The hallucination talking to V its not the real Johnny and doesnt have the original memories of what really happened (thats why you can choose the dialogue and actions in flashbacks). The Johnny who talks to you its more like a A.I than a individual or a "soul" with real memories, but i guess everyone who played the game knows that.
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There’s a real argument over wether Johnny is a real person or not- but one could ask the same about any of our meat brains. What is a person, anyway?
Yeah but i fooking love this manipulatkng ai and i always be friend with him.
They could be more than one copy of Johnny out there cuz spider Murphy could have copied and tampered with the memories to mislead Arasaka and the one that person who has the true answers to it is Mike pondsmith
I liked how the monks talked to V about the chip later on the game. It was legitimately beautiful.
This dilemma started with Neuromancer decades ago. Is the perfect copy of a person still that person or not? Assuming it’s 1:1 copy, does it posses a soul? Is soul what makes a person if you can have indefinite 1:1 copies?
Hes an engram most likely melted with Blackhand since you see two memories being shot by smasher. Pluss the fact that both Rogue and Alt dont agree his memories.
BRANDON IS REAL!!!!!
This is discussed by him and V in that mission where you have to escort that religious criminal who gets crucified in the end, they talk about this topic at some cafeteria. We don’t know if we’re talking to an AI and Johnny’s souls is already far from this plane or the other way around, because not even Johnny (the one we talk to) knows that. It just raises that question of what makes a person a person, whether it’s an AI or not. Brendan’s quest also approaches this topic, it’s one of those themes that makes cyberpunk… cyberpunk
I recommend anyone who likes this discussion to play SOMA.
Not only it’s a masterpiece in storytelling, it also talks about this theme pretty well.
https://preview.redd.it/a4z6t6l59qld1.png?width=2560&format=png&auto=webp&s=b84ba9937b3cbfb251676c121cbf3356084bf040
Yeah, that’s the plot, and one of the main talking points regarding Johnny beyond him being a huge dick.
Good for you for figuring that out
This reminds me of the Ship of Theseus conversation between Vision and White Vision in Wandavision.
VISION: You are familiar with the thought experiment, the Ship of Theseus in the field of identity metaphysics?
WHITE VISION: Naturally. The Ship of Theseus is an artifact in a museum. Over time, its planks of wood rot and are replaced with new planks. When no original plank remains, is it still the Ship of Theseus?
VISION: Secondly, if those removed planks are restored and reassembled free of the rot, is that the Ship of Theseus?
WHITE VISION: Neither is the true ship. Both are the true ship.
VISION: Well then, we are agreed.
WHITE VISION: But I do not have the mind stone.
VISION: And I do not have one single ounce of original material. Perhaps the rot is the memories. the wear and tear of the voyages. The wood touched by Theseus himself.
This is top tier bait. Almost to the level of discussion.
I just watched a good deep dive on Cyberpunk lore and they brought a variant of thisup. He’s basically a JohnnyGPT with corrupted data. From the deep dive it sounds like >!he also co-opted some of Morgan Blackhand’s heroic story!<.
The unreliable narrator stuff makes it all the more interesting to me, and as Cyberpunk as ever. Even >!Smasher [is confused by V talking about Johnny’s revenge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07GGK-2_CG8)!<.
Soulkiller does what it is name is. The person dies and his personality is copied. If you copy and paste a file and delete the original, the copy will be the same but it is not the original.
The same could be said of Saburo Arasaka if you choose the ending where the sister uploads the father into the son. Is it really Saburo or an AI? That’s the whole issue with the Relic is that it’s not really you but uploaded memories of a person and its simply simulating the person based on their memories and emotions.
Far as I’m concerned, AI or not it’s Johnny I’m talking to, Johnny that’s trying to get me to smoke cigarettes that I hate and Johnny trying to make me fuck that random chick in the club. Good enough for me.
So you’re saying that a digital artificial construct of someone’s memories isn’t the same thing as a metaphysical essence of a person? You don’t say…