I have the exact same problem. It’s nice to know I’m not alone. I’ve been scared to mention my fears on lesswrong because I didn’t think anyone would understand.
I’m mainly concerned about many worlds interpretation being true. I don’t take dust theory seriously. Unless I understand it wrongly, it removes causation and just assumes the information itself is what is important. I really recommend you read Causal Universes. It’s one of my favorite Lesswrong posts.
I also think dust theory leads to absurd and obviously wrong conclusions. Like how do interpret some random collection of bits? Under different interpretations they can represent anything.
If it’s true that causation doesn’t matter, then it’s really weird that I just happen to find myself here with memories of living in a causal universe with simple, universal laws, for the last 2 decades. I should expect to be a boltzman brain observing extremely high entropy.
Anyway, my main tactic of dealing with Scary Idea is just keeping my mind off it as much as possible. Thinking about it hurts me, so I don’t think about it. I also think I’ve resolved it somewhat, but again I prefer not to think about the issue at all.
I’m really scared of the transhumanist future. If we massively increase our intelligence, or create AIs which can explain complex ideas to us, then we will be forced to deal with all of these existential issues all at once. Including ones we haven’t even thought of yet or can’t understand. Our simple minds allow us some cognitive dissonance to just ignore this stuff.
EDIT: Also lighting helps a lot. I feel much worse in a dark room than a bright one. During the day time in the sunlight my mood improves even more. So I can understand why these problems occur during bedtime. Reading until I fall asleep helps. During the day I just find things to keep my mind off of it. If I started getting really terrified, I just opened a reddit page and looked at cat pictures for awhile.
I actually feel worst right after waking up. Is this the same for you?
Unless I understand it wrongly, it removes causation and just assumes the information itself is what is important.
I’m not sure that’s true. Why does it remove causality? It removes the ‘physical’ aspect of causality, but as far as I can see not much else.
I also think dust theory leads to absurd and obviously wrong conclusions. Like how do interpret some random collection of bits? Under different interpretations they can represent anything.
I actually feel worst right after waking up. Is this the same for you?
Just lying in bed alone with nothing but my own thoughts to distract me was the problem. But darkness makes it worse. And you have to lie still to get the sleep, but if I’m having anxiety in the morning I can just get up and find something to distract me.
Possibly I need to understand dust theory more to really debate you about it. Do you have another link?
It’s hard to argue against because I don’t really find the idea coherent to begin with. Recording someone’s brain state and then replaying it doesn’t instantiate any consciousness. The causal link between the brain states has already happened. Deleting some of the frames, or tampering with them, or copying them billions of times, doesn’t change anything. The chain of causation of one brain state causing another brain state has already happened. Everything else is just like a static captured image of that moment in time.
I’m talking about the arrow of time itself. Why do events in the past seem to cause things in the future and never the other way around? Causation is important for consciousness. One brain state actually causes the next brain state. Just a recording of brain states doesn’t cause any further brain states.
As for interpretation. Pi contains every possible sequence of digits possible. You can interpret them as brain states or jpg images or whatever you want. There is no meaning to it though. It’s just a sequence of digits.
Recording someone’s brain state and then replaying it doesn’t instantiate any consciousness.
Why? It seems like it would definitely instantiate consciousness, if you believe that two identical brain states would have separate phenomenological experiences. Or it would simply merge with the original brainstate, if you accept Dust Theory.
Deleting some of the frames, or tampering with them, or copying them billions of times, doesn’t change anything.
Not subjectively, but it would continue ‘on’ in the Dust.
I’m talking about the arrow of time itself. Why do events in the past seem to cause things in the future and never the other way around? Causation is important for consciousness. One brain state actually causes the next brain state.
Yes, and the causal universe we live in can be represented by the Dust. The possible configurations of the Game of Life are ‘real’ even if there is no Game of Life being implemented physically.
As for interpretation. Pi contains every possible sequence of digits possible. You can interpret them as brain states or jpg images or whatever you want. There is no meaning to it though. It’s just a sequence of digits.
All interpretations are realized under Dust Theory.
Yes, and the causal universe we live in can be represented by the Dust. The possible configurations of the Game of Life are ‘real’ even if there is no Game of Life being implemented physically.
Causal universes are represented, true. But so are countless non causal universes. Causality is a very specific constraint on possible universes. If it’s not required then the vast majority of universes should be non-causal, simply because the space of non-causal mathematical structures is much much larger than the space of structures which happen to meet the causality restriction just by chance.
So it’s really weird that we just happen to find ourselves in a causal universe, if it’s not required. See the link I posted for a better argument about this.
But to even talk about that, I have to consider Dust Theory as an actual theory. If it’s a theory then what predictions does it make? How does it constrain our expectations? It doesn’t seem to add anything to my model of the world.
All interpretations are realized under Dust Theory.
Under what distribution? Are 50% of interpretations jpg images, or only 0.0000...001%?
What does it even mean for an interpretation to be “realized”? Some unspecified observer looks at a sequence of bits and says “this is a a brain state experiencing X”. Who is the observer? What does it matter how they interpret it? This idea doesn’t seem remotely coherent to me so I’m struggling to find the words to even object to it.
Recording someone’s brain state and then replaying it doesn’t instantiate any consciousness.
Why? It seems like it would definitely instantiate consciousness, if you believe that two identical brain states would have separate phenomenological experiences. Or it would simply merge with the original brainstate, if you accept Dust Theory.
I just don’t accept this premise. A record of a brain state isn’t an experience. It’s just a series of bits that was caused by an actual running brain. I just don’t accept that a static non-causal series of bits has any moral weight, let alone is “me”. It doesn’t do anything. It isn’t connected to anything. It doesn’t mean anything. It just “exists”. It’s not doing computation. It’s not doing anything.
A lookup table can’t be conscious. (There is a descent amount of material on lesswrong about lookup tables and philosophical zombies. If you can’t find anyone to discuss dust theory with you.)
If you take that recorded brain state you can modify it. You can xor all the bits, or hash them, or treat it as a number and divide it by 20, or pad it with random bits, etc...
There is no inherent meaning to any sequence of bits, except the subjective one you give them. They are missing their color. They certainly are not conscious in any meaningful sense.
Still, take the problem of the physical world. There’s a large philosophical question of ‘what’ is actually out there; or if such a question is answerable even in principle (basically we’re talking about the thing-in-itself). A Dust multiverse sidesteps this completely- if you go down far enough, you’ll just get some mathematical laws, akin to those found in the Game of Life, which produce our universe. Isn’t that at least parsimonious?
(You still have the problem of what mathematics is fundamentally, but it’s a separate issue from the physical.)
Just lying in bed alone with nothing but my own thoughts to distract me was the problem. But darkness makes it worse. And you have to lie still to get the sleep, but if I’m having anxiety in the morning I can just get up and find something to distract me.
Meant to answer this and forgot. You’re right that distractions always help, but often I go from hopeless to completely optimistic in minutes, for no apparent reason at all. Is this a neurological phenomenon?
I get the feeling you guys should read up on timeless qm, which basically avoids all of these problems and questions by treating reality as a static ‘crystal’ of related events with no time component. If you’re going to be talking about stuff near the floor, you might as well go all the way instead of using inaccurate hacks.
I have the exact same problem. It’s nice to know I’m not alone. I’ve been scared to mention my fears on lesswrong because I didn’t think anyone would understand.
I’m mainly concerned about many worlds interpretation being true. I don’t take dust theory seriously. Unless I understand it wrongly, it removes causation and just assumes the information itself is what is important. I really recommend you read Causal Universes. It’s one of my favorite Lesswrong posts.
I also think dust theory leads to absurd and obviously wrong conclusions. Like how do interpret some random collection of bits? Under different interpretations they can represent anything.
If it’s true that causation doesn’t matter, then it’s really weird that I just happen to find myself here with memories of living in a causal universe with simple, universal laws, for the last 2 decades. I should expect to be a boltzman brain observing extremely high entropy.
Anyway, my main tactic of dealing with Scary Idea is just keeping my mind off it as much as possible. Thinking about it hurts me, so I don’t think about it. I also think I’ve resolved it somewhat, but again I prefer not to think about the issue at all.
I’m really scared of the transhumanist future. If we massively increase our intelligence, or create AIs which can explain complex ideas to us, then we will be forced to deal with all of these existential issues all at once. Including ones we haven’t even thought of yet or can’t understand. Our simple minds allow us some cognitive dissonance to just ignore this stuff.
EDIT: Also lighting helps a lot. I feel much worse in a dark room than a bright one. During the day time in the sunlight my mood improves even more. So I can understand why these problems occur during bedtime. Reading until I fall asleep helps. During the day I just find things to keep my mind off of it. If I started getting really terrified, I just opened a reddit page and looked at cat pictures for awhile.
Similar thoughts about MWI here as well, it’s a scary idea that hopefully is unnecessarily complex.
I actually feel worst right after waking up. Is this the same for you?
I’m not sure that’s true. Why does it remove causality? It removes the ‘physical’ aspect of causality, but as far as I can see not much else.
I think this needs some explaining.
Just lying in bed alone with nothing but my own thoughts to distract me was the problem. But darkness makes it worse. And you have to lie still to get the sleep, but if I’m having anxiety in the morning I can just get up and find something to distract me.
Possibly I need to understand dust theory more to really debate you about it. Do you have another link?
It’s hard to argue against because I don’t really find the idea coherent to begin with. Recording someone’s brain state and then replaying it doesn’t instantiate any consciousness. The causal link between the brain states has already happened. Deleting some of the frames, or tampering with them, or copying them billions of times, doesn’t change anything. The chain of causation of one brain state causing another brain state has already happened. Everything else is just like a static captured image of that moment in time.
I’m talking about the arrow of time itself. Why do events in the past seem to cause things in the future and never the other way around? Causation is important for consciousness. One brain state actually causes the next brain state. Just a recording of brain states doesn’t cause any further brain states.
As for interpretation. Pi contains every possible sequence of digits possible. You can interpret them as brain states or jpg images or whatever you want. There is no meaning to it though. It’s just a sequence of digits.
Why? It seems like it would definitely instantiate consciousness, if you believe that two identical brain states would have separate phenomenological experiences. Or it would simply merge with the original brainstate, if you accept Dust Theory.
Not subjectively, but it would continue ‘on’ in the Dust.
Yes, and the causal universe we live in can be represented by the Dust. The possible configurations of the Game of Life are ‘real’ even if there is no Game of Life being implemented physically.
All interpretations are realized under Dust Theory.
Causal universes are represented, true. But so are countless non causal universes. Causality is a very specific constraint on possible universes. If it’s not required then the vast majority of universes should be non-causal, simply because the space of non-causal mathematical structures is much much larger than the space of structures which happen to meet the causality restriction just by chance.
So it’s really weird that we just happen to find ourselves in a causal universe, if it’s not required. See the link I posted for a better argument about this.
But to even talk about that, I have to consider Dust Theory as an actual theory. If it’s a theory then what predictions does it make? How does it constrain our expectations? It doesn’t seem to add anything to my model of the world.
Under what distribution? Are 50% of interpretations jpg images, or only 0.0000...001%?
What does it even mean for an interpretation to be “realized”? Some unspecified observer looks at a sequence of bits and says “this is a a brain state experiencing X”. Who is the observer? What does it matter how they interpret it? This idea doesn’t seem remotely coherent to me so I’m struggling to find the words to even object to it.
I just don’t accept this premise. A record of a brain state isn’t an experience. It’s just a series of bits that was caused by an actual running brain. I just don’t accept that a static non-causal series of bits has any moral weight, let alone is “me”. It doesn’t do anything. It isn’t connected to anything. It doesn’t mean anything. It just “exists”. It’s not doing computation. It’s not doing anything.
A lookup table can’t be conscious. (There is a descent amount of material on lesswrong about lookup tables and philosophical zombies. If you can’t find anyone to discuss dust theory with you.)
If you take that recorded brain state you can modify it. You can xor all the bits, or hash them, or treat it as a number and divide it by 20, or pad it with random bits, etc...
There is no inherent meaning to any sequence of bits, except the subjective one you give them. They are missing their color. They certainly are not conscious in any meaningful sense.
Hmm, OK, my belief in DT is pretty well shaken.
Still, take the problem of the physical world. There’s a large philosophical question of ‘what’ is actually out there; or if such a question is answerable even in principle (basically we’re talking about the thing-in-itself). A Dust multiverse sidesteps this completely- if you go down far enough, you’ll just get some mathematical laws, akin to those found in the Game of Life, which produce our universe. Isn’t that at least parsimonious?
(You still have the problem of what mathematics is fundamentally, but it’s a separate issue from the physical.)
Meant to answer this and forgot. You’re right that distractions always help, but often I go from hopeless to completely optimistic in minutes, for no apparent reason at all. Is this a neurological phenomenon?
I get the feeling you guys should read up on timeless qm, which basically avoids all of these problems and questions by treating reality as a static ‘crystal’ of related events with no time component. If you’re going to be talking about stuff near the floor, you might as well go all the way instead of using inaccurate hacks.