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Lumifer comments on The Problem with AIXI - Less Wrong
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It can be also argued that even humans who claim to believe in immortal souls don't actually use this belief instrumentally: religious people don't drop anvils on their heads to "allow the mind to escape to a better place", unless they are insane. Even religious suicide terrorists generally have political or personal motives (e.g. increasing the status of their family members), they don't really blow themselves up or fly planes into buildings for the 72 virgins.
In most religions with the concept of afterlife and heaven there is a very explicit prohibition on suicide. Dropping an anvil on your head is promised to lead to your mind being locked in a "worse place".
Religious people also tend wear helmets when they are in places where heavy stuff can accidentally fall on their heads, they go to the hospital when they are sick and generally will to invest a large amount of money and effort in staying alive.
Unless you define suicide to include failing to do anything in your power (within moral and legal constraints) to prevent your death as long as possible, the willingness of religious people to stay alive can't be explained just as complying with the ban on suicide.
On the other hand, the religious ban on suicide can be easily explained as a way to reconcile the explicitly stated belief that death "allows the mind to escape to a better place", with the implicit but effective belief that death actually sucks.