[extropy-chat] Yehuda Yudkowsky, 1985-2004

[Gina Miller]

Those of you interested in immortality, societies belief systems and cryonic suspension might want to take a look at my paper "Cryonics: Background, Overview, and Bioethical Implications" http://www.nanoindustries.com/feature/cryoethics.html . 

P.S. for those of you who have been following my animation progress, I have new works here (the rotary has been Drexler and Freitas approved - I'm very excited about that): http://www.nanogirl.com/museumfuture/index.htm . These will be easier to download if you have a high speed connection.

Regards,
Gina
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Rik van Riel 
  To: ExI chat list 
  Cc: World Transhumanist Association Discussion List ; sl4 at sl4.org 
  Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 10:01 AM
  Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Yehuda Yudkowsky, 1985-2004


  On Thu, 18 Nov 2004, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote:

  > 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?

  You need to accept reality; whether or not to fight it is a
  decision to make after having accepted reality.  I would
  guess that everybody will have picked their own things they
  want to change in reality, but nobody has tried to change
  absolutely everything.

  Some people want to change capitalism, others want to change
  healthcare, many people are content to change just their own
  family and make a difference in their children's upbringing.
  The number of people who have chosen to change mortality is
  probably much smaller...

  In order to change reality, you need to have traction with
  it, accept contact with it, etc.

  > 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.

  Not sure about the fifteenth century, but with the advent
  of biology and natural selection I realise that one day
  the carbon atoms in my body will need to be recycled for
  use in our descendants.

  Would I want to live forever?   Maybe.

  Would I want to live forever if it meant holding up
  evolution and the spreading of life ?   No.

  For me, it is the totality of life that is special.
  That peculiar ordering of matter and energy that spreads
  consciousness through the universe.

  Some things are more important than my own life.  I still
  would like a very long lifespan, but immortality might
  prove to be a drain on life itself...

  Rik
  -- 
  "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
  Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
  by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan
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