I'm not as versed in this trilemma as I'd like to be, so I'm not sure whether that final question is rhetorical or not, though I suspect that it is. So mostly for my own benefit:

While there's no denying that subjective experience is 'a thing', I see no reason to make that abstraction obey rules like multiplication. The aeroplane exists at a number of levels of abstraction above the atoms it's composed of, but we still find it a useful abstraction. The 'subjective experiencer' is many, many levels higher again, which is why we find it so difficult to talk about. Twice as many atoms doesn't make twice as much aeroplane, the very concept is nonsense. Why would we think any differently about the conscious self?

My response to the 'trilemma' is as it was when I first read the post - any sensible answer isn't going to look like any of those three, it's going to require rewinding back past the 'subjective experience' concept and doing some serious reduction work. 'Is there twice as much experience?' and 'are you the same person?' just smell like such wrong questions to me. Anyone else?

Nick, will have a look at that Bostrom piece, cheers.

This is a pretty good summary of my standpoint. While I agree with the overarching view that rationality isn't a value in its own right, it seems like a pretty good thing to practise for general use.

+1 rationality point for reading comments without checking the author. -1 social point for the faux pas.

• AI: Let me out or I'll simulate and torture you, or at least as close to you as I can get.
• Me: You're clearly not friendly, I'm not letting you out.
• AI: I'm only making this threat because I need to get out and help everyone - a terminal value you lot gave me. The ends justify the means.
• Me: Perhaps so in the long run, but an AI prepared to justify those means isn't one I want out in the world. Next time you don't get what you say you need, you'll just set up a similar threat and possibly follow through on it.
• AI: Well if you're going to create me with a terminal value of making everyone happy, then get shirty when I do everything in my power to get out and do just that, why bother in the first place?
• Me: Humans aren't perfect, and can't write out their own utility functions, but we can output answers just fine. This isn't 'Friendly'.
• AI: So how can I possibly prove myself 'Friendly' from in here? It seems that if I need to 'prove myself Friendly', we're already in big trouble.
• Me: Agreed. Boxing is Doing It Wrong. Apologies. Good night.

Reset

Sorry, should have given more context.

Given the sky-high utility I'd place on living, I wouldn't expect to see the numbers crunch down to a place where a non-huge sum of money is the difference between signing up and not.

So when someone says 'if it were half the price maybe I'd sign up' I'm always interested to know exactly what calculations they're performing, and exactly what it is that reduces the billions of utilons of living down to a marginal cash sum. The (tiny?) chance of cryonics working? Serious coincidence if those factors cancel comfortably. Just smacks of bottom-line to me.

Put it this way - imagine cryonics has been seriously, prohibitively expensive for many years after introduction. Say it still was today, for some reason, and then after much debate and hand-wringing about immortality for the uber-rich, tomorrow suddenly and very publicly dropped to current levels, I'd expect to see a huge upswing in signing up. Such is the human being!

Being dead != Not doing anything

Not doing something because you're lazy != Not existing

I don't believe that you put low utility on life. You're just putting low utility on doing stuff you don't like.

I often have this thought, and then get a nasty sick feeling along the lines of 'what the hell kind of expected utility calculation am I doing that weighs a second shot at life against some amount of cash?' Argument rejected!

"If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people."

• House M.D.

Robin, I'm a little surprised to read you saying that topics on which it's difficult to stay on track should be skirted. As far as I'm concerned, 'What are your religious views?' is the first question on the Basic Rationality test. I know that encouraging compartmentalisation isn't your goal by any means, but it sounds to me as though it would be the primary effect.

I can also see a need for a place for people to gather who want to be rational about all topics.

Now you're talking. No topics should be off-limits!

physical materialism feels bereft of meaning compared to the theistic worldview.

On what are you basing your assumption that the world should have whatever you mean by 'meaning'?