Conserved but Not Continued: Decoherence, Information, and the Finality of the Conscious Subject (Part II)
Henri Baskorvil
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) October 17, 2026 preprint DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23434374 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that quantum mechanics—unitarity, many worlds, decoherence, and quantum biology—offers no route to personal survival after death. The author proposes that information may be conserved without the self's pattern continuing ("conserved but not continued") and that quantum immortality fails as a survival guarantee, leaving the metaphysical question open. |
Abstract
The first part of this study argued that a human self is best understood as an organised information pattern, that the Hard Problem of consciousness leaves the fate of subjective experience at death formally undecided, and that epistemic agnosticism is the honest response. This second part examines that gesture in detail through quantum mechanics—unitarity, many worlds, decoherence, and quantum biology—arguing four main propositions: observer neutrality, a strict timescale constraint in neural tissue, the distinction between fine-grained information conservation and pattern continuation ("conserved but not continued"), and the failure of quantum immortality as a survival guarantee. Physics closes the quantum doors to survival, leaving the metaphysical question open.