jkaufman comments on 2011 Survey Results - Less Wrong

94 Post author: Yvain 05 December 2011 10:49AM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 04 December 2011 10:30:36PM *  5 points [-]

Below is my attempt to re-do the calculations that led to that conclusion (this time, it's 4%).

FAI before WBE: 3%; Surviving to WBE: 60%; I assume cryonics revival feasible mostly only after WBE; Given WBE, cryonics revival (actually happening for significant portion of cryonauts) before catastrophe or FAI: 10%; FAI given WBE (but before cryonics revival): 2%; Heads preserved long enough (given no catastrophe): 50%; Heads (equivalently, living humans) mattering/useful to FAI: less than 50%.

In total, 6% for post-WBE revival potential and 4% for FAI revival potential, discounted by 50% preservation probability and 50% mattering-to-FAI probability, this gives 4%.

(By "humans useful to FAI", I don't mean that specific people should be discarded, but that the difference to utility of the future between a case where a given human is initially present, and where they are lost, is significantly less than moral value of current human life, so that it might be better to keep them than not, but not that much better, for fungibility reasons.)

Comment author: jkaufman 03 April 2012 01:58:07AM 0 points [-]

I'm trying to sort this out so I can add it to the collection of cryonics fermi calculations. Do I have this right:

Either we get FAI first (3%) or WBE (97%). If WBE, 60% chance we die out first. Once we do get WBE but before revival, 88% chance of catastrophe, 2% chance of FAI, leaving 10% chance of revival. 50% chance heads are still around.

If at any point we get FAI, then 50% chance heads are still around and 50% chance it's interested in reviving us.

So, combining it all:

 (0.5 heads still around)*
((0.03 FAI first)*(0.5 humans useful to FAI) +
(0.97 WBE first)*(0.4 don't die first)*
((.02 FAI before revival)*(0.5 humans useful to FAI) +
(.1 revival with no catastrophe or FAI))))
= .5*(0.03*0.5 + 0.97*0.4*(0.02*0.5 + 0.1))
= 2.9%

This is less than your 4%, but I don't see where I'm misinterpreting you.

Do you also think that the following events are so close to impossible that approximating them at 0% is reasonable?

  • The cryonics process doesn't preserve everything
  • You die in a situation (location, legality, unfriendly hospital, ...) where you can be frozen quickly enough
  • The cryonics people screw up in freezing you
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