[ExI] Why “Everyone Dies” Gets AGI All Wrong by Ben Goertzel

[John Clark]

On Sun, Oct 5, 2025 at 6:56 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> *Cryonics may be a solution, but it may be a one-way trip *
>

*It will certainly be a one-way trip in my case. About 10 years ago I paid
ALCOR $80,000 to freeze my head and just my head. If I'm lucky enough to be
revived, a very big "if", then it will certainly be as an upload. The
source of my uncertainty primarily comes from 3 questions that I am unable
to answer, none of them have anything to do with science or engineering:  *

*1) Due to the fact that anti-libertarian laws prevent me from ordering
ALCOR to freeze my brain before I have been legally declared dead, not even
if I have been diagnosed with a terminal illness, will my brain be frozen
before decay makes things irreversible? *

*2) Given all the chaos that the Singularity will produce, will ALCOR
really keep my brain at liquid nitrogen temperatures until Drexler style
nanotechnology is developed? *

*3) Even if I get through the previous two obstacles and my revival becomes
possible, will Mr. Jupiter Brain, or whoever or whatever is in charge,
think I'm worth the effort? I am under no illusions, I realize that by then
my value will be almost zero, my hope is that it won't be exactly zero. One
thing working in my favor is that in the age of nanotechnology things will
either be impossible or cheap as dirt, nothing will be expensive.  *

*As far as the scientific/technological aspects of cryonics are concerned
I'm much more optimistic. The important thing is that the parts of my brain
stay put relative to each other, or at least if they must move then the
flow should not be turbulent so you can figure out where the parts were
before they moved. If things are turbulent then a small change in initial
conditions will lead to a huge change in outcome and even Mr. Jupiter Brain
will never be able to figure out where things are supposed to go. *

*But I don't see why turbulence would occur during the freezing of a brain.
Tests show that most biological damage occurs during unfreezing not
freezing, nevertheless I'm not interested in what happens during unfreezing
because that's a problem for advanced nanotechnology, I just want to be
sure the information is still inside that frozen lump of tissue, and it
will be provided that any fluid flow is laminar.*

*Fluid flow stops being smoothly laminar and starts to become chaotically
turbulent when a system has a Reynolds number between 2300 and 4000,
although you might get some non chaotic vortices if it is bigger than 30.
We can find the approximate Reynolds number by using the formula LDV/N.  L
is the characteristic size we're interested in, we're interested in cells
so L is about 10^-6 meter. D is the density of water, 10^3 kilograms/cubic
meter.  V is the velocity of the flow, during freezing it's probably less
than 10^-3 meters per second, but let's be conservative, I'll give you 3
orders of magnitude and call V  1 meter per second.  N is the viscosity of
water, at room temperature N is 0.001 newton-second/meter^2, it would be
less than that when things get cold and even less when water is mixed with
glycerol as it is in cryonics,  but let's be conservative again and ignore
those factors. *

*If you plug these numbers into the formula you get a Reynolds number of
about 1, and 1 is a lot less than 2300 or even 30, so it looks like any
mixing caused by freezing would probably be laminar not turbulent, so with
enough computation you can still deduce the position where things are
supposed to be.*

*> The important question might well be: "What can we do to prepare to
> survive the interim period (assuming anyone can), in the next 6 months to 6
> years?" Beyond 6 years, I reckon it's completely pointless to speculate.ss*


*I agree. That's why I think arguing about whether the states or the US
government should pay for UBI is pointless, the important thing to remember
is that it has to happen if humanity is to have any hope of making it
through the singularity meat grinder and it has to happen in just the next
two or three years. Unfortunately in the USA at least things are moving in
a direction that is opposite to the implementation of UBI.  *


> * > Adrian was right to say the singularity won't be tomorrow. It might be
> the day after, though.*
>

*Whenever it comes it will be a big surprise, otherwise it wouldn't be a
singularity. *

*John K Clark*
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