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James_Miller comments on We really need a "cryonics sales pitch" article. - Less Wrong Discussion

10 Post author: CronoDAS 03 August 2015 10:42PM

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Comment author: thakil 05 August 2015 07:50:59AM *  0 points [-]

My argument against cyronics:

The probability of being successfully frozen and then being revived later on is dependent on the following

1)Being successfully frozen upon death (loved ones could interfere, lawyers could interfere, the manner of my death could interfere)

2)The company storing me keeps me in the same (or close to it) condition for however long it takes for revivification technologies to be discovered

3)The revivification technologies are capable of being discovered

4)There is a will to revivify me

These all combine to make the probability of success quite low.

The value of success is obviously high, but it's difficult to assess how high: just because they can revivify me doesn't mean my life will then end up being endless (at the very least, violent death might still lead to death in the future)

This is weighted by the costs. These are

1)The obvious financial ones

2)The social ones. I actually probably value this higher than 1. Explaining to my loved ones my decision, having to endure mockery and possibly quite strong reactions

The final point here is about risk aversion. While one could probably set up the utility calculation above to come up positive, I'm not sure that utility calculation is the correct way to determine whether to make such a risk. That is, if a probability of a one shot event is low enough, the expected value isn't a very useful indicator of my actual returns. That is, if a lottery has a positive gain, it still might not be worth me playing it if the odds are still very much against me making any money from it!

So how would you convince me?

1)Drop the costs, both social and financial. The former is obviously done by making cryonics more mainstream, the latter... well by making cryonics more mainstream, probably

2)Convince me that the probability of all 4 components is higher than I think it is. If the conjoined probability started hitting >5% then I might start thinking about it seriously.

Comment author: James_Miller 06 August 2015 03:03:37PM 0 points [-]

(2) was a big deal for me as well, until I got used to it. Now cryonics has become a positive part of my identity that I'm proud to tell others about.

A friendly super-intelligence would easily solve (3) and (4). Keep in mind that most of the probability mass of cryonics working occurs if things turn out really well for the world. Conditional on cryonics working, you almost certainly would get an enormous benefit from greatly extending your life.

Comment author: V_V 07 August 2015 08:58:56PM *  0 points [-]

A friendly super-intelligence would easily solve (3)

Assuming that (3) is practically solvable. Super-intelligence is not omnipotence.

and (4)

Depending on the definition of "friendly".