TheStevenator comments on You Only Live Twice - Less Wrong

85 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 December 2008 07:14PM

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Comment author: Tim_Walters 12 December 2008 11:09:35PM 0 points [-]

Even if the probability of being revived is sub-1%, it is worth every penny since the consequence is immortality

By that logic, one should pay to have prayers said for one's soul.

One could make a Drake's-Equation-style estimate of that "sub-1%" probability, but the dominant term is this: what are the odds that evolution, with no selection pressure whatsoever, has designed the brain so that that none of its contents are stored in a volatile way? Why write everything to disk if the computer never gets turned off?

Without hard evidence that the brain does that, I don't see any reason to rate the probability of revival significantly higher than zero. That's without even getting into whether it's really practical to extract what information there is.

Maybe there is such evidence and I just haven't seen it. I repeat: can anyone point me to some?

Comment author: TheStevenator 04 March 2012 08:48:58AM -1 points [-]

I don't think it takes an degree in nano-tech or cutting edge medicine to be more confident in the power of future technology than in the power of praying for souls. Even if it is granted that there aren't great reasons for supposing cryonic preservation is viable, it is a huge and unwarranted leap to say that is as intellectually vacuous as the ideas of prayers affecting souls.