It's not incomparable in a mathematical sense, but the probability of any known religion being correct is not remotely on the same scale of reviving a suspended human mind.
That's not what's being debated. We're debating reviving with a yet unknown technique a human mind frozen with a particular one.
> the probability of any known religion being correct is not remotely on the same scale...
I'm an atheist, but that's totally unknown and presently unknowable. And don't provide as an example a very particular religion that rejects evolution (I don't know about muslims and other religions less known in the west, but most religious Jews and many Catholics don't reject evolution).
> That's not what's being debated. We're debating reviving with a yet unknown technique a human mind frozen with a particular one.
I know I'm repeating myself in every comment I make in this thread, but to reiterate. We know one possible technique that will work. We know that it exists, it is possible and that it can do the job in principle. We just don't know how to use it, because we didn't build that particular piece of technology.
There may be other ways we don't know about yet, but if there are none, then there's always the nanotech.
Please show us how we "know" (given that we know with certainty so few things in biology).
> then there's always the nanotech.
... and God's angels. You're forgetting them. The "nanotech" you're referring to is, at this point, no more (in fact, it is precisely) science-fiction. Even as recently as 40 years ago, people were certain we'd all have flying cars by now. We can conjecture but not know that we'll be able to achieve some future technologies, even if we see some prototype of them. The fact life exists does not mean we'll be able to engineer it, and certainly not "control" it. There are some things that are simply intractable. We can't even forecast the weather for more than several days, so from the fact life exists you deduce that we'll be able to replicate it with "nanotech"? Maybe we will, and maybe we won't. It might be cool if we do -- and it might be horrifying and lead to our destruction -- but you're constantly confusing science with science fiction. And remember: all science fiction -- as well as most religions in the time they're founded -- are premised on what we currently know.
> so from the fact life exists you deduce that we'll be able to replicate it with "nanotech"?
No. I asssert that life is nanotech. We've seen those things down to atomic level and we know from observation that every living thing is entirely made from machines pushing around molecules. The required technology is there, we don't even have to develop our own, we just need to get better at controlling the 'natural' one. There's some good progress in reprogramming bacteria and viruses to do our bidding, and there are no clear obstacles why we shouldn't be able to develop this further.
Can you please try to control the weather first? Because we know from observation that that's just molecules pushing each other around, and it's a lot less complicated then life, so it should be easier to control, right? (only -- intractability)
No, it's actually more complicated. Biological machinery doesn't push molecules at random. Sure it's a lot to work out, but we've been doing it for the last 100 years with a lot of success. Google up some things we can make bacteria do nowdays.
By the way, the primary obstacle to controlling the weather is not the molecular-level interactions, it's the power requirements. Given enough energy generation, we could control weather using today's technology, just as we can do indoors with air conditioning and various experiments like "hey, let's make a cloud indoors and make it rain". Hell, your friendly neighbourhood nuclear power plant produces clouds and rain as a part of its daily operations. We just don't have enough raw power to do it on planetary scale (and we'd probably screw ourselves over big time if we had), as this article [0] kindly explains.
There's no intractability here, with enough power you could just push the air around any way you like. Weather is transforming energy in a very, very complex set of feedback loops, but you could override it completely with even more energy. You can throw paper balls at a cat to try and get it to move somewhere, or you can just grab it and put it where you want it to be (and then catch it again, because it will most definitely try to escape).
> with enough power you could just push the air around any way you like
Maybe a real god could, but we can't. Unless you have tractor beams, anti-gravity force fields and other sci-fi tech, either you'd have to have these "weather machines" placed in a fairly tight grid, or intractability would rule (outside a small area of influence). The problem isn't just energy, but directing it.
Also, the inefficiency of ex: wind turbines would add a lot of energy which would be counter productive. You might be able to control the weather by blocking out the sun and then selectively lighting some areas over others. But that's not really controlling weather so much as setting the temperature on an AC.
So people were off by a few decades on timescales and on social/political uptake. Big deal.
Life exists, it's physical. Our control of physical processes has consistently improved. There isn't any issue in revival that has shown to be totally intractable, in a way that violates any key physical assumptions we have.
Let me make myself clear: I am not debating the possibility that revival could one day turn from the science-fiction it is now into a real technology. I am pointing out the leaps of faith people take to translate that reasonable scientific conjecture into actual life (or death) choices. Thinking about whether there is a god or isn't -- and trying to learn the truth -- makes you a philosopher; it is changing your behavior based on the assumption god exists and other presumptions about Her that makes you religious.
And freezing yourself, as I've mentioned in numerous other comments on this thread, is a choice based on assumptions other than technological -- for example that the future would be hospitable to people born and raised in our lifetime. I'm just thinking of how miserable Mark Twain would be in this age of Facebook, and how much misery Hemingway would experience in our era of reality television.
Do you agree then that all those non-technological assumptions can be included in one's utility calculations and that people can give different estimates to how friendly the future would look like? Or do you believe the probability of a bad future is so big, that betting on benevolent world is a leap or faith?
> Do you agree then that all those non-technological assumptions can be included in one's utility calculations...
Perhaps in theory. In practice I don't see this happening without turning into a religion. Even from the rational perspective, you don't really have enough knowledge to make a reasonably informed bet. From a rational perspective it's just buying a lottery ticket. But that's not the psychology of what's happening here. To me, your question sounds like: "so you don't agree that people would choose who they sleep with based on cold utilitarian estimates?" Well, maybe that's theoretically possible, and maybe some people can do that, but that doesn't happen in the general case, because human psychology is also very real.
I do not for one second believe that people can think about death and about options of spending resources to win an afterlife in a purely rational, utilitarian way. If you're saying that's how you think then either you're suffering from a mental disorder (I'm saying it in good humor) or you're not being honest with yourself. I don't think that cold calculation can trump fantasies of eternal life in a bright future. I think that there's no way such fantasies do not cloud your judgement, just as a pretty girl would make you do dumb stuff. That's just how we're wired. Once hope and emotion play a role in guiding your decision to act today based on the belief in a (positive) afterlife, you stop being a scientist and turn into a believer. But that's OK. Most of us, including scientists, are often religious (even if we don't ascribe to the omniscient-omnipotent-deity religious model). But we should realize that's what we're doing, and know when we've moved from the very earthly, Sisyphean, frustrating, limited, no-promises science to religion, where anything's possible.
There are people STILL TODAY who make a decent living as Mark Twain impersonators - imagine how well the original one could do if he went BACK on the live public speaking circuit! Mark Twain would also do great on Twitter or as a comedy TV writer. I expect that either Hemingway or Twain would be astounded at modern conveniences (starting with dentistry and showers) and would find no trouble amusing themselves in the new world. And here's the secret thing about reality television: if it DOES make you miserable you don't have to watch it!
(though come to think of it, Hemingway would be an interesting pick as a writer or script consultant for a long-form episodic TV show set in a suitable historical period. The same era that brought us reality TV ALSO brought us stuff like Breaking Bad and Downton Abbey.)
Exactly. The reason we don't have flying cars is not lack of technology, it is the economics. For the very same reason we don't have Moon bases yet. We could do this if we wanted, but there's not enough demand right now for it to happen.
I'll grant you that. "The state of mind and emotional investment" is indeed similar, and it is a rationality risk, because people may (and do) transplant religious memes to reasoning about this. Same with the Singularity, or even if you dive a bit into game theory and economics you might realize that the possible solutions to coordination problems start to look eerily similar to what Jehovah's Witnesses teach about how God wants humanity to work (honestly, I've been loosing some sleep over this myself). It's a danger, but it doesn't make cryonics religion.
Along the lines: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ml/but_theres_still_a_chance_right/