At 01:50 PM 5/4/2001 -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
>In Pascal's Wager, you pay a significant price - altering your
>beliefs, style of living, morals, et cetera - which is a significant
>cost if the bet is wrong. With cryo, the low prices mean you *don't*
>pay a significant cost; the cost is also easily quantifiable in
>dollars, unlike what Pascal asked. Plus, the reward (if cryo pays off)
>is less than infinite (it being standard practice to quantify the value
>of a human life in these sorts of situations these days), as opposed to
>the supposedly infinite benefit of Heaven, so it is possible to
>rationally calculate the cost/benefit ratios (subject, of course, to
>how much value you place on your own life).
In a nutshell, Pascal's Wager suffers from having the potential for
infinite mutually-exclusive choices, only one of which is correct, at a
finite cost. Therefore, the expected benefit must approach zero when
applied to the entire space of possible religions. With cryonics, you have
a very finite number of choices for a finite price. While the potential
reward isn't infinite with cryonics, the cost/benefit ratio is much more
favorable.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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