5 ms·

the argument is this: certain death vs a miniscule one in a quadrillion chance or lower. It will always tilt the other way no matter what the current scientific

the argument is this: certain death vs a miniscule one in a quadrillion chance or lower. It will always tilt the other way no matter what the current scientific status quo is saying because it's possible in theory and it has happened to living organisms before just not humans. Whether it's good for environment, your siblings pocket etc is not part of the core argument.

fipar 6y ago
I think even if you ignore the environment, and cost, the argument for cryonics is not very good. Let's say someone is successfully revived, there's still heart attacks, cancer, crime (and not just "lowly" criminals, crime also happens within families for inheritance, for example), accidents (car, or just slipping in the shower), earthquakes, ... The list is pretty much endless. Death is unavoidable, IMHO it's best to learn to cope with it, and focus efforts on reducing what most people would consider the worst deaths (infants, long and painful diseases, wars and torture, etc). That said, as long as not many people try this (the environmental cost would be high), if many people think about this possibility and that helps them cope with their mortality, and that of their loved ones, good for them.
- Smaug123 6y ago
  Learning to cope with death is not actually mutually exclusive with taking a punt on cryonics! A 1% chance of survival is still a 99% chance of death, so you'd better have made your peace with it either way.
- Juliate 6y ago
  Yes, if only for the legal status of property/inheritance: if you are to be revided, who owns your wealth? Do you children inherit? And/when you are revived, what resources do you have? Is your family/descendants in charge of you, or you of them?
  - Retric 6y ago
    Cryogenic preservation is treated like mummification, you’re just declared dead. At which point your assets are likely to just get spent. If you want to be safe, set up a trust that pays to you preferably and if not then to any descendants you have. That’s unlikely to work if you’re somehow revived in several hundred years, but it’s better than hopping random people will hand you money voluntarily.
    - srtjstjsj 6y ago
      You can't have a trust with no trustee. Is your trustee really afraid of getting sued by a corpse with no heirs?
  - hyko 6y ago
    Deposit your savings in the Alan Turing school of investment, AKA buried treasure: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-markets-saft/saft-on-wealth-learning-from-turings-silver-hoard-idUSKCN0UY2OC https://www.reuters.com/article/us-markets-saft/saft-on-weal...
- biolurker1 6y ago
  The argument is zero vs non-zero and anything else is noise
  - fipar 6y ago
    zero vs non-zero of what? If you say the argument is dying now vs dying later, sure, I'll agree.
    - biolurker1 6y ago
      Zero chance of living VS non zero chance of living. I thought that was a coders forum.
      - fipar 6y ago
        Which one is that forum you're talking about? If you meant this one, it should be obvious that it's not exclusively about coders. Even if it was, your argument is quite weak if you don't qualify the non zero part a bit more. Zero chance of living how much longer than you would have otherwise? under what conditions? At what cost?
        biolurker1 6y ago
        That's precisely why strict logic is required. You are putting more restrains into a very simple condition. Dead or infinitely small non zero chance of not dead. As said previously, anything else is noise
        fipar 6y ago
        Respectfully, I disagree. I think the condition may be simple if looked at it from, say, a programming logic point of view. But given the costs involved, I think the other constraints are not noise: they're the signal needed to make the right decision. Specifically, since you brought this up in the context of someone who will die of cancer, the tradeoff calculation must take into account that even if cryonics work (which is already a giant leap of faith right now), this person would also need science to advance enough so that a cancer that is terminal now will be somehow reversible in the future. Additionally, all the people he cares about would have to have survived too for this to matter. Again, this is all context, this is within the context of a dying person that says "Almost immediately I realised I just couldn’t do it. Life for me is about living, not just clocking up the years.". I don't think all of these extra constraints would be seen as noise by someone like him.
- hyko 6y ago
  Even though Death is unavoidable, it’s still a good idea to wear a seatbelt. Edited to add: it’s hard to imagine a civilisation with the technology to successfully re-animate a corpse, but that is unable to treat heart disease & cancer. Not impossible I suppose, but seems highly implausible.
heavenlyblue 6y ago
Sound just like the argument for the worship of god.
- biolurker1 6y ago
  Organisms have survived thousands of years frozen. God doesn't exist scientifically.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    "God" is in the gaps, a placeholder for all the things not known to science, including reviving an Avatar in a block of ice.
  - dang 6y ago
    No religious flamewar on HN, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Aeronwen 6y ago
  God wants your exclusive devotion. The freezer doesn't care what else you're doing to help you to cheat death, so you can spread your faith around more and hedge your bets.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents, especially generic flamewar tangents. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - heavenlyblue 6y ago
    It's not a generic tangent - it's a direct reference to Pascal's wager [1]. Unfortunately the parent doesn't make their argument any more generic that Pascal's wager itself. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager
iso1631 6y ago
You're describing Pascal's wager.
- biolurker1 6y ago
  I am not. That wager is about something unverifiable and unprogressable. This is based on biology and science and can become a reliaty. So not even close.
  - Smaug123 6y ago
    Well, it's not quite so black and white. We have something resembling a roadmap to achieving the revival of a cryopreserved patient, but it's hardly a certainty. The fact that your roadmap has a few more details on than does the roadmap of $religion does not make them qualitatively different.
  - staticman2 6y ago
    Pascal's wager would be verifiable if, say, someone invented a device like the ones in the Ghostbusters movies. That seems about as promising as freezing yourself after you die in my mind...
robbiep 6y ago
The same argument could essentially be applied to the resurrection
gus_massa 6y ago
Or give the money to your children so they have a small head start that can use to conquer the world (eventually). Also, what happens if you are revived? Where are you going to live? Your home was probably sold a long time ago, or you must share it with all the intermediate revived generations. What about money? Where are you going to work? Imagine the frozen time was only 100 year. It is difficult to predict what will happen in 100 years, but it is easier to look at the past. Medical doctors didn't have penicillin and Electrical Engineers didn't have transistors. You must take most of your university courses again and perhaps part of your high school classes too.
- knorker 6y ago
  So what? You're saying life is not worth living if you're not at least middle class with no big struggles?
  - biolurker1 6y ago
    Yes this argument could be repurposed into: if you are born in Africa there is no reason to live
    - gus_massa 6y ago
      Africa is a big continent, there is a wide difference in income and education level, from country to country and even inside each country. If you have some spare money to pay a refrigerator for 100 years, you are probably spoiled and want nice living conditions afterwards. Anyway, imagine you live outside a city and have only a small plot of land for subsistence. After the 100 years you don't have even the small plot of land and don't have the small herd that you inherit from your parents. How/where are you going to live? Farming has changed in the last 100 years. Artificial nitrogen fertilizers have slightly more than 100 years, now there are genetically modified crops, the preferred crops have changed. (Do you know how to harvest soy?) The cattle management has also changed, antibiotics, vitamins supplements, the number of free range herds is decreasing,...
      - 6y ago

fipar 6y ago

I think even if you ignore the environment, and cost, the argument for cryonics is not very good. Let's say someone is successfully revived, there's still heart attacks, cancer, crime (and not just "lowly" criminals, crime also happens within families for inheritance, for example), accidents (car, or just slipping in the shower), earthquakes, ... The list is pretty much endless. Death is unavoidable, IMHO it's best to learn to cope with it, and focus efforts on reducing what most people would consider the worst deaths (infants, long and painful diseases, wars and torture, etc). That said, as long as not many people try this (the environmental cost would be high), if many people think about this possibility and that helps them cope with their mortality, and that of their loved ones, good for them.

Smaug123 6y ago
Learning to cope with death is not actually mutually exclusive with taking a punt on cryonics! A 1% chance of survival is still a 99% chance of death, so you'd better have made your peace with it either way.
Juliate 6y ago
Yes, if only for the legal status of property/inheritance: if you are to be revided, who owns your wealth? Do you children inherit? And/when you are revived, what resources do you have? Is your family/descendants in charge of you, or you of them?
- Retric 6y ago
  Cryogenic preservation is treated like mummification, you’re just declared dead. At which point your assets are likely to just get spent. If you want to be safe, set up a trust that pays to you preferably and if not then to any descendants you have. That’s unlikely to work if you’re somehow revived in several hundred years, but it’s better than hopping random people will hand you money voluntarily.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    You can't have a trust with no trustee. Is your trustee really afraid of getting sued by a corpse with no heirs?
- hyko 6y ago
  Deposit your savings in the Alan Turing school of investment, AKA buried treasure: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-markets-saft/saft-on-wealth-learning-from-turings-silver-hoard-idUSKCN0UY2OC https://www.reuters.com/article/us-markets-saft/saft-on-weal...
biolurker1 6y ago
The argument is zero vs non-zero and anything else is noise
- fipar 6y ago
  zero vs non-zero of what? If you say the argument is dying now vs dying later, sure, I'll agree.
  - biolurker1 6y ago
    Zero chance of living VS non zero chance of living. I thought that was a coders forum.
    - fipar 6y ago
      Which one is that forum you're talking about? If you meant this one, it should be obvious that it's not exclusively about coders. Even if it was, your argument is quite weak if you don't qualify the non zero part a bit more. Zero chance of living how much longer than you would have otherwise? under what conditions? At what cost?
      - biolurker1 6y ago
        That's precisely why strict logic is required. You are putting more restrains into a very simple condition. Dead or infinitely small non zero chance of not dead. As said previously, anything else is noise
        fipar 6y ago
        Respectfully, I disagree. I think the condition may be simple if looked at it from, say, a programming logic point of view. But given the costs involved, I think the other constraints are not noise: they're the signal needed to make the right decision. Specifically, since you brought this up in the context of someone who will die of cancer, the tradeoff calculation must take into account that even if cryonics work (which is already a giant leap of faith right now), this person would also need science to advance enough so that a cancer that is terminal now will be somehow reversible in the future. Additionally, all the people he cares about would have to have survived too for this to matter. Again, this is all context, this is within the context of a dying person that says "Almost immediately I realised I just couldn’t do it. Life for me is about living, not just clocking up the years.". I don't think all of these extra constraints would be seen as noise by someone like him.
hyko 6y ago
Even though Death is unavoidable, it’s still a good idea to wear a seatbelt. Edited to add: it’s hard to imagine a civilisation with the technology to successfully re-animate a corpse, but that is unable to treat heart disease & cancer. Not impossible I suppose, but seems highly implausible.

heavenlyblue 6y ago

Sound just like the argument for the worship of god.

biolurker1 6y ago
Organisms have survived thousands of years frozen. God doesn't exist scientifically.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  "God" is in the gaps, a placeholder for all the things not known to science, including reviving an Avatar in a block of ice.
- dang 6y ago
  No religious flamewar on HN, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Aeronwen 6y ago
God wants your exclusive devotion. The freezer doesn't care what else you're doing to help you to cheat death, so you can spread your faith around more and hedge your bets.
dang 6y ago
Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents, especially generic flamewar tangents. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- heavenlyblue 6y ago
  It's not a generic tangent - it's a direct reference to Pascal's wager [1]. Unfortunately the parent doesn't make their argument any more generic that Pascal's wager itself. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager

iso1631 6y ago

You're describing Pascal's wager.

biolurker1 6y ago
I am not. That wager is about something unverifiable and unprogressable. This is based on biology and science and can become a reliaty. So not even close.
- Smaug123 6y ago
  Well, it's not quite so black and white. We have something resembling a roadmap to achieving the revival of a cryopreserved patient, but it's hardly a certainty. The fact that your roadmap has a few more details on than does the roadmap of $religion does not make them qualitatively different.
- staticman2 6y ago
  Pascal's wager would be verifiable if, say, someone invented a device like the ones in the Ghostbusters movies. That seems about as promising as freezing yourself after you die in my mind...

robbiep 6y ago

The same argument could essentially be applied to the resurrection

gus_massa 6y ago

Or give the money to your children so they have a small head start that can use to conquer the world (eventually). Also, what happens if you are revived? Where are you going to live? Your home was probably sold a long time ago, or you must share it with all the intermediate revived generations. What about money? Where are you going to work? Imagine the frozen time was only 100 year. It is difficult to predict what will happen in 100 years, but it is easier to look at the past. Medical doctors didn't have penicillin and Electrical Engineers didn't have transistors. You must take most of your university courses again and perhaps part of your high school classes too.

knorker 6y ago
So what? You're saying life is not worth living if you're not at least middle class with no big struggles?
- biolurker1 6y ago
  Yes this argument could be repurposed into: if you are born in Africa there is no reason to live
  - gus_massa 6y ago
    Africa is a big continent, there is a wide difference in income and education level, from country to country and even inside each country. If you have some spare money to pay a refrigerator for 100 years, you are probably spoiled and want nice living conditions afterwards. Anyway, imagine you live outside a city and have only a small plot of land for subsistence. After the 100 years you don't have even the small plot of land and don't have the small herd that you inherit from your parents. How/where are you going to live? Farming has changed in the last 100 years. Artificial nitrogen fertilizers have slightly more than 100 years, now there are genetically modified crops, the preferred crops have changed. (Do you know how to harvest soy?) The cattle management has also changed, antibiotics, vitamins supplements, the number of free range herds is decreasing,...
    - 6y ago