Conscious now, conscious forever?

Yep, and because of the difference, I don't object to the simulation argument in the same way, so it's not relevant here and doesn't help to defuse my objection.


Yep, but, again, from the mere fact of your currently conscious existence, you have no way of differentiating between the two scenarios. I really do think it's a fatal problem with this argument, but I've repeated myself enough and don't want to cause friction with you so I should probably leave it there!

No friction at all. Like I said, I think you're probably right. I have the intuition that there's a way to make the argument more persuasive, but I haven't articulated it yet, and don't know if I'll be able to.