listic comments on Open Thread, June 2-15, 2013 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: TimS 02 June 2013 02:22AM

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Comment author: gwern 06 June 2013 09:14:51PM *  49 points [-]

Per a discussion on IRC, I am auctioning off my immortal soul to the highest bidder over the next week. (As an atheist I have no use for it, but it has a market value and so holding onto it is a foolish endowment effect.)

The current top bid is 1btc ($120) by John Wittle.

Details:

  1. I will provide a cryptograpically-signed receipt in explicit terms agreeing to transfer my soul to the highest bidder, signed with my standard public key. (Note that, as far as I know, this is superior to signing in blood since DNA degrades quickly at room temperature, and a matching blood type would both be hard to verify without another sample of my blood and also only weak evidence since many people would share my blood type.)
  2. Payment is preferably in bitcoins, but I will accept Paypal if really needed. (Equivalence will be via the daily MtGox average.) Address: 17twxmShN3p6rsAyYC6UsERfhT5XFs9fUG (existing activity)
  3. The auction will close at 4:40 PM EST, 13 June 2013
  4. My soul is here defined as my supernatural non-material essence as specified by Judeo-Christian philosophers, and not my computational pattern (over which I continue to claim copyright); transfer does not cover any souls of gwerns in alternate branches of the multiverses inasmuch as they have not consented.
  5. There is no reserve price. This is a normal English auction with time limit.
  6. I certify that my soul is intact and has not been employed in any dark rituals such as manufacturing horcruxes; I am also a member in good standing of the Catholic Church, having received confirmation etc. Note that my soul is almost certainly damned inasmuch as I am an apostate and/or an atheist, which I understand to be mortal sins.
  7. I further certify that the transferred soul is mine, has never been anyone else's, has not been involved in any past transactions, sales, purchases, etc. However, note that, despite rich documentation that this is doable, I cannot certify that any supernatural or earthly authorities will respect my attempt to sell my soul or even that I have a soul. It may be better for you to think of this as purchasing a quitclaim to my soul.
  8. Bids can be communicated as replies to this comments, emails to gwern@gwern.net, comments on IRC, or replies on Google+. I will update this comment with the current top bid if/when a new top bid is received.

Suggested uses for my soul include:

  • novelty value
  • pickup lines & icebreakers; eg. Wittle to another person considering selling their soul:

    JohnWittle> ______: "You know, I own gwern's soul.
    You know, gwern of LessWrong and gwern.net" is a
    great ice breaker at rationalist meetups and I anticipate
    it increasing my chances of getting laid by a nonzero amount.
    Can your soul give me similar results?
    
  • supererogatory ethics: purchasing a soul to redeem it
  • making extra horcruxes
  • as a speculative play on my future earnings or labor in case I reconvert to any religion with the concept of souls and wish to repurchase my soul at any cost. This would constitute a long position with almost unlimited upside and is a unique investment opportunity.

    (Please note that I hold an informational advantage over most/all would-be investors and so souls likely constitute a lemon market.)

  • hedging against Pascal's Wager:

    presumably Satan will accept my soul instead of yours since damnation does not seem to confer property rights inasmuch as the offspring of dictators continue to enjoy their ill-gotten gains and are not evicted by his agents; similarly, one can expect him to honor his bargain with you since, as an immortal he has an infinite horizon of deals he jeopardizes if he welshes on your deal.

    Note that if he won't agree to a full 1:1 swap, you still benefit infinitely by bargaining him down to an agreement like torturing you every day via a process that converges on an indefinitely large but finite total sum of torture while still daily torturing you & fulfilling the requirements of being in Hell.

EDIT: Congratulations to Mr. Wittle.

Comment author: listic 07 June 2013 01:22:43PM 3 points [-]

You definitely should auction it off in other places, where prospective buyers value such things much higher.

Comment author: gwern 07 June 2013 05:14:30PM *  3 points [-]

What other forums might value my soul? As a purchase, it's really most useful for atheists willing to do a simple expected-value calculation and hedge against a tail risk (theism); but for most people, buying a soul is largely otiose.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 07 June 2013 11:01:07PM 4 points [-]

Wait.... it seems you're suggesting that the expected value of a soul to an atheist exceeds the otiosity threshold. Did I read that right? I'm interested in your reasoning, if so.

Either way: the expected entertainment value to me of purchasing your soul far exceeds the expected value of the soul itself, and I suspect that's not uncommon, so I doubt the theological implications are a primary factor.

Comment author: gwern 08 June 2013 07:12:59PM 1 point [-]

Wait.... it seems you're suggesting that the expected value of a soul to an atheist exceeds the otiosity threshold. Did I read that right? I'm interested in your reasoning, if so.

It depends on one's subjective uncertainty. I know there are atheists who have been persuaded by visions or Pascal's wager that they were wrong, so the risk would seem to be real, and given the stakes, $120 seems like chump change for insurance - even if you try to defeat a Pascal's wager by bounded utility, the bound would have to be extremely large to be plausible...

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 08 June 2013 11:06:09PM 5 points [-]

If atheists thinks that there's a small chance that they will turn into theists and be glad to be in possession of a spare soul, then they must think that theists value spare souls. So it would seem more valuable to theists, who don't have to multiply the value of the transaction by the small chance.

There are some differences between typical theists and the hypothetical atheist-turned-theist. In particular, the theist has had a lifetime to keep a clean soul. But many theists think they do a bad job. If the spare soul has tail risk value to an atheist, it should have more value to the bad theists. The other difference is that the atheist is not a believer at the time of the transaction. Perhaps the belief of the theist makes it a greater sin to trade in souls.

But it seems like a lot of details have to go right for it to be a better deal for the atheist than the theist.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 08 June 2013 07:53:24PM 0 points [-]

Mm. Are you suggesting that the subjective uncertainty of a typical atheist on this question causes expected value to exceed the otiosity threshold? Or merely that there are some atheists for whom this is true? I'll agree with the latter.

Though, thinking about this, surely this would be much more likely for theists, no? So wouldn't the maximum expected value of your soul likely be higher, thereby securing you a higher sale price, in a theist community? (Preferably one with a sense of humor about theology.)