Re: Cryonics Thoughts

Keith M. Elis (hagbard@ix.netcom.com)
Wed, 02 Dec 1998 12:48:08 -0500

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:

> <OFFENSE="Objectivists">
> The Singularity requires your services. You can't freeze yourself and you
> can't commit suicide. You're just going to have to live through every minute
> of it, like it or not, because that is the logically correct thing to do.
> </OFFENSE>

Fortunately, I am not an objectivist. :)

I read /Staring.../ and I understand your reasoning, but there *may* be a difference between the logically correct answer, and the correct answer. What makes you think that this will no longer be true with superintelligence? You do think this, no? If not, then how can you possibly suggest that the Interim Meaning of Life is 'get to the singularity ASAP'? If you don't think that the uncertain gap between what is logically correct and what is correct can *ever* be closed, then what good is a singularity? If you do think it can be closed, then what makes you think this?

>
> If all the smart people have themselves frozen, who exactly is going to
> develop nanotechnology?

To be totally pedantic, not all the smart people will freeze themselves because smart people disagree on the prospects of cryonics. There's just enough uncertainty to keep everyone from taking the a priori 'life is good' to the a posteriori empirical 'cryonics is good.' I am suggesting that one who has already taken the first step of faith (making 'cryonics is good' an a priori 'logical truth') might see freezing oneself alive as a viable option. Then again, one might not.

Keith