4 ms·

What probability of restoration would be high enough to consider it? The future timelines in which restoration does happen are probably extremely interesting to

by tlb 9y ago

What probability of restoration would be high enough to consider it? The future timelines in which restoration does happen are probably extremely interesting to be part of, given how far tech would have progressed. (There are lots of sucky future timelines too, say with nuclear holocausts, where you'd be unlikely to be restored.) No: 100% chance of death. Yes: 100-X% chance of death, X% chance of getting to see a super-interesting future. For me, X wouldn't have to be very high to make it worth trying.

prepend 9y ago
Assuming there is a cost, the trade off is reduced money to your heirs or charity. So while it is non-zero, that doesn’t mean it’s worth the cost. That’s why I brought up backups. Remember Zip drives for backup? Imagine if there was no reader at time of launch. And how likely it was to build the reader without any changes to spec that the existing Zip disk could be used to restore without any problems. Even with read and write available, those things didn’t work well. You could say “0% chance of restore if you don’t buy, but non-zero if you do buy; therefore buy.” But that only works if the cost is zero.
- tlb 9y ago
  Would you pay 5% of your net worth for a 10% chance of recovery?
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    10% chance of recovery when? You can't talk about probability of a continuous unbounded time process without specifying a timeframe. Otherwise you end up with 100% or 0% as only possible answers.
    - tlb 9y ago
      That's true of a stationary Poisson process. But this is more like a race between two processes: developing the restoration tech vs. society collapsing or a fire in the storage facility. It's perfectly valid to talk about the probability of one continuous unbounded time process happening before another.
  - prepend 9y ago
    Certainly. But I wouldn’t pay 5% of my net worth for a 0.0000000001% chance of recovery. As it is now, the chance of recovery is approaching 1 ininfinity. You’re just as likely to be “recovered” from a photograph. Or from your Facebook profile. Or by tracing neutrinos that passed through you during your lifetime. Or a rock with your name written on it with a sharpie. All of these things have the same evidenced probability of assisting with your recovery.
perl4ever 9y ago
There's no chance of you getting to see a "super-interesting future". This comment is as weird to me as confusing a book on Relativity with Einstein. If you had a terminal disease, and a twin, would you expect to wake up in the body of your twin after death?
- cityofdelusion 9y ago
  A twin does not have a shared memory history with yourself, though. I don't think its a stretch to say that two brains with the same memories are in fact, the same person identity-wise. It is why we are considered the same person after having a seizure, or falling asleep, or waking from a coma (or any other consciousness-halting event). We're even more liberal with the concept of identity in society -- consider that I share nearly nothing (physical or memory) with 1-day old me, yet we are considered the same person.
- kolpa 9y ago
  The weird part is why you think you existed 10 minutes and why you think you will exist in 10minutes.
  - perl4ever 9y ago
    Logically, there is no reason I can give why in 10 minutes, my consciousness and yours will not switch places. If it happened in the past, neither of us would know. Yet I still experience being me right now, just "because". Really, what we have here is a quasi-religio-philosophical argument for reincarnation. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea of reincarnation after death, in fact, but I think people who believe in uploading minds are implicitly pretending to have knowledge about the process that nobody has. Any rules for where your consciousness ends up in the next instant in the event of a discontinuity are made up based on your preferences and prejudices. One may wish to believe that a computer that stores the patterns of your living brain captures your mind after you die, but it's no more or less valid (i.e. probable, provable) that the cliche that you are reincarnated into some particular living entity as reward or punishment for how you lived your life. Reincarnation is, in my opinion, outside the realm of science, so I don't disbelieve in it, I merely doubt it is possible to know anything about it due to the impossibility of investigating scientifically. ...and "mind-uploading" is merely a subset of human invented systems of reincarnation.
notahacker 9y ago
Alternate formulation: Trade 99% chance of seeing tomorrow even if terminally ill for a 100% chance of not seeing tomorrow and a chance of resurrection which probability-wise is on a par with $insertreligionhere being broadly correct about the afterlife.

by tlb 9y ago

prepend 9y ago

Assuming there is a cost, the trade off is reduced money to your heirs or charity. So while it is non-zero, that doesn’t mean it’s worth the cost. That’s why I brought up backups. Remember Zip drives for backup? Imagine if there was no reader at time of launch. And how likely it was to build the reader without any changes to spec that the existing Zip disk could be used to restore without any problems. Even with read and write available, those things didn’t work well. You could say “0% chance of restore if you don’t buy, but non-zero if you do buy; therefore buy.” But that only works if the cost is zero.

tlb 9y ago
Would you pay 5% of your net worth for a 10% chance of recovery?
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  10% chance of recovery when? You can't talk about probability of a continuous unbounded time process without specifying a timeframe. Otherwise you end up with 100% or 0% as only possible answers.
  - tlb 9y ago
    That's true of a stationary Poisson process. But this is more like a race between two processes: developing the restoration tech vs. society collapsing or a fire in the storage facility. It's perfectly valid to talk about the probability of one continuous unbounded time process happening before another.
- prepend 9y ago
  Certainly. But I wouldn’t pay 5% of my net worth for a 0.0000000001% chance of recovery. As it is now, the chance of recovery is approaching 1 ininfinity. You’re just as likely to be “recovered” from a photograph. Or from your Facebook profile. Or by tracing neutrinos that passed through you during your lifetime. Or a rock with your name written on it with a sharpie. All of these things have the same evidenced probability of assisting with your recovery.

perl4ever 9y ago

There's no chance of you getting to see a "super-interesting future". This comment is as weird to me as confusing a book on Relativity with Einstein. If you had a terminal disease, and a twin, would you expect to wake up in the body of your twin after death?

cityofdelusion 9y ago
A twin does not have a shared memory history with yourself, though. I don't think its a stretch to say that two brains with the same memories are in fact, the same person identity-wise. It is why we are considered the same person after having a seizure, or falling asleep, or waking from a coma (or any other consciousness-halting event). We're even more liberal with the concept of identity in society -- consider that I share nearly nothing (physical or memory) with 1-day old me, yet we are considered the same person.
kolpa 9y ago
The weird part is why you think you existed 10 minutes and why you think you will exist in 10minutes.
- perl4ever 9y ago
  Logically, there is no reason I can give why in 10 minutes, my consciousness and yours will not switch places. If it happened in the past, neither of us would know. Yet I still experience being me right now, just "because". Really, what we have here is a quasi-religio-philosophical argument for reincarnation. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea of reincarnation after death, in fact, but I think people who believe in uploading minds are implicitly pretending to have knowledge about the process that nobody has. Any rules for where your consciousness ends up in the next instant in the event of a discontinuity are made up based on your preferences and prejudices. One may wish to believe that a computer that stores the patterns of your living brain captures your mind after you die, but it's no more or less valid (i.e. probable, provable) that the cliche that you are reincarnated into some particular living entity as reward or punishment for how you lived your life. Reincarnation is, in my opinion, outside the realm of science, so I don't disbelieve in it, I merely doubt it is possible to know anything about it due to the impossibility of investigating scientifically. ...and "mind-uploading" is merely a subset of human invented systems of reincarnation.

notahacker 9y ago

Alternate formulation: Trade 99% chance of seeing tomorrow even if terminally ill for a 100% chance of not seeing tomorrow and a chance of resurrection which probability-wise is on a par with $insertreligionhere being broadly correct about the afterlife.