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Jowibou comments on Abnormal Cryonics - Less Wrong
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Apply this argument to drug addiction: "I value not being an addict, but since post-addiction I will want to continue experiencing drugs, and I-who-doesn't-want-to-be-an-addict won't be around, I really don't see why I should stay away from becoming an addict". See the problem? Your preferences are about the whole world, with all of its past, present and future, including the time when you are dead. These preferences determine your current decisions; the preferences of future-you or of someone else are not what makes you make decisions at present.
I suppose I'd see your point if I believed that drug addiction was inevitable and knew that everyone in the history of everything had eventually become a drug addict. In short, I'm not sure the analogy is valid. Death is a special case, especially since "the time when you are dead" is from one's point of view not a "time" at all. It's something of an oxymoron. After death there IS no time - past present or future.
Whether something is inevitable is not an argument about its moral value. Have you read the reversal test reference?
Please believe in physics.
1) Who said anything about morality? I'm asking for a defence of the essential rationality of cryogenics. 2) Please read the whole paragraph and try to understand subjective point of view - or lack thereof post-death. (Which strikes me as the essential point of reference when talking about fear of death)
See What Do We Mean By "Rationality"?. When you ask about a decision, its rationality is defined by how well it allows to achieve your goals, and "moral value" refers to the way your goals evaluate specific options, with the options of higher "moral value" being the same as options preferred according to your goals.
Consider the subjective point of view of yourself-now, on the situation of yourself dying, or someone else dying for that matter, not the point of view of yourself-in-the-future or subjective point of view of someone-else. It's you-now that needs to make the decision, and rationality of whose decisions we discuss.
Clearly, I'm going to need to level up about this. I really would like to understand it in a satisfactory way; not just play a rhetorical game. That said the phrase "the situation of yourself dying" strikes me as an emotional ploy. The relevant (non)"situation" is complete subjective and objective non-existence, post death. The difficulty and pain etc of "dying" is not at issue here. I will read your suggestions and see if I can reconcile all this. Thanks.
This wasn't my intention. You can substitute that phrase with, say, "Consider the subjective point of view of yourself-now, on the situation of yourself being dead for a long time, or someone else being dead for a long time for that matter." The salient part was supposed to be the point of view, not what you look at from it.
Fair enough but I still think think that the "situation of yourself being dead" is still ploy-like in that it imagines non-existence as a state or situation rather than an absence of state or situation. Like mistaking a map for an entirely imaginary territory.
You can think about a world that doesn't contain any minds, and yours in particular. The property of a world to not contain your mind does not say "nothing exists in this world", it says "your mind doesn't exist in this world". Quite different concepts.
Of course I can think about such a world. Where people get into trouble is where they think of themselves as "being dead" in such a world rather than simply "not being" i.e. having no more existence than anything else that doesn't exist. It's a distinction that has huge implications and rarely finds its way into the discussion. No matter how rational people try to be, they often seem to argue about death as if it were a state of being - and something to be afraid of.