It all depends on what next week will bring...

Your subject says "when you die". When I'm alive, I will probably want almost anything done to keep me alive, it is the human nature. When I have already died, I don't want to be alive next week.

If your question was "when you become terminally ill, do you want to be frozen before you die to wait they discover a cure?" I might answer differently. But I definitely don't want be frozen when I die.

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I don't want to be alive next week, nor do I want to be dead. I just assume I will be alive. I have no great intention in prolonging it for the sake of it. We're all going to die, putting off the inevitable is just some kind of self-denial in my opinion

Logically, if I want one scoop of ice cream, I must want to eat a gallon tonight.

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Actually, I imagine you won't have a choice at that point.


(sorry, couldn't resist)

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"There is only one God, and his name is death. And there is only one thing we say to death: 'Not today.'"

(Quote from Game of Thrones)

There's a discount curve with ice cream-- the second scoop is not as valuable as the first. The first scoop changes you physiologically, and you want a 2nd, 3rd, 4th less and less. I do not believe there is such a discount curve with life*. Do you value tomorrow less because you lived today? If not, the analogy fails.

We currently call a person dead when their body can no longer function, but this is a bad definition of death. We shouldn't call a person dead until the state of their brain becomes irretrievably corrupted. With a sufficient level of technology, death is not death until the brain decays. There's currently no conceivable way to restore someone with a sufficiently damaged brain, even with maximum technology**. IMO, humans will either attain that level of technology or destroy ourselves.

Given that we currently do everything we can to keep people alive, it makes no sense that we stop our efforts when the body becomes irreparable under current technology. IMO, being frozen should be the default***. You should have to sign papers and have people look at you funny in order to NOT be frozen. I consider it immoral that we allow the brains of "dead" people to decay.

[*] Barring tragedies and mental illnesses.
[**] Time machines do not appear to be feasible in our universe.
[***] Freezing costs scale with surface area, not volume-- the more frozen, the lower the costs per person.

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All your family members and acquaintances over, say, 60 years old are perfectly healthy and are fit enough for any activity they would like to do or have done in the past? They all know what's going on around them?



Yeah. I rather hope to escape that machine once I get to that point. Modern medicine can prolong life, but it often can't maintain quality of life. A long-suffering patient is primarily seen as a paying customer by those keeping him alive.

Also, consider economics (you won't retire, ever). I see no attraction in eternal life.

"Barring tragedies and mental illnesses."



Yes, I think people should be allowed to choose to be frozen at the time when their quality of life is projected to decrease until they die. They should not have to wait until they are actually dead. I think it's somewhat immoral that modern medicine often ends up merely prolonging the suffering.



I'm not certain that anyone will have any work to do in a post-singularity future, which is really the only kind of future I can imagine the frozen waking up to. What could you possibly do that machines wouldn't be able to do better?

Even if there is some sort of work, I greatly prefer working to *dying*, and I'm not sure what sort of job it would take to make me change my mind...

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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Human life is what it is because it is finite. We are born, we are young, we progress into adulthood, and we live our lives coping with that finiteness.

I don't think it's exaggeration to say that this would replace human beings with an entirely different type of creature. They'll be biologically human, but the most basic facts about their lives will be unlike ours.

Maybe that's a good idea--it was also a pretty big change when we learned to read and write, and I'm happy with that one.

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Occupy Babel!

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

If death is a feature, then why do people dread it? Why do people cry at funerals? Why do people do inconvenient things (e.g., eat healthy) to try and live longer? Every facet of human nature rebels against death. Death is not our friend.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I consider sentiments like the one you expressed to be rationalizations or coping mechanisms in the face of hopelessness.

But ours is the first generation that can reasonably conceive of a time when humanity will win. I intend to do everything in my power to live to see that happen.

(For reference, I put the chance of cryonics working at 1-5%. I also put the chance of a positive singularity in my lifetime at 1-5%.)

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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I want to stay alive for as long as possible. It seems like I'll miss out on so much otherwise. However, it's very thought-provoking to think about the topic.

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

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?

In one sense, it's scary to consider what will happen after death. In another sense, it may be interesting to see what actually happens. Perhaps it will be nothing - you may lose consciousness and have no experience at all.

But we have no data to ascertain that this is actually the case. If there is any way to consciously recognize the experience after death - then it may be interesting to find out what happens.

Although, considering the chance that there will be no conscious recognition of what happens at that point - well, then, I want to stay alive so that I can keep consciously recognizing the present.

I like my consciousness!

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be immersed

I don't personally dread it, and some cultures see it as a positive journey through to the next place, and neither dread it nor cry when it happens to other people. Rebelling against death is a cultural thing, it isn't universal. Personally, I tend not to feel sad when family members die these days - not because I'm happy that they are dead, but because it just happens and that's a part of daily life. I choose to remember the contributions people that die have made to me and those around them, and I hope I do enough with mine that other people will have things worthwhile to remember me for. Passing on that baton doesn't worry me at all though.

I suspect I have spent too much time enjoying zen philosophy to contribute meaningfully to this discussion, but I'm certainly a happier person on a day to day basis than I used to be, and my attitude to death has probably stemmed from that sort of thing.

I eat healthy and exercise because I want to be able to fill the years I do have enjoying them and doing fun things. It's not particularly inconvenient any more than working is, which serves very much the same purpose. I don't think that Death is our friend, but nor is it our enemy, it just "is". Likewise, I don't see it as either a bug or a feature.

If we lived forever, I don't believe we would be able to sustain life materially, economically, or ecologically, nor manage sufficiently on a completely overpopulated planet. I suspect quality of life would drop considerably if no-one died.



You imply there is something that has to be coped with, or that the very nature of it is hopeless

Ok, now we have added sentient machines to the cryonics. We'll also need interstellar travel and the ability to terraform planets since human beings are unlikely to want to stop procreating entirely. All this may be good science fiction, but it doesn't seem all that likely to be a realistic outcome.

Even if it does happen, and the machines are doing all the work - what will you do with all your time? Won't things get a little repetitive and boring after the first couple hundred years or so? Think about poor Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged.

Just a few scattered thoughts (mostly responding to daniel_the_smith...)

There are lots of psychological theories about why people cry when others die. Obviously there are lots of feelings of powerlessness, deprivation, and guilt floating around. But that doesn't mean that we never want anyone to die. Quite to the contrary, a great deal of grief might be a nervous reaction to thinking that the time had come for someone to die.

I never like to do the dishes. I would always rather do the dishes in an hour rather than right now. So logically, what I would like most of all is to have all of my dishes be dirty all the time.

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.

There are many objective features which mark human life. Aging, senescence and death; the drive to reproduce; the erection and preservation of status hierarchies; and many others besides which would be boring to list. Every human being has to wear these features, but to some they are a cloak that can be worn lightly and cast away freely, while to others they are a steel-hard casing. Everyone dies, but only a few people stay up at night worrying about dying.

What would have to be true to convince you that the person revived by cryogenics was you, and not a wholly new person? What percentage of their memories would have to be the same? What percentage of their personality? What percentage of their body? Does the new you have to have the same friends, relatives, lovers, hobbies? The same sensory perceptions? --- And what would convince you that a person kept alive for hundreds of years with exotic medical technology was you, and not a wholly new person? What would convince you that a human being born at a different time from you was a wholly new person, and not you?

It would take a really good philosophical argument.

(Still mulling over my own response to daniel_the_smith)

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Occupy Babel!

Actually, I'll directly state that, and add that Zen is clearly an excellent coping mechanism.



This is a failure of imagination; a future in which we can effectively raise the dead will be very unlikely to have those problems. See below.



Humanity will either (eventually) achieve all of the above or go extinct. I don't think there are other options. Unfortunately I consider the latter to be somewhat more probable at the moment.



Short answer-- there are very few possible futures so boring you want to die in which you can't actually off yourself. And I'd like to see the future for myself before calling it one way or the other.

(Very) long answer: http://lesswrong.com/lw/xy/the_fun_theory_sequence/

Response to jts later. I have things to do!

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

Hahaha, touche, it does still start from an implication that I feel there's something needed to be coped with. Are you not open to the possibility that there are two sides to this particular coin?

I'm currently reading Axiomatic by Greg Egan, which is a really good SF novels book, and deals with some of ideas expressed here. Just an advertising for a great book.

If I remember being me, I am me. Memory = identity.

Other people come and - unfortunately - go. Hobbies come and go, Body parts come and go ( I lose hair, add wrinkles. ) Yet these do not define who I am. They are merely the circumstances around me.

If you make the changes a bit more radical, I'm still me. I might not know a single person in 2850, but I'm still me. I might have chromium hip joints ( as some already do ) or I might have a chomium skeleton. I'm still me.

If I remember being me, I am me.

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