TheOtherDave is right. To expand on that, I also tried to make the following point. You were trying to do without the concept of “a self that persists over time”. You said:
You might note that while I have not tabood subjective experience entirely, I have noted that an “individual” can only subjectively experience the present moment, and that “your” utility function compels “you” to act in such a way as to bring about your preferred future scenarios, in accordance with your (objective) model of the universe.
My point was that you cannot literally experience the present moment. You can experience only lengths of time. Where there is no passage of time, there is no subjective experience.
So while you were trying to start with a “self” that exists in the moment and extract the logical linkage to that self’s successors over time, I pointed out that this bridges short durations of time to long ones, but it doesn’t bridge single moments of time to even short durations. And so, restricting yourself to short periods of time doesn’t resolve the issue you were discussing, because you still have to assume the existence of a self with subjective experience that persists over that short period of time.
TheOtherDave is right. To expand on that, I also tried to make the following point. You were trying to do without the concept of “a self that persists over time”. You said:
My point was that you cannot literally experience the present moment. You can experience only lengths of time. Where there is no passage of time, there is no subjective experience.
So while you were trying to start with a “self” that exists in the moment and extract the logical linkage to that self’s successors over time, I pointed out that this bridges short durations of time to long ones, but it doesn’t bridge single moments of time to even short durations. And so, restricting yourself to short periods of time doesn’t resolve the issue you were discussing, because you still have to assume the existence of a self with subjective experience that persists over that short period of time.
I’m afraid I still don’t see… isn’t that still analogous to saying you can’t have something like “velocity” in a single moment?
Where exactly does the analogy between subjective experience at a given time and velocity at a given time break down here?