Cryonics and the Hanson Family

We can debate the probability of cryonics working for as long as we want but we will not produce a satisfactory answer. Cryonics is *per definition* a form of decision making under uncertainty because it involves stabilizing people at low temperatures who cannot be treated by todays medical technologies.

Since there is negligible deterioration at the temperature of liquid nitrogen, cryonics patients are not in a hurry. It may be excessive optimism to believe that one day we will have technologies to cure these patients and rejuvenate them, but it also seems excessively pessimistic to argue that we will *never* develop such technologies.

It is clear that whatever the probabilities are they are lower than they could be as a result of the kind of hostility displayed by some of the people in this article. The issue of hostile interference with cryonics raises some complicated ethical questions.

"If cryonics genuinely had a 5% chance of giving Robin ten extra years of healthy life, then Robin's right, and Peggy's just plain wrong. If, in contrast, cryonics had a 5% chance of eventually creating a mere computer simulation of Robin, but only a one-in-a-million chance of reviving the flesh-and-blood man, cryonics does indeed seem like an undue financial and emotional burden on his family."

No comprendo! Robin Hanson's value to almost all other people lies in his intellectual productions, which a computer simulation could do just as well. From the social point of view a computer simulation is very nearly as good as the flesh-and-blood item.

The main question is whether his intellectual productions are worth the expense of cryonic preservation and reconstitution. On this point, no doubt, opinions will differ.

So Bryan, do you assign zero utility to leaving behind a simulated version of yourself? I agree that the difference between eternal life in flesh Vs. Em form is non-trivial, but I would prefer to live forever as a brain scan over the alternative of dying.

costs are only an issue for people that absolutely must spend every spare cent on positional goods.

Perhaps what Peggy objects to is the personal cost (in terms of fraction of Robin's estate entailed towards maintaining the cryonics): perhaps she weighs the benefit of taking that money and using it to save lives in the present more heavily than the possibility of resurrecting Robin at some far future date.

Isn't the answer to the conflict obvious?: Robin signals that he values his pet theories more than harmony with his family.

Yeah, what's with the "flesh and blood" fetish?

Bigot! :-)

"mere" computer simulation? It seems more than likely that a future that could simulate Robin by scanning his frozen head would be perfectly capable of providing a virtual environment to feed to his simulated senses that would be adequate enough to make his life worth living.

Or are you worried that a simulated Robin wouldn't be a Real Person the way a flesh and blood Robin would be?

If, in contrast, cryonics had a 5% chance of eventually creating a mere computer simulation of Robin, but only a one-in-a-million chance of reviving the flesh-and-blood man

@Sam: According to the article, Peggy's not spending her efforts prolonging people's lives, but easing their deaths. So your "perhaps she weighs the benefit of taking that money and using it to save lives in the present more heavily than the possibility of resurrecting Robin at some far future date" is a non sequitur.

What do you mean by "mere simulation"? People are self modifying programs in their natural form. The important parts of Robin will still exist when loaded into a computer.

Why would his family be emotionally burdened?