In response to That Magical Click
Comment author: erniebornheimer 20 January 2010 09:44:36PM 12 points [-]

At the risk of revealing my stupidity...

In my experience, people who don't compartmentalize tend to be cranks.

Because the world appears to contradict itself, most people act as if it does. Evolution has created many, many algorithms and hacks to help us navigate the physical and social worlds, to survive, and to reproduce. Even if we know the world doesn't really contradict itself, most of us don't have good enough meta-judgement about how to resolve the apparent inconsistencies (and don't care).

Most people who try to make all their beliefs fit with all their other beliefs, end up forcing some of the puzzle pieces into wrong-shaped holes. Their favorite part of their mental map of the world is locally consistent, but the farther-out parts are now WAY off, thus the crank-ism.

And that's just the physical world. When we get to human values, some of them REALLY ARE in conflict with others, so not only is it impossible to try to force them all to agree, but we shouldn't try (too hard). Value systems are not axiomatic. Violence to important parts of our value system can have repercussions even worse than violence to parts of our world view.

FWIW, I'm not interested in cryonics. I think it's not possible, but even if it were, I think I would not bother. Introspecting now, I'm not sure I can explain why. But it seems that natural death seems like a good point to say "enough is enough." In other words, letting what's been given be enough. And I am guessing that something similar will keep most of us uninterested in cryonics forever.

Now that I think of it, I see interest in cryonics as a kind of crankish pastime. It takes the mostly correct idea "life is good, death is bad" to such an extreme that it does violence to other valuable parts of our humanity (sorry, but I can't be more specific).

To try to head off some objections:

  • I would certainly never dream of curtailing anyone else's freedom to be cryo-preserved, and I recognize I might change my mind (I just don't think it's likely, nor worth much thought).
  • Yes, I recognize how wonderful medical science is, but I see a qualitative difference between living longer and living forever.
  • No, I don't think I will change my mind about this as my own death approaches (but I'll probably find out). Nor do I think I would change my mind if/when the death of a loved one becomes a reality.

I offer this comment, not in an attempt to change anyone's mind, but to go a little way to answer the question "Why are some people not interested in cryonics?"

Thanks!

Comment author: Rlive 20 January 2010 10:43:29PM *  9 points [-]

Most people who try to make all their beliefs fit with all their other beliefs, end up forcing some of the puzzle pieces into wrong-shaped holes. Their favorite part of their mental map of the world is locally consistent, but the farther-out parts are now WAY off, thus the crank-ism.

This is not true of all non-compartmentalizers - just the ones you have noticed and remember. Rational non-compartmentalizers simply hold on to that puzzle piece that doesn't fit until they either

  • determine where it goes;

  • determine that it is not from the right puzzle; or

  • reshape it to correctly fit the puzzle.

In response to That Magical Click
Comment author: Rlive 20 January 2010 08:11:47PM *  5 points [-]

I think "clicky" people are people who are not emotionally vested in their beliefs.

Many people need their beliefs to be true in order to feel like they are valuable and worthwhile people.

Clicky people simply don't need that (or at least need that to a lesser extent). Instead, clicky people need to be right whether or not that means they were initially wrong.

In response to Normal Cryonics
Comment author: Rlive 20 January 2010 07:57:51PM 1 point [-]

Only three hands went up that did not identify as atheist/agnostic, and I think those >also might have all been old cryonicists.

Actually, I believe the question was "would you not describe yourself as athiest/agnostic" rather than "identify as" which is a very different question.