I'm afraid I don't believe you. You can convince me by providing a detailed how-to guide on jumping jurisdictions, committing suicide and having yourself cryonically suspended.
Sure. For one, with a short life expectancy you're not being detained where you live. You can travel whereever. I assure you there are plenty of e.g. European countries that will not mandatorily do autopsies on people that died within a few months of their expected end of life. How do I know? Well, I've interned at one of those overworked, understaffed forensic pathology institutes. Just leave a letter and overdose on pain medication. Dignitas (assisted suicide organisation) patients don't undergo autopsies.
Too much of a hassle, going overseas? No worries, I got you covered. Incidentally, I got PM'ed with this paper with the remark that physician-assisted suicide cases (shouldn't be too hard for a smart person with a short life expectancy to get into) such as "Kevorkian's patients were autopsied, as is apparently normal for euthanasia."
Just from checking out that one particular paper, I wasn't surprised to come across "As mentioned previously, autopsies are not required of individuals who die from legalized PAS in Oregon". Maybe by chance I checked the one US state that's different from all others, and many EU countries? Probably not.
Regarding cryonic companies apparently not aggressively fighting that issue (which may raise public awareness, not necessarily a bad thing even if it's bad publicity at first. Better raising awareness of any kind than indifference), that in itself isn't a good sign regarding their seriousness.
(If your next argument were "But I might be too sick too travel, with only a few months left", then ... well, I'd probably disengage :)
Besides, your argument is self-defeating. If it's so trivial then there's no need to plan ahead.
What I care about with this topic is using the argument as a discriminator to distinguish how much of the belief into cryonics is carried by its actual merit versus how much is based on staving off existential angst.
People talking up the importance of - autopsy regulations (!) such that it seems like a stop sign, while taking on magnitudes harder problems in, say, FAI, indicate a belief-in-belief.
Then surely I'm also capable of googling for "countries with permissive suicide laws".
So would that be your plan? It's something that you should probably look into before your death is impending. Would you? That's all I'm asking.
This applies to some religious beliefs (where your sins can always be forgiven but lose your faith and you are going to hell). (...) It doesn't apply to cryonics.
The actual merit of the preservation approach nonwithstanding, how is cryonics not the technological equivalent of a deep-frozen stairway to heaven? The parallels in terms of eschatological topics (including skipping death, chance of skipping ahead in limbo to some kind of death-less future) are easy enough to find.
There being more convincing reasons in favor of cryonics merely makes it harder to distinguish between belief and belief-in-belief. But arguing against giving up even a few months of your life for greatly increasing your actual chances still seems to do the trick.
Or maybe you mean that people only believe in cryonics to stave off existential terror. That's still wouldn't be belief-in-belief
It seems to fit the kind of reasoning arguing for the invisible dragon pretty nicely. Even if there is a case to be made for immediate cryonics. "A few weeks less life, and supposedly my brain will much less damaged? - Well, that won't work, you know, autopsy regulations!"
Also, arguing for "a few hours until hibernation, that's close enough for eventual reactivation" is in fact like arguing for unfounded religious beliefs. It's a whole different topic than immediate preservation. I can't over-emphasise the difference of just a few hours (though I am certainly trying).
and you need to explicitly argue for the wrongness of that belief rather than psychoanalyzing people if you want to be taken seriously
No, I merely have to find a good discriminator to distinguish want-to-believe from believes-for-rational-reasons. Belief-in-belief does not imply that the belief is actually wrong.
(Excuse the tone, no adversity intended. Also, minor typographical edit)
Maybe by chance I checked the one US state that's different from all others, and many EU countries? Probably not.
You did. Most states require autopsy for any criminal/unnatural causes of death, including suicide. Oregon (and Washington) has a death with dignity law, which makes suicide non-criminal in some cases. The standard autopsy exemption in most states comes from a doctor's signature that the cause of death was known and natural. To my knowledge there's no compendium of state autopsy laws anywhere, you have to look state by state, but on average s...
(Title is tongue-in-cheek, "preservation" would've been more appropriate but less catchy)
With [news like that](http://news.discovery.com/history/preserved-brain-bog-england-110406.html), how hard can it be when you actually do want to preserve a brain:
> A human skull dated to about 2,684 years ago with an "exceptionally preserved" human brain still inside of it was recently discovered in a waterlogged U.K. pit, according to a new Journal of Archaeological Science study.
> The brain is the oldest known intact human brain from Europe and Asia, according to the authors, who also believe it's one of the best-preserved ancient brains in the world. (...) Scientists believe that submersion in liquid, anoxic environments helps to preserve human brain tissue.
Unfortunately for the poor guy / brain, we killed his survival prospects. He did go with the cheap option of just saving the head. Speculating, if he got found another few centuries from now, he might've been a patient, not "archeological remains".
On a more serious note, I'd like the perspective of someone signed up for cryonics on this:
With people signed up for cryonics nowadays - I hear it even comes with a necklace! - I wonder what role the signalling aspect (to others, more importantly to oneself, feeling safer from death) plays versus the actual permanent-death-evading.
Having been present for (mouse) brain slice experiments done immediately after extraction, being confronted with the rapidly progressing tissue decay, the most important aspect that could easily be optimised - apart from research into other methods of preservation - was the time from the extraction to the experiments. Each minute made a tremendous difference. Not a surprise: as the aphorism in neurology (stroke therapy) goes, "time is brain".
What leads me to somewhat doubt the seriousness of the actual belief in brain preservation, versus the belief in belief that's based on minimising existential angst, is that the obvious idea of "when death is approaching with an ETA of less than X, commit suicide with cryonics on immediate standby" is not an integral part of the discussion. X may be weeks, or even years, based on how serious you take cryonics.
The above incidentally contains a way of betting to indicate the strength you assign to the actual prospects of cryonics, versus the role it plays for you psychologically. Isn't betting on your beliefs encouraged in this community? (NB: the "suicide" is just included to avoid legal ramifications.)
Regardless of future technological advances, orders of magnitude less brain damage will certainly pose less of a problem than the delay caused even by a couple of hours. A couple of hours = your brain tissue is already a scorched battlefield! Both necrosis and apoptosis get started within minutes.
Measuring your actual belief in the success of cryonics (for someone signed up for cryonics), waiting for death by natural causes doesn't indicate a lot of confidence when even a few weeks of life seem to be measured more highly than a tremendous increase in the actual prospects of cryonics working.
Or do you have above mentioned plans in place for when your life expectancy is less than X months/years (for whatever reason)?