SOMA and the consequences of brain scans
Dec. 20th, 2021 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkI was a bit surprised at first how many people mentioned that playing SOMA gave them a strong feeling of existential dread. But it makes sense that the first time someone encounters that particular concept is especially effective, and I had definitely encountered it before. Then I tried to think where I'd encountered it: at first I couldn't think of a specific book or movie or TV show. However, what did come to mind was an SGA fanfic I read almost ten years ago: The Body Holographic by Leah/taste_is_sweet and springwoof. (Which, incidentally, also happens to be one of the few fics that literally made me cry. That's why I didn't reread it now, just skimmed it.)
"The Body Holographic" is, besides being a Pegasus worldbuilding story about an Atlantis abandoned by Earth, a tragedy about John and Rodney.
After an accident, John became a hologram. He thinks he is the "real" John, and pretty much everyone agrees with him – except Rodney, who considers him a mere digital copy and grieves the death of the "real" John. They spend decades living together in the same city, constantly reminded of their love, and yet unable to reconcile. And then, well, the ending is beautiful and sad and bittersweet.
I don't know if this really was the first piece of media I consumed about the question to what degree an uploaded consciousness counts as the same person – actually I'm pretty sure it wasn't, now that I think about it there was even an SGA episode with replicators and pretty much the same premise – but it was certainly the one that stayed with me the longest. And it meant that when I encountered the same question in SOMA, I was immediately ready to accept that an uploaded consciousness is a person, even if they're "only" a copy.
Which didn't make SOMA less tense, there were plenty of interesting thoughts and choices, but it did mean that I didn't really feel that "existential dread" other people mentioned. Instead I immediately started thinking about how the ARK doesn't sound as much of a paradise as Simon seems to think it is (58 co-workers, some of whom are not exactly the best of friends, and they are aware of their situation…), and wondering if there's a difference between him and the other people in the ARK because his own brain scan was older and "flatter" according to Catherine, and wondering what would have happened if Catherine had been more open with Simon about what the "transfer" would look like or if Simon had realized it himself…
"The Body Holographic" is, besides being a Pegasus worldbuilding story about an Atlantis abandoned by Earth, a tragedy about John and Rodney.
After an accident, John became a hologram. He thinks he is the "real" John, and pretty much everyone agrees with him – except Rodney, who considers him a mere digital copy and grieves the death of the "real" John. They spend decades living together in the same city, constantly reminded of their love, and yet unable to reconcile. And then, well, the ending is beautiful and sad and bittersweet.
I don't know if this really was the first piece of media I consumed about the question to what degree an uploaded consciousness counts as the same person – actually I'm pretty sure it wasn't, now that I think about it there was even an SGA episode with replicators and pretty much the same premise – but it was certainly the one that stayed with me the longest. And it meant that when I encountered the same question in SOMA, I was immediately ready to accept that an uploaded consciousness is a person, even if they're "only" a copy.
Which didn't make SOMA less tense, there were plenty of interesting thoughts and choices, but it did mean that I didn't really feel that "existential dread" other people mentioned. Instead I immediately started thinking about how the ARK doesn't sound as much of a paradise as Simon seems to think it is (58 co-workers, some of whom are not exactly the best of friends, and they are aware of their situation…), and wondering if there's a difference between him and the other people in the ARK because his own brain scan was older and "flatter" according to Catherine, and wondering what would have happened if Catherine had been more open with Simon about what the "transfer" would look like or if Simon had realized it himself…
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