ULTIMATE COMPUTING - Quantum Consciousness Studies

The Future of Consciousness 217
11 The Future of Consciousness
Nanotechnology may enable the dream of Mind/Tech merger to materialize.
At long last, debates about the nature of consciousness will move from the
domain of philosophy to large scale experiments. The visions of consciousness
interfacing with, or existing within, computers or mind piloted robots expressed
by Moravec, Margulis, Sagan and Max Headroom could be realized. Symbiotic
association of replicative nanodevices and cytoskeletal networks within living
cells could not only counter disease processes, but lead to exchange of
information encoded in the collective dynamic patterns of cytoskeletal subunit
states. If these are indeed the roots of consciousness, a science fiction-like
deciphering and transfer of mind content may become possible. One possible
scenario could utilize a small window in a specific brain region. Hippocampal
temporal lobe, a site where memories enter and where electromagnetic radiation
from outside the skull penetrates most readily and harmlessly, is one possible area
where information distributed throughout the brain may perhaps be accessed and
manipulated. Techniques such as laser interferometry, electroacoustical probes
scanned over brain surfaces, or replicative nanoprobes immunotargeted to key
hippocampal tubulins, MAPs, and other cytoskeletal components might be
developed to perceive and transmit the content of consciousness.
What technological device would be capable of receiving and housing the
information emanating from some 10 15 tubulin subunits changing state some 10 9
times per second One possibility is a customized array of nanoscale automata,
perhaps utilizing superconducting materials. Another possibility is a genetically
engineered array of some 10 15 tubulin subunits (or many more) assembled into
parallel tensegrity arrays of interconnected microtubules, and other cytoskeletal
structures. Current and near future genetic engineering capabilities should enable
isolation of genes responsible for a specific individual’s brain cytoskeletal
proteins, and reconstitution in an appropriate medium. Thus the two evident
sources of mind content (heredity and experience) may be eventually reunited in
an artificial consciousness environment. A polymerized cytoskeletal array would
be highly unstable and dependent on biochemical, hormonal, and pharmacological
maintenance of its medium. Precise monitoring and control of cytoskeletal
consciousness environments may become an important new branch of
anesthesiology. Polymerization of cell-free cytoskeletal lattices would be limited
in size (and potential intellect) due to gravitational collapse. Possible remedies
might include hybridizing the cytoskeletal array by metal deposition, symbiosis
with synthetic nanoreplicators, or placement of the cytoskeletal array in a zero
gravity environment. Perhaps future consciousness vaults will be constructed in
orbiting space stations or satellites. People with terminal illnesses may choose to
deposit their mind in such a place, where their consciousness can exist
indefinitely, and (because of enhanced cooperative resonance) in a far greater
magnitude. Perhaps many minds can comingle in a single large array, obviating
loneliness, but raising new sociopolitical issues. Entertainment, earth
communication, and biochemical mood and maintenance can be supplied by
robotics, perhaps leading to the next symbiosis-robotic space voyagers (shaped
like centrioles) whose intelligence is derived from cytoskeletal consciousness.
Yes, this is science fiction. Will it become reality like so much previous
science fiction has Probably not precisely as suggested; but if past events are
valid indicators, the future of consciousness may be even more outrageous.