Ben_Welchner comments on But There's Still A Chance, Right? - Less Wrong

44 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 January 2008 01:56AM

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

Comments (52)

Sort By: Old

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

Comment author: pnrjulius 03 April 2012 02:54:29AM -1 points [-]

I know I'll probably trigger a flamewar...

But I actually don't think cryonics is worth the cost. You could be using that money to cure diseases in the Third World, or investing in technology, or even friendly-AI research if that's your major concern, and you almost certainly will achieve more good according to what I assume is your own utility function (as long as it doesn't value a 1/1 billion chance of you being revived as exactly you over say the lives of 10,000 African children). Also, transhumans will presumably judge the same way, and decide that it's not worth it to research reviving you when they could be working on a Dyson Sphere or something.

Frankly, from what we know about cognitive science, most of the really useful information about your personality is going to disappear upon freezing anyway. You are a PROCESS, not a STATE; as such, freezing you will destroy you, unless we've somehow kept track of all the motions in your brain that would need to be restarted. (Assuming that Penrose is wrong and the important motions are not appreciably quantum. If quantum effects matter for consciousness, we're really screwed, because of the Uncertainty Principle and the no-cloning theorem.) Preserving a human consciousness is like trying to freeze a hurricane.

TLDR with some rhetoric: I've seen too many frozen strawberries to believe in cryonics.

Comment author: Ben_Welchner 03 April 2012 03:42:06AM *  5 points [-]

I know I'll probably trigger a flamewar...

Nitpick: LW doesn't actually have a large proportion of cryonicists, so you're not that likely to get angry opposition. As of the 2011 survey, 47 LWers (or 4.3% of respondents) claimed to have signed up. There were another 583 (53.5%) 'considering it', but comparing that to the current proportion makes me skeptical they'll sign up.