NWTS: Nothing Was The Same

Philosopher David Hume asserts that “Every thing is in common betwixt soul and body. The organs of the one are all of them the organs of the other. The existence therefore of the one must be dependent on that of the other.”  Even if the soul is considered immortal, Ash 2.0 from Black Mirror: Be Right Back has a body from a box and his soul is awakened in a bath tub.  If a soul and body cannot exist independently, then the new Ash’s body does not contain original Ash’s soul as the body is entirely different. After spending time with Ash 2.0, Martha, Ash's wife, is unsatisfied.  She discovered that she missed the emotional, unpredictable aspects of Ash.  Flaws, weaknesses, and bad days were not shown – these characteristics make up a crucial part of individuals that we associate with the soul; her frustration was further proof of distinction.

In “Of Identity and Diversity,” John Locke explains the theory of sameness: “When therefore we demand whether anything be the SAME or no, it refers always to something that existed such a time in such a place, which it was certain,at that instant, was the same with itself, and no other.”  Considering this, Ash and Ash 2.0 are not the same. By Locke's definition there is no "partially the same" or "the same with a few differences." As I mentioned previously, Ash 2.0 was created in a bath tub while (assumedly) Ash was born from a woman; Locke claims, “One thing cannot have two beginnings of existence, nor two things one beginning; it being impossible for two things of the same kind to be or exist in the same instant, in the very same place; or one and the same thing in different places.”  Ash and Ash 2.0 did not exist at the same time, but they are two entirely different individuals because of their separate creations.

Ash 2.0 recited many parts of Ash's existence, but nothing about him was authentically Ash. Ash 2.0's organs (body) and soul coincide, and they are unique to him. With the technology displayed in Be Right Back (and 2015 in general), parts of us will never disappear: we have left marks in the technological world that will never be erased. That is not to say if they are harnessed we can be recreated. Because of the unique relationship between body and soul, and our distinctive creation and existence, no replica will ever be the same.