apophenia comments on Cryonics Wants To Be Big - Less Wrong

28 Post author: lsparrish 05 July 2010 07:50AM

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Comment author: apophenia 05 July 2010 08:23:24PM *  4 points [-]

Here's my program, with my probability estimates removed to avoid bias. If anyone wants to use it, feel free. It calculates the probablilty a person will be revived after X years. If you want a final probability, plug in some priors, including a distribution over how long you think it will take you to be revived.

lang scheme

(require plot)

(define (cycle-to-chance cycle-length) (/ 1 cycle-length))

(define business-failure-cycle-length XXX) ;How often will a cryonics agency go out of business?

(define dark-age-cycle-length XXX) ;How often will a technical/ethical/economic dark age happen?

(define depression-cycle-length XXX) ;How often will a great depression hit North America?

(define Pnd XXX) ;Probability of a natural distaster

(define Pr XXX) ;Chance a corpse will be revived when cryogenic tech is available

(define Pbd XXX) ;Chance the information needed to revive a corpse is present

(define Pdh XXX) ;Chance humanity is destroyed (considered as a single time-indepenent factor)

(define Pcif (cycle-to-chance business-failure-cycle-length)) ;Chance the cryonics institute fails in a reasonable economy, per year

(define Pcif-cc XXX) ;Chance the corpse unfreezes if the cryonics institute fails in a reasonable economy

(define Pgef (cycle-to-chance depression-cycle-length)) ;Chance of a great depression in north america, per year

(define Pgef-cc XXX) ;Chance the corpse unfreezes in a great depression

(define Pda (cycle-to-chance dark-age-cycle-length)) ;Chance of a dark age, per year

(define Pda-cc XXX) ;Change the corpse unfreezes in a dark age

(define Pvc XXX) ;Probability a corpse is viable for freezing on death

(define Pst XXX) ;Probability a corpse is safely transported and frozen

(define entry-shock-pass-chance (* Pst Pvc (- 1 Pdh)))

(define exit-shock-pass-chance (* Pr Pbd))

(define yearly-pass-chance (min (- 1 (* Pcif Pcif-cc )) (- 1 (* Pgef Pgef-cc)) (- 1 (* Pda Pda-cc))))

(define (success-distribution time) (* entry-shock-pass-chance exit-shock-pass-chance (expt yearly-pass-chance time)))

(define (approx-integrate f start end step-size)

(apply +

 (map (lambda (inc-start)
(* (/ (+ (f inc-start) (f (+ inc-start step-size))) 2)
step-size))
(for/list ((i (in-range start (- end step-size) step-size))) i))))

Here is my final probability, rot13ed: Gur cebonovyvgl V'yy or erivirq va svsgl, bar uhaqerq lrnef ner svir-cbvag-guerr-creprag, gjb-cbvag-guerr-creprag erfcrpgviryl.

Edit: I'm having a hard time getting this program source to display properly, but it should run fine with some line breaks.

Comment author: apophenia 10 July 2010 07:14:22PM *  2 points [-]

Okay, so I updated my chance that the correct information is present in the brain - from 75% to 99% after seeing this talk by Brian Wowk, with the team that preserved a rabbit liver. My estimates went down, not up. There was an error in my program, which I've corrected above. Even with this correction, I strongly recommend against using it without checking it yourself first.

My probability estimates are now nearly ten times higher, and I will sign up for cryonics. I guess I should either not stake my life on my programming skills, or program better.