A very interesting post I ran across on cryonet.
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
