Mind and Metaphysics

Mind and Metaphysics (4)- Be Right Back

                Locke discusses in his Of Identity and Diversity different ways to define a man and questions what truly defines someone.  He looks into the identity of plants, animals, and humans and discusses the identity of man pertaining to immaterial substances (such as consciousness), the soul, and the body.  He talks in some detail about how someone who partakes in a certain action in one consciousness is considered responsible for that action even when he has achieved a consciousness different from the one the action took place in.  While explaining consciousness, he discusses the idea of transmigration of that consciousness into different material beings.  He questions whether two bodies in two different time periods would be considered on in the same.  Though they possess the same conscious, they would not be the same man.  In Be Right Back, it is troubling trying to decipher whether Ash is the same man before his death and after he came back in a very natural form. 

                The new Ash looks like and talks like Ash, even retaining some of his memories and mannerisms.  Though, he does not know how to act in numerous situations in a manner that the original Ash would.  Like when he and Martha have sex for the first time, when she asks where he knew what to do, resurrected Ash admits to using references from various porn videos.  He does whatever Martha asks of him and is basically like a giant Ken doll with no real emotions or memories.  In this sense, the resurrected Ash is absolutely not the same man that Martha lost.

                Ash is the same in that he has retained Ash’s body, voice, and general appearance.  However, he does not contain any real “Ash” consciousness.  His voice, appearance, memories, and mannerisms that he displays are all based on videos that Martha sent in to create an artificial Ash.  So, essentially, resurrected Ash is a very primitive version of the original.  When he does not have video relays for certain situations, he has to actually ask Martha how he is supposed to act.  He has no real personal identity other than that of what Martha uploaded for him.  He is fragments of the original and has no way to actually become the real Ash.  This becomes evident to Martha shortly after getting him.  She realizes that he will never actually be Ash and even asks him to kill himself (which Martha basically instructs him how to react).