I’ll bite. (I don’t want the money. If I get it, I’ll use it for what is considered by some on this site as ego-gratifying wastage for Give Directly or some similar charity.)
If you look around, you’ll find “scientist”-signed letters supporting creationism. Philip Johnson, a Berkeley law professor is on that list, but you find a very low percertage of biologists. If you’re using lawyers to sell science, you’re doing badly. (I am a lawyer.)
The global warming issue has better lists of people signing off, including one genuinely credible human: Richard Lindzen of MIT. Lindzen, though, has oscillated from “manmade global warming is a myth,” to a more measured view that the degree of manmade global warming is much, much lower than the general view. The list of signatories to a global warming skeptic letter contains some people with some qualifications on the matter, but many who do not seem to have expertise.
Cryonics? Well, there’s this. Assuming they would put any neuroscience qualifications that the signatories had… this looks like the intelligent design letters. Electrical engineers, physicists… let’s count the people with neuroscience expertise, other than people whose careers are in hawking cryonics:
Kenneth Hayworth, a post-doc now at Harvard.
Ravin Jain, Los Angeles neurologist. He was listed as an assistant professor of neurology at UCLA in 2004, but he’s no longer employed by UCLA.
That’s them. There are a number of other doctors on there; looking up the people who worked for cryonics orgs is fun. Many of them have interesting histories, and many have moved on. The letter is pretty lightweight; it just says there’s a credible chance that they can put you back together again after the big freeze. I think computer scientists dominate the list. That is a completely terrible sign.
There are other conversations here and elsewhere about the state of the brain involving interplay between the neurons that’s not replicable with just the physical brain. There’s also the failure to resuscitate anyone from brain death. This provides additional evidence that this won’t work.
Finally, the people running the cryonics outfits have not had the best record of honesty and stability. If Google ran a cryonics outfit, that would be more interesting, for sure. But I don’t think that’s going to happen; this is not the route to very long life.
[Edit 1⁄14 - fixed a miscapitalization and a terrible sentence construction. No substantive changes.]
let’s count the people with neuroscience expertise, other than people whose careers are in hawking cryonics
This is a little unfair: if you have neuroscience experience and think cryonics is very important, then going to work for Alcor or CI may be where you can have the most impact. At which point others note that you’re financially dependent on people signing up for cryonics and write you off as biased.
In a world where cryonics were obviously worthwhile to anyone with neuroscience expertise, one would expect to see many more cryonics-boosting neuroscientists than could be employed by Alcor and CI. Indeed, you might expect there to be more major cryonics orgs than just those two.
In other words, it’s only unfair if we think size of the “neuroscientist” pool is roughly comparable to the size of the market for cryonics researchers. It’s not, so IMO JRMayne raises an interesting point, and not one I’d considered before.
Economists are the scientists most qualified to speculate on the likely success of cryonics because this kind of prediction involves speculating on long-term technological trends and although all of mankind is bad at this, economists at least try to do so with rigor.
I wonder if the really heaviest claims cryonics makes are mostly split between civics (questions like can an operation keep running long enough, will there always be people who care about reviving the stiffs) and partially in computer science (can the information needed be recovered from what remains), and the questions that are in the domain neuroscience (what biochemical information is important) might be legible enough to people outside of the field that neuroscientists don’t end up being closer to the truth? I wouldn’t say so, judging by the difficulties the openworm project is having in figuring out which information is important, but it’s conceivable a time will come when it falls this way.
This is making me wonder how often people assume a question resides exclusively in one field when it’s split between a number of fields in such a way that a majority of the experts in the one assumed focal field don’t tend to be right about it.
Identical twins raised apart act fairly similarly, and economists are better qualified to judge this claim than neuroscientists. Given my DNA and all the information saved in my brain by cryonics it almost certainly would be possible for a super-intelligence with full nanotech to create something which would act similar to how I do in similar circumstances. For me at least, that’s enough to preserve my identity and have cryonics work. So for me the answer to your question is almost certainly yes. To know if cryonics will work we need to estimate long-term tech trends to guess if Alcor could keep my body in tact long enough until someone develops the needed revival technologies.
I’m curious… if P1 is the probability that a superintelligence with full nanotech can create something which would act similar to how you do in similar circumstances given your DNA and all the information in your cryonically frozen brain, and P2 is that probability given just your DNA, what’s your estimate of P1/P2?
Good point, especially if you include everything I have published in both P1 and P2 then P1 and P2 might be fairly close. This along with the possibility of time travel to bring back the dead is a valid argument against cryonics. Even in these two instances, cryonics would be valuable as a strong signal to the future that yes I really, really want to be brought back. Also, the more information the super-intelligence has the better job it will do. Cryonics working isn’t a completely binary thing.
So… it sounds like you’re saying that your confidence that cryonic preservation differentially prevents information-theoretic death is relatively low (given that you estimate the results with and without it to be fairly close)… yes?
as a strong signal to the future that yes I really, really want to be brought back.
(nods) What’s your estimate of the signal-strength ratio, to such a superintelligence of your preferences in the matter, between (everything it knows about you + you signed up for cryonics) and (everything it knows about you + you didn’t sign up for cryonics)?
Also, the more information the super-intelligence has the better job it will do. Cryonics working isn’t a completely binary thing.
So… it sounds like you’re saying that your confidence that cryonic preservation differentially prevents information-theoretic death is relatively low (given that you estimate the results with and without it to be fairly close)… yes?
Yes given an AI super-intelligence trying to bring me back.
What’s your estimate of the signal-strength ratio, to such a superintelligence of your preferences in the matter, between (everything it knows about you + you signed up for cryonics) and (everything it knows about you + you didn’t sign up for cryonics)?
I’m not sure. So few people have signed up for cryonics and given cryonics’ significant monetary and social cost it does make for a powerful signal.
Yes given an AI super-intelligence trying to bring me back.
If we assume there is no AI superintelligence trying to bring you back, what’s your estimate of the ratio of the probabilities of information-theoretic death given cryonic preservation and absent cryonic preservation?
So few people have signed up for cryonics and given cryonics’ significant monetary and social cost it does make for a powerful signal.
To a modern-day observer, I agree completely. Do you think it’s an equally powerful signal to the superintelligence you posit?
If we assume there is no AI superintelligence trying to bring you back, what’s your estimate of the ratio of the probabilities of information-theoretic death given cryonic preservation and absent cryonic preservation?
I don’t know enough about nanotech to give a good estimate of this path. The brain uploading path via brain scans is reasonable given cryonics and, of course, hopeless without it.
Do you think it’s an equally powerful signal to the superintelligence you posit?
Perhaps given that in part by signing up for cryonics I have probably changed my brain state to more want to outlive my natural death and this would be reflected in my writings.
Sorry, I should be more clear. You think your DNA is going to be really helpful to a superintelligence bringing you back, then it would make sense to try and increase the chances it stays around. 23andMe is a step in this direction, but as full genome sequencing gets cheaper at some point you should probably do that too. It’s alreadfy much cheaper than cryonics and in a few years should be cheaper by an even larger margin.
I’ll bite. (I don’t want the money. If I get it, I’ll use it for what is considered by some on this site as ego-gratifying wastage for Give Directly or some similar charity.)
If you look around, you’ll find “scientist”-signed letters supporting creationism. Philip Johnson, a Berkeley law professor is on that list, but you find a very low percertage of biologists. If you’re using lawyers to sell science, you’re doing badly. (I am a lawyer.)
The global warming issue has better lists of people signing off, including one genuinely credible human: Richard Lindzen of MIT. Lindzen, though, has oscillated from “manmade global warming is a myth,” to a more measured view that the degree of manmade global warming is much, much lower than the general view. The list of signatories to a global warming skeptic letter contains some people with some qualifications on the matter, but many who do not seem to have expertise.
Cryonics? Well, there’s this. Assuming they would put any neuroscience qualifications that the signatories had… this looks like the intelligent design letters. Electrical engineers, physicists… let’s count the people with neuroscience expertise, other than people whose careers are in hawking cryonics:
Kenneth Hayworth, a post-doc now at Harvard.
Ravin Jain, Los Angeles neurologist. He was listed as an assistant professor of neurology at UCLA in 2004, but he’s no longer employed by UCLA.
That’s them. There are a number of other doctors on there; looking up the people who worked for cryonics orgs is fun. Many of them have interesting histories, and many have moved on. The letter is pretty lightweight; it just says there’s a credible chance that they can put you back together again after the big freeze. I think computer scientists dominate the list. That is a completely terrible sign.
There are other conversations here and elsewhere about the state of the brain involving interplay between the neurons that’s not replicable with just the physical brain. There’s also the failure to resuscitate anyone from brain death. This provides additional evidence that this won’t work.
Finally, the people running the cryonics outfits have not had the best record of honesty and stability. If Google ran a cryonics outfit, that would be more interesting, for sure. But I don’t think that’s going to happen; this is not the route to very long life.
[Edit 1⁄14 - fixed a miscapitalization and a terrible sentence construction. No substantive changes.]
This is a little unfair: if you have neuroscience experience and think cryonics is very important, then going to work for Alcor or CI may be where you can have the most impact. At which point others note that you’re financially dependent on people signing up for cryonics and write you off as biased.
In a world where cryonics were obviously worthwhile to anyone with neuroscience expertise, one would expect to see many more cryonics-boosting neuroscientists than could be employed by Alcor and CI. Indeed, you might expect there to be more major cryonics orgs than just those two.
In other words, it’s only unfair if we think size of the “neuroscientist” pool is roughly comparable to the size of the market for cryonics researchers. It’s not, so IMO JRMayne raises an interesting point, and not one I’d considered before.
Economists are the scientists most qualified to speculate on the likely success of cryonics because this kind of prediction involves speculating on long-term technological trends and although all of mankind is bad at this, economists at least try to do so with rigor.
“How likely is it that the current cryonics process prevents information-theoretic death” is a question for neuroscientists, not economists.
I wonder if the really heaviest claims cryonics makes are mostly split between civics (questions like can an operation keep running long enough, will there always be people who care about reviving the stiffs) and partially in computer science (can the information needed be recovered from what remains), and the questions that are in the domain neuroscience (what biochemical information is important) might be legible enough to people outside of the field that neuroscientists don’t end up being closer to the truth? I wouldn’t say so, judging by the difficulties the openworm project is having in figuring out which information is important, but it’s conceivable a time will come when it falls this way.
This is making me wonder how often people assume a question resides exclusively in one field when it’s split between a number of fields in such a way that a majority of the experts in the one assumed focal field don’t tend to be right about it.
Identical twins raised apart act fairly similarly, and economists are better qualified to judge this claim than neuroscientists. Given my DNA and all the information saved in my brain by cryonics it almost certainly would be possible for a super-intelligence with full nanotech to create something which would act similar to how I do in similar circumstances. For me at least, that’s enough to preserve my identity and have cryonics work. So for me the answer to your question is almost certainly yes. To know if cryonics will work we need to estimate long-term tech trends to guess if Alcor could keep my body in tact long enough until someone develops the needed revival technologies.
I’m curious… if P1 is the probability that a superintelligence with full nanotech can create something which would act similar to how you do in similar circumstances given your DNA and all the information in your cryonically frozen brain, and P2 is that probability given just your DNA, what’s your estimate of P1/P2?
Good point, especially if you include everything I have published in both P1 and P2 then P1 and P2 might be fairly close. This along with the possibility of time travel to bring back the dead is a valid argument against cryonics. Even in these two instances, cryonics would be valuable as a strong signal to the future that yes I really, really want to be brought back. Also, the more information the super-intelligence has the better job it will do. Cryonics working isn’t a completely binary thing.
So… it sounds like you’re saying that your confidence that cryonic preservation differentially prevents information-theoretic death is relatively low (given that you estimate the results with and without it to be fairly close)… yes?
(nods)
What’s your estimate of the signal-strength ratio, to such a superintelligence of your preferences in the matter, between (everything it knows about you + you signed up for cryonics) and (everything it knows about you + you didn’t sign up for cryonics)?
True.
Yes given an AI super-intelligence trying to bring me back.
I’m not sure. So few people have signed up for cryonics and given cryonics’ significant monetary and social cost it does make for a powerful signal.
If we assume there is no AI superintelligence trying to bring you back, what’s your estimate of the ratio of the probabilities of information-theoretic death given cryonic preservation and absent cryonic preservation?
To a modern-day observer, I agree completely. Do you think it’s an equally powerful signal to the superintelligence you posit?
I don’t know enough about nanotech to give a good estimate of this path. The brain uploading path via brain scans is reasonable given cryonics and, of course, hopeless without it.
OK… thanks for clarifying.
Have you considered getting your DNA sequenced and storing that in a very robust medium?
Yes. I’m a member of 23andMe, although they don’t do a full sequencing.
Sorry, I should be more clear. You think your DNA is going to be really helpful to a superintelligence bringing you back, then it would make sense to try and increase the chances it stays around. 23andMe is a step in this direction, but as full genome sequencing gets cheaper at some point you should probably do that too. It’s alreadfy much cheaper than cryonics and in a few years should be cheaper by an even larger margin.