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.
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 previ
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.