CryoNet #32121 - #32125

CryoNet - Mon 2 Nov 2009

    #32121: Re:  Self-sacrifice - good or bad? [Go Cryo!]
    #32122: Re: once more, with feeling [Ettinger] [Keith Henson]
    #32123: Self Sacrifice [Luke Parrish]
    #32124: Re: Radiation [RAMole]
    #32125: Re:  #32116 - #32120 [David Stodolsky]

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Message #32121
From: "Kennita (Go Cryo!)" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re:  Self-sacrifice - good or bad?
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 02:55:21 -0800
References: <[email protected]>

John de Rivaz wrote:

> There is no doubt that self-sacrifice is observable in humans.
>
> The perpetrators of the 9/11 atrocity, and suicide bombers in  
> general are examples. But is it a beneficial trait in evolutionary  
> terms between species? I suspect that it may well not. If people  
> were not prone to do it, or be easily persuaded to do it, could wars  
> be possible? The risk of total annihilation of the human species  
> through weapons of mass destruction may have reduced, but it is by  
> no means zero even without the USSR.


I think the risk of total annihilation of the human species is a red  
herring in this argument.  Evolution can't have taken it into account  
in the development of self-sacrifice; humans have only recently become  
capable of deliberately wiping out the entire species (I contend that  
we still can't; whether we will be able to in the near future is  
unclear).  I also think self-sacrifice is irrelevant between species,  
because I think that anything that completely wiped us out would wipe  
out most other species (at least non-microscopic ones).  Arguably  
since we are the species that came up with suicide bombers, they are  
helping us evolve, since they are helping remove self-destructive  
tendencies from the gene pool.

Live long and prosper,
Kennita

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Message #32122
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 07:13:13 -0700
Subject: Re: once more, with feeling [Ettinger]
From: Keith Henson <[email protected]>

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 3:00 AM, Robert Ettenger wrote:

> DSS seems to purport to refute my claim that all conscious motivation is
> self centered, in part by saying that self sacrifice is common and in part by
>  noting that we have and cherish social connections.
>
> This is just confusion. What I say is not "amateur social science" but
> rigorous philosophy and logic.
>
> There is never any conscious self sacrifice, only the sacrifice of one want
>  in favor of another. You may sacrifice your life for someone or something
> you  hold dear, but if the choice is a conscious one that simply means that,
> at that  time and place, you calculate more pain or less satisfaction in
> making the  superficially "selfish" choice.

With the emergence of the "selfish gene" model, those who study this
matter make the case that there are no altruistic acts (except by
accident).  Statistically speaking people make choices that are "self
sacrifice" at the individual level, but are in the self interest of
their genes (or were in the stone age).

Of course I can also find fault with the term "conscious" since there
often isn't time for conscious reflection to take place when people
make what looks like self sacrifice choices.  Robert's "rigorous
philosophy and logic" becomes obvious when viewed through the eyes of
evolutionary psychology (and biology).

> Incidentally, if DSS is as devoted to "evidence" in the literature or the
> weight of expert opinion as he appears to be, how can he be favorable to
> cryonics? After all, the "experts" are heavily biased against  it.

I think DSS is applying the leading edge meme shifts that happened
from the mid 70s with nanotechnology to cryonics and not looking at
the equivalent shifts in evolutionary biology and evolutionary
psychology that started about the same time.

Keith

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Message #32123
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 09:04:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Luke Parrish <[email protected]>
Subject: Self Sacrifice

> Maybe Dr Stodolsky is correct from one point of view -- a
> practitioner of self sacrifice is not going to be drawn to
> the cryonics movement. Therefore no one with this
> personality trait is going to be found within it.

Cryonics can be seen as an act of self sacrifice. You don't really know whether the person you are when you die remains afterward, you could be just sacrificing to make sure at least some of your ideas and thoughts remain in the future. This is similar to sacrificing for one's children.

On the other hand, assuming it *does* save lives, involvement in the cryonics movement benefits the world at large by opening up the opportunity for cryonics for more people, who would otherwise be dead.

Cryonics practiced on a larger scale is cheaper. If everyone was a cryonicist, we could preserve people (storage wise) for under a dollar per year. Nobody would be too poor to afford cryopreservation -- a very small subsidy by richer people could render the service completely free. It is thus incredibly selfish not to be a cryonicist in my opinion.

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Message #32124
From: [email protected]
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 12:21:31 EST
Subject: Re: Radiation

Many uranium miners got large doses of radiation, above what anyone thinks  
is a threshold, and died early. To be clear, *enough* radiation will kill 
you in  a few weeks by killing rapidly multiplying cells, and a bit less 
increases your  chances of cancer. The question is, does a hundredth as much 
slightly increase  your chances of cancer or is there a threshold.
 
Alan
 
 
In a message dated 11/1/2009 3:00:59 A.M. Mountain Standard Time,  
[email protected] writes:

Message  #32119
From: "Eisab" <[email protected]>
References:  <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #32114  - #32115
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:59:19 -0500

Why not look at the  lifes of career miners in the miles deep gold and 
uranium mines in South  Africa. These miners spend a big chunk of their 
adult 
lifes  underground.

Basie 

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Message #32125
From: David Stodolsky <[email protected]>
Subject: Re:  #32116 - #32120
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 19:29:30 +0100
References: <[email protected]>

On 1 Nov 2009, at 11:00 AM, CryoNet wrote:

>  What I say is not "amateur social science" but
> rigorous philosophy and logic.

Philosophy and logic alone are not useful in understanding behavior. I  
am not aware of anyone in these fields who would claim that they are.  
Philosophers sometime produce theories of ethical behavior, but these  
are always tested against data of the type seen in psychology,  
biology, etc. Behavioral psychology is extremely complex compared to  
physics, chemistry, etc. and progress is not made even in the physical  
sciences thru logic alone, but thru experiment, analysis of data, etc.


>
>
> There is never any conscious self sacrifice, only the sacrifice of  
> one want
> in favor of another. You may sacrifice your life for someone or  
> something
> you  hold dear, but if the choice is a conscious one that simply  
> means that,
> at that  time and place, you calculate more pain or less  
> satisfaction in
> making the  superficially "selfish" choice.

This is a tautology.



>>>
>>> In YOUNIVERSE I have demonstrated, at least to my own satisfaction,
>>> that self interest (properly understood) is not only the only
>>> conscious
>>> motivation of everyone, but the only possible motivation, no
>>> exceptions.
>
> I almost agree with you.  The real party of (self) interest is genes,
> and they can only induce behavior that is statistically likely to
> further their interest.  If you want to understand odd human behavior
> such as suicide bombings then this is where you need to start.

More pop evolutionary psychology. Terror management theory does a fine  
job in explaining this type of behavior, without recourse to genes,  
etc. As a simpler explanation (a strictly behavioral theory) it takes  
precedence. If you want to claim an evolutionary explanation of  
behavior, then you must show that terror management theory doesn't do  
the job.


> Re
> conscious motivation, I think the current accepted view is that for
> the most part humans are not aware of the source of their motivations.

There is now plenty of neuropsychological data that supports this. The  
conscious part of the brain is a rationalizer, that justifies a  
decision already made, not a rational decision maker.

>
>> Self-sacrifice is observable in most organisms, at least from worms  
>> to
>> humans, evolutionarily speaking. There is good evidence for multi-
>> level evolution, which means there is also a group "survival
>> instinct". This is characterized as hardiness, a psychological
>> variable (see Maddi, et al.):
>
> The problem with group selection logically is that the the selection
> feedback.

"Unto others" and other books show that this is false, even on  
strictly logical terms.


dss


David Stodolsky
[email protected]  Skype: davidstodolsky

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