[extropy-chat] Yehuda Yudkowsky, 1985-2004

Matus matus at matus1976.com
Sat Nov 20 14:38:28 UTC 2004


Eliezer,

Thank you for your words, and I am sorry for the tragic event which has
brought them out.

You have captured what makes me an extropian and I think you capture the
motivating principle behind each of us here.  We love life, and we want
to live it.  Whatever we all may disagree on, it is only the means to
achieve this end.  We love life, and we hate its cessation.  

There is no greater horror or travesty of justice than the death of
someone.  All the intricacies of the universe can not compare to the
beauty and value of a single sentient being.  

I have seen enough death of friends and loved ones myself.  Everyone who
will listen I try to convince them to be cryogenically suspended, on the
premise that they want to live.  But most grope for excuses not to,
disguising their disregard for their own existence with appeals to
mysticism or dystopian futures.  

All ideologies prescribe these self delusional condolences and
practices, it can be no more clear than what Adrian said: a terror so
deep and profound that most people can't even acknowledge it, but just
go ever so slowly insane trying to deal with it.  

When faced with the death of a loved one, most people get through it by
hiding reality, by doing whatever they can to *not* think about the
obvious.  Death is eternal and final, and when faced with such a thing
people can not come up with any answer that goes beyond any self doubt.
To take the pain of death away, they must devalue life.  One is faced
with a choice, acknowledge you love life and death is abhorrent, be
indifferent to life and thus indifferent to death, or despise life and
welcome death, there are no other alternatives, the view of one
precludes the inverse on the other.  There seems to be an active effort
to create and spread a nihilistic world view.  Consider the Buddhist
mantra of 'life is suffering' consider it's widespread modern appeal,
and then consider its negation, 'death is joy'  Indeed, Nirvana is the
absence of a desire for existence.  This nihilistic movement is not
acting volitionally, its scared and confused and stumbling through
philosophy.  All they know is they don't like death, and through its
stumbling come to find that to deal with that it must not care about
life.  Socrates last words come to mind "I have found the cure for life,
and it is death"

I think this is a major part of the reason we have such difficulty
spreading our ideas and values.  Why in the very secular European area
of the world does Cryonics have little to no support?  If people accept
our worldview, that life is good and technology can help us extend it
indefinitely, then they must come to full terms with the finality and
horror of death.  That is what they have difficulty in doing.  I think
at some level they know that, it is the logical extension of their
beliefs, and as such is manifested as a very negative emotional visceral
reaction to our ideas, because of our implied valuation of life.

But just as many of us here put up a great deal of money and effort for
a non-zero chance of defeating our first death through cryonics, we need
to acknowledge the non-zero possibility of doing something about past
deaths.  In this I am very fond of Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov's "The
Common Task".  Even though it is derived from his religious background,
the motivation, a deep appreciation for the intrinsic value of life, and
the goal, bringing back the past dead with technology, I share.  The
application of science to 'resurrect' the past dead.  Is it possible?
If it is, it should be our ultimate goal.  Some here devote their
efforts to the development of a singularity AI, and others toward
defeating aging biologically; I devote my efforts to the great common
task.  It is my ultimate goal to find out if it is possible, to learn
everything I need to know to determine that, and more, and then to do
it, one person at a time if necessary.  

I can find no words to offer to ease that suffering, there are none, and
it is not possible.  I can only say that it is my life goal, and I think
others, and eventually the goal of any sentient being who loves life,
singularity AI or otherwise, to do what they can to accomplish this
common task, if the laws of physics allow it.

Regards

Michael Dickey
Aka Matus

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Eliezer Yudkowsky
> Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 9:37 PM
> To: sl4 at sl4.org
> Cc: World Transhumanist Association Discussion List; ExI chat list
> Subject: [extropy-chat] Yehuda Yudkowsky, 1985-2004
> 
> My little brother, Yehuda Nattan Yudkowsky, is dead.
> 
> He died November 1st.  His body was found without identification.  The
> family found out on November 4th.  I spent a week and a half with my
> family
> in Chicago, and am now back in Atlanta.  I've been putting off telling
my
> friends, because it's such a hard thing to say.
> 
> I used to say:  "I have four living grandparents and I intend to have
four
> living grandparents when the last star in the Milky Way burns out."  I
> still have four living grandparents, but I don't think I'll be saying
that
> any more.  Even if we make it to and through the Singularity, it will
be
> too late.  One of the people I love won't be there.  The universe has
a
> surprising ability to stab you through the heart from somewhere you
> weren't
> looking.  Of all the people I had to protect, I never thought that
Yehuda
> might be one of them.  Yehuda was born July 11, 1985.  He lived 7053
days.
>   He was nineteen years old when he died.
> 
> The Jewish religion prescribes a number of rituals and condolences for
the
> occasion of a death.  The rituals are pointless and tiring; the
> condolences
> are religious idiocies.  Yehuda has passed to a better place, God's
ways
> are mysterious but benign, etc.  Does such talk really comfort people?
I
> watched my parents, and I don't think it did.  The blessing that is
spoken
> at Jewish funerals is "Blessed is God, the true judge."  Do they
really
> believe that?  Why do they cry at funerals, if they believe that?
Does it
> help someone, to tell them that their religion requires them to
believe
> that?  I think I coped better than my parents and my little sister
> Channah.
>   I was just dealing with pain, not confusion.  When I heard on the
phone
> that Yehuda had died, there was never a moment of disbelief.  I knew
what
> kind of universe I lived in, and I knew what I planned to do about
that.
> How is my religious family to comprehend it, working, as they must,
from
> the assumption that Yehuda was deliberately murdered by a benevolent
God?
> The same loving God, I presume, who arranges for millions of children
to
> grow up illiterate and starving; the same kindly tribal father-figure
who
> arranged the Holocaust and the Inquisition's torture of witches.  I
would
> not hesitate to call it evil, if any sentient mind had committed such
an
> act, permitted such a thing.  But I have weighed the evidence as best
I
> can, and I do not believe the universe to be evil, a reply which in
these
> days is called atheism.
> 
> Maybe it helps to believe in an immortal soul.  I know that I would
feel a
> lot better if Yehuda had gone away on a trip somewhere, even if he was
> never coming back.  But Yehuda did not "pass on".  Yehuda is not
"resting
> in peace".  Yehuda is not coming back.  Yehuda doesn't exist any more.
> Yehuda was absolutely annihilated at the age of nineteen.  Yes, that
makes
> me angry.  I can't put into words how angry.  It would be rage to rend
the
> gates of Heaven and burn down God on Its throne, if any God existed.
But
> there is no God, so my anger burns to tear apart the way-things-are,
> remake
> the pattern of a world that permits this.
> 
> I wonder at the strength of non-transhumanist atheists, to accept so
> terrible a darkness without any hope of changing it.  But then most
> atheists also succumb to comforting lies, and make excuses for death
even
> less defensible than the outright lies of religion.  They flinch away,
> refuse to confront the horror of a hundred and fifty thousand sentient
> beings annihilated every day.  One point eight lives per second,
fifty-
> five
> million lives per year.  Convert the units, time to life, life to
time.
> The World Trade Center killed half an hour.  As of today, all cryonics
> organizations together have suspended one minute.  This essay took
twenty
> thousand lives to write.  I wonder if there was ever an atheist who
> accepted the full horror, making no excuses, offering no consolations,
who
> did not also hope for some future dawn.  What must it be like to live
in
> this world, seeing it just the way it is, and think that it will never
> change, never get any better?
> 
> Yehuda's death is the first time I ever lost someone close enough for
it
> to
> hurt.  So now I've seen the face of the enemy.  Now I understand, a
little
> better, the price of half a second.  I don't understand it well,
because
> the human brain has a pattern built into it.  We do not grieve
forever,
> but
> move on.  We mourn for a few days and then continue with our lives.
Such
> underreaction poorly equips us to comprehend Yehuda's death.  Nineteen
> years of life and memory annihilated.  A thousand years, or a million
> millennia, or a forever, of future life lost.  The sun should have
dimmed
> when Yehuda died, and a chill wind blown in every place that sentient
> beings gather, to tell us that our number was diminished by one.  But
the
> sun did not dim, because we do not live in that sensible a universe.
Even
> if the sun did dim whenever someone died, it wouldn't be noticeable
except
> as a continuous flickering.  Soon everyone would get used to it, and
they
> would no longer notice the flickering of the sun.
> 
> My little brother collected corks from wine bottles.  Someone brought
> home,
> to the family, a pair of corks they had collected for Yehuda, and
never
> had
> a chance to give him.  And my grandmother said, "Give them to Channah,
and
> someday she'll tell her children about how her brother Yehuda
collected
> corks."  My grandmother's words shocked me, stretched across more time
> than
> it had ever occurred to me to imagine, to when my fourteen-year-old
sister
> had grown up and had married and was telling her children about the
> brother
> she'd lost.  How could my grandmother skip across all those years so
> easily
> when I was struggling to get through the day?  I heard my
grandmother's
> words and thought: she has been through this before.  This isn't the
first
> loved one my grandmother has lost, the way Yehuda was the first loved
one
> I'd lost.  My grandmother is old enough to have a pattern for dealing
with
> the death of loved ones; she knows how to handle this because she's
done
> it
> before.  And I thought: how can she accept this?  If she knows, why
isn't
> she fighting with everything she has to change it?
> 
> What would it be like to be a rational atheist in the fifteenth
century,
> and know beyond all hope of rescue that everyone you loved would be
> annihilated, one after another, unless you yourself died first?  That
is
> still the fate of humans today; the ongoing horror has not changed,
for
> all
> that we have hope.  Death is not a distant dream, not a terrible
tragedy
> that happens to someone else like the stories you read in newspapers.
One
> day you'll get a phone call, like I got a phone call, and the
possibility
> that seemed distant will become reality.  You will mourn, and finish
> mourning, and go on with your life, and then one day you'll get
another
> phone call.  That is the fate this world has in store for you, unless
you
> make a convulsive effort to change it.
> 
> Since Yehuda's body was not identified for three days after he died,
there
> was no possible way he could have been cryonically suspended.  Others
may
> be luckier.  If you've been putting off that talk with your loved
ones, do
> it.  Maybe they won't understand, but at least you won't spend forever
> wondering why you didn't even try.
> 
> There is one Jewish custom associated with death that makes sense to
me,
> which is contributing to charity on behalf of the departed.  I am
donating
> eighteen hundred dollars to the general fund of the Singularity
Institute,
> because this has gone on long enough.  If you object to the
Singularity
> Institute then consider Dr. Aubrey de Grey's Methuselah Foundation,
which
> hopes to defeat aging through biomedical engineering.  I think that a
> sensible coping strategy for transhumanist atheists, to donate to an
> anti-death charity after a loved one dies.  Death hurt us, so we will
> unmake Death.  Let that be the outlet for our anger, which is terrible
and
> just.  I watched Yehuda's coffin lowered into the ground and cried,
and
> then I sat through the eulogy and heard rabbis tell comforting lies.
If I
> had spoken Yehuda's eulogy I would not have comforted the mourners in
> their
> loss.  I would have told the mourners that Yehuda had been absolutely
> annihilated, that there was nothing left of him.  I would have told
them
> they were right to be angry, that they had been robbed, that something
> precious and irreplaceable was taken from them, for no reason at all,
> taken
> from them and shattered, and they are never getting it back.
> 
> If there should be a monument someday, somewhere on it will be "$1800,
in
> memoriam Yehuda Nattan Yudkowsky, 1985-2004."  It will not restore him
to
> life.  No sentient being deserves such a thing.  Let that be my
brother's
> true eulogy, free of comforting lies.
> 
> When Michael Wilson heard the news, he said:  "We shall have to work
> faster."  Any similar condolences are welcome.  Other condolences are
not.
> 
> Goodbye, Yehuda.  There isn't much point in saying it, since there's
no
> one
> to hear.  Goodbye, Yehuda, you don't exist any more.  Nothing left of
you
> after your death, like there was nothing before your birth.  You died,
and
> your family, Mom and Dad and Channah and I, sat down at the Sabbath
table
> just like our family had always been composed of only four people,
like
> there had never been a Yehuda.  Goodbye, Yehuda Yudkowsky, never to
> return,
> never to be forgotten.
> 
> Love,
> Eliezer.
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