Fillums! (Spoilers in comments)

[puddingcat]

Go and see The Prestige. Not only does if have Christian Bale *and* Hugh Jackman, it has David Bowie playing Nikola Tesla and Andy Serkis and black cats and plot and wow.

And it's got me thinking about whether it counts as suicide, if the person's still alive afterwards. Hugh says something like "I didn't know whether I'd be the man in the box of the one taking the bows" but, realistically, surely he's both? If the "new" person has all the memories, personality, talents etc of the old - is identical in every way - aren't they both the same person? So why does it matter *which* one dies?

Very impressed by Mr. Bale, as always, and very pleased to see dubious morality almost throughout :)

Also, The Departed. Much more humour than I'd expected for a Scorsese film. Who'd have thought it; DiCaprio can actually act. Shame I've got used to thinking about underworld villains as pretty anime men, though; Jack Nicholson & Ray Winstone don't quite have the same appeal...

====

And, from the_xtina, a font called Weiss :)

(I love the last line of the example.)

Comments

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

** spoilers **










It's similar to the Beam Me Up question, which has plagued self-styled philosophers since the dawn of civilization, or at least since they started watching Star Trek.

The premise of any teleportation device for the most part seems to be dismantling the object or person on one end (c.f. destruction of their total body volume), and then reconstructing them on the other side. Obviously the one that comes back is an exact copy of the original just before it was dismantled, but has the original been killed?

I did like the metaphor all the way through with the bird in the cage, and one of them is killed as part of the trick, but the one that's shown to the audience (the Prestige) is still apparently alive. Jackman obviously does this with David Bowie's amazing copying machine, and actually kills himself, or at least the himself which is beneath the stage, because the one beneath the stage, the one still in the box, isn't worth anything to him. There's nothing to stop him going through it once, having a single copy of himself, then having either him or the copy go down the trapdoor whilst the other lays in wait at the back of the auditorium, but either because he's so obsessed with the actual "magic" of the trick, or because he can't stand to be the one who isn't getting the applause, he doesn't see this as an option.

It was possibly a bit grim of Michael Caine to show Bale's daughter the birdie version of the trick just before he makes her dad rematerialise, his brother just having been killed in a cage, but it did hammer the metaphor home quite strongly.

It was a tremendously awesome film, though.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Yes! I was saying just the same afterwards. Similar idea to quantum teleporting, too; if the thing created at the far end is identical in every way to that at the starting point, does it matter that the original has been destroyed?

I've argued through this before. To me, I wouldn't care / mind if the Original!me got removed. Obviously, it could be unpleasant from the pov of the original one if the removal / being-taken-apart / killing off was painful, but what I think of as *me* would still exist at the end.

davywavy felt the opposite; he didn't like the idea of being killed, regardless of whether another one of him would be around afterwards. The closest we could get to a reason for the difference is that I'm an atheist, and he isn't.

(I loved the multiple vats of drowned!Hugh lining the room at the end :) )

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

I think it comes down to what you view as being you. I'm a pretty unmitigating atheist myself, but I'd still (shockingly) agree with davywavy.

Possibly because I think of me as being a process running in my particular head, rather than just a set of information and ideas. If that process ends, I, personally, die. I'll never get to do all the brilliant things I like doing again, which is my primary beef with the whole death-thing, all said and done. There will be another Rikk wandering around doing all the brilliant things Rikk likes doing, but it won't be me, it will be an exact copy of me. There's no functional external difference, but it's still not me. I've been destroyed on the most fundamental level possible.

Like at work, I can create a failover data server. It's an exact copy of the online server, and from the point I make the failover, everything that happens to the original happens to the copy. If the copy suffers horrible corruption problems, or loses power, or gets hit by a bulldozer ploughing through the side of the building, the failover immediately kicks in and starts doing what the live server used to, and no-one notices the difference.

That server has still been hit by a bulldozer. The processes on it have stopped. It's ceased carrying out data transactions and it will never serve again.

So yeah. Is the copy you, or is it just a copy of you? I think it hinges on that perception.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

...it will be an exact copy of me. There's no functional external difference...

And that's *exactly* why the idea doesn't bother me. If it's an instantaneous process, the new Me will have thought patterns that carry on from exactly the point the original was pulled into component data.

Is the copy you, or is it just a copy of you?
Does it matter? Is there a difference? Does the copy *know* it's a copy? (Ok; in both the Star Trek & Prestige stories they would.)

I think I'd have a problem (but I don't know how much of one) if the old Me had to be killed off separately from the duplication / teleportation process. I couldn't do that myself. But I'd still be alive (or what I thought of as "I"), and anyone who knew me wouldn't be able to tell which I was. Even if the New me knew I was a copy, I really don't think that would bother me; it wouldn't change anything, so what would there be to get bothered about?

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

What about if someone made an exact copy of you (NewYou), and then made OldYou watch it go about your day to day life, doing everything you'd do and saying everything you'd say. It thinks it's you. It is you, to all intents and purposes.

They (the unspecified someone) then tell you they're going to administer an immediate and painless death to you.

Does that sit right?

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

I should possibly clarify, they're going to administer the immediate and painless death to OldYou under the proviso that NewYou will continue to live your life with no functional external difference.

That said, what if they offered OldYou the choice of administering the immediate and painless death to either OldYou or NewYou? Would it matter? Would it be different if they asked NewYou?

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Para 1 - yes, I answered on that basis.

Para 2 - If either Me had to kill the other Me, I'd have qualms unless the killing was an integral part of the duplication / teleportation process. I'd have an issue with drowning OldMe in a tank, for example, or shooting NewMe.

I really wouldn't care which me got removed. Obviously, if each got to choose, both would want to live & have the other die / wink out of existence, but if the process did the choosing then that would be ok.

Actually, if the OldMe just dropped dead at the moment NewMe appeared elsewhere (wouldn't that be great for holidays in Australia?), it could solve the organ doantion problems. Blink a few willing donors back & forwards, collect the bodies and you'd have as many heart / lungs / kidneys etc as you needed.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Watching another me be me would be odd. I'd want to emigrate to get away from the weirdness of it.

Oddly (and this is what took the longest to accept, because it's a strange thing to think) yes, the Immediate & Painless Death option *does* sit right.

If the death *wasn't* immediate & painless, I might have second thoughts, but if it was? I'd be ok.

I have no idea whether this is only because of how close I've come to killing myself. I *know* now I'm ok with the idea of *being* dead (since I wouldn't be aware of it to have an opinion ither way); it's the process (and the effect on people left behind) that I'm not ok with.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

Then your logic is internally consistent :-)

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Also, I thought Jackman killed off the him-in-the-box because of the issues he'd had with his actor double. If the double was as intelligent *and* attention-seeking as he was, there could end up being all sorts of problems as neither would want to be the one in the box.

[professoryaffle.livejournal.com]

I think that was because if he didn't kill the other Angiers off he couldn't really do the trick without someone finding out, 2 duplicates possibly 3 would be easy enough to hide 100, you could never manage

[angusabranson.livejournal.com]

Fantasic films. I saw The Prestige today and The Departed a few weeks ago.

Loved them both :)

[shermarama]

Wow. I really don't watch enough films. I hadn't heard anything at all about The Prestige. That sounds quite spoony, I've got to go see that now..

[kirriemuir.livejournal.com]

Bowie as Tesla?! This I have to see...