orthonormal comments on The scourge of perverse-mindedness - Less Wrong

95 Post author: simplicio 21 March 2010 07:08AM

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Comment author: SoullessAutomaton 21 March 2010 05:34:58PM 5 points [-]

It's a reasonable point, if one considers "eventual cessation of thought due to thermodynamic equilibrium" to have an immeasurably small likelihood compared to other possible outcomes. If someone points a gun at your head, would you be worrying about dying of old age?

Comment author: orthonormal 21 March 2010 05:55:44PM 6 points [-]

There are plenty of transhumanists here who believe that (with some nonnegligible probability) the heat death of the universe will be the relevant upper bound on their experience of life.

Comment author: SoullessAutomaton 21 March 2010 06:20:11PM 4 points [-]

Which is fair enough I suppose, but it sounds bizarrely optimistic to me. We're talking about a time span a thousand times longer than the current age of the universe. I have a hard time giving weight to any nontrivial proposition expected to be true over that kind of range.