Forums » Smalltalk » Intellectual Opinions Sought!

Lately, I've been watching a show called Altered Carbon on Netflix. It certainly isn't PG-13, so I don't recommend anyone under like 18 watch it simply because I'm pretty conservative but anyways, it brings up some things that I wanted to have an intellectual discussion about. So, first up: RULES! They are as follows:

1. No fighting.
2. Be respectful of other people's opinions. If you get a bit bothered/ heated, just don't respond. It's okay to disagree, but it's not okay to belittle someone's opinion even if it's the polar opposite of yours.

I'm mainly posting this because I'm interested in different perspectives on one of the center points of the show. So, if you haven't seen it but want to respond, here's a brief overview of what has me lost in thought and going back and forth.

In this world, there are chip like things inserted at the base of the skull. It contains a person's... data? Like it contains who you are and your experiences. So, whenever your body gets old/ you get killed, as long as the chip remains in tact, you can be transferred to another body, a sleeve, and say who your murderer was/ continue living indefinitely (if you're rich enough). There's opposition to this, though, with the argument that God created our bodies as they are, and humanity is playing God by essentially living indefinitely. The Catholics argue that anyone who is 'spun back up' (inserted into another sleeve) is going to Hell no matter if they're just being brought back to accuse their killer. To them, it's wrong. End of story. The main character lady has renounced her Catholic upbringing because of that. She's a cop, and she believes that if a person can pin their killer, they should have every right. She argues that God gave them the tech, so why would they got to Hell for using it? So there's a bit of drama there.

My questions are, what's your view on that? From a Christian/ religious view, is that playing God, or, because God created everything, is it a miracle from God? Atheist views are welcome, too, simply because I'm curious about what they might be.

Also, if your consciousness is transferred from body to body, is that even still you? What do you think defines a person? Just their mind?

And, one of my largest issues with the show, if the mind of the person is recorded onto the chip, and that, in effect, is the soul, then how is anyone dying when, technically, you're asleep when you're in storage? If that's the soul, then how is anyone going anywhere (Heaven/ Hell)? A thousand years could pass, and if the chip was inserted into a sleeve, then the person could continue life just as before.

I don't think that there are any real answers for some of these questions, but I'm interested in hearing your theories on this work of fiction

P.S. If I see that things are kind of/ hinting at getting nasty, I'll ask a mod to remove this thread.

tbh i saw intellectual and thought this was going to be like sardonic but i love altered carbon and i'm christian so lemme just

i see no problem with it. cloning itself is kind of iffy, because i really just. Don't feel good about it, but i've never heard a verse against it so w/e really. but changing bodies ought to have no ramafications in regards to faith. every single bible verse i've ever read about faith and getting into heaven says things along the lines of "you need to have the spirit and be baptized."

so you'd have to get re-baptized and re-invite the Holy Spirit into you to go to heaven, with every re-sleeving, or with the one you plan to die in. i think you'd have to do it again because the bible seems to lean towards a person's body as being Christ's domain once Christ is welcomed.

i don't think it's playing God to resleeve, though. our entire premise is to play God. the only time it becomes sinful and bad, however, is when we think we are God; that we are comparable in any way but by His image and a fraction of His ability to create. it becomes even more dangerous when we think we are God. bancroft crossed this line. he said he was a god. he was wrong - he only lived the lifestyle and had political and fiscal influence one might say is godly.

resleeving isn't playing God, nor is it a miracle; it's a way of preserving our lives. people in biblical times sometimes lived to be multiple centuries old. methuselah lived for 969 years, according to Genesis 5:27. i can't really say that a really long life is sinful - i mean, honestly, we live for so short a time compared to back then. lifespan limitations aren't mentioned anywhere in the bible as far as i know. it'd be weird if they were.

i feel like a bit of you is lost if you transfer bodies, though. our bodies are ours. body-swapping people have always bothered me because they can usually always do what they usually do; if they swam in their free time and were good at it, they're just magically good in another body. like, no. if they played the drums for a while, they can drum now without getting sore. no??? muscle is required to do any task, and if the other person doesn't do it, you're going to have a hard time using the muscles you developed in order to do that. even typing quickly probably wouldn't be possible if you were in someone who search-n-pokes. we also carry ourselves in ways that fit our bodies; a six foot man is going to have issues if he goes into a six year old girl, for example. it's like that for everyone. but otherwise, nah, i don't think any like. Self is lost; especially since the show says so in the pilot.

yeah, i've wondered about the shelfing thing, too. maybe a few religious people just forgot that people didn't actually die, or didn't notice, or just turned a whole blind eye to the fact because they were freaked out about new, weird technology. maybe it's just a plothole, lmao.

Well...The main problem I see is how it could be used in ways that would not be morally acceptable, such as transferring a chip when they haven't died yet or having a man take a girls form.
But where do they get the bodies?
And I feel like this is wrong because it's cheating death. It also opens up more opportunity and likely hood for sin. After all, doing things that risk your life or health won't be considered such a big deal, and over time you'll be given more and more chances to sin.
I wouldn't do it.

@Graideds Thanks for taking the time to read it anyways I hadn't thought that the title would make people think that the topic was going to be snobby. I put it as a deterrent for like... I guess kids responding. I don't want like.. One sentence responses. I want detailed and thought out. Just because it's not a discussion if it's one sentence. You need stuff to back it up. You know what I mean?

Anyways, I like the points you made. The examples made it nice to read. I minored in Biblical studies, and some of my professors mentioned that the shortened life spans are because of the introduction of sin into the Garden of Eden. They said that death was one of the punishments for Adam's and Eve's disobedience. I, personally, don't really know how I feel about that, but that's their theories, anyways. So food for thought. ^^

Also, good point about losing a part of yourself as in your physical abilities. I was wondering a bit mentally simply because you were used to one face, you know? What if you're transplanted in an old woman, like the case of that 7 year old in the beginning of the show? Wouldn't that mess with the mind in some ways? It'd change ya. That's for sure.

As far as the plot hole goes, it very well might be. I know a few people actually die in that show, so that's 'cut and dry.' With shelving, however, the people are like in stasis, so I feel like the only way for them to actually go to Heaven or Hell is fr their stack to be destroyed.... if that truly captures the human soul.

I think it could be argued that the stack is a recording of the person, and the people are kind of like AI. Like they know who they were, and they feel/ can think because they're programmed that way. What better programming than experience? So then, maybe, it isn't the real person because the actual died along with their body. The stack is just kind of a projection. Does that make any sense? I dunno how to word it any better, but that's just me complicating the whole thing probably more than it needs to be.

@Kitten I haven't finished the whole show, but I do know that they were taking organs out of a dead sleeve, so, perhaps they do use them incorrectly, but when sleeves are grown like candies, the supply is limitless if you have enough money. Sometimes in the show, they get the bodies from recently deceased, or those awaiting trials for crimes. Still, though, the idea is that a person doesn't truly die unless their chip is destroyed. That's the only real loss of life because that data is gone.

Also, I see you point as far as more opportunities to sin. A longer life does mean more opportunities to sin, but as a Christian, it also means more time to convert and touch lives Kinda works both ways. Personally, I don't think I'd want to be spun back up, either. I feel like life's already hard enough. Why live indefinitely struggling the whole time with a very small potential to have a better life. Their world's even tougher than ours. I surely wouldn't do it in that time period

i was thinking it was going to be a rick and morty intellectual type deal, so i was prepared for a laugh tbh. but i gotcha

i'm pretty sure that just death itself was a side effect of sin. “Because you have eaten from the tree, cursed is the ground ... and to dust you shall return." Genesis 3:17-19. somewhere near the end of the middle of the old testament there's a thing where God shortens the life of man and there's like a reason. i remember reading the reason and kind of chuckling and thinking "so He just genuinely got tired of us living so long"

they mentioned going crazy bc of resleeving in the pilot - tak was demanding a mirror and they were like "nah son you could get a psychotic break" but he got angry and they obliged. i've got a nagging theory in the back of my mind that the whole show is just a figment of his imagination bc of that scene tbh

honestly, a stack being AI makes a whole heck of a lot of sense to me. so much sense. it'd explain why it dies out when it's shot or the brain is shot - if it was a biological material, it wouldn't make much sense whatsoever for it to cut out. maybe it's some sort of situation where the disk conects in a way to the brain that requires the brain there to be able to function. otherwise, i can very easily imagine the disk retaining complete consciousness even when shelved or when its sleeve is shot.

Ohh derp. I even googled what that word meant, and still missed it slightly. I suppose satire can be snobbish in a way... Eh? Whatever. I wasn't an English major

And that would suck if the whole thing was a hallucination! They'll end it, and show him like curled up on the floor of that birthing place, still Honestly, I think he did break a little because he keeps seeing that black chick.. I'm so bad with names that I don't remember most of them, even though I'm at episode 5

There's more evidence for stacks being AI since when Bancroft 'died,' he couldn't remember anything that hadn't been sent to that satellite or whatever. (Is that part considered a spoiler? Do I need to add that to the title?) If it was an actual person, there'd be hope of recovering memories in the event of amnesia, but in the case of Bancroft, since they weren't recorded, it's like it didn't happen.

Altered Carbon. I read the book that show is probably based on, and that was most CERTAINLY not PG13. I can't believe my High School put it on one of their reading lists ("semi-optional" of course).

Anyway, from what I recall, the whole point is that one wouldn't die or go to heaven or anything like that. It's why the Catholic Church (in the book at least) protested storage so strongly. In fact the whole book seemed like one big toxic satire against the Catholic Church after another (I'm not Catholic, but even I was like "dude, tone it down, man!").

The problem with storage is that it creates a backup copy of the mind rather than actually moving it, so, in all actuality, your original mind does die with your first body. It's the copies that live on. They just think they're the original because they hold the original's memories. It's therefore theoretically possible for two bodies to hold the same memorys and personality, because storage it nothing but copying. That's how digital information works.

That being said, the raw data is not really human anymore, because humanity is really the run total of mind and body together. The biblical idea of the soul (the word the eventually became "soul" in the Catholic Church sense, meaning the essential eternal component that forms the human entity) cannot really be applied to digital data copies. If anything, the new data would develop its own unique "soul" the moment it's put in a new sleeve.

From the secular perspective of the book, however, the idea of a "soul" is a logical falasy altogether, much like the Buddhist idea that there is no essence to anything. The little data storage unit becomes essentially immortal... sort of. It's a matter of what part of yourself you consider "essential."

Once you start getting into "what you consider" territory, though, you get into the postmodern idea of endless interpretation that offers nothing of use to anyone. Once something loses its "intended" interpretation, it then offers nothing but a thought exercise. There's a time and place for such things, but I've never considered them very useful or enriching.

Beyond that, I found no one in the book to e likeable or even very interesting... but I had to finish the book or I would take a hit on my grades... Do not reccomend.

Good points @ConnanBell! I, however, enjoy thinking exercises. I don't know why, but I find it enjoyable to see what other people think and why they think a certain thing. It provides a level of understanding, but outside of deep conversations, the perspective is kind of impractical as far as real world appication. I suppose it's my way of day dreaming. I'm a quiet person, and I spend a lot of my time thinking about things.