You don’t want to die. If you heard that an asteroid would soon destroy a vast area around your home, you’d pay great costs to help you and your loved ones try to move. Even if you’d probably fail, even of most of your loved ones might not make it, and even if success meant adapting to a strange world far from home. If that’s not you, then this post isn’t for you.
could u elaborate a bit? If i get frozen and two uploads of me get instantiated later, which one would the me that was frozen "wake up" into? From the perspective of the ones that wake up, they both have continuity, but what about from the perspective of the one who got frozen? Or in a slightly different example, if you upload me while I sleep, I still won't be okay with you murdering me when I wake up just because I'm "alive" in another body. What am I missing?
Or send a cryonics team to the patient's location. That is what happens in most cases. Not just as good as moving close to the cryonics organization, but standby teams make a huge difference.
Agree with you 100% about Penrose. He is unfortunately too brilliant and famous and successful, to be aware of his limitations when he oversteps his expertise.
Yes, the analogy to "transferring" a computer program works perfectly well. But the word isn't misleading there, while it is somewhat misleading here.
This is the original statement by EMP: "All that has happened is that a copy of me has been made. My consciousness does not transfer." He seems to be clearly thinking of consciousness as an object with unique identity. As long as the original exists, then it must differ in some important way from any other copy.
That's not how software works. All copies are identical. Moreover, the notion of "transfer" usual describes a single copy, where it now appears over here, but it was removed from where it started. We can fake this with software, by being careful to delete the original any time we copy it elsewhere, and describe the pair of actions as "a transfer". But it's really a copy+delete, and that difference is important, if you choose not to delete the original.
It's very different from physical things like a rock or a ball, which you might "transfer" from one box to another. In those examples, there's never a question of the alternative of "copying", and it wouldn't make sense to neglect to "delete" the original. You actual do move the entire structure from one location to another, and it maintains its unique integrity throughout that move.
EMP seems to have a model of consciousness like a rock or ball, rather than like software. In that model, I tried to clarify by saying that of course the original would always remain where it started. With software, we are always copying -- whether or not we happen to delete the original.
I'm not aware of ANY theory of consciousness that's falsifiable, and as a good Popperian, I therefore conclude that there aren't, so far, any "scientific" theories of consciousness.
There are plenty of vague hand-wavy ideas about consciousness, and the one you describe does seem popular. I'm not sure the idea even means anything.
But if we assume it's correct (whatever it means), then "consciousness" is some kind of information pattern, or the dynamics of same, or somehow related to that.
And in the hypothetical that we've copied that pattern and it's dynamics to another place, on new hardware, then we have indeed "transferred" it.
In other words, the theory you describe seems to be analogous to saying "consciousness" is a program running on a computer. If I transfer a program on computer A to some other computer B, then indeed I have "transferred" the program (and copied it, too).
(FWIW, I recently read Roger Penrose's "Emperor's New Mind" - Penrose really really wants there to be some mysterious non-mechanistic element to consciousness. Maybe there is, but if so Penrose didn't make any real argument for why we should think so. He claims baldly that brains aren't subject to the limitations of Turing machines, but gives no argument for that.)
Because all reasonable scientific theories of consciousness are reductionist and mechanistic. (Unless you want to admit to being a dualist, and believe in non-scientific non-physical fantasies such as a soul of some kind.)
Making the reasonable assumption that mind are "merely" the software process that is "running" on the hardware of the brain, then a specific consciousness is necessarily tied to its implementation in a specific physical brain.
What we're talking about is making a copy of that brain, and running a very similar process on a new entity with new hardware. That new hardware maybe a "alive", or not. It may be "you", or not.
But the one thing we know is that the old brain is still there. If it could be made to function again, then it would clearly have the same mind it always had.
Hence the "consciousness" of the copy is not connected to whether the original still has "consciousness" or not.
That is why it makes no sense to say that consciousness was "transferred". Consciousness is what the original brain was doing. It is not a thing that can be "moved". It can be copied to a new place. And the original can be deleted. But it can't actually be "transferred". (There's always the choice of NOT deleting the original.)
Incredibly expensive end-of-life care: Okay, maybe even justifiedModerately expensive cryonics/delayed life renewal: Ew, why are you so selfish?
What is the functional difference between paying a cryonics lab every year for the small chance of a second life and paying a place of worship every week for the small chance of an afterlife?
I mean something like "satisfaction with personal life" and "expected satisfaction in N years". Though I was unfamiliar with the history of polls for such a metric, seeing https://news.gallup.com/pol... today I've updated to think dissatisfaction is if anything at all a very minor contributor.
I fear you underestimate how hard it would be to sign up at the last minute. I don't understand what you mean by "unhappy about the present or future prospects". Of what?
Robin, what do you think about preserving external information (audio, text, visuals) to help store information about our current selves? This could aid the reconstruction process, if we think that a significant part of our identity will decay with age, and we want to preserve our current self. If eg. we get Alzheimer's then it is better to have stored our memories externally rather than relying on them being stored in our hippocampus. Full argument here: https://www.lesswrong.com/p...
I think this tees up a Q: If tomorrow it were established with certainty that our spatially-infinite universe contains an infinite number of (say) Hubble volumes in each possible Hubble-volume physical state, would your personal interest in cryonic suspension go away?
My own cryocrastination seems driven by a mild background state of depression plus a general aversion to interacting with the legal system and burdening myself with yet another monthly/yearly subscription.
The mild depression is just a mild apathy for whether I'm alive next week, even though I can tell myself yes, I want to be alive today, tomorrow, the next day, indefinitely, for the usual reasons. In the immediate sense at least there's never been any self-harm, like a normal person I avoid things that could hurt me.
The legal work involved isn't much, but it's still annoying to contemplate for me. Too many phone calls, signing papers.. Even more so when last I checked the freezing agencies require either payment in full or an insurance policy, they won't accept proof of liquid assets with beneficiary assignments. So with membership dues, there are at least two new subscriptions -- I'm I'm trying to minimize my cash flow needs, not grow them. Even though it's my future life at stake, and not say a movie subscription service, the thought patterns are the same and I just go 'ugh' at it. Without external pressure I'm unlikely to bother.
I expect that metaphorical news of an imminent asteroid, or the real comparison here of being diagnosed with a terminal illness, would suffice for pressure. I have enough liquid assets that I could pay for an Alcor freezing up front, it's my backup plan if I do get advanced notice. If I don't get advanced notice, and say die in a car crash next week, not being signed up assures a 0% chance whereas if I were signed up there might be something to salvage in time... but that seems quite a bit less than freezing under ideal conditions, and I'm ok with having bad luck like that. Many others didn't make it either.
Anyway, I mostly mean this as another partial explanation for the unpopularity of signing up. Lots of people just aren't very happy about the present or future prospects if they think about them, especially women (another commenter asked where the women are) over the last some-decades.
I didn't need convincing, but the phrase "Make me proud of you." can come across in a way that you do not intend and is a strange appeal to make, given the type of audience you write to.
could u elaborate a bit? If i get frozen and two uploads of me get instantiated later, which one would the me that was frozen "wake up" into? From the perspective of the ones that wake up, they both have continuity, but what about from the perspective of the one who got frozen? Or in a slightly different example, if you upload me while I sleep, I still won't be okay with you murdering me when I wake up just because I'm "alive" in another body. What am I missing?
Or send a cryonics team to the patient's location. That is what happens in most cases. Not just as good as moving close to the cryonics organization, but standby teams make a huge difference.
Agree with you 100% about Penrose. He is unfortunately too brilliant and famous and successful, to be aware of his limitations when he oversteps his expertise.
Yes, the analogy to "transferring" a computer program works perfectly well. But the word isn't misleading there, while it is somewhat misleading here.
This is the original statement by EMP: "All that has happened is that a copy of me has been made. My consciousness does not transfer." He seems to be clearly thinking of consciousness as an object with unique identity. As long as the original exists, then it must differ in some important way from any other copy.
That's not how software works. All copies are identical. Moreover, the notion of "transfer" usual describes a single copy, where it now appears over here, but it was removed from where it started. We can fake this with software, by being careful to delete the original any time we copy it elsewhere, and describe the pair of actions as "a transfer". But it's really a copy+delete, and that difference is important, if you choose not to delete the original.
It's very different from physical things like a rock or a ball, which you might "transfer" from one box to another. In those examples, there's never a question of the alternative of "copying", and it wouldn't make sense to neglect to "delete" the original. You actual do move the entire structure from one location to another, and it maintains its unique integrity throughout that move.
EMP seems to have a model of consciousness like a rock or ball, rather than like software. In that model, I tried to clarify by saying that of course the original would always remain where it started. With software, we are always copying -- whether or not we happen to delete the original.
Thanks for the elaboration.
I'm not aware of ANY theory of consciousness that's falsifiable, and as a good Popperian, I therefore conclude that there aren't, so far, any "scientific" theories of consciousness.
There are plenty of vague hand-wavy ideas about consciousness, and the one you describe does seem popular. I'm not sure the idea even means anything.
But if we assume it's correct (whatever it means), then "consciousness" is some kind of information pattern, or the dynamics of same, or somehow related to that.
And in the hypothetical that we've copied that pattern and it's dynamics to another place, on new hardware, then we have indeed "transferred" it.
In other words, the theory you describe seems to be analogous to saying "consciousness" is a program running on a computer. If I transfer a program on computer A to some other computer B, then indeed I have "transferred" the program (and copied it, too).
(FWIW, I recently read Roger Penrose's "Emperor's New Mind" - Penrose really really wants there to be some mysterious non-mechanistic element to consciousness. Maybe there is, but if so Penrose didn't make any real argument for why we should think so. He claims baldly that brains aren't subject to the limitations of Turing machines, but gives no argument for that.)
Because all reasonable scientific theories of consciousness are reductionist and mechanistic. (Unless you want to admit to being a dualist, and believe in non-scientific non-physical fantasies such as a soul of some kind.)
Making the reasonable assumption that mind are "merely" the software process that is "running" on the hardware of the brain, then a specific consciousness is necessarily tied to its implementation in a specific physical brain.
What we're talking about is making a copy of that brain, and running a very similar process on a new entity with new hardware. That new hardware maybe a "alive", or not. It may be "you", or not.
But the one thing we know is that the old brain is still there. If it could be made to function again, then it would clearly have the same mind it always had.
Hence the "consciousness" of the copy is not connected to whether the original still has "consciousness" or not.
That is why it makes no sense to say that consciousness was "transferred". Consciousness is what the original brain was doing. It is not a thing that can be "moved". It can be copied to a new place. And the original can be deleted. But it can't actually be "transferred". (There's always the choice of NOT deleting the original.)
Inconsistent Reactions to Life Extension
Incredibly expensive end-of-life care: Okay, maybe even justifiedModerately expensive cryonics/delayed life renewal: Ew, why are you so selfish?
What is the functional difference between paying a cryonics lab every year for the small chance of a second life and paying a place of worship every week for the small chance of an afterlife?
I mean something like "satisfaction with personal life" and "expected satisfaction in N years". Though I was unfamiliar with the history of polls for such a metric, seeing https://news.gallup.com/pol... today I've updated to think dissatisfaction is if anything at all a very minor contributor.
Really fantastic piece, bravo Robin :)
Will try to let you know if and when I've signed up for cryo!
It doesn't hurt, but I'm not optimistic that it helps a lot.
I fear you underestimate how hard it would be to sign up at the last minute. I don't understand what you mean by "unhappy about the present or future prospects". Of what?
Robin, what do you think about preserving external information (audio, text, visuals) to help store information about our current selves? This could aid the reconstruction process, if we think that a significant part of our identity will decay with age, and we want to preserve our current self. If eg. we get Alzheimer's then it is better to have stored our memories externally rather than relying on them being stored in our hippocampus. Full argument here: https://www.lesswrong.com/p...
No.
I think this tees up a Q: If tomorrow it were established with certainty that our spatially-infinite universe contains an infinite number of (say) Hubble volumes in each possible Hubble-volume physical state, would your personal interest in cryonic suspension go away?
My own cryocrastination seems driven by a mild background state of depression plus a general aversion to interacting with the legal system and burdening myself with yet another monthly/yearly subscription.
The mild depression is just a mild apathy for whether I'm alive next week, even though I can tell myself yes, I want to be alive today, tomorrow, the next day, indefinitely, for the usual reasons. In the immediate sense at least there's never been any self-harm, like a normal person I avoid things that could hurt me.
The legal work involved isn't much, but it's still annoying to contemplate for me. Too many phone calls, signing papers.. Even more so when last I checked the freezing agencies require either payment in full or an insurance policy, they won't accept proof of liquid assets with beneficiary assignments. So with membership dues, there are at least two new subscriptions -- I'm I'm trying to minimize my cash flow needs, not grow them. Even though it's my future life at stake, and not say a movie subscription service, the thought patterns are the same and I just go 'ugh' at it. Without external pressure I'm unlikely to bother.
I expect that metaphorical news of an imminent asteroid, or the real comparison here of being diagnosed with a terminal illness, would suffice for pressure. I have enough liquid assets that I could pay for an Alcor freezing up front, it's my backup plan if I do get advanced notice. If I don't get advanced notice, and say die in a car crash next week, not being signed up assures a 0% chance whereas if I were signed up there might be something to salvage in time... but that seems quite a bit less than freezing under ideal conditions, and I'm ok with having bad luck like that. Many others didn't make it either.
Anyway, I mostly mean this as another partial explanation for the unpopularity of signing up. Lots of people just aren't very happy about the present or future prospects if they think about them, especially women (another commenter asked where the women are) over the last some-decades.
I guess I still don't see the unintended reading.
I didn't need convincing, but the phrase "Make me proud of you." can come across in a way that you do not intend and is a strange appeal to make, given the type of audience you write to.