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alexflint comments on A Much Better Life? - Less Wrong
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I don't know if anyone picked up on this, but this to me somehow correlates with Eliezer Yudkowsky's post on Normal Cryonics... if in reverse.
Eliezer was making a passionate case that not choosing cryonics is irrational, and that not choosing it for your children has moral implications. It's made me examine my thoughts and beliefs about the topic, which were, I admit, ready-made cultural attitudes of derision and distrust.
Once you notice a cultural bias, it's not too hard to change your reasoned opinion... but the bias usually piggy-backs on a deep-seated reptilian reaction. I find changing that reaction to be harder work.
All this to say that in the case of this tale, and of Eliezer's lament, what might be at work is the fallacy of sunk costs (if we have another name for it, and maybe a post to link to, please let me know!).
Knowing that we will suffer, and knowing that we will die, are unbearable thoughts. We invest an enormous amount of energy toward dealing with the certainty of death and of suffering, as individuals, families, social groups, nations. Worlds in which we would not have to die, or not have to suffer, are worlds for which we have no useful skills or tools. Especially compared to the considerable arsenal of sophisticated technologies, art forms, and psychoses we've painstakingly evolved to cope with death.
That's where I am right now. Eliezer's comments have triggered a strongly rational dissonance, but I feel comfortable hanging around all the serious people, who are too busy doing the serious work of making the most of life to waste any time on silly things like immortality. Mostly, I'm terrified at the unfathomable enormity of everything that I'll have to do to adapt to a belief in cryonics. I'll have to change my approach to everything... and I don't have any cultural references to guide the way.
Rationally, I know that most of what I've learned is useless if I have more time to live. Emotionally, I'm afraid to let go, because what else do I have?
Is this a matter of genetic programming percolating too deep into the fabric of all our systems, be they genetic, nervous, emotional, instinctual, cultural, intellectual? Are we so hard-wired for death that we physically can't fathom or adapt to the potential for immortality?
I'm particularly interested in hearing about the experience of the LW community on this: How far can rational examination of life-extension possibilities go in changing your outlook, but also feelings or even instincts? Is there a new level of self-consciousness behind this brick wall I'm hitting, or is it pretty much brick all the way?
How about this analogy: if I sign up for travel insurance today then I needn't necessarily spend the next week coming to terms with all the ghastly things that could happen during my trip. Perhaps the ideal rationalist would stare unblinkingly at the plethora of awful possibilities but if I'm going to be irrational and block my ears and eyes and not think about them then making the rational choice to get insurance is still a very positive step.
Alex, I see your point, and I can certainly look at cryonics this way... And I'm well on my way to a fully responsible reasoned-out decision on cryonics. I know I am, because it's now feeling like one of these no-fun grown-up things I'm going to have to suck up and do, like taxes and dental appointments. I appreciate your sharing this "bah, no big deal, just get it done" attitude which is a helpful model at this point. I tend to be the agonizing type.
But I think I'm also making a point about communicating the singularity to society, as opposed to individuals. This knee-jerk reaction to topics like cryonics and AI, and to promises such as the virtual end of suffering... might it be a sort of self-preservation instinct of society (not individuals)? So, defining "society" as the system of beliefs and tools and skills we've evolved to deal with fore-knowledge of death, I guess I'm asking if society is alive, inasmuch as it has inherited some basic self-preservation mechanisms, by virtue of the sunk-cost fallacy suffered by the individuals that comprise it?
So you may have a perfectly no-brainer argument that can convince any individual, and still move nobody. The same way you can't make me slap my forehead by convincing each individual cell in my hand to do it. They'll need the brain to coordinate, and you can't make that happen by talking to each individual neuron either. Society is the body that needs to move, culture its mind?
Generally, reasoning by analogy is not very well regarded here. But, nonetheless let me try to communicate.
Society doesn't have a body other than people. Where societal norms have the greatest sway is when Individuals follow customs and traditions without thinking about them or get reactions that they cannot explain rationally.
Unfortunately, there is no way other than talking to and convincing individuals who are willing to look beyond those reactions and beyond those customs. Maybe they will slowly develop into a majority. Maybe all that they need is a critical mass beyond which they can branch into their own socio-political system. (As Peter Theil pointed out in one of his controversial talks)