X-Message-Number: 4790 Date: Tue, 15 Aug 95 23:52:05 From: mike <> Subject: Moravec and the Puzzle of the Non-Signups One of the things that has always surprised me in cryonics is just how sensible this whole thing is, when you consider the alternatives and every possible side issue, and yet, how incredibly few people are actually signed up for cryonic suspension. In particular, intelligent, science-oriented types who seem to enjoy the things that would make cryonics meaningful (including continued existence!) and are not strong believers in the supernatural, ought to make good prospects for cryonics. Yet, for the most part, they don't seem interested. Hans Moravec is a case in point. Moravec is a well-known computer scientist who has championed the possibility of uploading the personality into a computational device of the future, thus allowing continued survival as well as some nice side benefits such as augmentation of intelligence. Moravec seems quite interested in such applications of future technology as this use of computers. So it might seem that he would also be interested in continued survival in the first place. Yet he has not indicated any personal interest in cryonics, which we in the field see as the best approach to take *at present*, given that uploading is still a dream of the future. Charles Platt has made contact with Moravec and gotten a response (see #4784) that I believe offers valuable insight into why Moravec and other intelligent people are indifferent to the possibilities cryonics offers--which include becoming more than human with greatly extended lifespan, etc. Platt also doubts that Moravec has much interest in debating cryonics (and non-cryonicists, in my experience, are never much interested in this). So, in this commentary I'm not clamoring to "debate" issues with Moravec or any other person not interested in cryonics, though I will contest some of the points he raises. But I am trying to arrive at a better understanding of why people don't sign up, and also to find better ways of meeting the objections to cryonics that are raised, for those "on the fence" who might be persuaded to our way of thinking. Let's go then, to what Moravec says. "The main reason I'm indifferent to cryonics or uploading is that I truly expect to be utterly obsolete within a half century, even with intelligence augmentation." It seems then that Moravec is not merely forgoing cryonics because he thinks uploading is "better." He is apparently not interested in survival at all (beyond present biological limits) because he expects to be "utterly obsolete" in the world of the future, "even with intelligence augmentation." He next likens his continued survival to "upgrading an old clunker" when "an entirely new model" is what is called for. Presumably then, the recollection of past experiences, etc. that would differentiate the "old model" from the "new" would irremediably antiquate and impair the old, justifying eliminating it and substituting something "better." I think the suggested analogy of a person with a piece of machinery (e.g. an auto) has been pushed much too far. By a kind of circular argument we could say that a Model T would always remain a Model T, no matter how much you might repair it and shine it up--otherwise, you have "exceeded the allowable range of transformations" and your upgrade is really a "new model." On the other hand we know in principle we could transform a Model T into any other type of car (or airplane, computer or washing machine for that matter) by following the appropriate steps, and the change could be made gradual. The question can then be raised, when do we have an "entirely new model" or just an "upgrade?" With unthinking machinery the question does not seem particularly meaningful or important. For one thing we don't have much to go on to distinguish clearly between an upgrade and a new model. But with people the situation is different. The difference is that upgrades will (or should) still retain information of a past life. I fail to see how that would *necessarily* make them "old clunkers" however. In other respects they could be fully "modernized" whatever that might involve (and it might be much more than "mere" intelligence augmentation, depending on what you want to include in your definition of that). In fact it might be argued that *having* the older experiences would confer some real advantages. In any case the fear of being "obsolete" seems to boil down to a feeling that being able to remember an earlier and more primitive time and self must add up to a state of dissatisfaction or unhappiness, no matter what course of later development one might take. (And of course we are assuming a future in which one never grows "old" as we understand the term today.) To me this "necessary unhappiness" hypothesis seems more than a little absurd, and I think most people in cryonics would agree. I eagerly look forward, both to constructive developments in the world at large, and to personal upgrades of many varieties, that would still preserve a knowledge of the past. I see both as making life *more* meaningful and enjoyable overall, not less. Another point Moravec makes is that, with a many-worlds cosmology, resurrections of the dead would apparently be inevitable. By now many other people have noted this too. To me it's wonderful! Happily, many worlds seems sounder than rival theories--*it might really be true!* If so, it means even those who were not frozen will come back someday. If this is to happen, I think there are still sound philosophical reasons why one should choose cryonics. I am trying to put these into more cogent form in a book I am now writing. Anyway, Moravec says "I don't particularly care about being resurrected ..."--too bad. It would seem then, that a future resurrector would not want to recreate Moravec directly, but in a more advanced form, a "continuer" that *would* see the value of continuing, developing survival, something Moravec now seems utterly blind to. And so blinded apparently are all the others who in other ways seem like good prospects for cryonics. Such a pity that these instead, barring an aging breakthrough, are doomed, like so many before them, to destruction (even if they may resurrected again someday, in some appropriate form). In a few decades hopefully mortality will abolished, and those then living will develop into more-than-humans. We in cryonics hope to be among their number. People at large, however, seem beyond our rescue attempt because they will not accept it. Apparently they have too frail a sense of self-worth, and the frailty is so deeply ingrained that attempts to affect it by persuasion usually fail. Such people by contrast often see cryonicists as overly hubristic and selfish, valuing themselves and their continued survival "far too much." And it's true that cryonicists generally value their survival more than others do theirs--and some cryonicists have been downright egotistical--but it's not true that we value *only* our own survival. Most of us, I am sure, feel that others ought to survive too--assuming they want to survive. This I see as a very wholesome attitude. I would go so far as to say that *not* to value individual survival, including but not limited to one's own, is to demean life in general. To choose cryonics is an act intended to benefit the chooser, of course. But it can also be an affirmation of the high value placed on a person's life in general, and an exhortation to others to value life more highly, even to the point that they too become cryonicists. Taken rightly, then, cryonics becomes the correct moral choice. Mike Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4790