shokwave comments on Just Lose Hope Already - Less Wrong

47 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 25 February 2007 12:39AM

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Comment author: Vaniver 12 January 2011 03:28:07AM 3 points [-]

It is no more uncertain than any future event;

I am talking about the odds, and even if I were talking about the event, I feel pretty strongly that we can be more certain about things like the sun rising tomorrow than me winning the lottery next week. My odds of winning the with each ticket I buy are 1 in X plus/minus some factor for fraud/finding a winning ticket. That's a pretty low range of odds. My odds for being revived after cryonics have a much wider range, since the events leading up to it are far more complicated than removing 6 balls from an urn. Hence, fundamental uncertainty because the fundamental aspects of the problem are different in a way that leads to less certainty.

Comment author: shokwave 12 January 2011 11:07:45AM 3 points [-]

Yes, they have a much wider range, but all mathematical treatments of that range that I've seen come out showing the lower limit to be at least a few orders of magnitude greater than the lottery. Even though we are uncertain about how likely cryonics is to work, we are certain it's more likely than winning the lottery.

Comment author: JohnH 21 April 2011 10:23:33PM 1 point [-]

Unless you discover a way of gaming the lottery system.

Comment author: pnrjulius 30 June 2012 03:50:12AM 0 points [-]

Though that's actually illegal, so you'd have to include the chance of getting caught.