Objection 6: The people who revive me might torture me.
Question 6: If you knew an intelligence explosion would occur tomorrow would you commit suicide today to avoid the chance of being tortured?
If you knew an intelligence explosion would occur tomorrow, the possibility of being tortured would certainly reduce the expected utility of that intelligence explosion, but in order for suicide to be appropriate, it would have to reduce the expected utility below zero. However, for it to be a factor in cryonics, it needn’t reduce the expected utility below zero, it only need reduce the expected utility below the cost of the cryonics.
Several of the arguments in this list have the same problem. For question 7, I’d certainly prefer getting a painless medical procedure to dying of cancer if the medical procedure has no cost. It’s easy for the utility I get from the procedure to exceed the cost if the cost is zero. If the procedure had a cost, however, I would have to decide whether the procedure is worth it (particularly if the procedure only has a chance of working, thus reducing the expected utility I get from it).
If you knew an intelligence explosion would occur tomorrow, the possibility of being tortured would certainly reduce the expected utility of that intelligence explosion, but in order for suicide to be appropriate, it would have to reduce the expected utility below zero. However, for it to be a factor in cryonics, it needn’t reduce the expected utility below zero, it only need reduce the expected utility below the cost of the cryonics.
Several of the arguments in this list have the same problem. For question 7, I’d certainly prefer getting a painless medical procedure to dying of cancer if the medical procedure has no cost. It’s easy for the utility I get from the procedure to exceed the cost if the cost is zero. If the procedure had a cost, however, I would have to decide whether the procedure is worth it (particularly if the procedure only has a chance of working, thus reducing the expected utility I get from it).