In John Locke's Of Identity and Diversity, it is explained that the Man is the physical substance, while the Person is explained as the personality that is self-aware within the Man. In Black Mirror's episode, Be Right Back, the Cyber Ash that is present after the actual physical death of Ash is a pure example of a Man without a Person, who therefore is existing (only as a representation), but doesn't have an actual identity. Upon first speaking with him via the initial IMing on the computer, all of his information is known through social media. This information-grab picks up on his personality, but only through certain forums on which he allowed his witty/rude manner of conversation to come through. It then extends further when in order to speak with him on the phone, Margaret must first send hundreds of videos to Cyber Ash, that way he can know how his voice is supposed to sound.
All information that is used to generated this Cyber Ash is available, public knowledge, other than the personal videos that Margaret sent, but either way, this is a completely falsified man built off of information that prior to being exposed to it, he had no knowledge of. According to Locke, being a person is firmly rooted in having a Person - a functioning personality that is based off of a person's experiences and life-events, and if this Ash is only a functioning personality based off of information given to him through social media and Margaret's own personal records of him, then there is no way he can have his own Person.
Locke also says that this person is self-aware, and the Cyber Ash completely disrupts that notion when he is constantly having to be told how to feel by Margaret in order to respond to any situation. Upon trying to be intimate with Ash, Margaret shows him her breasts and proceeds to reach out for his hand so that she can place it on her. Ash's immediate response is to put his hand back down and when Margaret asks why he won't do anything, he responds by saying that there is no public knowledge of his sex life, therefore he can't act upon it the way Ash would. When the sex is finally initiated, he becomes a robot based off of knowledge of porn via porn sites and Margaret is finally allowed to finish first, a harsh comparison to the real Ash's way of pleasuring, where it is shown earlier in the episode that Ash climaxes very early on and then does nothing to help his wife climax afterwards.
Though this Ash may be able to do things that the old Ash couldn't such as having Margaret climax first, in no way do these things make and manifest a Person. Without a Person, a Man is not an actual being, because he has no rational way of thinking, and is completely unaware of his actual self.
It is hard for me to decide whether or not cyber Ash is an actual person. You say that a person is based off of experiences and events but if that is the definition, then he would become an actual person. He may have started out with experiences given to him but now that he is there, he is having his own, separate experiences from the original Ash. So wouldn't that make him a person?
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with you. Although Cyber Ash certainly was just a man according to Locke's definition in the beginning, by the end he had definitely begun to change into his own person. I think this may have been the harshest thing that Margaret struggled with because Cyber Ash was beginning to change into more of his own person and less of the old Ash. This is really emphasized when contrasted to the way people in our society are said to no longer be a person when they go brain dead.
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