics will grow to the point where it hits the radar screen. If a few prominent people sign up it could get a lot of attention.
Anyway, all that’s necessary for the argument is that there is some small chance that you will be worse off for having chosen cryonics just like there is some small chance that you will be worse off for having accepted Jesus.
Under this scenario, the loss of eligibility for receiving a transplant would become a liability of cryonics, even to those cryonicists who are never frozen.
I don’t see how this works. If you want the transplants, you drop the cryonics. If you want the cryonics more, you drop the transplants. You pick whichever option is more valuable for you.
Unless you can’t drop cryonics and sign up for organ donation once you learn you need a transplant, there’s no real loss here, even in this unlikely scenario.
Unless you can’t drop cryonics and sign up for organ donation once you learn you need a transplant, there’s no real loss here, even in this unlikely scenario.
Well presumably under soreff’s scenario, there would be some sort of exclusionary period in place to prevent people from waiting to opt in until just before they need a transplant.
no religion I am aware of has any real official anti-cryonics position yet
I think the actual heuristic used by a minority of them, more than the smaller minority who admit it, is to oppose things unless they are religiously endorsed. For this reason I partially disagree with this select portion of your post. I endorse the rest.
Is it really even as remotely likely that religious fanatics will take over and then do that as it is that cryonics would work? (I would think that discriminating against cryonicists, when no religion I am aware of has any real official anti-cryonics position yet, would be something like a billion places down on their TODO list.) Or are you just privileging the hypothesis?
In my opinion, no. But the argument I was addressing seemed to be that one should do cryonics, even if the odds of it working are tiny.
Yes, because there are positive arguments for cryonics working and not having negative effects besides the well-known ones. Fantasizing about religious fanatics taking over during your lifetime is about as sensible as fantasizing about another group of fanatics taking over and cutting off healthcare to everyone who didn’t signup on the grounds that their revealed preference is to die sooner. (Notice the isomorphism here to issues with Pascal’s Wager and the ‘atheist’s god’.)
I agree and that’s my main point: The case for cryonics depends on there being a decent chance that it will actually work. As opposed to some epsilon.
A useful point of comparison here is a part-per-million chance Looking at the other actions which cost a micromort, I’d say that if the odds were worse than a part per million, filling out the sign-up paperwork alone would outweigh the benefit. (My personal best guess is that the odds are closer to 1%, which, for me, is close to the break even point, mostly due to the financial part of the costs.)
I agree with that. However the term “tiny” can be misleading -- 1% is pretty small compared to what I would think reasonable, but would still be a fair motivator for a $28k expenditure if your life is valued at >$2.8 million.
Uh… more importantly: this scenario just reverses us back to the not-cryonics position because it’s simply a failure state for the strategy.
I don’t think so, since access to life-prolonging technology might keep you alive long enough to get access to even better life-prolonging technology, and so on.
But it which case you never get frozen, so I don’t see the point of this criticism.
Cryonics works like this: (1) you suffer “normal” death, (2) cryonicists move in to arrest all decay, (3) in the future, you may be revived using more advanced technology.
But if you live to see radical life extension, then step one never happens and so the others don’t either.
Well the question as I understand it is whether one can envision scenarios in which one would be far worse off for having signed up for cryonics, just like whether there exist scenarios in which one might be far worse off for having decided to accept Jesus. Agreed?
Not really. Pascal’s Wager’s domain is afterlives, about which we know nothing (either because they’re false or because no one can tell us anything). But cryonics has its domain over future possibilities, about which we can know things and so can assign meaningful prior estimates.
While we certainly can think of errant possibilia that make cryonics bad, they are notably errant, requiring us to posit a future incredibly unlike the present, the past and the kinds of changes we see in the world.
I’m not sure that this distinction is important to the argument. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that evidence is discovered which allows one to assign meaningful probabilities to the claim that accepting Jesus will guaranty a trip to heaven for eternity after one’s death. Let’s further suppose that this probability is roughly one in one billion. Would that change anything about the argument? I don’t think so. Pascal’s wager would still have the same basic flaws.
I’m not sure I would put it at “incredibly unlike the present.” After all, there is a lot of hostility to cryonics. And history shows that politics can be pretty chaotic.
Still, you seem to agree that one can make a meaningful estimate of the probability that future public policy will make people worse off for having chosen to sign up for cryonics. So what’s your rough estimate of that probability?
The problem with this is that, once we assign meaningful probabilities to Pascal’s Wager, the conceit succeeds or fails based on those probabilities.
My estimate of a dystopian future in which you’d rather be dead than alive and, yet, somehow you are awakened into that world: basically zero.
I don’t see why that’s a problem. If somehow it were known that there is a 1 in 3 chance that accepting Jesus would lead to an eternity in heaven, then Pascal’s wager would start to make a lot more sense.
That’s not an answer to my question, since it excludes some scenarios where you are worse off for having chosen cryonics even if you are never frozen. Besides, I don’t understand what you mean by “basically zero.” Is it greater than zero?
I don’t think I’ve seen any such scenarios explicitly displayed yet. Here’s one that I think might be plausible:
Assume that cryonics and organ donation continue to be technically incompatible
Assume that organ donation becomes “opt-out” rather than “opt-in” (true in some places now, e.g. Spain)
Assume that opting out for organ donation makes one ineligible to receive a transplant (not true now, but I’ve heard it proposed) ( new information: something similar is in place in Israel )
Under this scenario, the loss of eligibility for receiving a transplant would become a liability of cryonics, even to those cryonicists who are never frozen. My guess is that the odds of this happening are low, but not exceeding so. Perhaps 1% 10%? (updating odds for similar policy no-give-no-take policy to go into effect in the U.S.)
The scenario I had in mind (which is probably more far-fetched than yours) is that (1) good life extension technology becomes available; and (2) in deciding who should get the benefit of this technology, the powers that be decide to categorically exclude anyone who has ever signed up for cryonics.
It certainly could happen—but mostly cryonics is too small to be on anyone’s radar. If the powers that be decide to categorically exclude a group, it is more likely to be a larger group, and perhaps a group that is more of a direct opponent to the powers. (Also, I think you can omit (1) from your scenario—exclusion from current medical care would do much the same thing, with similar political questions, but without needing to posit a technical advance.)
Possibly, but it’s also possible that cryonics will grow to the point where it hits the radar screen. If a few prominent people sign up it could get a lot of attention.
Anyway, all that’s necessary for the argument is that there is some small chance that you will be worse off for having chosen cryonics just like there is some small chance that you will be worse off for having accepted Jesus.
I don’t see how this works. If you want the transplants, you drop the cryonics. If you want the cryonics more, you drop the transplants. You pick whichever option is more valuable for you.
Unless you can’t drop cryonics and sign up for organ donation once you learn you need a transplant, there’s no real loss here, even in this unlikely scenario.
Well presumably under soreff’s scenario, there would be some sort of exclusionary period in place to prevent people from waiting to opt in until just before they need a transplant.
I think the actual heuristic used by a minority of them, more than the smaller minority who admit it, is to oppose things unless they are religiously endorsed. For this reason I partially disagree with this select portion of your post. I endorse the rest.