He is legally dead, so good luck bringing him back to life.
Yes, because legal definitions impose their validity on the universe.
Universal laws impose their own validity. The legal system is our recognition of those universal laws.
Hal Finney being cryopreserved now
251–260 of 273 posts
Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now
#252I'm surprised nobody has made the point that "death" is not a binary thing - it is a progression. If we consider a scale where "1" is alive (breathing, heart beating, higher brain functions working, etc) and "0" is when your brain has been unambiguously destroyed, we have a probability distribution of whether a person can be returned to "1". At one time if someone left "1" (e.g. heart stopped), that was pretty much i…
It's good you're raising this point. There's the concept of information-theoretic death [0] that is the "0" extreme you mentioned. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information-theoretic_death
Wikipedia's article on clinical death[0] seems to go into a lot of the boundaries involved and is worth a read. I have read about information-theoretic death before but forgotten the term. I first heard about Alcor quite along time ago (10-15 years), and have considered signing up, but haven't so far.
As much as I'd love to cheat death I can't get over the feeling that having myself frozen would be a selfish and arrogant act. I worry that the world will continue to struggle with limited resources and wonder how people will feel if the technology to revive cryopreserved people becomes available but it's a struggle to provide the unambiguously living with food, water and shelter. That said, I find it difficult to fault those who choose to try to escape mortality. I would be interested to hear how people justify it from a resource allocation perspective.
Perhaps we'll figure out how to do mind uploading and solve the problem that way? That's a whole other rabbit hole though, and there's plenty of potential for that to suck[1].
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death 1. http://www.tomscott.com/life/
Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now
#253Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how long until a cryopreservation startup sets up an office on a cruise ship or some other place so they can offer active shutdown to their customers.
I wonder how long until a cryopreservation startup goes bankrupt and all its customers are 'killed'. Being famous provides some insurance against this I suppose.
There's been failed cryopreservation businesses before, I think, with exactly this problem.
I think anyone who spends 200K on this today should expect to pay 200K again in a decade or two (if they make it that far) since at that point the "state of the art" will almost certainly be with a different company, and I doubt the failed company will give refunds.
Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now
#255It's fascinating, and personally a bit disturbing, to read about his death as an announcement of cryopreservation ("being cryopreserved now") instead of the sad news it is anyway ("died today"). Also the discussion here revolves around he coming back, not he leaving. Maybe it impresses me because he seemed so hopeful to be able to choose life in his post back then when he was diagnosed: "I may even still be able to w…
> I guess one can argue it is a good thing about cryonics, less mourning, more hope. Not more so than in some other religions with their own versions of an afterlife. It all depends on your faith.
I find it really annoying when people compare cryopreservation to religious belief in an afterlife.
It's sort of like saying "Dieting is an eating disorder"- Yes, they share some superficial similarities (and some people may have both) but in any substantive way they are totally different things.
Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are you so adamant to dismiss cryogenics and call it a religion? Should we just throw in the towel and stop researching it? Do you claim that everyone betting on new technologies are religious?
> Why are you so adamant to dismiss cryogenics and call it a religion? Cryonics as practiced by people requesting to be frozen is a religion, but I'm not dismissing it, because I don't dismiss religion. Unlike Richard Dawkins, I don't see humanity thriving without religion, and I think the debate is theoretical, because I don't think humans can exist without creating religion. > Should we just throw in the towel and…
>No. I might buy stocks in a company making a more efficient microwave oven (shit, I'm betting on my own actual startup).
This is what people are doing by having their bodies frozen after death; they are buying stake in some technology in hopes they will receive a return someday.
Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It seems strange to me to place him into "cold storage" after he was completely ravaged by ALS and had died. Wouldn't there be more hope for a recovery if he had been placed into a frozen state before his physical form had died? No doubt a dicey area of law but surely a treatment for ALS will be reached for those still living before we discover a treatment of ALS for those who are already terminal.
The hardest part of that equation still remains revival from the cryo-preserved state, not treating the ALS.
Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 insta…
another possibility is you wake up, disembodied, in a jar and live an eternal life of torment.
I hope if civilisation has got to the point of reviving the long dead that they'd have better uses for the revived than tormenting them.
Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrafugia_Transition So people were off by a few decades on timescales and on social/political uptake. Big deal. Life exists, it's physical. Our control of physical processes has consistently improved. There isn't any issue in revival that has shown to be totally intractable, in a way that violates any key physical assumptions we have.
Let me make myself clear: I am not debating the possibility that revival could one day turn from the science-fiction it is now into a real technology. I am pointing out the leaps of faith people take to translate that reasonable scientific conjecture into actual life (or death) choices. Thinking about whether there is a god or isn't -- and trying to learn the truth -- makes you a philosopher; it is changing your beha…
I find your last sentence puzzling.
There are people STILL TODAY who make a decent living as Mark Twain impersonators - imagine how well the original one could do if he went BACK on the live public speaking circuit! Mark Twain would also do great on Twitter or as a comedy TV writer. I expect that either Hemingway or Twain would be astounded at modern conveniences (starting with dentistry and showers) and would find no trouble amusing themselves in the new world. And here's the secret thing about reality television: if it DOES make you miserable you don't have to watch it!
(though come to think of it, Hemingway would be an interesting pick as a writer or script consultant for a long-form episodic TV show set in a suitable historical period. The same era that brought us reality TV ALSO brought us stuff like Breaking Bad and Downton Abbey.)
Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Universal laws impose their own validity. The legal system is our recognition of those universal laws.
Then why do laws change?
Because peoples understanding changes, but you know that. What doesn't change are the laws of the material world. But one must understand the imperfections of inductive knowledge to understand that.