hyporational comments on Why I haven't signed up for cryonics - Less Wrong

29 Post author: Swimmer963 12 January 2014 05:16AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (249)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: hyporational 12 January 2014 08:36:01PM *  4 points [-]

If you got a lethal disease with a very expensive treatment, and you could afford it, would you refuse the treatment? What would the threshold price be? Does this idea feel as squicky as spending on cryonics?

Comment author: [deleted] 14 January 2014 05:42:47PM 1 point [-]

Depends: has the treatment been proven to work before?

(Yes, I've heard the probability calculations. I don't make medical decisions based on plausibility figures when it has simply never been seen to work before, even in animal models.)

Comment author: Vulture 05 February 2014 12:46:44AM 0 points [-]

Part of shutting up and multiplying is multiplying through the probability of a payoff with the value of the payoff, and then treating it as a guaranteed gain of that much utility. This is a basic property of rational utility functions.

(I think. People who know what they're talking about, feel free to correct me)

Comment author: [deleted] 05 February 2014 11:56:45AM *  0 points [-]

You are correct regarding expected-utility calculations, but I make an epistemic separation between plausabilities and probabilities. Plausible means something could happen without contradicting the other things I know about reality. Probable means there is actually evidence something will happen. Expected value deals in probabilities, not plausibilities.

Now, given that cryonics has not been seen to work on, say, rats, I don't see why I should expect it to already be working on humans. I am willing to reevaluate based on any evidence someone can present to me.

Of course, then there's the question of what happens on the other side, so to speak, of who is restoring your preserved self and what they're doing with you. Generally, every answer I've heard to that question made my skin crawl.