The ending for SOMA hit me hard. The thought that I found myself pondering over for a long time is similar to the question in The Prestige; if you knew what was going to happen when you stepped into the machine and didn't know which side you would end up on, would you still do it?
I dont know about the prestige but isnt the whole coin flip analogy in SOMA just bullshit and a way to keep simon on the job, theres no luck of the draw, theres no randomness on it, you will never be the other guy you will always stay on the side of the machine you started in
After the fact yes, but that's not what was presented to you. You're told that when you do that, your consciousness will be transported, which technically it was but it didn't happen in the way it was implied. That's why you have the crash out at the end.
Simon really should have picked up on it already though, since he knew about the one that stayed in Toronto, and the one that was left in the original robot body when he 'transferred' to the heavy dive suit or whatever it was. I guess it's a bit odd that Catherine didn't ever mention any plan for what would happen to the leftover them after the upload, but I guess she was just completely focused on getting the Ark launched and didn't really care what happened next.
Well if you think about it from his POV, he probably had a lot more on his mind then the implications of this technology, and even if he had some suspicions/confusion, because he had old Simon's memories, he feels like him getting "teleported" over to the new place is exactly what happened. Like he remembers being in the old place, initiating the sequence, and bam now he's here. It's literally 100% identical to what he would feel/remember if it did work how he thought it did.
Simon was suffering from severe brain damage and that's why he's so dumb. I forget what the code on the tracer fluid he drinks at the start was but it's related to mental impairment.
Well specifically, the first time you do it there is also a Simon trapped and left behind, but you stop playing him and play the new Simon. Simon doesn't understand the details of what happened, but he "experienced" (he didn't actually but from the POV of his memories what else could he have interpreted it as) transporting his consciousness to the new vehicle. So he was confident the second time that it's how things would work out. So when it didn't he was even more upset that this not only happened, but was always gonna happen.
Exactly, from his perspective he was the Simon who got brain scanned and did the first leg of the Pathos journey, even though technically those were memories that this Simon didn’t actually experience. I can see why your mind may not be able to really grasp why this time would be different.
It made me think of how lots of teleporters work in sci-fi in the same way, it’s just that the original body gets destroyed so the person perceives that they just changed locations. In that way the ones in Soma who offed themselves right after getting scanned kinda had a logic to them.
even though technically those were memories that this Simon didn’t actually experience
I would argue that that Simon absolutely did experience those things. A Simon is an entire path from the comic shop to wherever an individual Simon has ended up. The self is presented as the experiential stream, as distinct from the flesh/metal hardware, and the fact that they branch and share pasts is just what makes it interesting.
It's provably not. Catherine didn't come up with the idea; Simon did. And not once did Catherine bring it up to push Simon forward. The only time she mentioned the coin toss was after the ARK was launched, after which she had no reason to lie about it.
There's real merit to the coin toss analogy. The game argues (via Mark Sarang's Continuity idea) that the copy is a direct continuation of the original, no less than how you-now is a direct continuation of you-a-minute-ago.
If you sit in that pilot seat, no amount of certainty that you will stay behind will save you from the possibility of opening your eyes in a new body. You cannot predict it. Just a second ago you were 100% sure you would not be in this position, yet here you are. Sure, you know you're a copy, but a moment ago you didn't even think you'd ever be the copy. Yet here you are. It's a coin flip.
absolutely true, but what makes it interesting is the clone on the other side shared (literally) that knowledge as he, the continuous stream of experience, sat down in the cloning chair a moment ago. they are both experiential branches of "you", neither having a more meaningful claim to the label.
if you're 'copied' to an identical room in China, you stand up from the seat knowing there's a 50/50 chance when you open the door of being greeted "hello" or "ni hao". it's as good as random from that perspective. that's the coin flip, not some baseless lie that, oh erm well you might teleport you might not who knows 🤷
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u/Musclestache 14d ago
The ending for SOMA hit me hard. The thought that I found myself pondering over for a long time is similar to the question in The Prestige; if you knew what was going to happen when you stepped into the machine and didn't know which side you would end up on, would you still do it?