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 read the whole post, and didn't see any arguments for dust theory.
The idea of a stable process is easy enough to cash out where you actually have proceses...it means a process that isnt disturbed too much by other processes. For instance, if you drop a feather, its path is disturbed by small air currents, if you drop a rock its path isnt.
But you do have processes in DT. They're just theoretical ones, for lack of a better word.
I really don't understand how this is an argument against Dust Theory. What do you think Dust Theory is?