Bugle comments on A survey of anti-cryonics writing - Less Wrong

75 Post author: ciphergoth 07 February 2010 11:26PM

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Comment author: ata 08 February 2010 02:15:39AM *  27 points [-]

The allegation that cryonics is pseudoscience reminds me of the allegations that Singularitarianism/Transhumanism are "atheist religion", "the rapture for nerds", etc. That confusion, I think, comes when people see the questions we're investigating — "Could we live forever?", "Could we end suffering?", etc. — and assume that we're answering the questions in a way similar to how religion does... or they don't even think to remember why they believe religion is bad, and they assume that it's the questions rather than the answers. Obviously, the problem with religion isn't the questions it asks, nor their motives for asking those questions; the problem is the way religion acquires answers to those questions. The same applies to seeking eternal life. Eternal life as a goal isn't wishful thinking; it's wishful thinking when people mistakenly believe that the goal is easy or has already been reached ("you can live forever if you believe in Jesus", etc.). Yet it's not surprising that many perfectly intelligent people buy into these memes. They are used to hearing completely bullshit answers to these completely legitimate questions, so they get to the point where the questions themselves set off their bullshit alarms, even in the context of attempting to investigate them within a rigorous scientific/rational framework.

The "singularity == religion" and "cryonics == pseudoscience" memes are comparable to someone in the early 1960s comparing the Apollo program to the story of the Tower of Babel, and then dismissing the program on that basis as a technically infeasible religious fantasy.

Comment author: Bugle 08 February 2010 02:54:34AM *  0 points [-]

I've also encountered people who criticize the predictions surrounding the singularity, which misses the point that the singularity is the point beyond which predictions cannot be made.

edit: Didn't mean that as a comprehensive definition.

Comment author: ata 08 February 2010 03:32:39AM *  6 points [-]

If that were true about the Singularity, then wouldn't it be correct to criticize the people who make predictions about it?

Comment author: Bugle 09 February 2010 07:57:56PM 1 point [-]

Depends on your objectives. If you believe the singularity is something that will happen regardless then it's harmless to spin scenarios. I gather that people like Elizier figure that the Singularity will happen unavoidably but that it can be steered towards optimum outcomes by setting down the initial parameters, in which case I suppose it's good to have an official line about "how things could be/how we want things to be"

Comment author: Nick_Tarleton 08 February 2010 03:56:57AM *  14 points [-]

That is not the most common usage here. See Three Singularity Schools and the LW wiki page.

EDIT: The parent comment does not deserve to be at -4. This is a reasonable thing for an inexperienced commenter to say.

Comment author: magfrump 08 February 2010 06:24:53PM 5 points [-]

Voted up for niceness.

Comment author: Bugle 09 February 2010 08:18:52PM 0 points [-]

Thanks for saving me from karmic hell, but I still don't see the conflict. I seem to follow the Vinge version, which doesn't appear to be proscribed.

I may have been too categorical, obviously one can make all the predictions he likes, and some with a high percentage of certainty, for instance "If cryorevival is possible then post singularity it will be trivial to implement" but that still doesn't give us any certainty that this will be so, for instance a post singularity paperclip maximizer would be capable of cryorevival but have no interest in it.

Comment author: timtyler 08 February 2010 11:25:27PM *  1 point [-]

There is no "point beyond which predictions cannot be made". That is a SF fantasy.

Comment author: Bugle 09 February 2010 07:53:41PM -1 points [-]

God forbid someone might mistake our hypothetical discussions about future smarter than human artificial intelligences for science fiction.

Comment author: wedrifid 08 February 2010 03:41:56AM 0 points [-]

I've also encountered people who criticize the predictions surrounding the singularity, which misses the point that the singularity is the point beyond which predictions cannot be made.

I dispute that point.