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Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

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Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#191

Post by jacquesm »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #190
jacquesm wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. N…

'manageable with technology we do not have' -> magic.

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#192

Post by eudox »

jacquesm wrote: post #186
TeMPOraL wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Thankfully the fact that people have come back just fine from minutes of total EEG silence (Often involving hypothermia) shows that the immediate state of the brain does not matter nearly as much as its structure.

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#194

Post by jacquesm »

eudox wrote: post #192
jacquesm wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Thankfully the fact that people have come back just fine from minutes of total EEG silence (Often involving hypothermia) shows that the immediate state of the brain does not matter nearly as much as its structure.

That's not quite the same as freezing your brain for an indeterminate amount of time (decades? centuries? millennia? forever?) and expecting a spontaneous reboot after transferring and read-out + a whole bunch of other unknowns.

That's a brain that was still almost the same brain as the one in which the electrical activity as we currently detect it was lost.

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#195

Post by Retric »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #157
Retric wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting that cryonics and the singularity are both 'modern' religions with that are vary similar in tone to many past religions. They both seems reasonable on the surface, but don't really work if you dig down into the details. Much like all that new age QM BS uses a few of the right words without much substance.

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…

We already use cryopreservation for sperm and revive them so on the surface it seems reasonable. The issue is it's not black magic we know freezing does not prevent decay it just greatly slows it down. Which presents a fundamental flaw as the dificulty in reviving someone keeps increasing over time.

So, if the goal was maximizing the chance of revival you would study decay rates do some cost benifit analysis and keep trying to improve your approach. But, that's not what's happening. It's preform ritual X and wait for magic to happen.

As to the singularity, the basic assumption is super intelegence allows for super technology. However, the basic laws of physics still apply. I don't care how smart your computer is it's not going to accuratly predict the weather 6 months from now. If the universe says no them traveling faster than light stays impossible etc.

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#196

Post by MichaelGG »

ewoodrich wrote: post #164
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…

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 not incomparable in a mathematical sense, but the probability of any known religion being correct is not remotely on the same scale of reviving a suspended human mind.

Along the lines: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ml/but_theres_still_a_chance_right/

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#198

Post by [deleted] »

tzs wrote: post #125
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once we've defeated death, reviving people who were preserved is the next logical step after saving everyone currently alive. Saving everyone who was not cryopreserved might not be possible, but will also be worth a shot.

> Once we've defeated death, reviving people who were preserved is the next logical step after saving everyone currently alive ...unless defeating death leads to a huge overpopulation problem and severe restrictions on producing new children. Then there will likely be a lot of popular opposition to reviving them. A revived frozen person first will need to have the condition that killed them dealt with. Then they will…

[deleted]

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#199

Post by eudox »

jacquesm wrote: post #194
eudox wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully the fact that people have come back just fine from minutes of total EEG silence (Often involving hypothermia) shows that the immediate state of the brain does not matter nearly as much as its structure.

That's not quite the same as freezing your brain for an indeterminate amount of time (decades? centuries? millennia? forever?) and expecting a spontaneous reboot after transferring and read-out + a whole bunch of other unknowns. That's a brain that was still almost the same brain as the one in which the electrical activity as we currently detect it was lost.

>(decades? centuries? millennia? forever?)

All equivalent.

>expecting a spontaneous reboot

Nobody actually expects this. You can't just thaw someone and reperfuse them. Extensive repair work has to be done at the nanoscale.

In any case, the evidence shows electrical activity doesn't really matter when you're only concerned about long-term identity. Electrochemical impulses don't encode memory or personality. If they did, it would be pretty clear in people who recover from extreme hypothermia, as they would have retrograde amnesia.

Re: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now

#200

Post by ewoodrich »

MichaelGG wrote: post #196
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 not incomparable in a mathematical sense, but the probability of any known religion being correct is not remotely on the same scale of reviving a suspended human mind. Along the lines: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ml/but_theres_still_a_chance_right/

I just want to clarify here, I'm not religious at all.

I'm just trying to say that the state of mind and emotional investment is similar. I'm a bit surprised by some of the response, to be honest.

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