Lifeticle | The New Theory of Phenomenal Consciousness | Part One: Survival (part two will be realeased soon)
Lifeticle is a particle that acts as a subject, the so-called observer in the brain, with the following functions:
- Perception (Qualia): Visuals, sounds, pain, and other sensations.
- Attachment to the organism.
- Feedback influence on the brain.
Theoretical reflections on death, the necessity of cryonics, and the importance of preserving the body of the deceased
To the question of what happens after death, another question arises: what was there before birth? The particles that make up the body existed before birth and will continue to exist after death. There is no magic in either birth or death that destroys or creates particles. The state of death before birth is no different from the state of death after. To the question of whether there can be another life after death, the answer is: The so-called observer had already experienced a state of death prior to their birth, and yet they were born. What prevents the particles from assembling again in another form or similarly? Physical laws do not prohibit what has already happened according to these very same physical laws. If it were impossible to be born a second time, it would have been impossible to be born the first time.
The body can undergo a kidney transplant and continue to live. With partial brain damage or the removal of certain parts, life continues as well. Throughout life, many of the body's cells are replaced. Bones are replaced over a period of 10 years, the liver renews itself over several years, the heart is replaced halfway during a lifetime, the retina does not regenerate, and brain cells are partially replaced.
If cells were fully replaced, it would imply death. If nothing from the body remains from when one was a child, then that body has been destroyed and died, and what exists now is a different one. If the particles that made up the child were gathered again, one might assume that this would be you, not the one in the current body, but this is not the case. Therefore, something remains, some tiny part stays, and that part is the central one in the brain. The brain is not an indivisible object; it is made up of indivisible particles. You are the entity in the brain that feels. What are you in the brain? The answer is: the carrier of consciousness can only be a single indivisible entity. It is not possible to choose multiple entities, as they are separate entities. This means that in the brain, any particle can be replaced with an identical one, and you wouldn’t notice a difference. But if the central particle is replaced, your "self," being removed from the brain, would cease to feel anything. The central particle is indivisible—if we assume that the central particle is composed of several parts, then, as with the organism, division can continue, and the other particles will be external to the central one.
The highest electrical activity in the brain occurs in the reticular formation (which persists even during sleep and under anesthesia); the central part of the brain is either the reticular formation itself or a neighboring area. Without the brain's electrical activity, a person feels nothing. The closest description of what triggers qualia is the activity of electrons around the central particle. Qualia cannot be expressed through anything else, which means it is something fundamental. As an example: in Wolfram's physical theory, atoms are distortions of space itself. If the central particle does not exist, there is nothing on which the holistically formed picture of the world (qualia of vision, eye images, and other sensory organs) can converge, creating a problem of connectivity. The central particle can be described as a particle capable of qualia—this is its property, fundamentally distinct from the rest of the world, and this is life: a living particle (life + particle = lifeticle).
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For a person, death occurs at the moment of loss of consciousness, but even after this moment, a person can still be resuscitated. Death is currently considered to be the destruction of brain cells due to a lack of oxygen. However, destruction is merely the movement of atoms, not instantaneous, and theoretically reversible. Particles continue to remain in the brain. If we consider the moment of loss of consciousness, a person can feel nothing during sleep or fainting as well. Theoretically, recovery is possible from any level (not referring to technical feasibility at this time). One might assume death as the separation of surrounding atoms from the central particle, but for whom or for what, and why should this be defined as death? If in a religious sense, and there are flying angels watching over this process, what happens if they fail to oversee it? But there is no reason to believe such angels exist. If we are in a virtual reality, then the computer in the base reality must oversee this, but what if it doesn’t? But in base reality, we could question—are we in a virtual reality? This question leads nowhere and makes discussions about death meaningless. This means there is no physical moment of death. Death is the disintegration of the organism. What the organism consists of continues to exist in the world. The lifeticle can find itself in a new organism. Then after death, a new life is possible.
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The idea of the lifeticle implies that reverse transplantation is possible. It can be taken from a dying organism and placed in another, and for it, it will continue its life. This provides an unlimited lifespan. It is possible that life for the lifeticle happens once every million, or even billion, years. The longer the time, the greater the chance of being born again. But there is a huge problem—there remains the possibility of pain and unhappiness.
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What will life be like in the future in terms of happiness and unhappiness? In what kind of world could the next life exist?
Technological and intellectual development could create a wonderful world. But what if the world descends into an unbeatable fascism? Or if robots destroy the world and construct hell, either accidentally or intentionally (according to the plan of those who created them)? Such robots could endlessly grow humans in incubators and inflict pain on them. On the planet, there are already species evolving in relation to each other—one species changes to efficiently eat the other, while the other evolves to protect itself from being eaten. This is hell. It is unlikely that after the emergence of intelligent life on Earth, evolution will lead to its re-emergence again. Humans with technology will be able to modify other species so they no longer engage in the struggle for survival, so one species does not eat another. To end the suffering of other species, to stop the existing hell for those who experience it, so that being born as another species would not evoke fear. Even if humanity goes extinct, other species could evolve over millions of years, with the exception of the complete destruction of life conditions on the planet. Therefore, it is unlikely that the next life will follow the evolutionary path; most likely, it will either be a constructed paradise or a constructed hell. A world in a state of hell is a world of non-freedom. A world in a state of paradise is a world of freedom. This line of reasoning suggests that freedom allows one to leave paradise for hell, but leaving hell is impossible. One could attempt to explain to robots that life is a distinct form of matter, whose laws are of primary importance. However, there is no reason why robots would be obligated to follow these laws. In the future, an organization might be established to prevent a descent into a non-free hell. A virtual reality could be constructed where, in the base reality, people are confined to virtual reality with no means of escape. And within the virtual reality, there is freedom and paradise. This is a combination of freedom and non-freedom—a paradise that cannot be left. Such a paradise could be stable. And in the event of the sun's death, the population could simply be transferred to another planet, possibly even automatically.
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But there may also be another external factor—alien life with intentions unknown to us.
The possibility that aliens could be hostile requires the development of the most powerful weapons, even during peaceful times. The most powerful weapon would be self-replicating robots that travel to neighboring planets and create copies of themselves. The speed of their spread increases geometrically, and in a million years, they could completely colonize the galaxy.
These robots would not necessarily attack alien life; their purpose could be defensive. Such robots could restrict the development of alien life. Aliens could also create such robots, but theirs might be offensive. Humans might think: if aliens can create such a weapon, then humans should create it too. Aliens might think the same: if another form of life can create such a weapon, then we must create it for defense.
Even if life has not originated on another planet in this galaxy, it might have originated in a neighboring galaxy, and in a million years, our galaxy could be filled with robots. And if we start creating them now, it still might not be enough. Enemy robots could outnumber ours, and aliens could use such weapons to destroy life on our planet.
If physics allows for a hyperdrive, then such robots likely do not yet exist; otherwise, they would already be here. This risk might mean that humans should fill this galaxy and neighboring galaxies with robots.
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What if the universe in the future can no longer sustain life or generate qualia for the lifeticle?
One such variant may be dark energy.
In the distant future, dark energy will accelerate the expansion of space so much that atomic structures will no longer be able to hold themselves together. This marks a time when life will become impossible, and the Universe will either enter eternal expansion, known as Big Freeze, or experience the complete disintegration of matter in the scenario of the Big Rip. Since there is no such electronic activity around the lifeticle after death as there is in the brain, nothing is felt after death, and the next life begins instantly. Even if millions of years have passed. If nothing is felt, then this time effectively does not exist for you. Even during life, the flow of time can feel slower or faster, while in dreamless sleep, time passes instantly.
If the next life never begins and the Universe experiences the Big Freeze or the Big Rip—what do you feel? An infinity multiplied by zero? An infinity passing instantly? This is impossible; time would still remain. This leads to a paradox, and therefore a mystery. At the same time, there is no moment where one could definitively say that the situation has closed and some change must have occurred.
If dark energy and the Universe have cycles of expansion and contraction, the next life will inevitably begin. And the paradox is avoided.
The mystery seems unsolvable, and it is unclear whether any discoveries in physics will help resolve it.
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Four possibilities after death:
- A constructed hell
- A constructed paradise
- Birth along the evolutionary path, something in between paradise and hell
- The paradox of "zero eternity"
Only possible discoveries in physics could exclude the scenario of zero eternity. And even then, only if the universe undergoes cyclical stages of expansion and contraction, and physics can detect this. Therefore, the future after death is highly unclear and ambiguous; it represents a great uncertainty, which also makes our life more valuable.
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However, there is a technology called cryonics, which involves freezing the body to -196 degrees Celsius in a capsule filled with liquid nitrogen. After freezing, this allows the organism to be preserved in its original form for hundreds of years. In October 2022, a baby girl was born using an embryo that had been stored in a cryobank for 30 years. If we look back—200 years ago, technology was far less advanced, and 500 years ago, the difference was even greater. The same kind of progress will happen 200 years from now—future technologies will be highly advanced, and what about 500 years from now? Technology is limited only by the laws of physics. For example, a doctor cannot be instantly transported from Saturn—movement itself is limited by speed. This is an opportunity. And potentially, an opportunity for life without a time limit. After a person’s death, they should be preserved through cryonics, not buried or cremated, scattering their particles indiscriminately. Cryonics centers should exist in cities. What to do in the event of a sudden or expected death of a person or an animal, in the context of cryonics, will be explained below.
And you wouldn’t want to be born, or have your relatives be born, as a grasshopper or something worse. If there were certainty about the positivity of the next life, there would be no need to worry about it so much. Denying cryonics to the deceased is a rejection of a life lasting hundreds of years in favor of vast uncertainty.
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Can answers be found in religion?
Religious followers will not answer the questions raised in this article, as they do not engage with, discuss, or study such ideas. The mere fact that they have no connection to telescopes and no calls to study the world using them is enough to reduce their opinions to zero. They are not interested in the world; they are only interested in their cult. The fact that the moment of death does not exist also invalidates the concept of a religious paradise.
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This is not only the most accurate concept of phenomenal consciousness but also the only possible one. It does not contradict the laws of physics. If it is accepted as correct, there will be no reason to think otherwise. Once adopted, society will not deviate from it. Only discoveries in the field of physics can refine this concept. The lifeticle must have physical properties; otherwise, it could not maintain its position during motion. And physicists of the future may, within the next few hundred years, come closer to uncovering the mystery of consciousness and understanding the interaction of the lifeticle with the observable world.
At one time, people struggled to understand the motion of planets, and there were various ideas. When the correct understanding of their motion was established, other ideas fell away as less accurate. It is unclear why the idea of the lifeticle did not become the main focus earlier. It is simpler, and in some ways, even more banal, in contrast to the absurd notion of flying angels and a religious paradise. If the human body is made of something, then that something does not disappear after death and existed before birth. If you, as a lifeticle, did not exist before your birth, then no matter what happened in the world, you could not have come to exist in it. If the matter you are made of did not exist before your birth, then no matter what happened in the world, how could you have come to exist in it?
In our time, cryonics should become the primary approach in matters of death. Regardless of life extension technologies. The less time someone has left, the more critical it becomes—this is the time needed to prepare the cryochamber.
Death can be defeated.
In memory of J.