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Pascal's wager's application to real-world cost-benefit calculations is pretty much always a fallacy: http://lesswrong.com/lw/z0/the_pascals_wager_fallacy_fall

by Kutta 10y ago

Pascal's wager's application to real-world cost-benefit calculations is pretty much always a fallacy: http://lesswrong.com/lw/z0/the_pascals_wager_fallacy_fallacy/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/z0/the_pascals_wager_fallacy_fallacy... Large payoff and small chance (with a wide confidence interval) has nothing to do with "infinite" payoff and "infinitesimal" chance. There are valid and interesting decision theoretic problems and paradoxes that arise with unbounded payoffs, but those aren't real-world in the way that outlier risk scenarios are real-world in banking and investment. Cryonics is absolutely real-world in that sense, and we can and should hang some expected value tag there. I have a fairly low confidence that cryonics will in fact work, but I wholly stand by my point that if it turns out to work, then that should be cause for a huge "we fucked up" moment coupled with a copious amount of soul-searching. But this shouldn't be put into a reference frame centered on "guilt" or "responsibility", although such things would be inevitably involved. Rather, it's a case of established models turning out to be wrong, and what matters is that everyone updates and learns from it as quickly as possible. Ignorance can be condoned but not willful and destructive ignorance in the face of ample evidence.

tempestn 10y ago
I can see this being a serious issue on a personal level as well. In fact, it directly relates to the article, as this could be one of the things the newly awakened would struggle with. I've considered cryonics for myself, but being relatively young still, I haven't looked into it too seriously. That said, if I did eventually go through with it and it did turn out to work, I could see feeling massive remorse for all the people I didn't convince (and financially support if necessary) to do the same. If I do decide to do it, I would certainly try to have my wife and children do the same, but what about my parents? Or my wife's parents? Our siblings? And then what if my kids only go along with to humour me, but their (future) families don't? Not to mention friends... In a sense you would feel like you let all those people die, because you knew of something they could do, but didn't do everything possible to see it happen. Of course, even if that's how it felt after the fact, ex-ante it's far from a sure thing. Even the most optimistic likely see it as a significant long shot. And even if you were particularly confident, pushing freezing on everyone you know would basically make you the scientific equivalent of a religious zealot. Still, more than just waking up having lost most or all of the people you know, you would be dealing with that, and the knowledge that their deaths were preventable. That would be tough.
SapphireSun 10y ago
I'm playing devils advocate here, but wouldn't claiming that the reward is less than infinite make the argument less compelling than Pascal's? I think the only way forward is a compelling demo that makes it feel real. Once you have a mouse woken up funding will increase. Once you do a human, people will be clamoring for it.

by Kutta 10y ago

tempestn 10y ago

I can see this being a serious issue on a personal level as well. In fact, it directly relates to the article, as this could be one of the things the newly awakened would struggle with. I've considered cryonics for myself, but being relatively young still, I haven't looked into it too seriously. That said, if I did eventually go through with it and it did turn out to work, I could see feeling massive remorse for all the people I didn't convince (and financially support if necessary) to do the same. If I do decide to do it, I would certainly try to have my wife and children do the same, but what about my parents? Or my wife's parents? Our siblings? And then what if my kids only go along with to humour me, but their (future) families don't? Not to mention friends... In a sense you would feel like you let all those people die, because you knew of something they could do, but didn't do everything possible to see it happen. Of course, even if that's how it felt after the fact, ex-ante it's far from a sure thing. Even the most optimistic likely see it as a significant long shot. And even if you were particularly confident, pushing freezing on everyone you know would basically make you the scientific equivalent of a religious zealot. Still, more than just waking up having lost most or all of the people you know, you would be dealing with that, and the knowledge that their deaths were preventable. That would be tough.

SapphireSun 10y ago

I'm playing devils advocate here, but wouldn't claiming that the reward is less than infinite make the argument less compelling than Pascal's? I think the only way forward is a compelling demo that makes it feel real. Once you have a mouse woken up funding will increase. Once you do a human, people will be clamoring for it.