This is a linkpost for https://substack.com/@chromehorizons/p-163181531
In Bayesian statistics there’s the concept of the Uniform Prior - in the absence of evidence, assume all options are equally likely to be true. I often find myself using an alternative strategy, which I’ll dub “the masochistic prior” - in the absence of evidence, whichever option is most painful to believe is the best reflection of reality.
First, the only reason the Uniform Prior (or any other, really) is feasible is that there's a shit-ton of evidence before you have to make any real decisions. For most things, any non-pathological prior is going to converge pretty quickly.
Second, the strategy of recognizing the benefit of preparing for worse events should be VERY DISTINCT from your probability estimates, or you risk double-counting things.
In Bayesian statistics there’s the concept of the Uniform Prior - in the absence of evidence, assume all options are equally likely to be true. I often find myself using an alternative strategy, which I’ll dub “the masochistic prior” - in the absence of evidence, whichever option is most painful to believe is the best reflection of reality.
This can manifest in mundane ways. When I was a struggling university student, blaming ancient professors with thick accents would have been an easy excuse. The true explanation - that I was inattentive & needed to get my act together - was much more difficult to accept. The principle generalizes to life’s harder moments too. Like all of us eventually must, I’ve had to grapple with the death and illness of loved ones. It’s easy to appeal to some divine authority in theses moments. And yet, even when we make these appeals, we still cry and mourn over loss. I think at a deep level, we suspect a much harsher truth. The people we love aren’t in a better place. They are not, and that’s it.
Joe Carlsmith defines Deep Atheism as a kind of fundamental mistrust of nature [1], a philosophical disposition that refuses to look away from the horrors of the world, even if those horrors are manifest in the most fundamental aspects of our existence. It is the kind of atheism that demands we look at life the way it is, without an obligation to wrap those truths in comforting platitudes or lies, no matter how terrible that truth might be. It is also the type of atheism that demands we get our act together and start fixing the problem.
Over 100 billion humans have lived throughout history and during that time over 90 billion have died. Every single one of those lives have been completely destroyed, the patterns composing them irreversibly reduced to random noise. And save for a vanishingly small fraction, every single one of those deaths have been non-consensual, something forced upon them by a cruel, unthinking, and uncaring universe that’s entirely indifferent to their nonexistence. Cryonics advocates sometimes say that the “number one cause of death is old age” but rarely do those advocates say this with the amount of deep, existential horror that the observation deserves. There is no difference between deaths from old age and those from malaria, measles, or violence - all are equally final, and equally premature.
Very few atheists allow themselves to look at death in such stark terms, even if they intellectually agree with the argument. Perhaps because some facts are too painful to recognize as truth. As Eliezer Yudkowsky reflected on his brother’s death [2]
Where Yudkowsky expresses wonder, I feel confusion. How can one recognize the terrible reality of death and respond with passive acceptance? The unthinking cruelty of the universe will eventually destroy you and everyone you love. Acknowledging this truth should compel action, not resignation.
I believe we're fortunate to live in a time where action is possible. Would I have had the strength to face these harsh realities without any hope for change? Probably not. But there are real grounds for hope: the human mind, however complex, is finite. There are only so many neurons, synapses, and proteins that determine the brain's function. Whatever constitutes human consciousness fits within roughly 85 cubic inches between our ears. And what is finite can be understood, preserved, and emulated.
The technological challenges are immense, and success is far from guaranteed. But I'd rather confront those challenges than pretend death isn't as devastating as it truly is. I hope to live long enough to see death's defeat, to witness a world where we no longer need comforting fictions about mortality. Until then, I hope I treat the threat with the seriousness it deserves. And by doing so, I hope I can make that day come a bit faster.
1 https://joecarlsmith.com/2024/01/04/deep-atheism-and-ai-risk
2 http://sl4.org/archive/0411/10322.html