ME3 comments on When Science Can't Help - Less Wrong

16 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 May 2008 07:24AM

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Comment author: ME3 15 May 2008 03:19:00PM 1 point [-]

If you accept that there is no "soul" and your entire consciousness exists only in the physical arrangement of your brain (I more or less believe this), then it would be the height of egotism to require someone to actively preserve your particular brain pattern for an unknown number of years until your body can be reactivated. Simply because better ones are sure to come along in the meantime.

I mean, think about your 70-year-old uncle with his outdated ways of thinking and generally eccentric behavior -- now think of a freezer full of 700-year-old uncles who want to be unfrozen as soon as the technology exists, just so they can continue making obnoxious forum posts about how they're smarter than all scientists on earth. Would you want to unfreeze them, except maybe as historical curiosities?