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Eitan_Zohar comments on The Consequences of Dust Theory. - Less Wrong Discussion

-2 Post author: Eitan_Zohar 09 July 2015 03:53PM

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Comment author: Eitan_Zohar 12 July 2015 02:26:48PM *  0 points [-]

How can I care about what may or may not be self, without knowing what it' is?

I can't. I don't care about the various unconscious beings who may have merged into my waking self this morning. That's not much comfort to me as I stand.

And why should my being asleep be relevant? Can't I credit a demon with the ability to clone me while I am awake.?

Certainly, but there is a much lower measure of that.

(Dust theory strongly supports that it could, because it means my consciousness could be suspended for any amount of time , and then restarted without my being aware)

I don't think you need Dust Theory to know this.

It might be helpful at this point to set down what you think the premises of dust theory are , since there seems to be some major miscommunication going on here,

Causality is really just correlations between states. What people experience is really the sum total of every possible configuration that produces that mind-state; however, some configurations are more common than others.

In any case, if you think your identity is only defined by current conscious content, then your identity is nearly as unstable as your nightmare scenario.

Why? I think that things in my subconscious contribute to my subjective reality, but if they didn't, well, it's only my perceptions that create an enduring reality.

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 12 July 2015 08:09:28PM *  0 points [-]

How can I care about what may or may not be self, without knowing what it' is?I can't. I don't care about the various unconscious beings who may have merged into my waking self this morning. That's not much comfort to me as I stand.

You seem to care about the exact inverse, "your" possible evolution into possibly unconscious beings bearing a slight resemblance to yourself.

Dust theory strongly supports that it could, because it means my consciousness could be suspended for any amount of time , and then restarted without my being aware)

I don't think you need Dust Theory to know this.

You don't know it. It. Is theory. :Physicalism and computationalism strongly suggest that causal histories and/or processing are important, and that supervenience of mental states on instantaneous physical states is therefore nonsense

Why? I think that things in my subconscious contribute to my subjective reality, but if they didn't, well, it's only my perceptions that create an enduring reality.

The content of your consciousness doesn't create an enduring self, because you are not constantly recalling your previous history.

Comment author: Eitan_Zohar 13 July 2015 01:45:28AM 0 points [-]

You don't know it. It. Is theory. :Physicalism and computationalism strongly suggest that causal histories and/or processing are important, and that supervenience of mental states on instantaneous physical states is therefore nonsense

I don't understand that post. Could you link to a more detailed argument? The entire point of Dust Theory, remember, is that "there is nothing more to causality than correlations between states."

The content of your consciousness doesn't create an enduring self, because you are not constantly recalling your previous history.

You aren't paying attention; I've argued that the subconscious mind may also contribute. turchin made the argument that this provides empirical evidence for DT:

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.

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 13 July 2015 02:27:53AM *  1 point [-]

You don't know it. It. Is theory. :Physicalism and computationalism strongly suggest that causal histories and/or processing are important, and that supervenience of mental states on instantaneous physical states is therefore nonsense

I don't understand that post. Could you link to a more detailed argument? The entire point of Dust Theory, remember, is that "there is nothing more to causality than correlations between states."

But you can't argue that physicalism and computationalism are wrong because DT is right, when you have offered no support for DT.

will be some kind of natural selection in dust world lines, which will result in more stable ones

How do you cash out stability in the absence of causality?

Comment author: Eitan_Zohar 13 July 2015 02:35:13AM -1 points [-]

I have. Did you bother to read the second half of the post? And I still don't understand your arguments about causality, would you please kindly explain them in detail?

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 14 July 2015 10:03:30AM *  1 point [-]

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.

Comment author: Eitan_Zohar 14 July 2015 10:40:37AM *  0 points [-]

But you do have processes in DT. They're just theoretical ones, for lack of a better word.

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.

I really don't understand how this is an argument against Dust Theory. What do you think Dust Theory is?

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 14 July 2015 12:22:51PM *  0 points [-]

But you do have processes in DT. They're just theoretical ones, for lack of a better word.

You will need to supply the better wordsin order to persuade me that there are processes in dust theory.

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.

I really don't understand how this is an argument against Dust Theory.

It wasn't intended as an argument against DT, it was intended an argument that the notion of stability is easy to cash out given not-DT.

What do you think Dust Theory is?

Its a family of ideas.

Centrally , the idea that mental states superevene on instantaneous physical or computational states, rather than computational or physical processes.

Peripherally, the ideas that there are no:-

Computational processes

Causal processes

Temporal sequences

Essences of selfhood that can vary independently of mental state.

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