Thoughts on Generic Subjective Continuity?

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I have often thought the same way as the OP.

I've wondered about such things (though not in the way you have, as I don't know anything about physics), but I'm a materialist. My consciousness feeds off of the input of my senses (when not directly so, and instead 'abstract', it is doing so from memory etc). There is self-consciousness, yes, self-awareness. But I have an inkling it might be something to do with language.

As far as my personage contains the memory of me in others' minds, and the marks I leave upon the world (which it does), then there's parts of it that go on without me. But that's about it.

Well, even those types of marks we leave on the world, our memories and legacies. will eventually fade out. Hell, the whole universe is exponentially expanding and losing memory of itself. Eventually, all the distant objects in the sky that weave the narrative of our cosmic past will fade into an abyss of black nothingness.

When I write of eternal aspects of personage, I'm talking about something more fundamental than our physical appearance, bodies, personalities, or the memories left behind. I'm talking about the foundation of being itself. I think all the input from the world, our upbringing, religious assumptions, nationality, actions, etc etc, are all finite, but what is infinite is the stage that this all takes place on, whether that be consciousness, the energy that constitutes matter, or a singularization of both.

What is the most fundamental aspect of the self? I think it has something to do with the way electron activity is organized in the brain. However, consciousness, as a phenomenon, can't be explained purely in terms of the material model. Its properties are just too alien to it. Anything material can be explained in an objective sense. However, consciousness isn't objective but rather the basis or foundation of objectivity itself. There can't be an object without a subject to relate to it and visa-versa. Without the subject the object is not an object but a thing unto itself, a stream of unprocessed data, wave-particles popping into space-time as waves or particles.

If anything, I think consciousness is its own dimension of reality, like space-time. If you can't explain consciousness/ awareness, in terms of the other factors, if it just leaves you puzzled, and its probably its own aspect that needs its own category for clarification. To explain consciousness purely in terms of matter is like explaining color purely in terms of shade.

Following a purely materialist objective model, there really is no need for self awareness. Under that model, we may as well be mechanized robots with no sense of self whatsoever. However, day to day, direct experience points that there's something else going on that this doesn't account for.

In its natural state, unrelated to sentient observers, matter has very different properties from what we know as evidenced by quantum mechanics. Where I think language comes to play is where mind-matter contrast comes to play. Our brains set their selves apart from all the other collections and arrangements of atoms when we label them. The otherwise arbitrary assortment of Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen, and Oxygen molecules becomes a tree when we relate ourselves to it with our language system. What the foundational basis of language is and its relationship to matter, I don't know. My guess is it has something to do with dissonance and consonance, like with music.

In the end, I don't think the issue at hand is mind-vs matter or some monist vs dualist argument, but rather fully integrating all dimensions of existence properly.

It is a possibility, but I sure hope it is not true. It is a frankly terrifying prospect.

http://xkcd.com/605/
Unjustified extrapolation is unjustified.