This may amuse some of us: anyone remember the pilot of House)?
Rebecca Adler: I just want to die with a little dignity.
Dr. House: There's no such thing! Our bodies break down, sometimes when we're 90, sometimes before we're even born, but it always happens and there's never any dignity in it. I don't care if you can walk, see, wipe your own ass. It's always ugly - always! We can live with dignity - we can't die with it.
Until very recently, I tended to think of cryonics as something nutty and tacitly assumed that cryonics organisations were a little shady. These weren't strong beliefs, and I knew that I had no real basis for them, so I would never have tried to argue them to others, but they were my impressions. I blame the anti-cult and anti-scam heuristics identified in the comments by Jonathan Graehl and Pavitra.
Now that I've come here and seen all of you rational people into cryonics, I've looked at the references here and realised that my impressions were wrong. So cryonics is not terribly expensive and might well work; how interesting! And yet, I have no desire to sign up myself.
Why not? I believe that the reason is that, to spout a cliché, I've come to terms with death. There was a time when I found it very attractive to believe religious ideas promising immortality, but once I abandoned those as irrational, I faced the realisation that I was going to die permanently some day. That worried me for a while, but then I got used to it; I no longer desired to live forever. I didn't even desire to live longer than about a century.
And since I no longer desire to live so long, I have no des...
This might be a inappropriate question, while also seeming like a rephrasing to me.
Do you foresee, that there will be a day in your future, when you will prefer to die on that day over living to see the next one?
I try to grab the FAR notion of 'i do not want to live forever == i want to die at some point' and make it NEAR into 'yeah, that was a fun run, now today is the day it all shall end for me'
The desire to die seem to correlate often with the weaknesses and diseases of old age, which is a different issue than cryogenics. Age related things can be prevented to some degree, and hopefully get much more explored in the near future.
Now the bag of arguments against cryo and for dying can generally be used also to argue for suicide in old age (as seen on a StarTrek:TNG episode), or against medical treatment of those who do not wish it. But I rarely see that side argued. And to me it looks very similar. Cryo as the very slow ambulance ride till a hospital that can treat you has been built.
You appear to have completely abandoned your original reason for not signing up for cryonics (that you've come to terms with death) in light of MartinB's question and switched to a new reason (that you would only like to live indefinitely if your life is not interrupted by an intermission of unknown duration) without explicitly acknowledging that you have done so. This makes me somewhat suspicious of your reasoning on this issue.
For what it's worth, I'm currently unconvinced by the arguments for signing up for cryonics but your reasoning here looks dubious to me even though I share your conclusion.
If you were signing up for a health-insurance program which included coverage for cryonics by default, along with other available treatments for severe injuries, would you opt out of that part of the coverage, and ask to be embalmed or cremated rather than frozen? What if it cost extra to do so?
What a horrendous case of prisoner's dilemma...
It is a horrendous case of a sub-optimal equilibrium in a coordination game. You know, one of the examples of game theory that isn't the @#%@ Prisoner's Dilemma.
It sometimes amazes me (but only when I forget about evolutionary psychology, which easily explains it) how successful the meme of self-interest has become at persuading otherwise intelligent people that their life has more value than another's. (Say another intelligent person's, to head off one common rationalisation.)
It sometimes amazes me how often commenters on LessWrong (who really should know better if they've read the sequences) commit the mind projection fallacy, e.g. by assuming that "value" is a single-place function ("value(thing)") instead of a two-place one ("value(thing, to-whom)").
This must be an example of a much broader theme. One wants X but comes to the belief that X is impossible. Then one stops wanting X, which is probably a healthy response when X really is impossible. When it turns out that X is possible after all, one still does not want X.
You could call it "digesting sour grapes", perhaps.
I've sometimes pondered the bizarrely high level of rationality on TV Tropes, and my guess is that it has something to do with people zooming in, thinking about details, trying to find the obvious consequences and moral implications that no one else sees, thinking in "near mode" about things that would usually be considered in "far mode", and possibly just being made up of nerds.
Cases in point:
I think the real reason people are reluctant to sign up for cryonics is that it raises all the classic red flags for a scam. People are asked to invest a significant amount of money in a non-mainstream plan that, even if it works exactly as claimed, won't pay off until well after the mark is no longer able to sue.
Consider the situation from the perspective of someone just hearing about cryonics for the first time: if cryonics is a sham, then they should expect to be presented with a lot of generally plausible-sounding (but falsified) evidence, most of which will probably be too technical for them to follow (so that they can't figure out that it's bogus).
Most people don't have the scientific literacy to distinguish good science from bad with any amount of research, and know this. Even if you had some reason to think that this probably-a-scam thing had enough of a chance to be worth expending nontrivial effort to check out, it's hard to distinguish a good scam from a weird truth.
Once someone's decided (unconsciously, most likely) that they want to avoid cryonics because it seems sketchy, they will generate excuses to avoid it without having to actually say outright that they think it's a scam, because accusing people without hard (scientific, not Bayesian) evidence of guilt is socially inappropriate.
I'm not sure about the high status people with relevant background information, though I do note that that demographic seems more likely per capita to actually sign up. However, I would speculate that academics may be leery of being seen to take seriously anything "fringy" that might damage their reputation, and will endorse any line of argument that appears to oppose it.
I think that some version of the sunk cost fallacy might be at least part of the "threatening" feeling people get from talk of major life extension. People invest a lot of emotional energy toward accepting the inevitability of death (and a lot of mental energy toward rationalizing it as not just inevitable but desirable), both their own eventual death and the past and future deaths of their loved ones, and being told that people might not have to die after all is like being told that you wasted all that agonizing soul-searching and grieving. (Or, worse, like being told that you wasted your loved ones' (future) lives by not convincing them to sign up for cryonics — I can easily see why a person would rather believe "All must perish, that is good and natural and right" than "My mother could have lived and I did nothing".)
I believe that HDM accounts for some smallish component of why I feel threatened by cryonics, and I think this component could be easily addressed with some preparations and rituals once cryonics became more mainstream.
For example, I hate the idea of going to the grocery store to buy ice to chill a person so they can be preserved. (Because I'd rather they stay dead than buy ice? No. Something about going to buy a bag of ice with an igloo on it, intended for soda and beer, feels disrespectful.) But if an ambulance came prepared with ice, that would be great. And the development of 'normal' cryonics rituals: 'So-and-so has been cryopreserved, a memorial service will be held Sunday.'
Since the main perceived (or real) threat seems to be to the social status of the family, along with participating personnel and experts, perhaps the answer is to be more generous with our praise towards those currently in stasis. They are pioneers from our time, after all.
The trouble with that is that they are expected to eventually be reanimated and may thus hear of this gushing praise one day. Imagine how awkward a funeral would be if the corpse could actually hear the sobs and kind words being spoken over them.
An alternate method of allocating the needed status towards cryonics could be to cultivate pride in the community itself. The issue there is that the community is still small and it could devolve into elitism.
Another possibility could be to house the dewars in some kind of monument, say a time capsule, with prominent displays of our cultural achievements to date. Perhaps the Timeship project is less frivolous than I thought.
Just like joining a cult that promises a post-mortem reward, signing up for cryonics means that anyone who (used to) respect you is forced to evaluate your evidence for doing so, or else save themselves the effort by calling you crazy. I think anti-cryonics backlash is a byproduct of an anti-cult heuristic.
People are even further annoyed when a cult promises that the evidence necessary to convince a thinking person to believe is available now and not just after death - that they're not asking you to take anything on faith (often, this turns out to be a li...
Some aspects of what you call the HDM don't seem to be universal. Note for example that some cultures have deliberately left bodies out on high towers to be consumed by scavengers. The Pirahã dig a hole, toss the body in, and have little or no ceremony. So the idea of having the corpses treated respectfully doesn't really exist in some cultures.
...The HDM does not attempt to establish irreversibility of death beyond a shadow of a doubt, it assumes it based on loss of vital signs and lack of immediate revival. Originally the breath was used, then heartbeat;
The question is what causes this sensation that cryonics is a threat? What does it specifically threaten?
It doesn't threaten the notion that we will all die eventually. Accident, homicide, and war will remain possibilities unless we can defeat them, and suicide will always remain an option.
Even if cryonics does not in fact threaten the notion of eventual death, it might still cause the sensation that it poses this threat.
I am against cryonics, and here's why (though I would love to hear a rebuttal):
Cryonics seems inherently, and destructively, to the human race, grossly selfish. Not only is cryonics a huge cost that could be spent elsewhere helping others, nature and evolution thrive on the necessity of refreshing the population of each species. Though it's speculation, I would assign the probability of evolution continuing to work (and improve) on the human race as pretty high - what gain does the human species have in preserving humans from the 21st century indefinitely,...
I agree, cryonics is selfish. But no more so than lots of other things people indulge themselves in, like buying a house. It would be hypocritical to single out cryonics specifically, using this criterion as justification. This is not your true rejection.
I would assign the probability of evolution continuing to work (and improve) on the human race as pretty high
Then you probably don't understand evolution very well. Evolution doesn't "improve" things, it makes more of whatever survives and reproduces.
Based on the current trends, I'd say we' re evolving in the direction of "too dumb to use birth control".
Cryonics seems inherently, and destructively, to the human race, grossly selfish. Not only is cryonics a huge cost that could be spent elsewhere helping others
It is not very expensive (and could get even cheaper — see Cryonics Wants To Be Big), and many of its supporters see it in a primarily humanitarian sense (advocating that it be easily and cheaply available to everyone, not just being concerned with having it themselves).
Also, as for "spent elsewhere helping others": there are charities that can reliably save a life for between $200 and $1000. Every time you spend some amount of money on that order or some multiple thereof, do you think about whether what you're doing is more important than that many children's lives? Or is it just with medical procedures that have some chance of saving your life? Or is cryonics in particular being singled out for some reason?
...nature and evolution thrive on the necessity of refreshing the population of each species. Though it's speculation, I would assign the probability of evolution continuing to work (and improve) on the human race as pretty high - what gain does the human species have in preserving humans from the 21st century
Evolution, and any plans that it might have had for us, is falling to the wayside.
There are no authoritative plans for what Homo Sapiens "should be" in thousands of years!
Elevated burden of proof. As if cryonics demands more than a small amount of evidence to be worth trying.
Well, maybe from a Pascal's Wager's perspective -- but since cryonics cost a significant amount of money and chances of success are, as far as I know, small at best, one could argue that there may be better returns-on-investment elsewhere. One could give money to, say, the SENS Foundation. Or to researchers on brain-uploading, or other such efforts. Their chances of success may not be very big either, but overall it's not clear that the expected-extra-life-expectancy-per-dollar (EELEPD) is worse than that for cryonics.
I challenge the notion of the article and some comments that people make up their minds consciously about that topic. There are good and rational arguments against cryo, but those are rarely heard. Instead we get snap reactions. But that is not related particularly to this topic, it is a general effect, and deserves general exploration. We annoying rationalists have to habits to deal with some of the deep rooted topics. And death is one of them. Many rituals are old, strict, rarely talked about or questioned. And some religions have the habit to bury the d...
Society has taken advantage of this in historical times by flaying, beheading, or hanging corpses. The idea is that despite the fact that these things have zero impact on a living individual who can feel them
That line of reasoning is incorrect, I believe. I can imagine seeing someone I love treated that way: that would be distinctly worse than knowing they died painlessly and were treated with respect.
The reason is that among my preferences is the wish that my family, friends etc. be treated at least respectfully by others. If this kind of fate is visit...
Actually I don't agree that preventing grotesque displays of one's corpse is primarily motivated by concern for the trauma a living person might receive by looking at it. It seems more to me to have to do with status. We identify with our social status, and the concept of being dishonored (and thus having our social status decline) after we die is something we find unappealing. This is indeed a self-interest based consideration, and indeed alterations in social status for the deceased could have consequences for their family.
However, the link between a given corpse's cosmetic state and one's social status after death seems to me a self-replicating cultural idea (i.e. a meme) with plenty of instinctive impetus but no inherent ethical merit.
A lot of the recent discussion of cryonics in the blogosphere is about others' basis for rejecting it. If you want it to become more available that's probably one of the steps to take. But grossly selfish? Or ghoulish, or an affront to nature, or any of those things? Much of medicine today would seem that way to someone living two centuries ago. For my part, I don't oppose it if others want to do it, and I applaud anyone who wants to use technology to improve their lives even if I think they're barking up the wrong tree; I don't plan to do it myself. ...
Terror Management seems to explain the reactions to cryonics pretty well. I've only skimmed the OP enough to want to trot out the standard explanation, so I may have missed something, but so far as I can tell the Historical Death Meme and Terror Management make the same predictions.
It is in fact absolutely unacceptable, from a simple humanitarian perspective, that something as nebulous as the HDM -- however artistic, cultural, and deeply ingrained it may be -- should ever be substituted for an actual human life.
Accepting something is the first step to changing it, so you'll have to do better than that.
"Unresearched suspicions regarding the ethics and business practices of cryonics organizations."
I consider this to be a real issue. There just isn't much transparency among the handful of players, and sentiments like yours aren't making them any less opaque.
Note that one could just as easily come up with a two page article about a "Futuristic Life Meme" which represents the cryonics supporters' sense of being threatened by death.
The analysis of a new, emerging science deserves critique. From what I can tell, this particular critique is essentially ad-hominem, in that it attempts to attack a belief based on the characteristics of the individuals, rather than their arguments.
It trivializes the fact that there are reasons for being reluctant to invest in cryonics. Lastly, this writing conflates cryonics skepticism with unwillingness to invest.
We've argued a lot about the advisability of cryonics. This article takes that advisibility as a given and attempts to further discussion among those who agree. If you don't agree, that's fine, but It's OK for an article to move on sometimes.
Re: "Historical Death Meme".
The appearance of the dead body typically matters somewhat to those relatives and friends who look at it. What did you expect?
It is obvious that many people find cryonics threatening. Most of the arguments encountered in debates on the topic are not calculated to persuade on objective grounds, but function as curiosity-stoppers. Here are some common examples:
The question is what causes this sensation that cryonics is a threat? What does it specifically threaten?
It doesn't threaten the notion that we will all die eventually. Accident, homicide, and war will remain possibilities unless we can defeat them, and suicide will always remain an option. It doesn't threaten the state, the environment, anyone's health, or any particular religion. It doesn't cost much on a large scale, doesn't generate radioactive waste or pollution, has a low carbon footprint, and is both religiously neutral and life affirming.
Rather, it seems to threaten something else, less conspicuous and more universal. This something I have termed the "Historical Death Meme", and is something which we can see influencing all human cultures throughout history. It is something we probably aren't too comfortable about leaving behind, and perhaps in fact shouldn't be. And yet, it is at least as prescientific and as hazardous as creationism.
According to the HDM, if you die the cosmetic state of your body matters. If it is grotesque, you are dishonored; if not, you are respected. Society has taken advantage of this in historical times by flaying, beheading, or hanging corpses. The idea is that despite the fact that these things have zero direct impact on a living individual who can feel them, the disgust and revulsion felt in looking at them from the outside is symbolic in some way. Likewise, when a person dies and is embalmed or cremated, the features are either restored to normal or obliviated entirely.
A second aspect of the HDM is that your attitude and feelings at the end of your life matter more significantly than ever before. We tend to place great store in people's last words and final wishes. If a person is dying, their social status changes dramatically. We can't easily despise a dying person -- at least not without stooping to the level of truly despising them.
These elements of human culture and psychology have intertwined to make acceptance of cryonics very difficult. Cryonics does not regard the individuals in question as dead. Thus it would be immoral to focus on cosmetic surgery rather than on reducing the amount of brain damage. The fact that disfigurement happens isn't the problem, it is that cryonicists don't care about the amount of disfigurement. This contradicts the HDM and represents a threat to anyone who strongly identifies with it.
Cryonics also encourages an attitude of resistance towards death, of rational decision making, and of taking exception to social norms we disagree with. The HDM states that attitudes towards the end of life are important, and in fact amplifies them such that a whisper is the same as a shout. It seemingly shows that the person not only thinks they are capable of making a better decision than the vast majority of other individuals, but are not above bragging about it and rubbing it in the faces of those who make a worse decision. A simple step of enlightened self-interest is suddenly escalated to the perceived level of extreme narcissism.
The HDM does not attempt to establish irreversibility of death beyond a shadow of a doubt, it assumes it based on loss of vital signs and lack of immediate revival. Originally the breath was used, then heartbeat; now the brainwave is considered an acceptable signal. In whatever case, the presumed criteria for reversibility is that it must be immediately measurable and based on current technologies. To remove the ability to be certain of death -- making it a complex ongoing research project rather than a simple testable hypothesis, is a threat. The HDM depends on death being an immediately known quantity, because it depends on simplistic human emotions being engaged rather than complex human reasoning processes.
Problems notwithstanding, the HDM is one of the most poignant displays of humanity ever. Throughout history, humans have buried their dead, mourned and cried over their dead, honored their dead, and used obscene displays of corpses to punish their dead. For millions of years there has been nothing we could possibly do about death, once it happens, and it has been pretty much crystal clear exactly when it has happened. Our art, our culture, our very humanity, has been anchored in this one seemingly immutable aspect of life. Then cryonics comes along, something we can possibly do about the matter. It's not a guarantee of survival, nor a risky operation that you'll get immediate feedback on. The only guarantee it provides an escape from unnecessary death, subject to certain abstract conditions and unknown facts about the universe. You can't just stop thinking about death, you have to start thinking about it in another way entirely. A more rational, imaginative, creative, lateral way.
It makes a strange sort of sense, that so many of the world's leaders and thinkers are united in their opposition -- be it passive or active -- for this threat to the traditional way of thinking. It cuts deep. The reason it is such a threat is that it takes one essential human value, respect for life, and pits it against another: traditional respect for the dead. The latter is more fragile, its value less clear, and its cognition level less conscious. It has never had to defend itself. In a fight, we all know which would win. And that is precisely why cryonics is a threat.
Who stands to lose face if cryonics is taken seriously? The answer is: Lots of good people. Practically everyone who participates in the HDM does. Here are some specific examples that come to mind.
The list goes on. The unavoidable fact is that in asking society to accept cryonics, we are asking for a lot. We are asking humans to admit how fallible they are, asking a generation to turn against the deeply honored ways of their ancestors. The costs are dire indeed.
And yet we cannot ethically just shut up about it. No lives should be lost, even potentially, due solely to lack of a regular, widely available, low-cost, technologically optimized cryonics practice. It is in fact absolutely unacceptable, from a simple humanitarian perspective, that something as nebulous as the HDM -- however artistic, cultural, and deeply ingrained it may be -- should ever be substituted for an actual human life.
