> The main reason: the decision matrix for Pascal's Wager introduces infinities; the many various ones you can construct for cryonics to win do not. (I suppose you could construct one with infinities, though I can't say I've ever seen one, and I don't think that construction would be tenable anyway.) Another: the fact that there are many constructs for cryonics decision matrices--Pascal's Wager is static in time, a "Cryonic's Wager" would be dynamic in time. Another: cryonics doesn't suppose anything supernatural--if cryonics can or can't work, there are physical reasons why, we don't just have to suppose the outcomes as baseless entities. Perhaps you should explain why you think Pascal's Wager is analogous here.

Not only is it analogous, but by your own reckoning it is in many ways weaker. I don't think there's any useful meaning or distinction in describing the Christian afterlife as "supernatural", incidentally--either it's the case or it isn't. In any case, the decision matrix for Pascal's Wager is something like:

Believe Disbelieve
Christianity Heaven Hell
True (+ inf.) (- inf.)

Christianity No sinning 0
False (- fin. net loss)

And the decision matrix for cryonics:

Get Frozen Don't Get Frozen
Can Be Get Resurrected 0
Resurrected (+ fin. net gain)

Cannot Be Waste Money 0
Resurrected (- fin. net loss)

Interestingly, in some formulations of Christianity, hell consists of ordinary death rather than eternal torment, which would make the Pascal matrix even more similar to the cryonics matrix. In any case, Pascal's Wager is strictly stronger than the decision matrix for cryonics, depending on how much you value being able to sin.

> Yes... and? Every dollar you pay for "X" fits that.

Well, it rather puts the lie to the claim that you have nothing to lose by having your corpse frozen in liquid nitrogen rather than buried or cremated. You do have something to lose. $40k-$125k is a lot of money that might actually be needed by your survivors. If you are ridiculously wealthy or have no children it might be different.

> Regarding your horrid comment, I'll explicitly say it's horrid and most likely untrue (but feel free to factor it into your uncertainty about "cryonics working"). If you're not going to bother defending that one, I'm not going to bother arguing against that one.

I would be glad to defend that statement: for one small example, you can just refer to demographic polling on the subject of gay marriage. Support for gay marriage is dependent upon age more than any other variable, which suggests that the passing of older generations will push the question into almost universal consensus within our lifetimes.

Now, let's be clear: this argument is against the wholesale cryonic preservation of large numbers of dead people. As long as cryonics remains restricted to a small number of eccentrics, there's no gain or loss either way; Ted Williams' severed head will not revert the far future back to 20th century social norms all by itself. If there are only a few frozen people, they will probably serve more as figures of curiosity and academic study. In fact, cryogenic preservation might provide useful information to people of the far future even in the absence of effective resurrection--by analogy, we would probably be very interested, today, to examine a well-preserved physical specimen of centuries past, just as we've been interested in dissecting mummies and ice men. But if we take the pro-cryonics viewpoint to its natural conclusion, there are probably going to be millions of contemporary people resurrected possibly centuries from now. At that point, we will have either a very large politically disenfranchised population of 21st century people or a severe shock of regressive ultraconservatism. It would be the moral equivalent of colonialism, except in time rather than in space.

From what I've seen from cryonics proponents, yourself and "Luke" included, your basic method of argument is to make wild, largely unsubstantiated claims about life after death and then condemn all disagreement as "horrid" or "evil". If that's not religion, what is?

(If you want to continue this, feel free to email me. My address is in my profile.)