Ashes of the Phoenix - Immortality Using Quantum Mechanics

I have spent so many years putting my mind into solving puzzles in physics. However, after bringing a solution to the major problems in physics (such as Dark Matter, the Grandfather Paradox, etc), I grew unsatisfied with the limits of the box, and so decided to put my mind into more audacious pursuits. Such as, defying the mystery of Death.

I've already expressed my theory that the human soul may actually be neural activity leaving a footprint onto dark matter. Now, I've found a way the human mind could literally achieve immortality. The best part is, it may already be occuring naturally.


Revising our approach

A method for surviving death has already been proposed on National Geographic - taking a mechanical snapshot of the brain upon its last moments, and transferring the info on a storage device. However the method proposed was hardly practical, since it required you to be, well, dead. I sighed with derision - the process was ridiculous, expensive and barbaric.

This is when I realised that there was a much more elegant solution - it was so obvious, staring us in the face: Quantum Entanglement.


Your mind already is "backed-up"

According to Quantum mechanics, all particles in existence have "quantum states". You can think of it as a signature of matter - particles all have as special signature that define their behaviour.

Quantum Entanglement happens when two (or more) particles share the exact same quantum state (the same "signature"). These particles are so synchronised that they behave the exact same way, no matter the distance between them.

What most people don't realise is that the universe has alot of particles. And there is only so much quantum states a particle may have. It's a bit like when you throw a dozen dices - a couple of them are bound to be sixes. Throw a billion dices and a couple of them are bound to not only be sixes, but their number are also bound to match each other as you throw them over and over.



Some random electron in the universe is most likely already entangled with an electron in your neurones, the two sharing the same state over and over. Now, figuring the state of one particle will allow you to guess the property of the other particle. However, and this is paramount, destroying one of the particles doesn't imply that the other will cease to exist*.

*(proof of this statement: consider two entangled electrons. They share the same spin direction. One wavefunction applies for both. One of the electrons runs into a positron and gets annihilated - the other electron will simply keep on existing, with the same spin direction. The one wavefunction will still apply to it. )

Do you realise what that means? All the particles in your neurones are most probably already backed up, and the back up will survive the death of the original.

The only trouble is, particles are pretty random. When you throw dices, those that get the same number won't necessarily be next to one another. Two particles in my neurones (don't worry, I have more than two) might be right next to each other here, but their entangled backup are most probably in some very random places in the universe - with one in, say, the Andromeda galaxy and the other in some faraway quasar.




The true challenge

If a way could be found to force particles to entangle with those in your brain, which for now we can't (we can only create entangled particles), then it'd be in theory possible to physically backup its state onto a storage system, and your backup would exist regardless of your distance from it.

A possible method would be to find special electromagnetic radiations emitted by particles from your brain, and reverse them into backup particles using particle production, a process which is already practised using lasers shot unto massive gold atoms so to create particles.

***

Another possible method would be to hunt for particles in nature which act like your backup and gather them up; however although it'd make a good sci-fi plot (full of traveling and adventures and stuff), it would hardly be realistically possible to achieve. An alternative would be to generate a pure, concentrated chaos of particles, so to cover the widest range of states possible, and hunt for the entangled particles there.


So, good news is, we probably already are somewhat immortal, our backup scattered across the cosmos. Bad news is, we're probably going to have a hard time reproducing the phenomenon in an useful fashion.


At Time's End,

Swan

a reply to: swanne

I suppose that the next step provided that all this is possible would be to create an exact clone using the entanglement process. You would of course have to tackle the duplication of existing particles in their current state and then entangle them so as to sync them. However this does not achieve the transfer of consciousness.

Interesting thread and I like where you are going with this. Have a star.....Oh hell have a flag as well.

If I've interpreted this correctly, you're still mistaking the box for the contents. It doesn't matter if the box is backed up because the box by itself is empty. Put another way, you're accounting for the hardware, but not the software. That's not really thinking outside the box at all.

We only know what happens to particles as they get sucked into a black hole...they are pulled every which way and become destroyed in the process?

Or do they come out the other side, the singularity having new compositions?

New particles whiz out of it probably in a spiral/cone creating a new galaxy where at the center of it lies a black hole?

That somehow seems to be the reverse of what I'm trying to say?

What if the new galaxy is a zillion physical miles away?
What if that is the cause of the universe forever expanding?

Fascinating to wonder about, the idea had to come from somewhere?

a reply to: loveguy

I think 'black holes' have become super massive because all the matter that goes in there is still in there.

It didn't go anywhere else, unless it squirts from the jets at the poles.

I'm not following, how do you get from probability of dice to quantum entanglement? Does the theory go that all particles have an entangled twin somewhere? I thought we needed like superconductors and stuff to make them.

a reply to: Templeton

I am using the dices as an analogy to explain how many random particles are bound to share the same properties. There is most certainly alot of entangled particles out there, but because of a principle called the Uncertainty Principle, we can't know which are and which aren't. This is why, yes, we also need advanced machines to create particles which we know will be born similar (usually a special atom will be used to produce two identical photons).

a reply to: swanne

Love your threads and thoughts swanne. Now, if it ever comes to fruition, I'll take my eternity dispersed. Not that I wouldn't want my consciousness, as it were, to continue on, but it sounds like a lot of work.

I'm actually hoping for a cyborg duplicate eventually. Duplicate, because I want to live forever - but I also want to die at some point. It would be nice to do both and not miss out on anything.

Excellent! You're closer than you know!
a reply to: swanne

originally posted by: swanne
Ashes of the Phoenix - Immortality Using Quantum Mechanics

Funny, people who don't know what to do on a rainy Saturday afternoon want to live forever!

Only unconditional Love/Enlightenment transcends all 'life' and 'death', all 'timespace', all 'duality'... (all conditioned thought/ego constructs)!

tat tvam asi (en.wikipedia.org...)

originally posted by: swanne

Do you realise what that means? All the particles in your neurones are most probably already backed up, and the back up will survive the death of the original.

All of the particles in my body will survive my death intact whether they are backed up (entangled) or not.

Each of all of the particles in my body would be indistinguishable from one another whether my body was dead or alive, just like the each of all the particles in my computer would be indistinguishable from one another whether they constituted a working computer, or constituted a computer that had been torn to tiny bits by an industrial shredder.

originally posted by: swanne
Some random electron in the universe is most likely already entangled with an electron in your neurones, the two sharing the same state over and over.

My understanding of entanglement is quite different than this, and is more consistent with what is reported here:

NIST Process for Purifying Entangled Ions

Entanglement can occur spontaneously when two atoms interact. For the initial interaction, the atoms have to be in close proximity, but the entanglement may persist even if they are physically moved apart.

So if that is correct and I think it is, then there is nothing random about the entanglement of particles in my body with other particles in the universe because they would have needed to have some kind of interaction in close proximity at some time in the past to become entangled.

Even if you limit the claim to just earth instead of the universe, let's say if any particles in gases escaping from my body such as flatulence are entangled with other particles in my body upon emission, the temperature of those gases will likely lead to rapid decoherence and loss of entanglement in a fraction of a second. This is why many experiments with entanglement are conducted near absolute zero, so rapid decoherence doesn't result from higher temperatures.

a reply to: swanne

My belief is that DNA is the code that transfers the information after death and during life to the soul complex or source outside our meat suits.

Each persons DNA is unique making it the perfect source and also has the ability to store massive amounts of information which could be all memories/experiences of an individual. I think the day will come that we will be able to see this information being transmitted in some fashion and then be able to track it to the final source or sources. With quantum computing in it's infancy already we are not as far away as some think in my opinion. I believe your theory has allot of truth to it and look forward to the coming years as we solve the mystery. Entanglement could just be the method for which information is never lost and is always bound to something in the universe to remain forever. More than one genius in our past has spoken of tapping into memory complexes and information pouring into them through their dreams.

a reply to: swanne

...Your mind already is "backed-up"

...Do you realise what that means? All the particles in your neurones are most probably already backed up, and the back up will survive the death of the original.

...good news is, we probably already are somewhat immortal, our backup scattered across the cosmos. Bad news is, we're probably going to have a hard time reproducing the phenomenon in an useful fashion.

F&S&

I agree with much of what you say and have come to similar conclusions from a different perspective - biology.

Memories are stored in prion proteins - which can be inherited, permeate the environment (and perhaps the cosmos), and are notoriously difficult to destroy. In as much as memories make up knowledge and the individual, prions comprise immortality.

The notion of 'access' was well-investigated by the ancient mystical traditions, and much of the 'discipline' carried forward has to do with such access. The Sufis' advice is simple, "If you want to increase your powers, increase your need."

Multi-disciplinary research (including physics and biology) is moving forward to understand the processes and elucidate the 'mechanics.'

...We may differ in the importance we place on individual ego and "me-ness" but this is really cool stuff.

Thanks for posting.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I personally don't believe particles need direct interaction to be entangled with one another. We conventionally view them this way, because until now to describe entangled particles we have to produce them ourselves, usually using some atoms like rubidium-87 to produce identical photons. However, I am convinced that similar processes are already happening naturally in the universe. Given the sheer amount of matter in the universe, it's actually highly possible that two random atoms in the universe, even though far apart, will happen to be similar (out of pure chance) and will emit similar photons, even though they've never actually been in contact with one another.

The idea is somewhat similar to the Infinite Monkeys Theorem, which states that a large quantity of random parts is bound to come up with some sort of order, out of pure chance.