Dust theory implies that everything outside of my perception is in flux. Your experiences have to find themselves in a world in which they could have conceivably formed. Of course, you exist in every possible world which would produce that mindstate, but some are 'vaster' than others, leading you down the most probable courses.
Suppose that going to sleep or losing grasp of your surroundings opens a wider space of worlds you could exist in, which jumps you into another reality along with consistent memories of it. I can't figure out if this would be the case, or if my consciousness would most likely just dissolve, with only those beating trillion-to-one odds waking up in the morning. Or maybe my pool of 'experience' stays active when I sleep, even if I'm not aware of it. Either way (though I think Dust Theory is probably false) I'm afraid to go to sleep anymore.
I also do not understand the argument being made here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/1jm/getting_over_dust_theory/. Can someone explain to me please?
I posted these questions on other threads but I didn't get many answers. Sorry.
EDIT: Look, the first question boils down to: does my unconscious mind affect my measure? If so, than it isn't much different from being awake. If not, then all my problems seem to apply.
It occurs to me that not only would signing up for cryonics and then killing yourself before you could sleep is rational under these circumstances, but that the death of the universe can be escaped by simply rearranging your mind to believe it is in a universe where eternal life is possible, then ceasing its activity.
I was thinking about the same problem and my conclusion was and is the following.
Lets assume a demon model, which move simplified part of me in trillion different copies. Is it a problem for me? No. It is logical to conclude that it will do it trillions times, so I will eventually return into my original myself, and will not notice any difference.
It will be some kind of natural selection in dust world lines, which will result in more stable ones, and most likely I am already in such line. In this line dreaming is built such that it will not result in important shifts of reality. And it is true: dreaming is not unconsciousness state. I start to have dreams immediately than I fall asleep. So dreaming is built to be not interupting some level of consciousness.
Someone may try to use the flux nature of reality for magic. You must close your use, forget everything about your self, imagine that you have 1 000 000 dollars, forget that you imagine it, and just keep this feeling. Than you open your eyes it would be more likely that you have 1 million dollars. While it seems to be ridicules procedure, it strikingly similar to traditional human magic, which always include trance state and visualisation of desired things. If natural selection exists in dust world lines it would help beings able to rise its reproduction chances by magic, so nothing surprising here.
You do not need Dust theory for all it. You could get flux reality from some interpretation of QM. Just imagine that you live inside large Schrodinger cat.
I'm not sure I understand.
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