Time, Consciousness, and Lifespan

A conscious agent increases entropy through actions that contribute to irreversibility. During its lifespan, the agent transitions from a live information state (1) to a death state (0). This superposition of states is recognized conceptually in psychology and belongs to quantum biology. The information state may be frozen or reversed using the observation-based quantum Zeno effect, which for an individual would imply self-observation. Because mind and body processes are connected recursively at several levels, reversing the information state could affect aging processes, potentially increasing lifespan through a system of self-observation.

Study at a glance

Abstract

A conscious agent, by virtue of actions that contribute to irreversibility, increases entropy. The agent during the lifespan may be characterized by a passage from the live information state [Formula: see text]1[Formula: see text] to the death state [Formula: see text]0[Formula: see text]. The superposition of such states is well recognized conceptually in psychology and belongs to the field of quantum biology. This information state may be frozen, or even reversed, using the observation-based quantum Zeno effect that, in the case of an individual, would imply self-observation. Since mind and body processes are connected recursively at several levels, a turn back of the information state will have a corresponding effect on aging processes and thus the lifespan of an organism could, in principle, be increased through a system of self-observation.