what's up everybody this is Chris from the rewired soul where we talk about the
problem but focus on the solution and welcome back to the black mirror season
4 playlist and in this video we're gonna talk about the overarching theme of
consciousness in black mirror this is a topic that I absolutely love because I'm
somebody who is really in to meditation as well as Buddhist philosophy so in
season 4 quite a few episodes actually touch on the topic of consciousness it
kicks it off pretty much in episode 1 the USS Callister where by the way if
you haven't watched any of these episodes yet or or even episode 1 turn
this video off come back actually if you haven't watched the season yet and
you're worried about spoilers go away come back alright anyways and USS
Callister pretty much it is about a video game designer and coder who is the
CTO of the company and he's kind of a shy laid-back dude and he's very awkward
like typical nerd and what he does is he has his own mod of the game at home and
what he does is he transfers the consciousness of people into his own
modded version of the game where he basically is God and he runs the whole
show he tortures people who don't play along with him and when you think about
it the idea of consciousness is you being transported somewhere else right
so these people are waking up in a game and wondering what the hell is going on
and they realize what's happening but is it really them and that goes into a
deeper conversation of who are we who am i right some of the other episodes that
touch on consciousness is the hang the DJ episode where it's pretty much about
a dating app but this dating app and I I really want to re-watch this episode of
watch some other video breakdowns of it but what it looks like this dating app
does is it transfers your consciousness into this app to find you the perfect
match it runs you through a bunch of simulations with other people and they
have a ninety nine point eight percent success rate but it gauges and figures
out how you would react to different people and in different situations
following love heartbreak and things like that the
next episode that does this quite a bit is the season finale which is black
museum black Museum is an episode that kind of has like three mini episodes in
one and two of them are about transferring consciousness first you
have the one of Jack and Carey where Carrie gets hit by a bus she's in a coma
if you haven't watched my other video on this episode click in the info card
above anyways she's in a coma and they transfer her consciousness into Jack
right that is her baby daddy and basically it's kind of like get out
where she's inside of Jack's head she can talk to him she could feel and
experience everything that he does and Jack can actually hear what she's saying
in the third part of black museum they bring back consciousness to talk about
this guy who was convicted of murder or murder
maybe wrongfully we don't know but anyways they convict him a murder but he
decides to leave his family a bunch of money by having his consciousness taken
out of his brain when he dies and what we end up finding out is that this
consciousness is then put into a simulation where people get to come to
black museum and basically make this guy we live over and over and over he is
electrocution and some sick and twisted stuff but what's interesting about this
is just the whole idea of self so if any of you are familiar with Buddhist
philosophy you've probably heard of non-self and this is something that's
just always fascinated me I'm currently reading a book which I will put in the
description below it's called waking up by sam harris and
basically it's a book about the difference between spirituality and
religion how to be spiritual without being religious which is what i am in
this book you know and in other books that I've read about this idea of self
and non-self is just always fascinating to me and anytime somebody really
articulates it well my mind literally just it blows up right because this idea
of self and who we are this ownership that we have we have this kind of false
idea that we are some kind of CEO of our own
mind in our body and all these things but a question lost you right now is
where do thoughts come from because if we're in control if we're the CEO for
the king or queen of our own mind how come so many thoughts come through our
head that we didn't conjure up right when I'm sitting there at work and I get
distracted by something or when I'm sitting there having a conversation with
somebody and I can't stop thinking about what I have to do later where are these
thoughts coming from Who am I and where does that I begin and end right like
this is my skin these are my organs right but am I in control of them my
organs you know for example my digestive system it's doing its thing
automatically based on system setup in my body right now one of the best parts
of waking up that I've read so far is when it talks about this thought
experiment from a British philosopher named Derek Parfit right and what Derek
Parfit talks about is this idea this thought
experiment of you can trip you can teleport to Mars okay you hit this
little button you teleport to Mars your friends have told you about it they're
on Mars and like yeah man it works you teleport straight there so you're like
okay cool I'll do that so you teleport to Mars
every part about you teleport some arts your thoughts your experiences your um
your memories all these things your wants your desires everything but
there's one little catch the Earth's you the one that hit that button you find
out after you hit that button that they actually kill you they're on earth on a
crazy right so some of you would sit there and kind of second-guess is to say
what I really want to do this teleportation and that brings up an
interesting question who are you are you the one on earth or this other duplicate
of you that's been created on Mars is that to you because of psychological
continuity it has only thoughts and memories experiences desires fears all
those things which one is you are they both you so when thinking about it in
this context let's talk about episode USS Callister real quick one of
the ways that the main character kind of keeps these people hostage is not only
through torturing them but his business partner out on the outside world Walton
he threatens him by bringing his sons consciousness into the game and what he
does is when he threatens him basically he's like you're gonna play along with
me or I'm going to kill your son over and over and over again and what he does
is he makes a guy watch as he hits the airlock and his son flies out into space
and he dies a terrible death right so one of the reasons that Walton keeps
playing along is because he doesn't want his son to have to go through that
experience again but this brings up that question who is his son right I'm very
interested one of the one of the things that I would love to see is like how
would how would somebody who follows Buddhist philosophy react in that
situation right because somebody who understands that the self is something
that's constantly changing and nothing you know very tangible that is not
actually his son it's basically a simulation right one of the things that
they're perfect talks about with this psychological continuity of you know
that is our idea of self is that we're not the same as we were even five
minutes ago we're constantly changing this idea of self this this static thing
that always stays the same it's not we're constantly changed by our thoughts
but mainly our experiences right you've heard that saying what doesn't kill you
makes you stronger right when you persevere when you get through something
difficult you are different than you were before that experience happen so
the self is something that is constantly changing now let's talk a little bit
about the other episode black Museum right so one of the things that happens
in the third story of black museum is that the prisoners consciousness is
transferred into this simulation where he keeps getting electrocuted over and
over and over again and he's suffering and even the people who come through
there and pull that switch they get to keep a little keepsake and watch this
guy suffer over and over again now in all of these and all these talking about
consciousness what's interesting is and when you dive into this thing about who
are we and what is this idea of self there to this day science cannot find
where the self actually is in the brain and I'm not gonna go into that because I
love black mirror and just the sci-fi ideas of it but the brain is a series of
systems and neurons and all these other things working together and costly
changing for example we have trillions of neurons in our brain and they are
constantly growing changing creating new ones based on our personal experiences
then there are different parts of the brain such as the hippocampus that is
the part of the brain that stores our memories right now let's think about the
idea of pain what the guy in black museum was going through
how can one experience pain if they have no nerves right because the nerves are
what send signals to your brain the amygdala to trigger the fight flight or
freeze mechanism right so that's something interesting to think about too
and one of the one of the interesting topics that they brought up in this was
in the second part of black museum when Kerry is transferred first to Jack and
then to this stuffed animal and they talk about how the ACLU cracked down and
said you can't quote-unquote kill Kerry because unless they have ability to have
five or more emotions it's not right to kill this person and when Kerry's
transferred into this stuffed animal she only has two emotions and this is
something that's just interesting and not much about mental health or anything
but something that I took away from this is you know just thinking about a life
what White's what a consciousness half right because Kerry technically died her
physical body died when she was transferred over to Jack so that brings
up the other topic what is consciousness what is the idea
of self is it the psychological continuity or is it the physical
continuity of a person right and that's where a lot of debates you know moral
debates come up about you know somebody being a vegetable or on life support and
you know a family pulling the plug like what is a person is it their physical
being being alive operating on its own or even with the assistance of machines
or is it a certain amount of brain activity right but anyways anyways I
know this this video was a little bit deeper than some of the other ones I go
to but I'm always really excited when I get to talk about the Buddhist
philosophy of of non-self and something that I will touch on real
quick just because at the rewired soul we're here to talk about mental health
is when you start detaching yourself from this idea of self which is
interesting because we talked about you I am hurt right but anyways is detaching
yourself from these these thoughts that we have these troubling thoughts those
of you who struggle with depression these are these my thoughts these
thoughts tend to think themselves right if you have struggle with anxiety these
fears sometimes irrational fears right are these really mind if they're coming
out of nowhere and what meditation helps us do and what understanding the idea of
non-self does it helps me sit back and watch I get to watch it like I'm
watching a movie rather than being the person inside the movie and that is why
I meditate meditation is such a valuable tool for anybody anybody who struggles
with mental illness but anyways like I said in the description down below I'm
going to link you to the book by Sam Harris called waking up great book if
you want to check it out but you know what I'm feeling a little bit great so
what I'm gonna do I'm gonna link some of my other favorite books just about
Buddhist philosophy and the idea of nine non-self so if this is the kind of stuff
that interest you if you're like really into philosophy and stuff like that
check out some of the books they'll be in the description I will also link you
over to the rewired soul page or I have a whole list of my recommended reading
so if you're a reader like I am and you want to check them out go on click one
of those links check some of those out anyways have you watched season four of
black mirror yet what are your thoughts on consciousness I would love to know
your thoughts leave a comment down below alright but anyways if you like this
video please give it a thumbs up and if you're new here I'm always making videos
to help you out with your mental health so click the little brown subscribe
button and be sure to click the top right there on that film thumbnail to
check out the full playlist of black mirror season 4 or click or tap on the
one below to check out some of the other videos on this channel thanks for
watching I'll see you next time