LESSWRONG
LW

All of georgepennellmartin's Comments + Replies

Normal Cryonics
georgepennellmartin00

I would but I keep remembering Elidier Yudkowsky's anecdote about the professor who set his student the task of creating robotic vision, it seems to me that at every turn science has underestimated the challenge ahead. Ultimately I do believe the mind will be understood completely, just that it will be too late for us.

Reply
3JGWeissman
The whole point of cryonics is to push back when it will be too late, by preserving all the information about you that someone with a general understanding the human mind could use to reinstantiate your specific human mind. You don't need to understand the revival process at the time you are frozen.
Normal Cryonics
georgepennellmartin-10

Problem is that would also decrease the chances of you ultimately being revived, why would they bring you back to life if they have billions to choose from? Also the price of cryonics would probably skyrocket as fridge space ran out...etc through the law of diminishing returns meaning your corpse would be turfed out by new rich clients as soon as cryonics became popular. Think about it, what moral obligations would future generations have to revive you anyway? You'd be nothing but a resource sink with antiquated skills. No offence

Reply
1lsparrish
The source of plausible moral obligation becomes much more obvious when you stop referring to the patients as "corpses". Corpses are associated with irreversible death -- we don't traditionally have a duty to revive corpses, but that is only because doing so would be impossible by definition. If there are billions in need of revival, more resources will go towards finding a way to do it in the first place. Also, revival mechanisms that can only pay for themselves with greater economies of scale can also be employed. If I have to learn a new set of skills, language, customs, etc. to live again that is a sacrifice I'm more than willing to make. If the people of the future are non-sociopathic humans, they will be willing to revive and reeducate me. However, I see no harm in setting up a trust that creates financial incentives as well, and covers any expenses. A few hundred years of compound interest can add up to a lot. The more people are involved in this, the more economies of scale (i.e. group schooling, revivee communities, specialists trained to deal with us, etc.) are possible and profitable.
Normal Cryonics
georgepennellmartin10

Yes your right, however it could also be less 'manageable' that I thought, I don't believe science has reached the stage where we can know yet which it is. Perhaps I'm being a bit too pessimistic however. In the meantime I'll try and keep an open mind.

Reply
3JGWeissman
That is countering evidence with an appeal to ignorance. The point is that theories claiming the complexity and fragility are more manageable assign a higher prior probability to the event of human minds evolving, and thus, by Bayes' Theorem, observing that human minds have actually evolved, you should assign higher probability to the theories that claim more manageability.
Normal Cryonics
georgepennellmartin00

Thats very interesting, its obvious that cryonics isn't just a pseudoscience. But I can't see how a brain's electrical impulses and ongoing chemical reactions would be preserved and restarted, if they were ceased.

Reply
0Perplexed
I don't see why you think there would be a problem. Raising the temperature restarts chemical reactions. Shine a light in the eyes or tickle the feet - that is all it takes to start nerve pulses flowing if the metabolic support is working. Restarting the heart is going to be more difficult than restarting the brain. That is to say, not difficult at all.
Normal Cryonics
georgepennellmartin00

Probably, if only because it would make a great conversation starter

Reply
0lsparrish
Yeah... My thought is that since it becomes dramatically cheaper at larger scales (and more likely to work with more research and interest in it) my chances are helped most by promoting interest in the idea. Also I find the thought of saving billions of lives more intriguing than saving a few hundred nerds who happened to research it for themselves. Basically it seems like an under-appreciated topic given the possibility (even slight) of saving such huge numbers of lives.
Normal Cryonics
georgepennellmartin00

I wouldn't say surprising as much but amazing and awe-inspiring definetly. That the human mind could be created without intent but simple trial and error is (ironically) miraculous

Reply
1JGWeissman
Then, since your theory calls something that did in fact happen "miraculous" (you would not have expected it to happen), you should consider that the complexity and fragility of the human mind may be more manageable that you previously thought.
4ata
This is incorrect. Modern cryonics does not use "freezing", but rather vitrification at liquid nitrogen temperatures (below -124°C), such that chemical reactions almost completely stop. (See the table at the bottom of this page and the section about the claim that "cryonics freezes people" on the Cryonics myths page.)
Normal Cryonics
georgepennellmartin-10

Would make me a lot poorer while alive though, money I could have used to better enjoy what little time I have on earth or even spend it to make life better for others

Reply
0lsparrish
Would you do it then if someone else was paying for it? Or if it was too cheap to be worth worrying about?
2lsparrish
How much time did you spend researching the question prior to concluding that it was false hope?
0JGWeissman
How surprised are you, using your theory of the fragility and complexity of the human mind, that human minds exist at all?
2Furcas
By becoming a Christian, you'd be dooming yourself with a variety of other possible gods. Signing up for cryonics doesn't have a chance of making you deader than you'll be otherwise.