Note - a version of this article was originally posted by me on September 2011 on the original QuantumThoughts web site
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I used to have trouble getting to sleep.
Well, okay, I still sometimes have insomnia, but for completely different reasons.
You see, I used to wonder whether or not, when I awoke in the morning, I was the same person I had been when I went to sleep the previous night.
There's a discontinuity involved in sleep - the perpetual awareness of consciousness turns off for a time. How could I know that I had not, during that interval, been replaced by an exact duplicate - with the same appearance, same memories, and (apparently) same paranoias? It might not matter for the duplicate, but the original me might very well be gone!
Crazy as it sounds, this is a fundamental problem addressed by many philosophers, up to and including Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy. The root of the problem is the question of what makes up the "I" that is me, and is it persistent? Does it move with me from conscious to unconsciousness and back again? If you have much experience with philosophy you've heard of the "Swampman" conundrum - basically, if I am replaced with an exact duplicate, with the same brain structure and (ostensibly) same memories and ways of thought, is that exact duplicate really me? A difference that makes no difference is no difference - right?
In fact this already happens all throughout our lives - it's the "Ship of Theseus" problem all over again. The Ship of Theseus is a ship that makes a voyage, and as bits and pieces of the ship are damaged, they are replaced. By the end of the voyage the entire ship has been replaced. Is it still the same ship? Most of us would argue yes, because there was some continuity involved. Compare that to a ship which is utterly destroyed and then is rebuilt from scratch (The Enterprise NCC-1701-A). Nobody would argue that it's the same ship! Each and everyone one of us is a Ship of Theseus - our cells replace themselves at a regular interval such that every "X" number of years or so there isn't a single original cell left in your body. The sole exception to this are your neurons, which do not undergo replacement, typically. So your thoughts are the same, your brain is the same, it's just inhabiting a different vessel every so often. But eventually the brain will wear out and die - hold on to that thought for a few paragraphs....
At this point some of you are undoubtedly raising your hands, thinking about that religious construct referred to as a "soul". I'm not going there. I was raised Catholic and am now in recovery, thank you. I truly wish there could be some magical afterlife where all the pain and suffering of life is forgotten, where all the loved ones we've lost will be eagerly awaiting us with open arms bearing gifts of incense and annointed oils (which in the case of my relatives would undoubtedly involve many varieties of delicious smoked pork products). I also wish that Santa Claus were real, and that I had a time machine built into a Delorean DMC 12. But I digress.
What really lies at the heart of this question is the nature of consciousness - where does it reside, and what is it comprised of? And - if a duplicate *me* were somehow made, how could it possibly have *my* consciousness? It might think it did, but then so would the original (unless it were somehow destroyed by my evil twin).
The basic problem of sleep-induced consciousness discontinuity is not really keeping me up at nights anymore, but it's still something I think about quite a bit because of one of my other obsessions - immortality. The nature of consciousness matters greatly if you at all want to live beyond the lifespan of your brain.
The dream of immortality has long been a human obsession. Only in the 21st century are we starting to see the mechanisms which might lead to the fruition of that dream. The human body is, after all, just a machine - albeit an organic one comprised of proteins - but a machine nonetheless. There's no reason, therefore, that the machine should ever really have to *die*. We've had blood transfusions since 1900, and organ transplants have become more and more common - we're essentially replacing broken down parts with spares. But with the advent of molecular biology it seems we're about to take things to the next level. I'll talk about the mechanisms of how in next month's blog. For now suffice it to say that even with full tissue regeneration, the one thing that we don't see as being easily repaired and maintained is the human brain. While we have shown that nerves can be regenerated, once a specific neuron is lost or worn out, any training/information stored there is lost - and if consciousness resides in the brain, that means that sooner or later the seat of the "I" will wear out.
So if we want immortality, we need a way of moving our consciousness.
That's the crux of the matter. What is the nature of consciousness, where does it reside? Knowing the answers to those questions will enable us to take that last step and maintain our existence long after the original biological warranty expires.
One thing we know for certain - the brain most certainly appears to be where consciousness resides. But that's about as far as we've gotten. Lots of theories abound about how memories are stored in neural pathways (or even memory RNA - discredited but still cool), maintained through repeated signal transmission or some other mechanism. We don't know for certain, however. And that's only the storage of ideas and information - where is the central processor of the human being - the bit that gives us that constant focus, presence, and awareness?
Again there are many theories, but none have been proven. The most interesting one I've discovered recently was actually formulated by Roger Penrose, the physicist. He suggests that consciousness is a function of quantum waveforms formed inside the microtubules inside the brain - and while the theory is not widely accepted, there is some preliminary data that suggests that neurons do in fact have electrical functions on the quantum level.
Back to immortality - I'm still looking for a way to move my consciousness when my current brain wears out. Whether by regenerating the neurons in the brain, or cloning the brain, or downloading your brain into a computer, there still has to be a way of moving the consciousness - otherwise all you're doing is making a copy. And while having an exact duplicate that acts and thinks like me might be fine for my kids (sounds like a bad Disney movie, doesn't it? "Backup Dad"), so that they'll still have a me, it won't be me - the consciousness that's writing this blog right now. And that's what I want.
But if consciousness has a quantum component - if it's a waveform of some sort - then perhaps there is the possibility of quantum entanglement - whether naturally occurring or induced (and that's a level of physics that's far beyond me and, I suspect, anyone alive today - but hey, if I'm going to dream, why not dream big?). Quantum entanglement - you know - spooky action at a distance? If consciousness is a quantum waveform, then maybe - just maybe - it'll follow structure and reside in any sympathetic matrix similar enough to the one it "remembers", whether physical (neuronal) or algorithmic (computer). That means cloned brains or computers could in fact serve as repositories of me - not just a duplicate, a copy, but the me that is currently extant.
And maybe we can take it further than that - maybe if consciousness is a quantum waveform, we don't need a physical container at all - maybe that waveform can be imprinted on the underlying matrix of the universe itself - a transcendence that many religions have promised without providing a mechanism that could actually be demonstrated or comprehended.
I guess I was wrong earlier - maybe I really am talking about the soul. But not the soul in the traditional Western religious sense; think more soul in the Buddhist sense, and it's something that might be comprehensible in a scientific way, something we can manipulate and preserve.
I suspect that cloned brains or computer downloads are a long way away. But that's okay - the first step is to preserve the existing body as long as possible; if we can do that, it'll give us plenty of time to figure out the rest.
More on that next month.
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