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Is this a restatement of the circular argument fallacy?
In response to
A survey of anti-cryonics writing
Interestingly (and somewhat to the author's surprise) there are no published technical articles on cryonics that claim it won't work.
Also interestingly, there appear to be no published technical articles that claim that it will.
Last week, I searched for articles on how mammalian cryopreservation is done. I found nothing. Not a single journal article on any of the techniques Alcor uses. There are many articles on cryopreserving sperm, and embryos; there are studies on attempting to preserve other types of tissue samples. But I could not find a single article on methods to attempt to cryopreserve adult mammals. Not even in the journal Cryobiology, which is entirely about cryopreservation.
Go to the current issue of Cryobiology and look at the article titles to see what actually is being done in the field. Also notice that the author names are almost all Asian and (non-English/French/German) European. Cryonics for humans is most popular in nations that don't publish on cryonics. (Don't know if it's popular in the Nordic countries.)
I'm having the same problem. All the studies I've looked at have only studied the plausibility of cryonics. None have actually attempted to freeze and thaw a mammal (or any other warm blooded animal). All the examples of "natural" cryonic preservation deal with cold blooded animals (usually frogs or fish).
Can anyone point me to studies showing that cryogenic freezing and thawing in warm blooded creatures is possible? I'd hate to throw down a bunch of money on a cryonics policy, only to end up dead anyway, because the freezing process permanently damaged my tissues.
Um... if a rock was capable of fulfilling my every need, including a need for interaction with real people, I'd probably spend a lot of time around that rock.
Well, if the simulation is that accurate (e.g. its AI passes the Turing Test, so you do think you're interacting with real people), then wouldn't it fulfill your every need?
It's true, but it's a very small portion of the population that lives life for the sole purpose of supporting their television-watching (or World-of-Warcraft-playing) behaviour. Yes, people come home after work and watch television, but if they didn't have to work, the vast majority of them would not spend 14 hours a day in front of the TV.
Yes, people come home after work and watch television, but if they didn't have to work, the vast majority of them would not spend 14 hours a day in front of the TV.
Well, that may be the case, but that only highlights the limitations of TV. If the TV was capable of fulfilling their every need - from food and shelter to self actualization, I think you'd have quite a few people who'd do nothing but sit in front of the TV.
In response to
A Much Better Life?
What people say and what they do are two completely different things. In my view, a significant number of people will accept and use such a device, even if there is significant social pressure against it.
As a precedent, I look at video games. Initially there was very significant social pressure against video games. Indeed, social pressures in the US are still quite anti-video game. Yet, today video games are a larger industry than movies. Who is to say that this hypothetical virtual reality machine won't turn out the same way?
Most people prefer milder drugs over harder ones, even though harder drugs provide more pleasure.
Most people prefer milder drugs over harder ones, even though harder drugs provide more pleasure.
I think that oversimplifies the situation. Drugs have a wide range of effects, some of which are pleasurable, others which are not. While "harder" drugs appear to give more pleasure while their effects are in place, their withdrawal symptoms are also that much more painful (e.g. compare withdrawal symptoms from cocaine with withdrawal symptoms from caffeine).
I mean, I look at Eliezer's argument above, and the unstated assumption is, "Cryonics works and has no ill side effects."
That's not his assumption. The assumption is that there is a non-negligible chance that cryonics will work -- one chance in ten would be more than sufficient. Another assumption is that the opportunity to spend more time alive is far more desirable than death. It then follows that it's nuts not to sign up.
Yeah, as wedrifid pointed out in a sibling post, I think Eliezer and I have different conceptions of what it means for cryonics to "work". I was defining "works" as a having a thawing process that doesn't kill you, but has the risk of disability. Eliezer, I now realize, has a much more stringent definition of the term.
Now, one more question, if you will humor me. What sort of incentives can we use to ensure that we are not used as guinea pigs for an experimental thawing process? For example, our descendants may want us thawed as soon as possible, even when the thawing process may not have been made sufficiently safe by our own criteria. How can we set up the incentives so that our descendants don't thaw us using a procedure that we consider unnecessarily risky?
Well, aren't you privileging the hypothesis that cryonics works? I mean, I look at Eliezer's argument above, and the unstated assumption is, "Cryonics works and has no ill side effects." Well, lets question that assumption. What if cryonics doesn't work? What if it works, but leaves you disabled? I know several people who have "living wills" - they'd rather be dead than disabled. Unless you're saying that your hypothetical thawing process will be nearly perfectly safe, I'd argue that there is a risk of disability, an outcome which may rank below death (depending on your individual value function, of course).
Given the above, would you say, "Anyone who doesn't buy cryonics for their children is a bad parent?" After all, aren't you imposing your value function vis a vis potential disability onto your children? Shouldn't we let them decide their own values regarding such a significant issue?
In response to
Normal Cryonics
I'm seeing a disturbing amount of groupthink here. We're all assuming that cryonics is a good thing, and that the only thing in dispute is whether the amount of good that cryonics generates is worth the cost. However, given that no one who has been cryogenically frozen has yet been revived, how do we know that cryonics is a good thing at all? I mean, what if the freezing process somehow changed neurochemistry so that everyone who came back was a psychopath? Given that we don't have any evidence either way, why are we all jumping to the conclusion that cryonics is something that we'd all sign up for if only we had the means?
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I actually like the next statement more:
At least Homer Simpson accepts that the pig is gone.