Reflection's Edge

Book Review: Mindscan, by Robert J. Sawyer

Reviewer: Romie J. Stott

In 2045, a company called Immortex has found a way to copy the human brain into an indestructible android body - a body not quite up to human standards, but a body that's infinitely upgradeable as technology improves. Immortex's early clients are wealthy retirees afraid of death - Malcolm Draper, a civil rights lawyer who can remember a time before the Patriot Act; Karen Bessarian, a well-known science fiction author who won't let her work lapse into the public domain; and Jake Sullivan, a detached 44-year-old who has lived his entire life under the specter of the same congenital circulatory problem that destroyed his father.

Less than a week after the copies are made, the legal battle begins; upon the death of Karen's human body, her son sues for his inheritance - but the android Karen is still alive. Meanwhile, the human Jake wants his life back - and is willing to hijack a lunar colony to get it; as for the android Jake, he's afraid that Immortex is copying him illegally. What follows is a discussion of the nature of consciousness, and the definition of personhood.

The study of consciousness has boomed in the past decade, and Sawyer has done his research; the theories and debates within Mindscan are drawn directly from the pages of The Journal of Consciousness Studies and other scholarly works. As a result, the arguments within Mindscan's pages will unnerve the devoutly religious and Skinnerian behaviorists alike.

Contemporary science rejects the idea of the soul, which has previously dominated most religious and philosophical debates into the nature of awareness. At the same time, researchers are learning more about the brain - and that we make many decisions faster than electrical impulses can travel, and store information not just in cells, but in repeating patterns outside them. The implications for both artificial intelligence and the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence are profound.

Although the brain-copying technology in Mindscan is probably further off than the 40 years Sawyer allows (the explanation of how it works involves a vague "quantum fog"), some aspects of its legal debates may arrive much sooner as human genetic alteration becomes more common. Ironically, many of the same arguments brought to bear against the androids in Mindscan have been misapplied in the decisions to ban human cloning.

It is these scientific and legal questions that dominate Mindscan; the characters themselves often feel like puppets, or convenient talking heads. As a result, the book lacks both an emotional center and a satisfying conclusion - perhaps because the consciousness debate is not yet settled. In a sense, the main character is the reader, who must listen to the various arguments and make his or her own decisions about what constitutes personhood.

Since most scenes in Mindscan are simply two characters talking about abstract ideas, the book could easily have become tedious; instead, Sawyer seems to have taken a page from The DaVinci Code - short cliff-hanger chapters that make Mindscan a page-turner. Unfortunately, Sawyer has to pull some cheap tricks to keep the timeline racing - characters conveniently go crazy, or die, or divulge secret knowledge, or otherwise act out of character; cases come to trial too fast; even travel itineraries are sped up. Moreover, the book isn't messy enough; characters show up when they need to, and then disappear. Sawyer's excuses for the acceleration only draw attention to how odd it is - particularly given characters who can live forever.

In addition, while Mindscan is full of interesting ideas about both consciousness and property rights, the explanations are often unfortunately dumbed down. (To mediate this problem, Sawyer provides an illuminating "further reading" list of recommendations at Mindscan's close - but one wishes he'd gone more into detail within the book itself.) It's always too clear who is the good guy and who is the bad guy, which is disappointingly simplistic; in particular, Karen Bessarian is a thinly disguised author surrogate.

The writing style itself is unremarkable - neither clumsy nor particularly poetic. This is fitting given the character of the first person narrator, Jake Sullivan, a well-educated man without an artistic bone in his body. In a risky authorial move, Sawyer has Jake reference touchstones of contemporary pop culture - like Harry Potter, Finding Nemo, and Alanis Morissette. Although these references make perfect internal sense - today we talk about Narnia and Casablanca - they often pull the reader out of the narrative.

In the end, Mindscan's main objective is not to entertain, but to educate. Instead of telling a story which will allow the reader to take a break in a fictional world, Sawyer ensnares his audience in a very contemporary debate. Escapists will not be pleased, but news junkies will rejoice.

If you liked this book, you may also enjoy:

Beggars in Spain, by Nancy Kress

My Dinner With Andre, directed by Louis Malle

Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder

Exploring Consciousness, by Rita Carter

Consciousness: A Guide to the Debates, by Anthony Freeman

The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, by Ray Kurzweil



PicoSearch. Help