Board 8 > San Junipero *Black Mirror Spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Monkey needs a hug
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Mythiot posted...

Waluigi1 posted...

Mythiot posted...

Hang the DJ wasn't that happy. The digital people in that episode were deleted after serving their purpose.

So? They were just fake digital constructs. That's one thing that black mirror tends to push a lot and I just can't seem to care since none of them are real. It's like, whatever they aren't actual people.

Um, Black Mirror pushes the opposite, that all these "digital constructs" are real people for all intents and purposes. You can't watch White Christmas and U.S.S. Callister without empathizing with them.

That's what I mean, Black Mirror tries real hard to make me feel for the AIs but I find it difficult. And I'm generally a very empathetic person.
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Mythiot posted...

that all these "digital constructs" are real people for all intents and purposes

Not really. It shows that you can empathize with technological constructs. The show thinks it is blurring the like between fiction and reality but it definitely fails in that if that's its goal. There is always a clear distinction between creations and reality. The characters who lose sight of that distinction are punished.

You can even empathize with a square and triangle that moves in the right way, so that's not very significant.
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Let me phrase this differently: if instead of a copy being made it depicted the character's body being hooked up to a machine and stagnant while the AI Construct wandered around in a terrifying world, would it make it any more you, the implication that they transferred your mind from your body to another world? Would the journey of trying to "get back to their body" make it more the actual person, or would it only be so if they successfully made it back to the body? Schrodinger's Real Self; where it could be both them and not them depending on success or failure. This having your mind trapped in a terrifying computer simulation is a trope that pops up consistently and people have no trouble following this guy simulated them is the real them.

What if later on they revealed that the you in the chair was just in a coma and could wake up? Would the other you suddenly be less you? It's just making an exact copy, like hitting copy and paste on the computer, it's the same to every detail. Your kids aren't you whatsoever. They may share DNA, but we aren't DNA, like I said, we aren't our bodies, we are our experiences.

The AI Constructs are, of course, real people for all intents and purposes. Bandersnatch plays with this because instead of AI constructs it delves into alternate realities. Every reality you play through is connected, they all exist concurrently, even if the main guy or the blonde guy die, they still exist, exactly as they were, in another universe. Does Pac-Man dying matter if he has hundreds of lives?

PerfectChaosZ posted...

the character's body being hooked up to a machine and stagnant while the AI Construct wandered around in a terrifying world, would it make it any more you

That's different. The point of AI is that it's ENTIRELY a computer program. If a human is attached to a machine and powers a perfect digital representation of themselves, that's obviously still them. I don't know if there's an episode that deals with that, but Hang the DJ is not at all like that.

And yeah, the multiple copies question is also different from the AI question, and Bandersnatch does deal with it. It's a nice paradox though, that if you make a perfect copy of a human, then obviously the original is the only one that's "real". But if you make a perfect copy of a human then instantly kill the original, then that's just plain ol' teleportation where the copy is obviously "real". The Prestige does this better than any Black Mirror episode though.
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I'd argue the copy is just as real whether the original is alive or not. Like in Moon.
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You guys ever play SOMA?

Thats the question Im posing. If you hooked up someone to a machine and it created a digital representation of them, you said youd think that was them, right?

But what if it turned out it did this by making a perfect copy and the original was still in the body just unaware. Suddenly the digital representation isnt the real them? What changed? What if they implanted the copies memories back in the original after?

Id argue that a perfect copy and the original are equally real. What if there was no way to determine an original? Why is it teleportation if you kill the original, but both arent equally real if both simply exist at the same time?

KingButz posted...

I'd argue the copy is just as real whether the original is alive or not. Like in Moon.

But then you're devaluing both the copy and the original. The two diverge in experiences and choices after that, so if they are both equally real, then that means that experiences and choices aren't what define a person. So then what made the original person themselves?

That's what Soma was addressing. The key idea is not the perfect mental clone, they had that technology for a while. It was the Continuity. The idea that your real self jumps from moment to moment in a continuous line. If the line splits into two, it's not continuous anymore, so both paths lose Continuity and thus lose their selves.
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If you believe you had those choices and experiences, and have memory of them, then it doesn't really matter if in reality you did them or not. It still shaped your character.
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I guess they would be real in that case, but they would be a different person once they split from the original. The actual question is whether the copy can ever be considered the same person as the original.
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The question is about legitimacy. The copy will be a different person after an instant, which is a fact. Because they inhabit different spaces, their beings will automatically change in different, even if insignificant, ways.

The question you want to answer is which version deserves to be honored as "original" and the answer is flip a coin it doesn't matter. Both will claim they are the original and have evidence of being the original. Like in The Prestige, either the copy or the original could die instantly and it makes no difference.
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But one of them has to die or else both lose legitimacy
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What exactly do you mean by legitimacy, and why does it matter?
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I think you may have missed that in SOMA the people killing themselves to establish a line of continually between the two selves were very wrong, tragic and had a misunderstanding of about how it really worked.

What's tragic about it is that there is no argument against it so you can't even blame them. That's the horror of it. It literally did work, as the player shows.
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foolm0r0n posted...

But one of them has to die or else both lose legitimacy

Existence is not a zero-sum game. A copy of a person has as much inherent value as the original.
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Agree with KP

Can't wait until this is a real discussion in like 2080
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KamikazePotato posted...

Existence is not a zero-sum game

Identity is though. If you can make 10 clones and they are all equally "you" as the you that currently exists, then the you that currently exists isn't very unique in the first place. Extend this to 1 billion clones, infinity clones, and you'll see that the only way a copy can be equally "you", is if the original you is zero.
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I dont think something has to be unique to have value, all sentient life has value. SOMA spoilers I dont think theres anything to suggest that the version left under the ocean died before we see the version in the ARK. And they presumably woke up at the same time so those lives were running concurrently. If anything it proves that the suicide cult was wrong- whether or not they kill themselves the copied version will be the same and go on to do the same things it would have done otherwise because its just as much them if they kill themselves or not. But killing themselves makes it a tragedy.

I always find this specific topic of discussion really interesting.

PerfectChaosZ posted...

I dont think something has to be unique to have value, all sentient life has value

That's a different question that few people disagree on

PerfectChaosZ posted...

If anything it proves that the suicide cult was wrong- whether or not they kill themselves the copied version will be the same and go on to do the same things it would have done otherwise because its just as much them if they kill themselves or not

But this is the rub. If the one stuck in the ocean was just as much "them" as the copy, then the copy will always have to worry about competition from the original. Like, the original could come back and delete the copy, because they have just as much claim to the original identity as the copy. The copy will never truly be free to be "them" unless the original is gone..

Another way to look at it is this: Before the cloning, the entirety of "you" consisted of 1 body and mind. Then you get cloned, and "you" consists of 2 bodies and minds. Then one dies, so you're back to "you" consisting of 1 body and mind.

If you were completely whole as 1 body and mind, and also whole when you became 2 bodies and minds, then what tragedy is there to go back to 1 body and mind? You're just back to your regular complete self from before. Nothing was lost.

The only way it's a tragedy is if the cloning creates something new, a new identity that is different than your original self. Killing that is tragic, but it is also by definition not "you".
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foolm0r0n posted...

KamikazePotato posted...

Existence is not a zero-sum game

Identity is though. If you can make 10 clones and they are all equally "you" as the you that currently exists, then the you that currently exists isn't very unique in the first place. Extend this to 1 billion clones, infinity clones, and you'll see that the only way a copy can be equally "you", is if the original you is zero.

Luckily the clones would instantly start diverging from each other the moment after they were created, thus preserving the uniqueness of their identities.
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And which one of those is you from before the split?
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foolm0r0n posted...

And which one of those is you from before the split?

The one that was here before the split.
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Its tragic because its senseless. When the cult kills themselves it is completely needless because its not going to change the outcome of what the clone does or experiences in the least. So its just a needless loss.

You would consider the version of the protagonist you play for the first half of the game as equal to the version you play for the second half, and both would be equal to the version in the ARK, all three with the possibility of running around at once.

I dont see why there has to be an inherent life or death struggle over the identity. Its not like one must kill the other to claim it, and its not like only the original can delete the copy. By the same token anyone could just come and delete the copy just as well. The two selves will diverge within minutes so of course each one is free to be the version of them they are going forward. The idea of an original is pointless and arbitrary.

I like the idea, although SOMA only barely touched on it, of which one do you consider more human and worthy of saving? The original human who is probably horribly mutated, mad, barely alive by the wow or the brain scan. I doubt youd say the original would have precedence in this case even though they are literally the only human in the equation.

IfGodCouldDie posted...

The one that was here before the split.

That's a pretty harsh favoritism for what is just a hunk of flesh and I the others definitely would not agree. They're not just gonna be like "welp I guess I'm my own person now, see ya later!"
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I'm of the opinion that there is only one you. And if there is an exact copy made, it's still just that, a copy. It will never be the real thing no matter how exact a copy it is.
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foolm0r0n posted...

They're not just gonna be like "welp I guess I'm my own person now, see ya later!"

Why not?
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PerfectChaosZ posted...

all three with the possibility of running around at once.

The nature of the game means there is only truly one running around - defined by the player's viewpoint. "You" are consistently defined from the beginning to the end as the one that you control. And that's the point of the cult. Wherever your perspective ends up, that is "you" by default. So if you give your perspective only one place to go, it's totally unambiguous.

The character himself has a bunch of clones and it gets messy yeah, which is why I think they really messed up at the very end when they switched back from the fantasy view to the underwater view. They made the split timelines explicit there for the first time (other than the NPCs) instead of letting the player figure out the implications of the clones themselves.

PerfectChaosZ posted...

The idea of an original is pointless and arbitrary

That's what I mean when I say you devalue everything with that philosophy. If the concept of "original" is pointless after the split, then it is also pointless before the split.
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The big hurdle for me about copies isn't so much philosophical as it is logistical

I've thought it would be interesting to meet copies of myself. They probably wouldn't be that terrible. we would share a lot of interests

We just have no frame of reference to handle it as a society- it's never come up.

Are we both still considered citizens of the US? Do we share a social security number? do our parents have an obligation to relate to us? Are we both married to my wife? How does everyone else feel about it? Are we both allowed to vote? There is so much uncharted territory that would need to be figured out

there are a lot of things from philosophy that we ignore for the sake of moving things along. For example, free will might not be real, but in order for society to function we have to treat it as if it 100% does exist

I think society might ban this practice for the sake of stability, regardless of what you think about the deeper end of the subject
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foolm0r0n posted...

IfGodCouldDie posted...

The one that was here before the split.

That's a pretty harsh favoritism for what is just a hunk of flesh and I the others definitely would not agree. They're not just gonna be like "welp I guess I'm my own person now, see ya later!"

That's me, and if the clones are an exact replica of me at the time of creation, then they would agree. And considering those would be the only parties with a valid opinion on the matter I wouldn't need anyone else to agree.
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