CronoDAS comments on Demands for Particular Proof: Appendices - Less Wrong

26 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 February 2010 07:58AM

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Comment author: ciphergoth 16 February 2010 08:26:51AM *  1 point [-]

We don't know whether Alzheimer's is information-theoretically reversible or not, AFAIK.

EDIT: I'm wrong, for some reason I thought we knew less than we do.

Comment author: CronoDAS 16 February 2010 08:30:51AM 2 points [-]
Comment author: ciphergoth 16 February 2010 08:39:33AM 1 point [-]

Ouch, OK, that does look information-theoretically hard.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 17 February 2010 08:29:40PM 2 points [-]

Doesn't look very information-theoretically hard to me. Partial preservation of function probably implies near-total preservation of information.

Comment author: CronoDAS 16 February 2010 10:12:00AM 0 points [-]

Yeah, and it's what my mom says that my grandmother has. :(

Comment author: ciphergoth 16 February 2010 10:24:17AM 4 points [-]

It's hardly consolation, but from what I understand of your family it's hardly as if she would be cryopreserved upon legal death anyway, so it hardly matters either way.

I take it Pratchett isn't signed up? Why the very rich don't sign up mystifies me so.

Comment author: CronoDAS 16 February 2010 11:27:52AM 3 points [-]

Now that you mention it, if not for the Alzheimer's, I'd pay to cryopreserve him. The great scientists and mathematicians of the past wouldn't be of much use in the present, but how much would people today pay to resurrect Shakespeare or Mozart?

Comment author: ciphergoth 16 February 2010 12:04:36PM 9 points [-]

The money is hardly the object: it's persuading him that it's worthwhile that's the difficulty.

From what he's been saying recently about assisted suicide, he may not be planning on living long enough for the worst of the damage to take place. This makes him a particularly good candidate for cryopreservation, except that celebrity + assisted suicide + cryonics = absolutely massive shitstorm.

Comment deleted 17 February 2010 01:55:16PM [-]
Comment author: ciphergoth 17 February 2010 02:41:08PM *  5 points [-]

Judging by the number of people I've met who fall into this category, Terry Pratchett has at least 10,000 close personal friends; I'd probably be better off persuading one of them to do it.

However, I will bend Charlie Stross's ear on this subject if I get the opportunity.

EDIT: to be clear, the possible damage is that if my email doesn't succeed, it raises the bar the second such email has to reach to be persuasive.