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RichardKennaway comments on Open thread, Dec. 1 - Dec. 7, 2014 - Less Wrong
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How do people who sign up to cryonics, or want to sign up to cryonics, get over the fact that if they died, there would no-longer be a mind there to care about being revived at a later date? I don't know how much of it is morbid rationalisation on my part just because signing up to cryonics in the UK seems not quite as reliable/easy as in the US somehow, but it still seems like a real issue to me.
Obviously, when I'm awake, I enjoy life, and want to keep enjoying life. I make plans for tomorrow, and want to be alive tomorrow, despite the fact that in between, there will be a time (during sleep) where I will no-longer care about being alive tomorrow. But if I were killed in my sleep, at no point would I be upset - I would be unaware of it beforehand, and my mind would no-longer be active to care about anything afterwards.
I'm definitely confused about this. I think the central confusion is something like: why should I be willing to spend effort and money at time A to ensure I am alive at time C, when I know that I will not care at all about this at an intermediate time B?
I'm pretty sure I'd be willing to pay a certain amount of money every evening to lower some artificial probability of being killed while I slept. So why am I not similarly willing to pay a certain amount to increase the chance I will awaken from the Dreamless Sleep? Does anyone else think about this before signing up for cryonics?
Perhaps that is not so obvious. While you are awake, do you actually have that want while it is not in your attention? Which is surely most of the time.
If you are puzzled about where the want goes while you are asleep, should you also be puzzled about where it is while you are awake and oblivious to it? Or looking at it the other way, if the latter does not puzzle you, should the former? And if the former does not, should the Long Sleep of cryonics?
Perhaps this is a tree-falls-in-forest-does-it-make-a-sound question. There is (1) your experience of a want while you are contemplating it, and (2) the thing that you are contemplating at such moments. Both are blurred together by the word "want". (1) is something that comes and goes even during wakefulness; (2) would seem to be a more enduring sort of thing that still exists while your attention is not on it, including during sleep, temporarily "dying" on an operating table, or, if cryonics works, being frozen.
I think you've helped me see that I'm even more confused than I realised! It's true that I can't go down the road of 'if I do not currently care about something, does it matter?' since this applies when I am awake as well. I'm still not sure how to resolve this, though. Do I say to myself 'the thing I care about persists to exist/potentially exist even when I do not actively care about it, and I should therefore act right now as if I will still care about it even when I stop due to inattention/unconsciousness'?
I think that seems like a pretty solid thing to think, and is useful, but when I say it to myself right now, it doesn't feel quite right. For now I'll meditate on it and see if I can internalise that message. Thanks for the help!