Congrats! One way I’ve been thinking about this recently—if we expect most people will permanently die now (usually without desiring to do so), but at some point in the future, humanity will “cure death,” then interventions to allow people to join the cohort of people who don’t have to involuntarily die could be remarkably effective from a QALY perspective. As I’ve argued before, I think that key questions for this analysis are how many QALYs individuals can experience, whether humans are simply replaceable, and what is the probability that brain preservation will help people get there. Another consideration is that if it could be performed cheaply enough—perhaps with robotic automation of the procedure—it could also be used for non-human animals, with a similar justification.
Yeah, as I see it, the motivations to pursue this differ in strength dramatically depending on whether one’s flavour of utilitarianism is more inclined to a person-affecting view or a total hedonic view.
If you’re inclined towards the person-affecting view, then preserving people for revival is a no-brainer (pun intended, sorry, I’m a terrible person).
If you hold more of a total hedonic view, then you’re more likely to be indifferent to whether one person is replaced for any other. In that case, abolishing death only has value in so far as it reduces the suffering or increases the joy of people who’d prefer to hold onto their existing loved ones rather than have them changed out for new people over time. From this perspective, it’d be equally efficacious to just ensure no-one cared about dying or attachments to particular people, and a world in which everyone was replaced with new people of slightly higher utility would be a net improvement to the universe.
Back in the real world though, outside of philosophical thought experiments, I suspect most people aren’t indifferent to whether they or their loved ones die and are replaced, so for humans at least I think the argument for preservation is strong. That may well hold for great ape cousins too, but it’s perhaps a weaker argument when considering something like fish?
Congrats! One way I’ve been thinking about this recently—if we expect most people will permanently die now (usually without desiring to do so), but at some point in the future, humanity will “cure death,” then interventions to allow people to join the cohort of people who don’t have to involuntarily die could be remarkably effective from a QALY perspective. As I’ve argued before, I think that key questions for this analysis are how many QALYs individuals can experience, whether humans are simply replaceable, and what is the probability that brain preservation will help people get there. Another consideration is that if it could be performed cheaply enough—perhaps with robotic automation of the procedure—it could also be used for non-human animals, with a similar justification.
Yeah, as I see it, the motivations to pursue this differ in strength dramatically depending on whether one’s flavour of utilitarianism is more inclined to a person-affecting view or a total hedonic view.
If you’re inclined towards the person-affecting view, then preserving people for revival is a no-brainer (pun intended, sorry, I’m a terrible person).
If you hold more of a total hedonic view, then you’re more likely to be indifferent to whether one person is replaced for any other. In that case, abolishing death only has value in so far as it reduces the suffering or increases the joy of people who’d prefer to hold onto their existing loved ones rather than have them changed out for new people over time. From this perspective, it’d be equally efficacious to just ensure no-one cared about dying or attachments to particular people, and a world in which everyone was replaced with new people of slightly higher utility would be a net improvement to the universe.
Back in the real world though, outside of philosophical thought experiments, I suspect most people aren’t indifferent to whether they or their loved ones die and are replaced, so for humans at least I think the argument for preservation is strong. That may well hold for great ape cousins too, but it’s perhaps a weaker argument when considering something like fish?