Hal Finney being cryopreserved now • Hacker News Board

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#181

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:33 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #173

TeMPOraL wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between a "belief in an unknowable deity" and extrapolating current scientifical problems and believing in technologies that are known to work. Molecular nanotech, which seems to be the holy grail for restoring cryopreserved patients, is something that is known to work (it's called "life"), and the only missing link is that we don't have much control over it yet. Unless you assume life is magic a…

Your logic is unsound. There is a huge difference between seeing that something is possible in principle and "a solid case", one that merits spending vast sums of money on. That difference is known in religious studies as "a leap of faith". If you need that leap of faith spelled out, then these are the steps that must be true in order for cryonic preservation to be real and desirable (i.e. "worth it"): the scientific…

Sure, those are all valid concerns, but all of them are within the realm of possibility. We don't know if we'll achieve the technology, but we know we can in principle. We don't know if future people will care about reviving us, or that we'd even want to live in that future, but it is possible.

Note that there's no religion here anywhere, everything is casual and derived through logic from the current state of reality.

Cryopreservation is taking a fully scientificmaterialistic, supernatural-free bet that gives you 0.1% (or 0.01%, or whatever) chance of not dying, when your only other choice is to die with 100% certainity. So unless you believe that you'll piss off God if you dump his promise and freeze yourself, you're better off cryopreserving than not. There is no leap of faith here, it's a result of plain utility calculations, if you agree that being being alive has nonzero utility while being dead has zero.

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#182

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:38 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #165

TeMPOraL wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's exactly the other way around. Cryonics/singularity is only similar to religion on the surface, but if you dig down into the details, you realize that there's no element of faith, only reasonable extrapolation of technological trends and a hedge against progress. I'd say that quite a lot of opposition to those ideas is religion-based. I.e. if you can't believe that a cryopreserved person can be revived in…

> you realize that there's no element of faith, only reasonable extrapolation of technological trends and a hedge against progress. Religions are based on similar premises (given what humans knew about life at the time of their founding), and your argument is, in fact, known as Pascal's Wager[1]. Those arguing against faith will claim that the money spent is very certain and a very unreasonable bet. Others, like me,…

> BTW, are cryonics and singularity part of the same mythology?

As far as I can tell, those are two completely separated, though not unrelated concepts. Cryopreservation is about a hope that we'll get advanced enough technology, whether or not singularity occurs before or after. Singularity is about progress of technology accelerating to the point we absolutely, positively can't keep up with it, so we can't predict how anything will look after singularity.

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#183

Post by pron » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:39 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #176

ewoodrich wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I accept that there is evidence that cryonics may become viable for human subjects in the future. My point is merely that freezing one's own body despite a lack of any evidence that present methods would allow revival of a human in the future requires optimism that is not incomparable with religion.

It's a bet against future technology. How it differs from religion is that a/ we know that required technology is possible, b/ we are pretty confident that current cryopreservation methods are good enough for the required technology to be able to reverse the process, and c/ we make a bet that humanity will reach the point a/. Note that we are sure it can be done, we only don't know if it will be .

> Note that we are sure it can be done

Although this is not part of the interesting religio-philosophical discussion we're all having here (which, BTW, finally fulfills my own dream of visiting 17th century Europe), that is simply not true. We are not sure it can be done, and we are even less sure it can be done with current preservation technology. There are few things in biology we are sure of, so many things that we only partly understand, and human neurobiology is very high on the list of things we understand least of. Also, your usage of the word "sure" sounds to me like saying, "well, we're sure God exists, we just don't know if He's Christian, Muslim or Jewish". After all, even if that were true, our actions must depend heavily on that second part of the sentence.

Finally, even if the god of cryonics is real, and even if he's Alcory, the preserved don't know if they're buying a ticket to heaven or to hell (see Cold Lazarus[1]).

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Lazarus

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#184

Post by Widdershin » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:40 PM UTC

ewoodrich wrote: post #143

brey wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds from the language used ("he did not want his vital functions supported any further but should be allowed to cease functioning and promptly be cryopreserved") that he didn't regard this moment as death at all - merely pausing his life until a) ALS is curable and b) we have the technology to reawaken cryopreserved people. To him, all that was worth announcing here is the cryopreservation. Who's to say he's wr…

Personally, I think cryonics is a pipe dream right now. But I completely respect and empathize with the wishes of Hal Finney to put hope into a future life, possibly without the burden of ALS that he was forced to deal with for a significant portion of his life. If he had the means to do it, and it gave him something while he was still alive, than I would say it was worth it to him.

You're probably right, but I just thought about it from the point of view of someone dying from a (currently) incurable illness.

On one hand, you can die, and that will probably be it for you.

On the other hand, you can become cryogenically preserved. In that case, there are two outcomes I can see. One, you're never revived (which is functionally equivalent to death). The other, you awake (in what feels like an instant) in a world where you can continue living. That certainly makes it seem tempting for me.

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#185

Post by pron » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:44 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #181

pron wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your logic is unsound. There is a huge difference between seeing that something is possible in principle and "a solid case", one that merits spending vast sums of money on. That difference is known in religious studies as "a leap of faith". If you need that leap of faith spelled out, then these are the steps that must be true in order for cryonic preservation to be real and desirable (i.e. "worth it"): the scientific…

Sure, those are all valid concerns, but all of them are within the realm of possibility. We don't know if we'll achieve the technology, but we know we can in principle . We don't know if future people will care about reviving us, or that we'd even want to live in that future, but it is possible. Note that there's no religion here anywhere, everything is casual and derived through logic from the current state of reali…

I completely reject your premise of certainty, but won't repeat what I've said here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8240354) except to reiterate the following:

> ... chance of not dying, when your only other choice is to die with 100% certainty

You see, those aren't the only choices. I won't debate the chances of success, but assuming they are as high as you believe, there's a chance you're trading your certain death for an eternal life in a jar in some future hellish lab.

> Note that there's no religion here anywhere

There's religion here everywhere. I see people spending money for a chance at an afterlife they have absolutely no proof of. I see vast exaggeration of some anecdotal observations (miracles?) as "knowledge" of life. I see people finding comfort in an unknown future predicated on the powers of some super-human entity (at least super-human compared to the present) and on the optimistic belief in the benevolence of that entity. In short I see religious texts and religious arguments, hence: religion.

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#186

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:45 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #174

jacquesm wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electron microscopy of a ram chip shows no difference at all between one that contains a bunch of data and one that is empty.

Fortunately, brains don't work like RAM chips and there is apparently evidence that important data is saved in molecular structure, not in electric charges. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics#Neuropreservation

Unfortunately though, data is not all there is, and a good part of what our brains do is electrical in nature.

In other words, you could save all the data in the brain but without knowing what the CPU was doing when it shut down (which is electrical state) that may not do you any good.

http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2013/07/16/i...

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#187

Post by im3w1l » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:45 PM UTC

dtech wrote: post #93

sliverstorm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe reviving will be easy, but IMO the real hangup is power costs. Keeping someone in cryo has regular upkeep costs. That complicates matters a lot.

I think you pay for those upfront. Similar to how todays Nobel prize money is still payed from money grown from Nobel's assets at the time of his death.

This requires a growing economy.

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#188

Post by pron » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:47 PM UTC

bellerocky wrote: post #178

pron wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your logic is unsound. There is a huge difference between seeing that something is possible in principle and "a solid case", one that merits spending vast sums of money on. That difference is known in religious studies as "a leap of faith". If you need that leap of faith spelled out, then these are the steps that must be true in order for cryonic preservation to be real and desirable (i.e. "worth it"): the scientific…

> one that merits spending vast sums of money on. It's not a lot of money actually, it's just life insurance, a portion of which is allocated to Alcor in case cyropreservation is possible after death. Maybe $20 a month or something depending on your age when you got the policy, plus an annual fee that is mostly deductible as a charitable donation. I consider this fee donating to science, since Alcor actually does goo…

I don't think cryopreservation is like a religion; I've proven that's the case (albeit a religion without a personal deity, but there are others like that, I think). You're simply claiming that cryonics is a true religion, which might well be the case. In any event, I don't see spending money on alleviating the fear of death as wasteful by any means. That's how we spend most of our money anyway.

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#189

Post by nikcub » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:48 PM UTC

apsec112 wrote: post #163

jacquesm wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a commoditization. Religion will charge what they think they buyer will be able to afford, cryopreservation companies charge what they think it should cost to get the problem pushed beyond their own lifetimes. It's a scam, but a very clever one, just like religion. The only mitigating factor to me is that the participants here go in eyes wide open rather than that they are sucked in as defenceless children.

Calling it a "scam" implies that, not only is cryonics hopeless, but that the cryonicists agree it is hopeless and are just lying to people for money. Do you have any evidence of that at all?

Cult leader, ponzi schemer or other conman believing his or her own bullshit does't make a difference. Victims are lead to believe something with no basis in science, reason, logic or reality for the purpose of personal or financial gain.

Being a scam doesn't require the buy in or belief of the scammer.

Plenty has been written on Alcor[0] in particular[1], there is an entire book[2] written by a former employee. The entire industry is dangerous, weird[3], and preys on the vulnerable.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcor_Life_Extension_Foundatio...

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/alcor-employee-makes-harsh-a...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Journey-World-Cryonics-Deceptio...

[3] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/354/m...

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#190

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 11:49 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #171

TeMPOraL wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote from Wikipedia, "A central premise of cryonics is that long-term memory, personality, and identity are stored in durable cell structures and patterns within the brain that do not require continuous brain activity to survive.[13] This premise is generally accepted in medicine; it is known that under certain conditions the brain can stop functioning and still later recover with retention of long-term memory."…

There are so many assumptions here it might as well be religion: - that death does not alter the structure irrepairably - that the structure and information contained therein will not degrade over time - that the freezing process itself won't damage the information - that the information will be recoverable - that we will be able to make sense of such information - that the information after successful restoration ca…

Let's go line by line.

- that death does not alter the structure irrepairably

As far as we can tell, if we freeze it quick enough, it won't. No magic required. (death doesn't mean something magical is happening to matter, it only means molecular machines stop working the way they should)

- that the structure and information contained therein will not degrade over time

Possible. Manageable with technology. Testable. No magic required.

- that the freezing process itself won't damage the information

Possible. Subject to fixing by improved technology. Testable. No magic required.

- that the information will be recoverable

Possible by definition of solving previous two points. Subject to advanced enough technology, which cryopreserved people are hedging against. No magic required.

- that we will be able to make sense of such information

See above.

- that the information after successful restoration can be transplanted into some other medium

Not required. Technology advanced enough to revive a cryopreserved patient will likely be able to fix the original medium. Technology already exists (in form of nanotechnology - viruses, bacteria, proteins, enzymes), but we don't know how to use it yet, as we didn't build it. No magic required.

- that this other medium will be able to 'execute' using that information

See above. Also, if you really insist on another medium, then it depends on whether or not brains run on magic. If they are not, then the problem is addressable with technology (develop a good enough medium).

- that the electrical component of brain activity once lost can be restored

Evidence suggests that this component is mostly irrelevant. Even if, it's solvable with technology (tough luck to those already preserved though). No magic required.

- and that all of the above will result in a restoration of consciousness

Unless you believe consciousness is magic, it's possible by definition of solving #2/#3.

- and that this consciousness will somehow be given the status of person (that's more of a social issue)

That's a social issue, but again, if consciousness is not a magical process, we can hope the society will mature enough to be able to accept revived people as persons.

> All of these together to me are equivalent to or maybe even greater than believing in God.

Now this IMO does not follow. There're no supernatural phenomena required to address any assumptions you stated, so isn't this by definition requiring qualitatively less faith than religion?