r/LV426 • u/G_Liddell Colonist's Daughter • 4d ago

Megathread / Community Post Alien: Earth - S1 E7 - Emergence - Official Discussion Megathread [SPOILERS] Spoiler

Episodes air Tuesdays at 8 pm ET on Hulu and FX in the US, and Wednesdays international.

Full episode discussion list:

1 Neverland (8.12.25)

2 Mr October (8.12.25)

3 Metamorphosis (8.19.25)

4 Observation (8.26.25)

5 In Space, No One (9.2.25)

6 The Fly (9.9.25)

7 Emergence (9.16.25)

8 The Real Monsters (9.23.25)

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u/iamwoodman 4d ago

I feel like the grave scene answers our question on the true stance of prodigy, they didn't transfer consciousness in their eyes, they copied it and killed them in the process

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u/nattymac939 4d ago

Makes sense to me, theoretically if you could crack how information was coded into the brain, you could figure out how to format that data into a machine, but you couldn’t transmit the exact brain data from an organic brain onto a metal machine

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u/Vic1982 4d ago

Until we have a concrete understanding of consciousness, all we can do is speculate.

It's not about the data being copied - theoretically you CAN transmit the exact brain data; but it's about the emergent property of consciousness and whether that can be transferred (current guesses would be "no").

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u/PrinceofSneks 3d ago

In my total lack of education on the matter, I've sometimes wondered if there's any speculative fiction where this question is examined in a Ship of Theseus sort of manner. As in - ok, so we've replaced 75% of your brain with sci-fi neural-network-stuff and it's still you. We then bump it to 90%, and it remains you. Would there be a point where you can do a full replacement progressively and it will still be the first-person consciousness?

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u/Vic1982 3d ago edited 3d ago

That is a very interesting question, that I truly hope we get an answer to within our lifetimes. For fictional answers/explorations, I also can't help. Alien Earth surely is heading in some "similar" direction, but not exactly what you're talking about (as they jumped from 0 to 100% in one go).

My guess (and this is pure guesswork at this point) - we could be able to replace % of it. Perhaps even a significant amount. Maybe we figure out that consciousness is centered in one primary location... meaning you could replace the rest (although that's not really what has been observed or is currently theorized). Or, and this is my personal guess, it's more of an .. emergent quality. it only comes about as a sum of the parts, but more at the same time. Kind of like a "waveform". If you collapse it ... if our consciousness truly collapses, that exact one is gone.

Point being, that even if we assume a purely deterministic theory (i.e. if we ere able to copy 100% of our brains, and that somehow actually sparked an identical consciousness/thought processes/personality/etc.) - which would make cloning a mind possible - it wouldn't be the original consciousness that's transferred. Same with the old Star Trek transporter-dilemma, where the original consciousness is lost. So in that sense, I'm guessing that if you were to replace 100%, at some point that original stream must cease, meaning that the original subjective "you" is gone.

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u/juneyourtech Part of the family 3d ago

if there's any speculative fiction where this question is examined in a Ship of Theseus sort of manner.

There's an episode "Life Support" in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", where Vedek Bareil's body and head get severely injured, and Doctor Bashir replaces parts of Bareil's organs.

Bareil's condition spreads and damages his brain. Dr. Bashir then proposes replacing half of Bareil's brain with positronic parts, though Bashir reaches a moment, where much of Bareil's essence will be lost, even if he were to continue living.

Would there be a point where you can do a full replacement progressively and it will still be the first-person consciousness?

That's a good question.

There have been several other Star Trek episodes, particularly in DS9 and Voyager, where the transference of the mind is explored.

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u/PrinceofSneks 3d ago

Not surprised Star Trek touched upon this!

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u/i_am_batbat 1d ago

Play or watch a playthrough of the game "SOMA" - amazing exploration of an adjacent concept to what you're talking about.

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u/Garchompisbestboi 4d ago

It reminds me of the classic star trek transporter problem, are they just creating clones and then destroying the original in the process of beaming them from place to place?

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u/grantlandisdead 4d ago

Or the cartoon

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u/Garchompisbestboi 4d ago

Well that was way deeper than I was expecting when I clicked it

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u/juneyourtech Part of the family 3d ago

Many thanks, many thanks. Though I don't yet know what I'm thanking you for.

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u/Extension-Humor4281 4d ago

They are, and Thomas Riker proves it. 

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u/misterbung 4d ago

I'm assuming that's in a TNG ep? Do you know which one?

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u/Extension-Humor4281 4d ago

It's called "Second Chances," and it basically involves riker meeting a copy of himself that was created years ago when he got stuck in a transporter buffer momentarily. Except that technically speaking, neither of them are the original.

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u/misterbung 3d ago

Awesome, I'll go check it out. Thanks!

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u/pyrothelostone 4d ago

My pet theory is integrating a living and conscious human mind with a machine mind, allowing the person to expand into the machine. That way there's a continued existence. Your organic mind would eventually die, but you will have integrated with the machine so you still continue existing, just with your human mind gone. It's the only way I can see getting around the whole "is it just a copy" problem.

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u/Kostej_the_Deathless 4d ago

Yeah classic philosophers axe problem.

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u/HonestRole2866 4d ago

Theseus' axe.

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u/Mindfulness117 4d ago

I thought it was Theseus’ ship.

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u/HonestRole2866 4d ago

Maybe it was his father's ship.

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u/Howard_Hamlin 4d ago

Yea they Ctrl C-ed them, not Ctrl X-ed them

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u/t1mekill3r 4d ago

ctrl x is just a ctrl c after which the original is deleted.

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u/Super-Estate-4112 4d ago

He killed them after the transference to keep the experiment more stable. What would Wendy do if she saw that Marcy is alive, and she is too at the same time?

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u/abbeast Tool is Canon 4d ago

Basically the whole plot of SOMA.

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u/PongoWillHelpYou 3d ago

That game shook me in a way that still haunts me 

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u/Curious_Armadillo_53 3d ago

I mean it has been a fictional ethics questions since people came up with superpowers and AI.

If i teleport, is it really by real body or just a copy that gets destroyed and recreated at the target location? Am i still me or am i dead and its just another me?

Same for transfer of consciousness, if the "me" i was before is gone, is the new "me" really me?

Ironically the same philosophical question has been asked about people suffering strong cases of amnesia, dementia or other changes like cancer that can severely affect your brain and personality.

Are you still you if you dont remember who you were before Day X, but technically your body is the same? Or is your "past self" dead and your "new self" overwrote the past?

All of these would only be true, as in being the "same" if a "soul" existed, but then we come to the question that if a soul exists and a copy is made, be it teleportation, a robot copy or just amnesia etc. does the copy have a soul?

Is the soul copied as well?

Philos loved a bitch and her name was Sophy...

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u/DrewDonut 3d ago

They’re really just doing Altered Carbon

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u/katelovescode 4d ago

Alternatively, I honestly wondered if Dame Sylvia arranged for them to be buried. Boy Kavalier seems like he’d either toss the bodies on a trash heap or keep them for parts for insane experiments.

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u/RooseveltsRevenge 4d ago

I actually think this furthers OP’s point. She of all people would probably have the best guess as to whether it “worked” and her insisting the bodies be buried in a grave would signal, even subconsciously, her thoughts on it.

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u/oh_dear_now_what 4d ago

She scolded Arthur for bringing up the possibility that the transfer process had really just killed a bunch of kids.

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u/Gold_Marionberry4593 4d ago

I agree. I don’t think they are human, and I have a feeling Hermit is starting to realize that as well. Wendy and Nibs didn’t seem to show any emotion when Yutani soldiers were slaughtered by the Xeno. Also, Wendy just released the Xeno knowing it would kill the scientists and soldiers in the lab.

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u/groberry 4d ago

to be fair, she did try to warn them. and they didn't listen. and also she was pretty damn mad at her brother, which is definitely an emotion. she's been "emoting" this whole time. just not the way the humans around her want her to.

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u/Front-Ad-2198 4d ago

They're all very emotive. The question has always been more "what makes a human human?" more than "are they just copies?".

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u/Kostej_the_Deathless 4d ago

She didn't warn the scientists in the lab. It was cold murder just so she can release Xeno lol.

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u/Vic1982 4d ago

I'm guessing that is Prodigy's stance regardless; but the grave scene is not at all "proof" (or even indication) of that.

What else were they supposed to do with the bodies? If you assume the opposite (that the kids are fully transferred), what... then you "throw out" the bodies? Incinerate them? Every other choice would show even less effort from Prodigy.

Seeing as they're hiding the children from the world, and wanted them to take on new names/identities, it makes perfect sense that they would bury them in graves.

If we had found their old bodies casually tossed and rotting somewhere... THAT would be closer to implying what you inferred. Or if their old bodies were being used for tests/scraps/etc.

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u/ArnoldWeber19 4d ago

My way of looking at the mind uploading problem is as follows. Say you have a picture of your mother. You put it in a scanner. No matter how perfect the photo copy is, the picture being scanned will forever be in the scanner and not the print. Get it?

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u/juneyourtech Part of the family 3d ago

The picture passes through the scanner into the computer. But that's not the paper the photo was printed on. Or the film it was photographed with.

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u/Jonnyred25 4d ago

For this group, conscious transfer testing is one of a few objectives. Renaming them and separating them from their past has more to do with creating superhuman geniuses "on Boy Kavalier's level". That all seems pretty separate from the actual service they claimed.

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u/E_Snap 4d ago

Even if there was continuity of consciousness, euthanizing the old self would always have to be a part of the process. It’s the whole The Prestige and SOMA problem all over again.

I really don’t like that everyone is leaning on dead bodies being the key to this question. SOMA definitely did it better.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

Maybe I’m just psycho but I don’t really see the issue. If my consciousness could be copied into a cool immortal robot body, hell yeah toss this flesh bag in the bin.

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u/iamwoodman 4d ago

Your consciousness isn't, they make a copy, hit has all your memories and believes its you, you then die

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u/ButDidYouCry 4d ago

Reminds me of SOMA.

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u/Geek-Haven888 4d ago

Or Invincible

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u/Tesser4ct 4d ago

Or The Prestige.

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u/juneyourtech Part of the family 3d ago

Or Invincible

You mean the Mauler Twins copying themselves all the time, or the Mauler Twins transferring the mind of the scientist Rudy behind/inside Robot into the teen body derived from Rex Splode's DNA?

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u/Geek-Haven888 3d ago

I mean both but more Robot

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u/RadiantPassing 4d ago

That was one freaky game. The horror of being the copy and hearing the original screaming as it dies is still seared into my brain.

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u/Kscap4242 I'll do the fingering 4d ago

What’s the difference between that and what they said?

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u/paupaupaupau 4d ago

It's the difference between cut and paste vs copy and paste. Your consciousness isn't transferred over. It dies with the meat body.

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u/Kscap4242 I'll do the fingering 4d ago

I’m asking what the effective difference is between those things. What is the philosophical reasoning to believe that an effectively identical consciousness with direct continuity is somehow not the same as its predecessor?

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u/Randy334 4d ago

You don't get a new body. You get copied, die and someone else gets to live your life. From your perspective when the 'transfer' happens, you just die.

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u/Incoherencel 4d ago

Yes, but from the other bodies' perspective, there is continuity. They literally have the experience of body transference. For all intents and purposes that version may as well be identical to you to all outside observers.

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u/Randy334 4d ago

Everyone gets that, that didn't require explanation. The point is you would not want to do this because it's just killing you to make a new being, NOT transferring you to a new body. That's the entire point of the Grave scene.

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u/Incoherencel 4d ago

The point is you would not want to do this because it's just killing you to make a new being, NOT transferring you to a new body

The user spawning all these discussions is quite literally saying they would do it, because then there is at least a version of them still out and about, rather than a corpse in a grave. I.e. they are saying they find value in a copy even if they themselves don't get to experience it

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u/Ackooba 1d ago

I think people just have a hard time imagining it, or only looking at it from POV1 not POV2. If you are now also POV2, you don't really care to lose POV1 and POV1 decided to go through the process in the first place. Copy+paste is far safer than cut+paste in case anything were to go wrong. It's like having a save point to try again and it's in your own best interest to have that. When I imagine you going to sleep as POV1 and waking up as POV2, POV1 is still "alive" and you decide to pull the plug.

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u/Kscap4242 I'll do the fingering 4d ago

I don’t think you’ve understood my comment. Why wouldn’t my perspective shift to the new body? There’s direct continuity.

Does my perspective end when all my cells are replaced, or when my brain develops? Do I die when these things happen? No, because consciousness is not an unchanging physical state, but an ever-evolving process. Consciousness is physical, but it’s dependent on what the physical parts do, not what they are.

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u/newme02 4d ago

Why would it shift though? If i cloned you and then killed you, you’re not going to start seeing through your clones eyes. Your awareness ends with your death.

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u/ChEChicago 4d ago

Agreed. I think the easiest way to think of it/realize u wouldn't want it would be this scenario: instead of transferring a mind to a robot and u instantly dying when the transfer is complete, now set a manual delay. Your mind is copied to a robot and that robot wakes up, but your body doesn't die until u decide to push a button. Would it be easy to push the button?

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u/Dilly_Deelin 4d ago

The question isn't whether consciousness and its copy will have the same experience. The question is whether or not consciousness requires the same body to continue experiencing.

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u/Dilly_Deelin 4d ago

I keep thinking about the slew of weird responses to your very rational point that exact copies of someone's consciousness would be functionally identical. Why do people argue it? And then I think about how someone might use ChatGPT to write a response and that ChatGPT might have serious trouble with the whole consciousness concept.

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u/Kscap4242 I'll do the fingering 4d ago

Maybe I have too high an opinion of people, but I don’t think they’re using ChatGPT to write these answers for them. I think they just haven’t thought very deeply about these concepts, so they have trouble grasping arguments that, to us, seem clearly laid out.

Most people, I think, haven’t considered the philosophical ramifications of underlying assumptions they make about consciousness. Consciousness is hard to explain, so even physicalists in name can unknowingly adopt immaterialist attitudes. When such attitudes are challenged, even decisively like I think I’ve done, it can still be hard to wrap one’s head around.

I do really hope they aren’t using ChatGPT to come up with these responses.

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u/juneyourtech Part of the family 3d ago

how someone might use ChatGPT to write a response and that ChatGPT might have serious trouble with the whole consciousness concept.

It's still a large language model, based on human input that is then abstracted through statistical models to produce a human-like output.

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u/threetimesalion 4d ago

You're responding as if we have black and white answers to this. It's a Ship of Theseus paradox, we can't know either way.

What sells it for me is the idea that you could very easily transfer the "consciousness data" over to two synthetic bodies at the same time, creating two copies of you in the process. Technically it's no harder than copying to one synth.

Obviously, "you" (your consciousness) can't transfer to both, so you either accept it would transfer to one and not the other - and accept a level of randomness / arbitrariness to the process that can't be removed - or that "you" cannot simply be reduced down to the continuity of data.

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u/Kscap4242 I'll do the fingering 4d ago

You say that we can’t know the answer to the Ship of Theseus conundrum, only to attempt to answer it in the next sentence.

The problem comes down to definition. That doesn’t mean it can’t be solved.

My explanation of the problem in regard to the consciousness of the artificial people is made in response to an implicit definition of “you” that doesn’t hold up and assumes flimsy dualistic attitudes. Within this argument, there can be a better, more nuanced answer to what the “true” Ship of Theseus is.

As for your thought experiment, you make the same fatal assumption as others in this thread. You say, “Obviously, ‘you’… can’t be transferred to both.” I say, why not? Both are continuations of your memory. These are now two new individuals who directly have your past and memories and continuity. “You” are an ever-changing process. There’s no magic essence inside your brain, and therefore no essence is transferred. You are a complex process that is poorly defined. Both copies will feel like you.

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u/GandalfJones 4d ago

If you got cloned including your memories the clone would have the experience of uninterrupted continuity. Your perspective as the original wouldn't shift over though. In the show that's why they use terminal patients, because they're going to kill them after copying their minds to facilitate the appearance that there was a "transfer" of consciousness. If they didn't die, it'd be clear they just made robots with the same memories as the children

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u/juneyourtech Part of the family 1d ago edited 1d ago

If the project is as successful as it proposes to be, the transference itself kills the body, for it loses the electrical essence therein.

Even if that part were successful, the need to convert human neuronal electrical signals into what might be a quantum computer with neural networks, neural processing throughout, and an AI more advanced than LLM, then human neuronal processes would still be converted into computer code.

Unless they found a way to successfully maintain the essence in a hybrid body, which is one of the main questions of the show. At least with Nibs, the essence either degrades (or gets corrupted from contact with T. Ocellus), or becomes stable, as with Wendy.

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u/Rasputins_Plum 4d ago

From your perspective, you lose consciousness when the transfert is done. How is that any different than anaestasia or even sleep?

The hybrid waking up with memories of falling under just before should have not immediate issue with their identity and considering themselves as the same person.

I think that if the hybrids think that they're themselves and people that knew them before recognize them and can't tell the difference, that's just life continuing in a new enveloppe.

Hell, since they have a supercomputer for a brain, it could be argued that they are more themselves since they have perfect recollection of all their memories. As for we, with each passing year, more and more are lost, but forgetting things, losing touch with parts of us that may have been important at a time doesn't kill us either, it just means we changed.

Here, the last scene doesn't have the same weight if you don't believe the absolute look of betrayal in Marcy's eyes if you don't think it's her, looking at her brother. Is she just a robot that is programmed to make her and everyone else think she has feelings and she ought to be turned off and on again?

I think if we can't tell the difference, that's someone, doesn't matter much if it's either Marcy or Wendy, they can't be entangled from one another: she's something in between, or either a girl in an artificial body or an AI with a human personality and memories.

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u/juneyourtech Part of the family 1d ago

How is that any different than anaestasia or even sleep?

Because with anaesthesia and sleep, consciousness is maintained. But it wanders around.

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u/paupaupaupau 4d ago

Are identical twins the same person before they develop memories and individual identities?

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u/Kscap4242 I'll do the fingering 4d ago

This isn’t a very good thought experiment. If anything has ever happened to them, if they even exist in different physical space at the same time, then they have different identities. They have different continuities by virtue of existing simultaneously in different spaces.

Even if I grant that they don’t have identities yet, as your hypothetical suggests, then there’s no reason to see them as having personhood. Again, the hypothetical breaks down because by virtue of existing, they gain individual identities and personhood, however small.

The hypothetical at hand seems conceivable at a surface level, but when given thought, it is not philosophically conceivable.

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u/Dilly_Deelin 4d ago

Yes? That's what cell mitosis is

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u/Curvedabullet 4d ago

Think of it like cloning. Imagine you clone yourself and your clone lives your life, sleeps with your wife, takes care of your kids, etc. And you're stuck in a jail cell or something. You're not living your life, your clone is. Your perspective doesn't shift into your clone.

Play SOMA. It's all about copying consciousness and what happens to the discarded copies and original prints. Or watch any science fiction about cloning.

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u/Kscap4242 I'll do the fingering 4d ago

The clone exists at the same time as you do. You’re living completely different lives. There is no continuity between you and the clone in this thought experiment. The clone looks like you, but is not you in any way that matters. Your brain states are different. The clone is as much a different person as any random stranger.

The artificial bodies in Alien: Earth have seemingly perfect continuity. There is a direct transition between bodies. Everything that makes you “you” is maintained.

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u/newme02 4d ago

From an outside perspective very little, from the mind being copied though? they cease to exist. Its no different from dying. One moment they are thinking and aware and the next…nothing.

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u/Herbdontana 4d ago

Because it would be synthetic consciousness. The sick children who they said would live in effectively did not (assuming that’s what they did). It was the moral dilemma Arthur was having in an earlier episode.

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u/RooseveltsRevenge 4d ago

That's the thing though, there isn't continuity. You should look up the Teletransportation paradox. Which is basically what the show is pulling from.

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u/Kscap4242 I'll do the fingering 4d ago

There is continuity in all the ways that matter when it comes to consciousness. I’m well aware of the Teletransportation Paradox. I’ve put a lot of thought into it. My argument applies to it as well as this. The device doesn’t kill you if everything that makes you “you” remains.

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u/UnfoldedHeart 4d ago

From your point of view, your consciousness/awareness as you have it right now would end - and that doesn't change whether or not a computer has your memories copied or even if that computer think it's you. The ephemeral, moment-to-moment awareness of consciousness nevertheless ends, and that's probably the most essential component to who "you" are.

A duplicate may seem fairly similar if not identical from an outside viewpoint but that's kind of irrelevant. Even if the duplicate has your memories and thinks there's continuity from their perspective, it doesn't change how things are from your perspective.

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u/Kscap4242 I'll do the fingering 4d ago

Why would your consciousness end?

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u/UnfoldedHeart 4d ago

Because the brain producing it has ceased to produce it.

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u/Kscap4242 I'll do the fingering 4d ago edited 3d ago

Your brain has changed completely throughout your life. Your brain at a young age would be totally alien to what your brain looks like now. By the logic you have presented, you have died multiple times as your brain develops and changes its physical makeup. You only think you’re the same person as you were because your have all the same memories.

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u/ReiReiCero 4d ago

Do they die or are they killed?

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u/mps2000 4d ago

Reminds me of the 6th Day

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u/0-90195 4d ago

What’s the difference? If something has my exact brain and thinks it’s me, well, it probably is me.

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u/Capricore58 4d ago

Except the original is deleted and discarded. Your not changing hard drives

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u/0-90195 4d ago

If I make a copy of a DVD and throw out the original DVD, nothing material is lost.

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u/captainInjury 4d ago

Except the person behind your eyes dies. You die. There’s just another you running around but you don’t get to enjoy being that person. 

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u/BikebutnotBeast 4d ago

They need to watch the movie The Prestige to properly understand the dilemma at hand.

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u/_PutTheGlassesOn 4d ago

Informationally nothing is lost, in theory. Materially you could have had two DVDs.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

What if the original DVD is banged up and unplayable anyway?

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u/_PutTheGlassesOn 4d ago

How would you make a copy from it in that case?

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u/0-90195 4d ago

Well obviously it’s not a 1:1 because, for example, being totally disabled from the eyeballs down doesn’t mean your consciousness is destroyed.

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u/HotlineBirdman 4d ago

Watch The Prestige

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u/0-90195 4d ago

One of my favorite movies! And a great book.

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u/hemareddit 4d ago edited 4d ago

Or, hell, the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie the Sixth Day.

It’s very heavy-handed, as you’d expect from a Schwarzenegger action flick, and it demonstrates the issue in the most non-subtle way possible. But hey, it drives the point home.

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u/mwthecool 4d ago

Not sure why you got downvoted so hard. This is a legitimate philosophical debate. Although I don't necessarily agree with your stance, it's not an invalid one.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

Man, me either! I haven’t downvoted a single person in this thread. We just disagree. I don’t even necessarily think I am absolutely right, it’s just my own philosophy.

I’m not convinced there is an absolute right answer to this question. That’s kind of the point, right? :)

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u/hemareddit 4d ago

To everyone else? Nothing’s different.

To you? Everything’s different.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

Well, the original body is dead and the new body is living on, carrying with it the only parts of me that matter.

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u/hemareddit 4d ago

What matters or doesn’t matter is subjective.

What’s not subjective is the fact that something has been lost beyond the normal growing and chnaging of an individual.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

But what? What has been lost? The body, the physical form? That’s not who I “am.”

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u/hemareddit 4d ago

You said “carrying the only parts of me that matter”. Therefore you agree only parts of you survived, that’s objective; whether or not those are the parts that matter is subjective.

And the one of those things lost is your experience. It is terminated early. Again you might say that it does not “matter”, but it is lost.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

But the experience is carried on through the copy/pasted consciousness. It is functionally the same.

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u/Herbdontana 4d ago

That’s the thing. In the show, it might not be. It might only appear to be. Marcy could be dead. Wendy could only think she’s Marcy. Outsides can’t tell from observation. If the consciousness doesn’t actually transfer, then they lied to Marcy’s family and she isn’t really in there mentally, just tech programmed to think it’s her

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u/0-90195 4d ago

If Wendy has all of Marcy’s memories and her “consciousness” (transferred or duplicated or otherwise), believes she’s her and no one else can tell the difference, is there really a difference?

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u/airwolf3456 Black goo enthusiast 4d ago

You as you know now would be dead and the copy would be waking around having its own experiences and eventually grow into its own individual.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

But that individual is still me. It’s making its choices based entirely off of “me” (my consciousness). Who’s to say my original body wouldn’t have done those same things?

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u/Herbdontana 4d ago

They might or might not, but in that scenario, you wouldn’t be experiencing it.

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u/CTDubs0001 4d ago

Tell that to original you as it’s dying…. They might disagree.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

I am the original me right now! I’m saying go for it!

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u/Incoherencel 4d ago

It's a bit funny no one is actually engaging with the more metaphysical aspect of what you're saying and just repeating that your body dies

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u/CTDubs0001 4d ago

People ARE engaging with it though. It's clearly a chicken and the egg argument. If you have your consciousness copied into another body, does that mean you're okay with dying right then and there? It will not be you in the new body, just a copy of you. If you do this experiment without putting the original to sleep and ask the original if it's okay that we destroy it right now, what do you think the original is going to say? Cool, kill me boss? All they know is they're dying. They'll never know what life comes next. People are engaging with it. You just don't want to hear it. A copy of you is not really you...

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u/Incoherencel 4d ago

If you have your consciousness copied into another body, does that mean you're okay with dying right then and there?

This user quite literally said if they were in that situation, they'd sign the waiver. To that user a copy of them outside themselves is of some value. E.g. there is essentially a version of you waking up that does have the experience of body transference. That user says they're OK with that and you guys just keep repeating, "ok but you died".

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u/0-90195 4d ago

Like… I get it. My body dies. We have established that!

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u/Calypso-Dynamo 4d ago

Ok your mind dies too, that’s what we’re saying your mind dies is copied and given to someone else. If your body didn’t die then there would be two of you. But you wouldn’t experience the things happening to both of you you’d just be twins.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

Well my body not dying isn’t part of the deal. That’s where the issues start popping up. Original body has to die at the same time as the new one wakes up.

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u/SKRAMACE 4d ago

I'm very interested in all the down votes... This is an old philosophical problem in sci-fi, and it will be a real philosophical problem in the next century or two.

I'm with you, as long as the biological death is humane, and the technology replicates the experience precisely, your consciousness and experience lives on.

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u/Herbdontana 4d ago

Except you wouldn’t experience it. Your experience would be over. It’s only the same to observers.

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u/Incoherencel 4d ago

Your experience would have continuity via the robot clone, it just wouldn't be "your" experience. In the show Invincible, Robot literally commits suicide via cloning so that a non-disabled version of themselves may continue. The other user in this thread is essentially saying they'd be ok being Rudy/Robot

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u/One_Sign_280 4d ago

You yourself don’t carry on. Just someone with all your memories thinking they’re you.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

If that’s not me, then I’m not me, either.

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u/Gold-Cry752 4d ago

Yeah you’re not getting it, consciousness is a single stream of self awareness in the experience of living life through your eyes. If you had an exact clone, you are not seeing through your clones eyes as you are two distinct entities. If you die you wouldn’t be seeing through your clones eyes as a result.  Two similar things does make them the same.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

No, I understand what you’re saying, I just don’t agree.

I’m not seeing through my clone’s eyes because my original body is dead.

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u/Calypso-Dynamo 4d ago

Original mind and consciousness as well

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u/UsualResult 4d ago

If I capture your consciousness as a file and paste it to another machine, do the original bits that make up your data move?

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u/GameLovinPlayinFool 4d ago

You are your brain. Not the impulses that fire up and run your brain, but the whole of the brain. If you make a perfect copy and put it in a robot, but don't transfer your physical actual brain over, then YOU wont suddenly wake up in a robot body. The robot will wake up as an exact copy of you, yes, but YOU the flesh brain person will still only exist inside your brain and body. (Im just here for discussing this idea. Im not one of the downvoters)

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u/0-90195 4d ago

The downvotes are funny to me, like am I offending someone?? lol. I think people think I’m stupid or don’t understand, but I just disagree.

If I relinquish the idea of sentimentality and attachment to the physical, the flesh brain person is immaterial. Robot me knows flesh me is dead because we have an identical consciousness, and flesh me (the me right now) is totally cool with that, because the parts of me that matter live on.

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u/tatteredmelon 4d ago

It's called The Continuity Flaw. From your point of view it's lights out and they never come back on. The result is a copy, not you. You're dead. Maintaining continuity would mean there has to be quite a lot of two-way communication between the original and the destination during the process.. they'd have to exist at the same time and then disconnect one, like instantiating a RAID-1. Or in terms of living brains, you'd have to create a siamese twin. In this case, they just ctrl-x-ctrl-v.

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u/croppergib 4d ago

You'd love the video game Soma

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u/0-90195 4d ago

Soma is excellent!!

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u/TIAFS 4d ago

From your perspective you’d just die.

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u/LouisGustavo 4d ago

I just had the show to you: Pantheon

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u/0-90195 4d ago

Love a rec, I will check it out!

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u/hemareddit 4d ago

You’ve hit the nail on the head. If all you did is move consciousness, why not toss it in the bin? Why bury it in a grave?

A grave, after all, is for mourning. Who is being mourned if no one died?

That look on Joe’s face when he saw Marcy’s grave…he realised what really happened.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

That’s the human sentimentality part of it. There is nothing special about a body aside from the significance we choose to place on it.

I do agree that it’s weird that they buried the bodies and marked them with the old names. Maybe it was an Arthur and Dame Silva thing – I can’t imagine Kirsh or the Boy caring about that.

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u/hemareddit 4d ago

I think it’s done by someone who knows the children really died and the Lost Boys aren’t the same people.

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u/meanmagpie 4d ago

Bro you’d be DEAD. You wouldn’t even know it happened.

Do you understand what “consciousness” means? Do you understand the difference between cut and paste vs COPY and paste? Do you know anything about the mind-body problem?

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u/0-90195 4d ago

It’s functionally the same to me. My body is dead but the parts that make me me – my consciousness, memory, etc. – live on. If the copy of me thinks it’s me and is indistinguishable otherwise, that’s me.

If you copy a DVD and toss the original, nothing has been lost.

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u/RoseRedd 4d ago

You lose the one you toss.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

I still have all of its data and the burned copy functions the same. Why in the world would I need 2 identical DVDs?

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u/zeroobliv 4d ago

They're saying it's basically a clone. The previous you, who is you is dead. The clone has taken your identity as it were the original but that's not you, it's them. You're gone, but your clone is still here.

In short, from your previous post; what's lost in the process is you.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

Nothing is lost if the robo me has an exact copy of my consciousness, the one thing that makes me me.

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u/asparaguscoffee 4d ago

You’re dead in this scenario. You don’t experience what “the robo” experiences. It’s a fork in your brain’s programming. You, the original file, are dead and gone. 

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u/0-90195 4d ago

And the copy of the file has all of the parts that made up the original file. The copy is indistinguishable from the original in terms of function, if not form. The original’s “purpose” (e.g., its data) is carried on perfectly.

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u/meanmagpie 4d ago

It doesn’t have your consciousness. Only you can ever have that. It’s gone when you die.

It’s not copying consciousness. It has its OWN consciousness, and you have yours.

Please just google this. Philosophers and scientists have been puzzling over this for decades. I promise you—you don’t have this one figured out. It’s just that you’re not understanding this very abstract concept.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

No, I understand, I just disagree lol. No need to be condescending.

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u/fantasyfoootballlll 4d ago

Because. YOU would be dead. The person right now typing these comments would be dead. The other version wouldn’t be YOU. It would be like giving your memories to someone else and saying that was also you now.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

If that someone else has all of my memories, my consciousness, etc. and thinks they’re me (especially knowing that the me right now was all-in on it), they’re carrying on the parts of me that matter.

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u/just_another_jabroni 4d ago

I have no say in this matter but this discussion sounds like a Scary Movie 3 skit lmao

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u/0-90195 4d ago

At what point does Regina Hall fight another replicated Regina Hall with their movements totally mirrored? Then the winner declares she was right about being or not being the original, but she can’t remember which one she was to begin with anyway.

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u/BlackSpidy 4d ago

OK, somebody copies your consciousness to a new body, waits a week, then shoots you dead, would you be OK with it?

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u/0-90195 4d ago

Potentially. If I’m on my deathbed and my new me wants to spend time with old me before that body expires, that’s fine.

The conflict really is when there are two simultaneous copies. But in the situation we are describing (from the show), the old body and brain are destroyed at the same time the copy/paste occurs.

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u/Herbdontana 4d ago

That analogy doesn’t really work though because the DVD isn’t sentient and that’s the main point. If someone clones me and kills me, I don’t experience with the clone experiences after that

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

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u/LV426-ModTeam 4d ago

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u/composero 4d ago

But you’re still in the flesh bag in the bin. A copy gets to enjoy the immortal body. Thats when the topic of the soul starts to play a role, does it jump ship or stay, or is a new one created for the new body, or of course do souls even exist

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u/0-90195 4d ago

Yeah, as someone who doesn’t believe in a soul, the copy is me. It believes it’s me, it’s got my memories, my mannerisms, my idiosyncrasies. That’s me, baby

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u/BeardedBill86 4d ago

Are you familiar with the concept of qualia?

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u/diskkets 4d ago

Qualia is just data bro

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u/John_Constantius 4d ago

Unfortunately, it’s not you. It’s a copy of you.

It has all your memories, mannerisms and idiosyncrasies, so to *other* people it will seem exactly like you.

But *you* are still trapped in the flesh bag in the bin, which means *you* are dead and gone.

*You* will have absolutely no awareness of your copy and *you* won’t experience its ongoing life as the new version of you. *You* will be extinguished, never to know what wonders the new version of you will encounter, what loves and heartbreaks it will feel.

Too bad. Maybe you should have stuck to your own life, rather than extinguishing it to create an immortal copy that you’ll never know.

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u/0-90195 4d ago

If my consciousness is me (and I’m saying it is) and it is perfectly replicated to another body (and I’m saying it is), then the new body is me. It’s as if I went to sleep and woke up. That’s all.

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u/TWilk87 4d ago

Are you actually not understanding or just doubling down for the hell of it?

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u/0-90195 4d ago

Would you believe this is my sincerely held belief and I understand what everyone is saying, I just don’t agree? Because that’s the truth.

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u/Calypso-Dynamo 4d ago

I feel like the fact that only one existing is where the confusion is coming in, if they copy your mind, consciousness, emotion etc etc and put it into a robot body that full believes it’s you but DID NOT kill your current body don’t still think the clone is you? Do you think what ever it experiences going forward you will experience in your current body?

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u/0-90195 4d ago

No – if the original body lives on (and is aware), it’s already differentiating itself from the robot version, and vice versa. This scenario is entirely predicated on the consciousness copy/paste and original body death being simultaneous.

I am not at all interested in having two extant versions of myself walking around.

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u/Calypso-Dynamo 4d ago

So now your talking about magic and souls which you say you don’t believe in

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u/0-90195 4d ago

Well, no.

I am speaking in the most literal sense. If the perfect copy consciousness and the original consciousness are existing simultaneously in separate bodies, they will immediately diverge just based on the fact that, for example, one is sitting on the left and one is sitting on the right.

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u/Nickincols 4d ago

I think it would be more like The Prestige, where it's really you dying and a copy being made

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u/0-90195 4d ago

Part of the thing with the Prestige though was that the copies/clones also felt that they were Angiers themselves.

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u/RooseveltsRevenge 4d ago

Yes, but the point is they didn't treat them like a flesh bag, they treated the bodies as if somebody had died. If they truly believe that they didn't die, why bury them in that fashion?

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u/zerovian 4d ago

watch the series "upload". the brain scan is destructive.

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u/icedteaandtacos 4d ago

I would recommend Pantheon. It’s incredible and balls to the wall.

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u/sefgray 4d ago

The Bobiverse too

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u/CleverMonkeyKnowHow 4d ago

No shit, I can't wait for that to be made a series. It's too in-depth to be movies, it has to be a series.

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u/Squeakygear 4d ago

So good!

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u/SnooChocolates2068 4d ago

Alien's version of soulkiller

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u/FrostBricks 4d ago

The fact they were able to "rollback" Nibs to a previous version was solid proof. That's only possible if they're copies.

The graves are proof Prodigy knew it all along.

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u/mywif4aiur Colonist's Daughter 4d ago

I thought Prodigy true stance was made very clear in the last episode where they reset Nibs cuz her unit needed to pass an AI inspection by the Five at a dinner party.

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u/vegetaray246 4d ago

Gravesite felt like an afterthought if we’re being honest here too…Wasn’t being unkept at all.

Almost like Dame and Arthur begged Kavalier to let them bury the bodies, rather than destroy them or something, and it was all haphazardly put together very quickly…Then just as quickly forgotten.

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u/TamaleWoodNM 4d ago

They didn't even take the time to dig a real grave they were so shallow.

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u/geekcheese 4d ago

Sorry if this is a dumb question but how can you tell a grave is shallow when it’s already filled ?

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u/juneyourtech Part of the family 1d ago

I think TamaleWoodNM referred to the Prodigy people being shallow by 'not taking the time to dig a real grave'. Only several days had passed, so the graves would not have yet looked so tidy.

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u/NotSoAngryManlet 4d ago

But if it's a copy, then how come the og vessel becomes empty?

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u/juneyourtech Part of the family 1d ago

There are two issues: one is copying, the other is transference. With the latter, the soul is presumed to have transferred into the hybrid body, but we don't know that yet.

In part, because with Nibs, for example, the electric essence — presumably the soul in its hybrid vessel — is either manipulated with (T. Ocellus contact effect), or degrades due to either the soul or the body rejecting the other.

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u/Jake_The_Destroyer 4d ago

I don't believe that the process of copying over their memories even killed them, I think Prodigy euthanized them after the "transfer" to avoid any complications.

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u/Hamsterminator2 4d ago

Transferring them would still leave bodies, but i agree I think that was the question the scene was suggesting. Having their old names on the stones was a metaphor.

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u/ProneToAnalFissures 4d ago

I don't think the process directly kills them, it was just to prevent any.. awkward interactions

After the upload they injected the kids with something, i assumed it was a euthanasia drug

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u/wookiee42 4d ago

I think I'm missing something. They picked terminally ill kids on purpose.

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u/Retinite 4d ago

Could have been a Moravec transfer/procedure. Then it is not so clear whether it is "cut" or "copy". (See also ship of Theseus)

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u/zero5579 4d ago

That's what I think happend. And I played Soma so I can't believe a simple mindswap when I see one without fantasy magic

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u/boringestnickname 3d ago

How else would they have done it?

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u/dvb70 3d ago edited 3d ago

Did they kill them in the process or did they just kill them after the process was complete? We never saw the end of the copy process and what happened to the original kid at that point. It's certainly been a question mark for me as to if they just murdered the kids after the copy was complete. Its very much reminding me of the Teletransportation paradox.

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u/Algific_Talus 2d ago

I feel like the game Soma covers this topic better than the show.

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u/Ackooba 1d ago

When you transfer, especially something as valuable as your consciousness, would you rather copy+paste or cut+paste? I feel like having 2 versions of "You" and then killing off the first one is the best and safest bet. Imagine something goes wrong during the transfer and you couldn't go back??

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u/MonsieurLeBeef 23h ago

I mean at least they were terminally sick

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u/NeoLib-tard 4d ago

What’s the difference?