(i no longer endorse this post) - cryonics is a pascal's mugging?
post by KvmanThinking (avery-liu) · 2024-10-25T23:24:08.330Z · LW · GW · No commentsThis is a question post.
Contents
Answers 9 Viliam 2 niplav None No comments
it feels like the chances of some glorious future existing where you can revive people stored in big ice tank thingies but not in regular graves is low. sure the payoff is big, but i consider cryonics to not really affect my potential revivability, so it's not worth the substantial negative utility of paying for it (not to mention the negative utility of being seen as weird)
so why do so many of you support it?
Answers
Words "Pascal's mugging" are used when the change of success is extremely, almost infinitely small (but the action is defended by a supposed practically infinite reward). Founding a startup is not Pascal's mugging, even if most startups fail. Buying a lottery ticket is not Pascal's mugging, even if only one ticket in a thousand or in a million wins.
So basically, calling cryonics a Pascal's mugging means that you believe that the changes are much smaller than one in a million. Why would you believe that?
I think we had a survey here a few years ago, and the people who believe in cryonics give it like 15% chance on average; they just think it's worth it. As an analogy, imagine dying from some incurable disease, and then someone offers you a pill that has a 15% chance to save you. You probably would want to spend a non-zero amount of money on such pill.
Yes, cryonics requires some sci-fi levels of technology. However, the world around us already is a sci-fi world from the perspective of someone who lived 100 years ago, and a completely fairy tale from the perspective of someone who lived 200 or 500 years ago. It doesn't seem implausible to assume the same about the future in 100 or more years.
Reviving frozen people does not seem to contradict the science as we know it. It seems mostly like a technological problem, and the future will probably contain better technology.
On the other hand, some things such as the speed of light or the second law of thermodynamics seem like hard limits that even the future people will not be able to overcome. Which suggests that the decomposed bodies in the graves will probably not be revived, even using a sci-fi technology. (Maybe there is a chance that something like time travel will be invented, but that chance seems much smaller that the chance of fixing some frozen cells.)
↑ comment by KvmanThinking (avery-liu) · 2024-10-26T22:33:36.397Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Ok, yeah, I don't think the chances are much smaller than one in a million. But I do think the chances are not increased much by cryonics. Here, let me explain my reasoning.
I assume that eventually, humanity will fall into a topia (Tammy's definition) or go extinct. Given that it does not go extinct, it will spend a very long amount of subjective time, possibly infinite, in said topia. In the event that this is some sort of brilliant paradise of maximum molecular fun where I can make stuff for eternity [LW · GW], we can probably reconstruct a person solely based on little bits of information left behind (like how we can reconstruct Proto-Indo-European from the bits and influences it leaves on our modern languages), so I consider the slightly improved chances of revival negligible even when compared to the massive length of time (possibly infinite, which is why this is a Pascal's mugging) I would be living in such a world.
(Besides, the infiniteness is balanced out by the slightly increased chances of experiencing maximally horrible agony [? · GW] like in WYS.)
There's also a chance that we figure out how to revive frozen people before reaching a topia, but that seems kind of low of a chance (and even then, completely nullified by the maybe-infinity we might spend our time in)
I could have completely flawed logic in my head. I'm sorta new to all this "thinking about the long term future" stuff you guys really like doing. Please correct me because I'm probably wrong.
Replies from: Viliam↑ comment by Viliam · 2024-10-27T22:05:00.226Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Well, there are different opinions on the possibility of reconstructing a person. Some people here would agree with you. I am afraid that there will not be enough evidence left to reconstruct the person, even if we had all their writings, and we usually don't have even that.
Not a Pascal's mugging to the best of my knowledge [LW · GW].
No comments
Comments sorted by top scores.