Mindscan

Sawyer has a thing about uploaded consciousness. It figured in the background of his GOLDEN FLEECE and CALCULATING GOD, and was definitely in the foreground of THE TERMINAL EXPERIMENT. But it gets its fullest, meatiest treatment here, in MINDSCAN. There's no doubt that Sawyer has done his homework. I haven't seen any sci-fi novel that more fully or accurately addresses all the contemporary debates in consciousness studies -- from Searle's Chinese Room to Libet's readiness potential through the philosopher's zombie (not to mention a really fascinating philosophical scene about whether transmigration of souls is possible with uploading), it's all here. Part love-story, part courtroom drama, all good.

Imagine a future where you don't need sleep, where you don't lose any part of your memory, your body doesn't age and you are never prone to any disease. You keep all your mental and intellectual capacities, even your emotional ones. You can still identify your "self". All this is achieved by having your mind "uploaded" into a perfect body of chosen age and live happily ever after. You have become a Mindscan. Not, so fast, though! What about your consciousness, your "soul"? Can it really be copied? And what is going to happen to the original biological self? What about the reactions of family and friends; how do they take this technological wonderwork? What drives people to take this extreme step? The two protagonists make this choice for different reasons. Karen Bessarian, a highly successful writer in her eighties, doesn't accept the fast approaching end of her life. She has more books to write and life to enjoy, so she chooses a younger body. Jake, the rich forty-something heir to a Canadian brewery, carries his father's genetic marker for a brain defect. The older Sullivan collapsed into a vegetative state after a row between father and son when Jake was 17. Jake had put his life on hold to avoid stress and other triggers for brain damage. Meeting at a sales event for the Mindscan technology, Karen and Jake develop their relationship in different ways - as biological selves and as mind "instantiations" with new perfect bodies. Once the "uploads" have passed their first examinations they are let loose on their family and community with varying results. Tongue in cheek, Sawyer cannot resist some small political stabs contrasting US society at the time [as projected from present conditions] with an increasingly broadminded and left-leaning Canadian one. Jake doesn't fare well as an uploaded new self. His mother refuses to accept his new identity, his love doesn't even look at him. Sawyer presents a realistic scenario for his exploration of the reaction of the "loved ones" resulting in most of the story playing out in and around a US court room. Karen's son, expecting a rich inheritance, challenges the "thing" that has taken over from her. "I don't care whether copied consciousnesses are in fact persons in their own right. The issue is whether they are the same person as the original." His lawyer, of course, argues that "it" is not and brings various scientists as witnesses. The other side also has ample expertise on its side and a lot riding on success. Sawyer has created an intriguing speculative fiction world some 40 years hence where mind scans are possible. In his version of 2045, the technology for cloning humans has not been mastered. Instead, the brain is copied - completely and accurately - in a moment of "quantal entanglement" of the biological brain. The process creates a quantum fog that congeals into one artificial replacement brain. The new "you" takes over from that point. To avoid the problems of sudden doub

Sawyer puts a little bit of everything into this book from robotics, to brain studies, to psychology to philosophy with a little bit of high drama and excellent courtroom cross-examination. He studies the question "what makes a person"? and takes it way beyond what Asimov presented in the Millenium Man story. Jake Sullivan, a man with an illness that will eventually kill him decides to opt for a process called Mindscan where a copy of his mind will be uploaded to a robot brain and will live on as Jake on Earth why Jake goes to a pleasant retirement home on the moon to live out his remaining days. The "new" Jake faces all kinds of rejections from the people he knew, even his dog. He experiences new sensations like being able to see colors for the first time (he was color blind) and having too much idle time on his hands with no time to fill it since his biological self used it for sleeping, eating and other biological processes that Jake no longer needs to do. He meets and bonds with Karen, another mindscan who was 85 but has chosen a robot body that is about 30 while Jake was in his early 40's. The differences in their eras is what makes them so attractive to each other and they find that they have plenty to talk to each other even during "idle" time. When Karen's biological self dies, her son begins a court battle to claim his inheritance, claiming that the mindscan version of Karen has no rights because she is not really Karen. The court tension is amazing and great philosophical arguments are presented in a well scripted matter. To add another problem, Jake's biological self finds a cure for his ailment and then wants to regain his former life from his mindscanned version. Sawyer has outdone himself this time convincing me he is the best of the current Scifi writers out there today!

Once again Rob Sawyer has packaged thought-provoking speculation with thoroughly developed characters to produce a book that I just could not put down. The story is a typical Sawyer set-up: a thoroughly human, sympathetic character is facing a life crisis. As the story unwinds, the author explores the quesitons of what is self, what is consciousness, and what it means to be human and manages to achieve this without getting in the way of a good story. For those who cannot get enough of the speculation, Sawyer's Hugo-nominated short story Shedskin is set in the same timeframe with a similar premise but a different outcome.

This book shows why Robert Sawyer is today's pre-eminent science fiction writer. Always keeping speculation in tight rein, he nevertheless exhibits a wide-ranging imagination. His stories are always a good read, yet filled with information. He understands the human condition, displaying that insight with a variety of characters. Even the protagonist-narrator isn't entirely predictable. Others, who seem understandable [but never a stereotype!], spring surprises. He builds the episodes of this story with finesse - no small feat given the characters are 400 thousand kilometres apart. Jake Sullivan, scion of a Toronto brewery fortune, has a problem. The blood vessels in his brain might unexpectedly explode. It happened to his father during a family fight. The result isn't terminal. It leaves the victim in a vegetative state. Jake decides to take advantage of a new technology to bypass the threat. He'll have his mind scanned and his consciouness copied into an almost indestructible artificial body. Immortality, that quest so long followed by fragile humanity, may be imminent. His "shed skin", the original, flawed body, will be shipped to the far side of the Moon to live luxuriously until "natural causes" prevail. The relocation abandons a lonely dog, a confused girlfriend and a concerned mother. As might be expected, a threat looms. Give a lawyer an opening and another courtroom drama enfolds. What says the law on two minds of one person? Sawyer has done courtroom scenes before in "Illegal Alien". He surpasses himself with this one as the concepts of consciousness are thoroughly explored by the contending sides. Sawyer is at his best in having characters explain philosophical or scientific stances. Thankfully, in this examination of determining who we are, Sawyer manages to shift the issue of the "soul" out of the hands of the clergy. His defender of that concept would seem inappropriate, but the character expresses the idea fervently. The resolution of these issues is, amazingly, left for the reader. Sawyer has always avoided absolutes. He has his passions - the Toronto Blue Jays and enjoying Fate's gift of being Canadian, among others. While those are important and worthy of admiration and satisfaction, the issue of humanity in general looms significantly in his work. He is outstanding in dealing with controversies in a balanced narrative. And the story line itself will keep you reading to the end. A true "page-turner". [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]