Elo comments on Cryonics: peace of mind vs. immortality - Less Wrong

3 Post author: oge 24 June 2015 07:10AM

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Comment author: Elo 25 June 2015 12:09:20AM 1 point [-]

The way that cryonics was explained to me that made reasonable sense:

On a scale of spreading ashes far and wide; to cooling down your atoms so they are not moving enough. How preserved is thing X. Where ashes are pretty much 0 = not preserved, and cryogenic freezing is 0.99 and more if cooler.

after preserving there is a much higher chance of recreating the preserved entity than after ash spreading. if you believe the chance that medical and recovery technology will be able to revive a preserved entity to be non-zero; you should partake in cryonics for a future N. Where N may be as long as it takes to wait till your revival.

The major questions: * where does consciousness come from; and can we give it to back an entity that died? (while I don't doubt we can answer that eventually; the answer might come in the form of "yes but its far too difficult and expensive") * if for example we 3d print a brain that entirely matches a cryonically preserved entity; then link it up to a body, will it be possible to impart consciousness to it? * is it actually possible to measure the state of a preserved entity without destroying it? * can we recreate a preserved entity from the knowledge of where the atoms in its brain were? * will it ever be possible to do so? (as you get closer and closer to perfect recreation; it probably gets harder and harder to do)

I am not enrolled in cryonics, but have nothing against people taking the bet.