POLL: Cryonics - do you want to be frozen when you die?

[daniel_the_smith]

Are you not open to the possibility that there are two sides to this particular coin?

I'm not sure how I could be convinced that the end of a consciousness is other than a tragedy, but I encourage you to try...

Note, I've been lucky thus far, no close friends or relatives of mine have died. I strongly doubt that when that inevitably happens it will make me think *more* favorably of death.

[daniel_the_smith]

This is possibly true. But no living person has data of what happens after death. So the presumed emptiness is, perhaps, simply a null hypothesis.

Without a single data point on the matter, it is somewhat of a difficult thought to analyze scientifically.

OK, I have to disagree with this, sorry Kirby. We don't need "data points" to know what happens after death. Outline of argument:

Consciousness is something that requires computational work. Humans have an organ which can perform such work, and in fact, does. If you turn this organ off, there is no longer anything to compute the experiences of the person. Therefore that person cannot have any further experiences.

Or, as I heard somewhere, you know what it is like to be dead: you were "dead" for eons before you were born.

[Kirby]

...
Consciousness is something that requires computational work. ...

Perhaps. But maybe not. I guess I'm just saying that consciousness is not something we know much about, and there exists the possibility that there is some form of post-death consciousness of which we are not aware.

That said, there is no reason to believe in post-death consciousness, as we have no data about it. It would be an arbitrary belief.

The reason I allow for the possibility of such an arbitrary belief is that life, itself, is a bit of a mystery to me to begin with.

[daniel_the_smith]

I guess I'm just saying that consciousness is not something we know much about, and there exists the possibility that there is some form of post-death consciousness of which we are not aware.

We don't know how to make consciousness, but we aren't completely ignorant. There is very, very strong evidence that the human brain generates our consciousness. (For example, brain damage in specific areas causes specific corresponding personality changes or other loss of function. Alzheimer's is caused by plagues in the brain. If consciousness was sourced elsewhere, why would that be? Oh, and there don't appear to be any structures in the brain capable of receiving consciousness from external sources; it *really* looks like the neurons are computing our consciousness!)

How could the brain somehow convert into some sort of ethereal, non-physical construct upon death? If there's no conceivable mechanism, and you admit that there can't be evidence, how is it rational to ascribe much probability to the event? I'll give it a maximum of a 0.01% chance, which is pretty generous, I think.

[Solomon]

For example, brain damage in specific areas causes specific corresponding personality changes or other loss of function.

My favorite example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

[topazg]

Are you not open to the possibility that there are two sides to this particular coin?

I'm not sure how I could be convinced that the end of a consciousness is other than a tragedy, but I encourage you to try...

Why would I want to convince you to change your opinion? I respect it, I can empathise with it, and you are welcome to it

[Kirby]

I guess I'm just saying that consciousness is not something we know much about, and there exists the possibility that there is some form of post-death consciousness of which we are not aware.

We don't know how to make consciousness, but we aren't completely ignorant. There is very, very strong evidence that the human brain generates our consciousness...

Agreed. There is probably also strong evidence that there is no consciousness that can exist without a brain.

But, in my mind, I still hold a higher degree of confidence to things that I can recall an actual experience for - experiences that I can fathom within the bounds of my own existence. For example, I believe that the chair in which I sit exists with a higher degree of probability than the confidence that I have that there is no consciousness after death.

I have some actual experience sitting on my chair, and that's why I can have more confidence in it.

My existence is a closed system, so it's difficult for me to comprehend something outside of that system. It's possible that another system exists outside of the closed system of my existence. Would that system include consciousness?

There's no reason to really think so, but I cannot help but admit my uncertainty in the unknown that exists outside of the realm of my own existence.

[topazg]

... Alzheimer's is caused by plagues in the brain...

Hehe, amusing typo Visions of some bubonic black brain death over here!

[crux]

Or, as I heard somewhere, you know what it is like to be dead: you were "dead" for eons before you were born.

Didn't seem like such a terrible experience.

[BobC]

Isn't mummification cheaper?

I seem to remember that when this was done the first time round in the seventies. The company went bust and everybody thawed.

You might read "The American way of death" by Mitford. It was published in the early sixties but there are clearly resonances here.

Personally I don't mind dying- I just don't want to be there when it happens..

[jts]

"the time had come for someone to die"-- Barring tragedy, aging, illness, etc., (all likely to be nonexistent or very rare in a future capable of waking the frozen), I can't think of any reason why such a time should come for anyone.

I was addressing the claim that, since we (in the world of tragedy, aging, and illness) are sad about specific deaths, and don't want specific people to die at specific times, we must never want anyone to die. I just wanted to tease out that that particular implication was unwarranted. (I like the idea that there will be no tragedy after the singularity, though! Awesome.)

I don't think that follows at all. When your desire to not appear to be a slob overcomes your laziness, you'll do the dishes.

Agreed. My desires and attitudes toward an event E occurring at t₁, t₂, t₃, t_n, are not the same as my attitudes towards event E.

All it takes is a passing acquaintance with the history of Christian ideology to learn that we are very far from the first generation to hope to triumph over death.

Trying not to make this a religious conversation:

Which is why I had the word "reasonable" in there.

Me too

Which is why I haven't accused anyone of engaging in wishful thinking driven by deep-seated fantasies of personal invulnerability, and/or the desperate hope that they live in a universe tailored to their personal satisfaction.

3. Cryogenic freezing preserves the neural connections.

I give #1 and #2 both a > 99% chance of being correct. #3 I'll give > 90% chance*.

It's quite difficult to have an informed conversation about this... so far as I know, no one who has had their brain frozen has ever been reanimated, and (I assume?) none of us are practicing cyronicists. You can revive people after they die from hypothermia, but there's usually some brain damage. You can freeze undifferentiated tissues without causing mass cell death, but there have been technical problems even with cooling and re-warming non-biological materials. I would personally guess that (abstracting from the other elements of the process) the damage done to your brain during the freezing-reanimation process would be equivalent to suffering a stroke, with fat error tails allowing both identical neural connections and very seriously impaired neural connections.

Memories and personality go along with the brain. The rest of the body is less important; in theory it (or a close enough substitute) could be created given my DNA.

Even if the freezing and unfreezing doesn't affect any chemical bonds in your brain, it's worth considering how peculiar and fragile memory is. Our ability to recollect smells and tastes fades quite quickly, if we don't experience them again; our ability to remember sounds and images is much stronger, but also requires external stimuli. Most of the memories which the reanimated individual starts with would soon be quite dim indeed.

Add that to the fact that we're hoping to resurrected radiant and incorruptible. Even if you were still you to start with, how long would it be until you could no longer recall anything about your former life?

If you lose/gain a friend, does that make you a different person? I would say: not in the way I think we're talking about.

If you gain/lose one friend, perhaps not; but it's quite plausible to me that if you lose all of your friends, relatives, etc., you've acquired a (partially) new identity. And that might affect how much you care about what happens to the person who has your brain.

The same sensory perceptions?

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Perhaps there are no humans left when they finally get around to resurrecting your frozen head, and instead of hearing, feeling, and seeing like a human, your neurons are stuffed into a body that sees the world like a seahorse, or a bat, or a shark, or like some other creature as yet unknown. Does that change your identity?

Shared history with my current brain.

I'll just note that it's slightly peculiar that, if you take two people (let's call them A and B), with any imaginable difference between them, you are willing to countenance calling them the same person, and expect A to treat B as he would himself (and vice-versa) just so long as one of A's organs eventually becomes one of B's organs, or vice-versa. If I announced this theory about the heart or the liver, you would think I was hopelessly dumb.

And how do you know I'm not Britney Spears?

[Toge]

It will be very difficult to convince me that death is actually a feature and not a bug.

- Well, this kind of dichotomy is quite revealing. Death is an essential tool in workings of the world.

What if you could copy files to your computer, but never delete them?
What if there was no way to recycle trash - biological or other?
What if nothing would die? No creature could exist in the first place.

Life is a cycle. There's no gaining. Evolution is not about 'becoming better', but new generations adapting to circumstances through natural selection.

[Toge]

I think it's not an uncommon assumption that, after death, people experience "nothingness" (though, there are a variety of religious beliefs, as well).

- What did you experience before you were born?

However, it's interesting to me that, unlike many other things in life which we can learn about via observation and experimentation, there is no data available for what the experience of death will be like. We know, from an external perspective, that people appear to lose consciousness. But where does that consciousness go? Does it go anywhere?

- It's like when Kirby goes offline, we don't see Kirby around making posts.
But we miss him because we remember him. That's a feature. But memories erode over time. In topic of consciousness, we might as well ask how does it feel to forget something you don't even remember forgetting? Consciousness itself is a feature, like a monitor to computer. Losing consciousness is a bit like using a computer without monitor plugged in. Buttons can be pressed and the processor fan might make a sound, but the meaning of actions becomes apparent only after plugging the monitor back on. 'Seeing' what it's like to be dead is like using the computer without having the computer. With the foundation gone, the question is absurd.

I don't think the English language even has appropriate words with which to discuss this topic.

[daniel_the_smith]

Me too

Which is why I haven't accused anyone of engaging in wishful thinking driven by deep-seated fantasies of personal invulnerability, and/or the desperate hope that they live in a universe tailored to their personal satisfaction.

I think my stated probability of it working (1-5%) is low enough to keep that from sticking, anyway.

3. Cryogenic freezing preserves the neural connections.

It's quite difficult to have an informed conversation about this... so far as I know, no one who has had their brain frozen has ever been reanimated, and (I assume?) none of us are practicing cyronicists. You can revive people after they die from hypothermia, but there's usually some brain damage. You can freeze undifferentiated tissues without causing mass cell death, but there have been technical problems even with cooling and re-warming non-biological materials. I would personally guess that (abstracting from the other elements of the process) the damage done to your brain during the freezing-reanimation process would be equivalent to suffering a stroke, with fat error tails allowing both identical neural connections and very seriously impaired neural connections.

I'm assuming a successful reanimation requires nanotechnology; I'm expecting the reanimation machine to actually look at brains on the molecular level and reconnect any severed synapses that go together, etc. Obviously there's some level of damage past which it won't be possible. Even if it were as bad as a stroke, I'd be perfectly happy to take that chance for 1,000 extra years of life. I expect lots of damage to be done during the dying/freezing process, and some of that to be repaired prior to/during the reanimation process.

Reanimation would be extremely difficult. The only sort of society that will do it is one in which god like feats of engineering cost not much more than running a refrigerator. I think a lot of the objections are based on a failure to imagine how profoundly different that would make society. Did I mention I give this < 5% chance of working?

I based the >90% figure off some research which I can't find at the moment which looked at vitrified (frozen to liquid nitrogen temps) brain tissue under a microscope and observed that relevant details seem to have been preserved.

I will be the first to admit cryonics is an experiment. But, as I heard somewhere-- the control group is not doing well at all.

Memories and personality go along with the brain. The rest of the body is less important; in theory it (or a close enough substitute) could be created given my DNA.

Even if the freezing and unfreezing doesn't affect any chemical bonds in your brain, it's worth considering how peculiar and fragile memory is. Our ability to recollect smells and tastes fades quite quickly, if we don't experience them again; our ability to remember sounds and images is much stronger, but also requires external stimuli. Most of the memories which the reanimated individual starts with would soon be quite dim indeed.

Add that to the fact that we're hoping to resurrected radiant and incorruptible. Even if you were still you to start with, how long would it be until you could no longer recall anything about your former life?

No biological processes at all take place while the brain is at liquid nitrogen temperature, so memories won't fade while you're suspended. This is nothing like being in a coma. And once you're awakened, how will things be any different than they are now? I only have a few memories from when I was < 5 years old. If anything, I expect memory to be improved upon awakening (for any new memories, that is, and I would not expect old ones to deteriorate like they do now).

If you gain/lose one friend, perhaps not; but it's quite plausible to me that if you lose all of your friends, relatives, etc., you've acquired a (partially) new identity. And that might affect how much you care about what happens to the person who has your brain.

Since this happens already in life without people getting frozen, I don't see how it's relevant?

Perhaps there are no humans left when they finally get around to resurrecting your frozen head, and instead of hearing, feeling, and seeing like a human, your neurons are stuffed into a body that sees the world like a seahorse, or a bat, or a shark, or like some other creature as yet unknown. Does that change your identity?

Possibly.

Shared history with my current brain.

I'll just note that it's slightly peculiar that, if you take two people (let's call them A and B), with any imaginable difference between them, you are willing to countenance calling them the same person, and expect A to treat B as he would himself (and vice-versa) just so long as one of A's organs eventually becomes one of B's organs, or vice-versa. If I announced this theory about the heart or the liver, you would think I was hopelessly dumb.

I said "informational content"-- the exact molecules that compose my brain, and even the particular hardware running it (neurons) are not important. And yes, it would be dumb to suggest this of the heart or liver because they are obviously not producing the consciousness I experience. I am my brain. You are yours.

[daniel_the_smith]

It will be very difficult to convince me that death is actually a feature and not a bug.

- Well, this kind of dichotomy is quite revealing. Death is an essential tool in workings of the world.

What if you could copy files to your computer, but never delete them?
What if there was no way to recycle trash - biological or other?
What if nothing would die? No creature could exist in the first place.

Life is a cycle. There's no gaining. Evolution is not about 'becoming better', but new generations adapting to circumstances through natural selection.

Is is not ought. Just because it currently works that way, doesn't mean it's a good idea, or that it shouldn't be changed. Evolution built us, but we are far smarter than evolution.