This is powerful, especially the final sentence. But what makes it powerful, it seems to me, is the vision of myself at age 65, woefully resigned to laziness and poor health. My being 65 in the picture makes a difference, because it makes it seem that much more pathetic, and that much more too late. Because of that, it seems that the situation at age 65 (given continued laziness from today until then) is not "similar" to the situation today.

Stop eating. Let's see how default it is.

I meant only that I am alive, and I see no reason that death is preferable at this point.

If that's how you want to have your definitions, I can live with that.

There is a difference beyond definitions here. We may have different definitions of death -- I think it is the end of individual consciousness. But the suffering caused by aging and disease is separate from any definition of death. It is an important distinction that goes overlooked oft times.

No need for that. Just always have plans for tomorrow.

Fighting to live; living to fight. I see this a hamster wheel. It has some novelty, but I see no need to prolong it indefinitely. Or, if it can be prolonged, it shouldn't be at the top of the list of problems facing humanity/the universe.

Why/how they exist and what for are different things. Conflating the two leads just to confusion in this case.

I'm not sure I understand what your point is.

I'm tapping on our conversation now. I'd be pleased to hear any responses you have.

What do I seem confused about to you?

As in the church, it isn't too terribly important to dogma that it has widespread acceptance among adherents to a particular faith in order to be dogma.

What is far more important to establishing dogma is having de facto authority and/or status leaders accept it and voice their support.

You made a lot of false assumptions about my mindstate.

Sorry.

So what has made you decide to live so far?

I'm alive. It is my default state.

I combined two situations because I thought that would be more acceptable to you. That doesn't mean I'm conflating them. I do think there are good deaths and bad immortalities.

I'm talking about (1) aging and disease and suffering vs. (2) death. They have zero to do with one another and should not be combined in this discussion.

If I couldn't think of any interesting long term goals, I would have to agree. If that's not how you mean it, then I don't understand what you mean by arbitrary.

Please give me an example of a long term goal that would require 10 Billion years? How about 1 Billion? 1 Million?

It's a value, and yes it's programmed by the blind idiot god called evolution, but my core values don't go away if I just think about them hard enough and why should they?

Why exactly does it matter why the value is there? It wasn't designed for anything or by anything. It just is, and the genes were just selected for and thus they are. Genes have goals no more than they can plan and even if they did I have no reason to privilege them. Evolution is an unplanned process not optimizing anything in particular, how could it possibly glitch and why should I care?

It does affect me quite a bit to know why my instincts and drives exist. Maybe it does nothing for you. Okay. That is interesting.

Although it's perfectly reasonable not to want to sign up for cryonics (and I haven't signed up myself)

Would you please explain your rationale?

"Rationalist" here is used to mean "exposed to rationalist ideas", not "is a rationalist person". I realize that's confusing but I don't have better terminology.

I understood, and then used, "rationalist" to mean "accurate map of the territory". I'd agree exposure to LW helps eliminate some biases and, in that way, it is rationalist training that improves one's rationality. I'm not yet willing to say Less Wrong = More Right in every case, however.

Maybe more time on LW leads to improved rationality... up to the point where it doesn't? I find the dogmatic-ish acceptance of certain ideas around here reminds me of religion. It is funny to me you used that example...

What about people who adopt children from a foreign country, rather than having their own biological children? I personally know a couple who did that. (I plan on doing the same if I get married - maybe not from a foreign country, but definitely adopting.)

If everyone was immortal and healthy by default, do you think it would even occur to you suggest death as a harmless alternative?

Good question. I'd suggest death is a harmless alternative, and it would only be analogous with actual, literal, harmless alternatives. (Also, I notice you are conflating non-healthyness and mortality.)

If a reality like death didn't exist, I guess it would be like any other non-existent, yet imaginable state. In fact, death is a state of non-existence, it is imaginable, and it is harmless.

If someone tried to convince you that a 50 year lifespan is better than what we have now, what would be your reaction?

Most arguments for which exact lifespan is better would seem arbitrary to me. I can see some merit to a lifespan that allowed you to have kids, or grandkids. Maybe a lifespan where you reached full, mature adulthood makes some sense. But 50 years, 100 years, 1000 years... arbitrary.

Don't you find it interesting that your intuitions support a very narrow optimum that just happens to be what you already have?

Yes, very interesting. Though it is also your intuition, and intuition generally, that opposes (and fears?) death so intensely. It is part of our eons-evolved programming. This death-avoidance intuition exists so that we will be best equipped as vehicles for the replicators we carry. That is all is was designed for. The fact you are arguing for some intrinsic value to indefinitely extended consciousness beyond its instrumental value as a tool of the replicators is simply a glitch; a side-effect to the necessary importance every surviving organism and species must attach to surviving.

Do you argue that "death is just the end of your conscious experience" in the case of anyone who dies prematurely? Try to imagine actual deaths in real life and their outcomes.

I don't "argue" it. That seems tacky, since I would be arguing only with the deceased friends or loved ones... since the deceased themselves would be...dead.

I do, however, think it is a helpful meditation to ponder the implications of death, immortality, etc. I read and discuss my understanding of Buddhism with lots of people (these, for example), and I find explorations to better understand the human desire for permanence and striving for lasting satisfaction to be very insightful and helpful.

From your cited fable...

Stories about aging have traditionally focused on the need for graceful accommodation. The recommended solution to diminishing vigor and impending death was resignation coupled with an effort to achieve closure in practical affairs and personal relationships. Given that nothing could be done to prevent or retard aging, this focus made sense. Rather than fretting about the inevitable, one could aim for peace of mind.

Today we face a different situation. While we still lack effective and acceptable means for slowing the aging process, we can identify research directions that might lead to the development of such means in the foreseeable future. “Deathist” stories and ideologies, which counsel passive acceptance, are no longer harmless sources of consolation. They are fatal barriers to urgently needed action....

...The argument is not in favor or life-span extension per se. Adding extra years of sickness and debility at the end of life would be pointless. The argument is in favor of extending, as far as possible, the human health-span. By slowing or halting the aging process, the healthy human life span would be extended. Individuals would be able to remain healthy, vigorous, and productive at ages at which they would otherwise be dead.

I did not read the whole fable, though I skimmed it (I get it, I think) and read the moral of the story.

What I notice is that the author appears to be conflating the nasty parts of aging with death. They are not at all the same. They are not the same problem, and the should not be confused.

I am 100% for bringing about technologies that eliminate gratuitous suffering. That includes much of what happens we humans age. People often end up in horrible mental and physical states for years, or decades, near the end of their lives. I am all for getting rid of Alzheimer's, for instance. And, as a personal example, my grandmother spent the last eight years of her life effectively paralyzed and unable to speak due to a series of massive strokes -- I am 100% for technology that would make this never happen to anyone ever again.

None of that has anything to do with the end of a human's localized meat-computer-generated conscious experience. Healthyness does not = no death.

I love that he called it "Deathism", the "ideologies that counsel passive acceptance". I've often thought the sort of "stay alive at any cost" thinking I often encounter on LW could be appropriately labeled "Lifeism", and now I feel validated for thinking so.

Let me ask: Can you imagine any scenario, say, a billion years into your life, when you might opt for permanently switching off your consciousness (i.e. death)? Why or why not? What would be different at one billion years vs. one million? One million vs. 100,000? 100,000 vs. 10,000? (I'm not asking rhetorically...)

What about religious people who take vows of celibacy?

I think people care more about self-preservation than reproduction, honestly. I know I do!

Edit: Upon reflection, and receiving some replies here, I actually think Tim made a pretty strong case. However, though "playing chess" may be the "single most helpful simple way to understand" Deep Blue's behavior, it is wrong to say this of "trying to reproduce" for human behavior. You could predict only a very small percentage of my behavior using that information (I've never kissed a girl or had sex, despite wanting to) - whereas, using "self-preservation" and "seeking novelty", you could predict quite a bit of it. I suspect this is not just true of me, but of many people.

Edit 2: Though you could poke holes in my first edit. Like, maybe the reason I don't try to reproduce now is only because I've failed in the past. But this hinges on being a violation of Tim's point. Also, see this later comment I made, which I think is pretty much a knockdown refutation.

Edit 3: See this comment by memoridem for a succinct summary of my position. Somehow, none of my comments in this conversation came out clearly.

It makes dying an optional choice, rather than an inevitable necessity.

Yes.

Talk to an 80 year old person about the "joys" of aging -- any proper immortality means that you don't age. With a longer lifespan, people will tend toward a long term view (at least a little). You can enjoy more things, or accomplish more things, with a longer life.

Okay. Eliminating aging and all the negatives involved with it makes sense.

Even people who have said they'd rather die than live as an invalid, almost always change their tune when they become an invalid -- so why should I believe that you'd rather die than live as a healthy man in the prime of life? Go ahead, research this one thing.

I'm not sure what research you think I should do. I accept that many circumstances we can imagine are much different when we actually have to deal with them in the present reality.

If as you fear immortality drains motivation, the immortals will be out-competed by the mortals, so the world won't be harmed.

I'm not worried about the world being harmed by immortality, per se. I suppose there are lots of interesting implications that would arise, but I'm not concerned.

And remember also that full immortality means finding a way around the laws of thermodynamics and the death of the universe -- "forever" might necessarily be limited to a few billion years.

Sure. That makes sense.

With a longer lifespan, people will tend toward a long term view (at least a little). You can enjoy more things, or accomplish more things, with a longer life.

This seems to be the argument. I don't find it compelling it all. Can you help me understand why "tending toward a long view" is valuable? And how is accomplishing and enjoying more things always good indefinitely? I think enjoying and accomplishing things is cool, but I'd imagine there are some diminishing returns on almost anything.

I'm hearing... "death is obviously bad and the only way you could disagree is because you are biased" and "more years can equal more utilons".

Am I off base? How?

Death is just the end of your conscious experience. You won't know your dead. Life is cool, but it isn't as if the stakes on the table are life or eternal torture. That would be a HUGE problem worth freezing bodies or severed heads over.