Time, Consciousness, and Lifespan
Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness September 1, 2025 DOI: 10.1142/s270507852550002x (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Intervention | self-observation |
| Key points | Proposes that self-observation could reverse the information state associated with aging, potentially increasing lifespan. |
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.