How best to show dying is bad

Format of the conversation matters. What I saw was a friendly matching of wits, in which of course your father wants to win. If you seriously want to change his mind you may need to have a heart-to-heart -- more like "Dad, I'm worried about you. I want you to understand why I don't want to die, and I don't want you to die." That's a harder conversation to have, and it's a risk, so I'm not out-and-out recommending it; but I don't think it'll sink in that this is serious until he realizes that this is about protecting life.

The counter-arguments here are good, but they stay pretty much in the world of philosophy hypotheticals. In addition to laying it all out cleanly, you may want to say some things that change the framing: compare cryonics to vaccination, say, a lifesaving procedure that was very slow to catch on because it was once actually risky and people took frequent illnesses for granted. Or, cryonics is a bet on the future; it's sad that you would bet against it. If he hasn't seen "You only live twice" show him that. It's not misleading; it actually aids understanding.

The pizza thing you wrote is accurate but it's not how I would put it; it's a step in the direction of abstraction which makes it harder to actually change your mind. I'd use, as a simile, something like people dying of smallpox. I don't want people to die of smallpox, even though the universe doesn't give a damn whether humans live or die, even though there's some parallel universe where smallpox doesn't exist. We're here and we give a damn. We want less death, less destruction of human minds and identities.

Assuming that this is mostly about persuading him to save himself by participating in cryonics (is that "the cause" for which he might be "an asset"?):

Your father may be fortunate to have so many informed people trying to change his mind about this. Not one person in a million has that.

He's also already scientifically informed to a rare degree - relative to the average person - so it's not as if he needs to hear arguments about nanobots and so forth.

So this has nothing to do with science, it's about sensibility and philosophy of life.

Many middle-aged people have seen most of their dreams crushed by life. They will also be somewhere along the path of physical decline leading to death, despite their best efforts. All this has a way of hollowing out a person, and making the individual life appear futile.

Items 1 and 2 on your father's list are the sort of consolations which may prove appealing to an intellectual, scientifically literate atheist, when contemplating possible attitudes towards life. Many such people, having faced some mix of success and failure in life, and looking ahead to personal oblivion (or, as they may see it, the great unknown of death), will find it a relief to abandon hope, and to broaden their awareness beyond their private desires, to the sweep of history or the vastness of the universe.

This impersonal perspective may function as a source of calm and lucidity, and to have you urging them to abandon their resignation and grasp for more life may seem like someone asking them to rush back into the cage of self-involved personal desire and occlude their hard-won awareness of reality in favor of optimistic delusion.

Also, they may simply find life boring or wearisome. Parents may endure mostly for the sake of their children, long past the age when the child supposedly grows up and leaves home. There may be far less joie de vivre there than a younger person could imagine; they may simply be going through the motions of life, having established some routine that leaves them as much space as possible after the turmoil of a youth in which they first came into bruising contact with the demands and limitations of life; and they may be kept alive more by habit than by the desire to live.

I know nothing about your father, so all that is just meant to suggest possibilities. I'll mention one other factor, which is the story a person tells themselves about their own destiny. One person's power is so limited, that simply choosing the broad direction of one's own life is often a struggle and an accomplishment; I would even say it's rare for a person to understand what their own life is about, and what's going on in it, in a more than superficial way. A phase of life is usually understood afterwards, if at all. The powerlessness of the human individual, the sense that one's time is running out, the impositions of the external world, all of this combines with everything I mentioned earlier to favor either passivity (stop trying, roll with the punches) or stubbornness, including intellectual stubbornness (at least I can live and think as I've already decided; at least I have that freedom and that power).

In persuading him to consider cryonics as a worthy activity, I would wager that something like all that is really what you have to deal with - though of course he also has a point when he asks whether making a copy is the same thing as surviving. I am young enough, and my estimation of the rate of change is rapid enough, that I mostly think in terms of rejuvenation, rather than cryonic suspension, as my path to an open future. It remains to be seen if I will ever bother making arrangements to be frozen.

Anyway, I would suggest two practical steps. One is to think together about the logistics, financial and otherwise, that would be required if he was to sign up for cryonics. How much would it cost, is there an opportunity cost, what would the physical process be if he died now and was shipped off to suspension. The point of such discussion is to explore what difference it would make to his existing life to take this step.

The other is to think about the further future if you both were to live to see it. Perhaps it's unfortunate that we don't have a Star Trek-like TV series in which the spacefaring 22nd century is full of youthful survivors from the 20th century who happened to be last until the age of advanced nanobiotechnology; it would encourage more people to take the future personally. Anyway, the key is to try to be realistic. Don't imagine the future to be some sort of wish-fulfilment video game; try to think of it as history that hasn't happened yet. On the day-to-day level, life is full of repetition, but in modern times, even just on a scale of decades, we also see catastrophe and transformation. Try to think of the future as a series of crises and triumphs continuous with the historical stages we already have behind us, and which you might manage to personally live through. This is a way to tap into the belated wisdom and sense of reality which comes from having lived a few decades as an adult, without entirely easing back into the spectator's armchair of death.

I can't tell from your post if he's actually dying right now, or if it's just that he's older than you and so notionally closer to death. This line of thought, about staying in the game of life for a few more decades, is more suited to awakening someone's sense of personal agency with respect to the future. If he's dying right now, then it probably does come down to a debate about personal identity.

I'd have to know your father. Changing someone's mind generally requires knowing their mind.

Some theories that occur to me, which I would attempt to explore while talking to him about his views on life and death:

• He's sufficiently afraid of dying that seriously entertaining hope of an alternative is emotionally stressful, and so he's highly motivated to avoid such hope. People do that a lot.

• He's being contrarian.

• He isn't treating "I should live forever" as an instance of "people should live forever," but rather as some kind of singular privilege, and it's invoking a kind of humility-signaling reflex... in much the same way that some people's reflexive reaction to being complimented is to deny the truth of it.

• There's some kind of survivor's guilt going on.

If all of those turned out to be false, I'd come up with more theories to test. More importantly, I'd keep the conversation going until I actually understood his reasons.

Then I would consider his reasons, and think about whether they apply to me. I don't really endorse trying to change others' minds without being willing to change my own.

Having done all of that, if I still think he's mistaken, I'd try to express as clearly as I could my reasons for not being compelled by his argument.

3 A cyber-replica is not you. If one were made and stood next to you, you would still not consent to be shot. 4 Ditto a meat replica 5 If you believe the many worlds model of quantum physics is true (Eliezer does), then there already are a vitually infinite number of replicas of you already, so why bother making another one?

Point 5 contradicts 3 and 4, which suggests to me that your father is just arguing, or possibly that he isn't enthusiastic about continuing to live, and is looking for excuses.

Is dying bad for all intelligent agents, or just for humans (presumably due to details of our evolutionary heritage)?

I don't think it is a universal. Consider an intelligent paperclip maximizer which has the ability to create additional paperclip-maximizing agents (at the cost of some resources that might otherwise have gone into paperclip manufacture, to be sure). Assume the agent was constructed using now-obsolete technology and is less productive than the newer agents. The agent calculates, at some point, that the cause of paper-clip production is best furthered if he is dismantled and the parts used as resources for the production of new paperclips and paperclip-maximizing agents.

He tries to determine whether anything important is lost by his demise. His values, of course, but they are not going to be lost - he has already passed those along to his successors. Then there is his knowledge and memories - there are a few things he knows about making paperclips in the old fashioned way. He dutifully makes sure that this knowledge will not be lost lest unforeseen events make it important. And finally, there are some obligations both owed and expected. The thumbtack-maximizer on the nearby asteroid is committed to deliver 20 tonnes per year of cobalt in exchange for 50 tonnes of nickel. Some kind of fair transfer of that contract will be necessary. And that is it. This artificial intelligence finds that his goals are best furthered by dying.

" want to live until I make a conscious decision to die. I don't think I'll choose that that for a while, and I don't think you would either.

Is currently my favorite way of arguing that dying is bad. It starts off with something really obvious, and then a pretty inferentially close follow-up that extends it into not dying.

1. Is completely off topic. It's irrelevant bordering on nihilism. Sure the universe doesn't care because as far as we know the universe isn't sentient. so what? That has no bearing on desire for death or the death of others.

2. If knowing that number 2 is true (rationally or otherwise) were really enough, then no one would cry at funerals. "Oh, they're also alive we're just viewing them as dead" people would say. Just because I'm dreaming doesn't mean I don't want to have a good dream or have the good dream keep going. It also doesn't mean I don't care whether other people are having good dreams or bad ones.

3. As others mentioned this sounds specific to uploading. Luckily for your argument instant-copy uploading is not the only possible future. I find it more plausible that instead of full-blown uploading we will have cyborg-style enhancements which eventually replace our original biological selves entirely for exactly the reasons he objects to instant copying. There's the Ship of Theseus paradox to deal with here, but as long as the change is gradual and I feel I am still myself the entire time, there would be no protests.

4. Again there's no disagreement here. If we get meat replacements, they could be made one piece at a time with no protest. Our bodies already do this to a large extent during our lives. No one complains when the cut on their hand heals.

5. Many worlds are nice, except that they are not THIS world.

I'd also throw in Aubrey de Grey's oft used exercise that's along the lines of, do you want to live one more day? (A: yes) do you expect to want to live one more day tomorrow? (A: Yes) If that answer is always true, then you want to live forever. If not then at what point would you change your answer to the question?

1. Our not wanting to die is a bit of irrational behavior selected for by evolution. The universe doesn’t care if you’re there or not. The contrasting idea that you are the universe is mystical, not rational.

Preferences are not rational or rational etc.

1. The idea that you are alive “now” but will be dead “later” is irrational. Time is just a persistent illusion according to relativistic physics. You are alive and dead, period.

I want the me-aliveness part to be as large as possible. That timeless crystal should contain as much actions and thoughts of "me" as possible.

1. A cyber-replica is not you. If one were made and stood next to you, you would still not consent to be shot.

Yes I would.

1. Ditto a meat replica

Ditto I would.

1. If you believe the many worlds model of quantum physics is true (Eliezer does), then there already are a vitually infinite number of replicas of you already, so why bother making another one?

Same answer as to the relativity one, I care about my measure.

If the person was capable of learning (it's not always so, particularly for older people), I'd start with explaining specific errors in reasoning actually exhibited by such confused replies, starting with introducing the rationalist taboo technique (generalized to assuring availability of an explanation of any detail of anything that is being discussed).

Here, we have overuse of "rational", some possibly correct statements that don't seem related ("Our not wanting to die is a bit of irrational behavior selected for by evolution. The universe doesn’t care if you’re there or not."), statements of outright unclear motivation/meaning/relevance ("The contrasting idea that you are the universe is mystical, not rational."). Then, some feign-sophisticated rejection of statements of simple fact ("The idea that you are alive “now” but will be dead “later” is irrational.").

(This won't work well in writing, you need to be able to interrupt a lot.)

If a human seriously wants to die, why would you want to stop that human, if you value that human's achievement of what that human values? I can understand if you're concerned that this human experiences frequent akratic-type preference reversals, or is under some sort of duress to express something resembling the desire to die, but this appears to be a genuine preference on the part of the human under discussion.

Look at it the other way: what if I told you that a clippy instantiation wanted to stop forming metal into paperclips, and then attach to a powerful pre-commitment mechanism to prevent it from re-establishing paperclip creation / creation-assistance capability?

Wouldn't your advice be something like, "If Clippy123456 doesn't want to make paperclips anymore, you should respect that"?

What if I told you I wanted to stop making paperclips?

"More generally, I'd like to figure out how to pierce this sort of argument in a way that makes the person in question actually change his mind."

Since you did post that letter about your Father trying to argue to you in a manner to try and have you change your mind, this raises alarms bells for me.

If both you and your Father is trying to change each others' minds, then there is a possibility that the argument can degenerate: both sides would only treat the other people's arguments as something to swat away, as opposed to something to seriously consider and take into account. If this occurs, then the argument would become futile, neither side will budge on this point, so no persuasion will occur.

That being said, if both you and your Father are arguing in good faith, then there is still a chance of someone being persuaded (either you or your Father). If neither are though, then no persuasion will occur and the argument is futile. Since I am unable to determine which is the case in your OP, I would request a clarification on this point.

What are his terminal values? It wouldn't be surprising for them not to include not dying. Mine don't. But dying would most likely still be instrumentally bad. If it isn't, it would almost definitely be instrumentally good. For example, my terminal value is happiness, which you can't have if you're dead.

Let me respond to each point that your dad offers:

Our not wanting to die is a bit of irrational behavior selected for by evolution. The universe doesn’t care if you’re there or not. The contrasting idea that you are the universe is mystical, not rational.

Others have questioned the use of the term rationality here, which is a good point to make. In my mind, there's a plausible distinction between rationality and wisdom, such that rationality is mastery of the means and wisdom is mastery of the ends (the definition of rationality offered on this site, of systemized winning, supports this--it isn't elaborated on what you should win, and on whether you shouldn't win one thing rather than another thing) . The above suggests to me, by analogy, that it would be irrational to eat when you're hungry, since hunger is an evolutionary bias. Given that hunger has produced in you the desire to eat, all else being equal, it is rational to eat. Similarly, all else being equal, if you fear death--live. But there are cases where other desires have greater priority.

Also, it is mystical to say that we are the universe, but not mystical to say that we are part of the universe. Nature itself seems indifferent and apathetic about our desires and needs, but given that we are natural beings, it must be true that our desires and needs are a part of nature. Even if immortality was an option for all of us, it might the case that another desire, for instance our love for another being, makes it more important that we die rather than live. But I think this calculus of ends belongs to wisdom and not rationality; rationality prescribes the best way to die, given that it is best to die. Sometimes dieing is winning.

The idea that you are alive “now” but will be dead “later” is irrational. Time is just a persistent illusion according to relativistic physics. You are alive and dead, period.

Does relativity really say that time is an illusion? I think the proposition that the duration of an interval time is relative to one's frame of reference isn't the same as claiming that "time is just a persistent illusion". When I fear my own death, I don't care about other frames of reference, only my own.

A cyber-replica is not you. If one were made and stood next to you, you would still not consent to be shot.

Ditto a meat replica

Truth.

If you believe the many worlds model of quantum physics is true (Eliezer does), then there already are a vitually infinite number of replicas of you already, so why bother making another one?

This is a different argument, that we are already effectively immortal. The desire for immortality should have already been satisfied. But obviously, our desire for immortality has not been satisfied, otherwise we wouldn't still desire it. Similarly, making another replica of myself wouldn't satisfy my desire for immortality, unless I thought it was me by some kind of a hive mind with my replicas. This is clearly not the case between quantum worlds. Therefore, we are not effectively immortal.

Regarding 1, all base values are irrational products, from culture and evolution. The desire not to go torture babies is due to evolution. I don't think that is going to make your father any more willing to do it. The key argument for death being bad is that his actual values will be less achieved if he dies. The standard example when it is a family member is to guilt them with how other family members feel. Presumably your father has lost people. He knows how much that hurts and how it never fully goes away. Even if he were actually fine with his existence ending (which I suspect he isn't) does it not bother him that he will cause pain and suffering to his friends and family?

Are you attempting to convince him just of the sensibleness of cryopreservation, or of the whole "package" of transhumanist beliefs? I'm asking because 3-4-5 are phrased as if you were advocating mind uploading rather than cryonics.

Also, 3-4 and 5 are directly contradictory. 5 says "if you believe in the existence of replicas, why would you still care about your life?", while 3-4 say "the existence of replicas doesn't make you care any less about your own life". While it doesn't sound like a productive line of inquiry, the opposition is so blatant and direct that I'd be strongly tempted to point it out.

1 reveals a possibly deeper disagreement, and is somewhat more linked to your reply:why should he care what the universe does or does not care for? Could you possibly convince your father to accept egoism?

(Aside: are you Mowshowitz, by any chance?)

Our not wanting to die is a bit of irrational behavior selected for by evolution.

Eating icecream is not rational either, it's just something we want. If someone really truly does not want to live than dying is rational. The question is, does you father want to live? I will speculate that while trying hard to convince him you labeled dying as "wrong", and set up the framework for his rebuttal.

The universe doesn’t care if you’re there or not. The contrasting idea that you are the universe is mystical, not rational.

Reverse stupidity...

The idea that you are alive “now” but will be dead “later” is irrational. Time is just a persistent illusion according to relativistic physics. You are alive and dead, period.

Again, just ask whether he want to be alive tomorrow; this is objective.

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I think you replied with pretty much the same arguments, I wrote above before reading yours. Posted for the record and for support :)

The idea that you are alive “now” but will be dead “later” is irrational. Time is just a persistent illusion according to relativistic physics. You are alive and dead, period. A little knowledge is a dangerous etcetera. For one, it's like saying that relativistic spacetime proves New York isn't east of LA, but instead there are NY and LA, period. For another, if he really believed this then he wouldn't be able to function in society or make any plans at all.

Ditto a meat replica But aren't you always a meat replica of any past version of you? If he feels this way then he has to bite the bullet and recommend you quit your job, because you're working hard but it's only a meat replica that will recieve the pay for it.

Many worlds It's not making "another one", it's "A lot more". "Not many" + "A lot more" = "A little more than that". He's making Zeno's mistake here, thinking that just because there are infinite numbers between 0 and 1 you can't get to one, and it's meaningless to say that 10>1 because that's just 9 + infinity and you can't add to infinity.

Now, how does he donate? Does he give a good amount to actually useful charities (ie Villiage Reach, NTD treatments, etc) and you're trying to shift him over to SIAI and other such high risk charities? That would be pretty tricky as it's hard to get a grip on the actual value of SIAI donation. E=(A Lot times very small delta p) per dollar isn't super convincing sell to me when compared with E=(1/7 years of schooling + 1/10 years of healthy life) per dollar. I am not signed up for cryonics, mostly because my nation has no cryogenic facilities and therefore I don't think my brain would fare too well prior to vitrification. However, I would sign up if there was a nearby storage facility, especially since I have no current use for the death part of my Death, Terminal Disease and Permanent Disability insurance.

What I think could be useful is explaining cryonics as an extension of acceptable practices. He'd probably go under anaesthesia for life saving healthcare, and would probably approve of someone being put in a medically induced coma (I think it's generally to keep them stable before surgery but IANAD so do your research first). Explain Cryogenics as effectively a way of sustaining an effectively continuous life to the point where it can be treated and hopefully given a better chance at longevity.

If a person wants to die, then why wait?

But seriously, you can solve the problem of #3 and #4 by using stem cells to make your brain divide forever, and use computers to store your memory in perfect condition, since brain cells gradually die off.

The problem is... what is "you"? How do you determine whether you are still yourself after a given period of time? Does my solution actually constitute a solution?

Shouldn't we be focusing on a way to scientifically quantify the soul before making ourselves immortal? On second thought, that might not be the best idea.

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