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[Music]
hey wisecrack chris here to talk about a
game that fits right in with 2020.
in that it pretty much let everybody
down cyberpunk 2077 was one of the most
anticipated
releases in recent memory and then well
i will find you but we're not here to
talk about the game's many many bugs
hilarious or otherwise
and we're not here to talk about the
game's marketing promises
launch crunch or lawsuits there are
other channels out there that can do
that better than us
but assuming you can actually get the
game to run you'll find that cyberpunk
is chock full of references
to philosophy everything we hear is an
opinion not a fact
marcus aurelius to literature for whom
the belts holes
are in a stemming way and other games
i'm going to kill you
and all the cake is gone clearly
cyberpunk thinks it's pretty smart but
is it as smart as it thinks it is
let's find out in this wisecrack edition
on cyberpunk 2077
deep or dumb and spoilers ahead
but before we get into it i want to give
a huge shout out to this week's sponsor
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now back to the show and now to boil
down a very expensive game into a
watchable video
we're going to focus on one of the
game's biggest themes what does it even
mean to be
well me and that question brings us to
the first
maybe deep idea cyberpunk exploits
philosopher john locke's theory of
identity
to understand how we need to look at the
game's premise which is actually pretty
simple
after a heist gone wrong the protagonist
v ends up with a digitized version of
someone else's consciousness in their
head
that person is one johnny silverhand a
legendary rocker who died 50 years ago
but sharing isn't always caring
because it just so happens that
silverhand's consciousness is slowly
overriding vs
in other words every minute there's a
little less of v's mind and a little
more of johnny's
until v is gone and mr silverhand gets
to claim his body as legitimate salvage
of course this raises all kinds of
questions like what does it mean for
me to be me and you to be you and what
does it mean if my brain is half me
and half a guy who can really pull off
aviators oh
sock is still a despotic machine in the
world's on a collision
course with chaos weirdly enough this
unsettling prospect is
actually very similar to a question
posed over 300 years ago by john locke
well before the invention of both the
internet and aviators
lock asked the hypothetical if a
prince's soul is transported into the
body of a cobbler is it really the same
prince
or what if two consciousnesses inhabit
the same body
or if one consciousness inhabits
multiple bodies
incidentally these are exactly the kinds
of scenarios that cyberpunk repeatedly
poses throughout the game
in one mission you face off against two
bodies who share the same consciousness
too much confusion one person two bodies
in a bit of a reverse scenario an ai
driven cab service named delamane
fragments into multiple personalities
we mean an anxious
try to take me and i'll crush you a
portal joke delamane your specimen has
been processed
and we are now ready to begin the test
problem and yet
they're all kind of still delamane now
lock's ideas on identity stand in stark
contrast to another philosopher directly
referenced in the game
rene descartes for descartes identity
exists
not in the physical brain but in the
thinking mind or
the soul in other words you can't go
dissecting a human brain
and find a soul but this mysterious
essence
still makes you well you this is the
source of the phrase
cartesian dualism which inspired the
in-game band
the cartesian duelist one side of that
duality is the physical material body
the other is an immaterial mind soul
that does all of our thinking
the game's not to descartes is pretty
straightforward the immaterial mind of
johnny silverhand is retained in digital
code
that might not be exactly what descartes
meant by seoul but the game doesn't
really explore the nuances here
instead it's implied that digital johnny
is the same as his mortal self
now if this game was straight up
endorsing the cartesian worldview
it'd all be pretty simple johnny has a
soul v
has a soul we can call it a day wow
philosophy is pretty easy
just kidding it's not quite that simple
especially for john locke who
complicated the ideas of identity with
his
aforementioned thought experiments you
can't just transport someone's soul into
a different body
and call it the same person i mean
consider this if v
woke up in a landfill with no prior
memories is he still the same person
you might say well yeah same body same
brain same person
lock would disagree he posed a simple
hypothetical
say you've inherited the soul of
socrates reincarnated over a few
millennia
however you don't remember pestering
athenians or drinking hemlock
for lock regardless of the soul you
would not be socrates
according to loft identity rests in the
consciousness and memory
to put it simply if you experience
things and remember experiencing things
as yourself
congrats you're you if v woke up in that
landfill with no memories
he'd be a different person if software
johnny is capable of thought
but can't remember his mortal self he's
a different person
but if he can remember then he's the
same now this whole discussion might
seem tangential to the game
because it kind of is cyberpunk doesn't
really explore the ramifications of
either descartes or lock's theory of
identity
it likes raising the same kinds of
questions entertained by these
philosophers but it doesn't exactly know
what to do with them
i have similar dreams sometimes that
you never die and i'm you which is a
shame
because the game gets so close to
exploring these philosophies in its main
question
like johnny taking over v's body is
exactly the kind of question lock posed
should we hold v accountable for the
actions of johnny if not does that mean
we should forgive the actions of a drunk
driver who doesn't remember crashing
now does playing through scenarios that
are pretty similar to those explored by
an english philosopher make the game
smart
not quite i think to be deep it would
really have to explore more the
implications and consequences of these
ideas like
johnny taking your body for a ride isn't
really in service of some grand
statement on identity
any more than if you borrowed your car
instead and wrecked it at least
not so far also the whole digitization
of consciousness isn't super original
either
it's a conceit borrowed from cyberpunk
novels like neromancer with its
character
dixie flatline and hey borrowing is fine
we love the library but that doesn't
make you a genius
so let's consider the second idea that
might make cyberpunk deep
everything you know about identity is
wrong forget lock forget descartes
because this is cyberpunk baby
and one thing the genre loves to do is
confuse categories like human machine
self and other or man and woman the
cyberpunk genre is all about taking our
preconceptions about identity
and smashing them to bits and this game
gets interesting because it confuses the
simple categories of self and other
for instance there's that guy with one
consciousness and two bodies
so who do i got first no no
you don't get it that body and this one
i'm the same person
and there's sex workers who can go on
autopilot while servicing clients and
then erase their memory after the job is
done
do they become someone else for that
window of time like dr jekyll and mr
hyde in a later mission
a similar autopilot makes him really
good at killing people
let the behavioral chip do what it wants
so where does the person stop
and the software begin things get hazy
but is this deep
to figure it out we'll need the help of
philosopher jill deleuze
who we think might even have an in-game
item named after him
along with his co-author felix guattari
de luz wanted to rework our notion of
identity from a simple being
into what he called becoming what does
that mean
it stresses that fixed identity doesn't
exist and that it's always in motion in
connection with all of one's
surroundings that are also in motion
in this view it's not that johnny and v
are two separate entities each with
their own personal identity
instead they're both becoming each other
consider for instance that as a player
this intruder into your brain slowly
becomes your ally if played a certain
way
of course i can see you want me to hand
over the keys
i want to save your life maybe you once
thought his raging against the machine
was evil and terroristic but after you
deal with the arasaka corporation he
starts making a lot of sense
on a neurological level you are becoming
johnny but even without him rewriting
your brain you enter into a relationship
that changes both of you
to understand this a little bit we could
consider the loser's discussion of the
orchid and the wasp
for tldr orchids reproduce through some
evolutionary trickery
the wasp tries to romance the orchid
becoming an unwitting carrier of its
pollen
and the orchid for its part gives out
pheromones to mimic a female wasp
in this way the wasp becomes
unsuspectingly co-opted into the orca's
reproductive apparatus
in that moment it's becoming orchid
while the orchid is becoming wasp
the larger point is that identity for
duluth is often a function of large
complicated processes and networks of
interaction and identity
we can't understand who v is without
considering their background
be it a street kid nomad or corporal and
how their social networks and society
itself slowly informs their identity
this point is arguably raised by johnny
as he discusses how one's personality
can be changed without one even knowing
it remember where you used to be then
think what you've done lately
or earlier your partner in crime jackie
wells muses about the fact that he has
no choices
he is simply a cog in a larger machine
heywood's not so
palace in japan i didn't have no choices
while we may like to think of our
choices as being uniquely
ours this character suggests that
autonomy might not be so autonomous
at the same time the game immerses us in
a world saturated with advertising
which can also change our thoughts and
behaviors by appealing to our basis
desires
the loose used the term assemblage to
describe this level of social complexity
an arrangement of things where
everything is constantly in flux if that
sounds like a stretch
and it might be consider johnny's guitar
called the delu's orpheon
orpheon is seemingly a reference to
orpheus the legendary ancient greek
musician
who went through the underworld and then
returned get it
it's johnny and we don't know for sure
if duluth is a sly misspelled reference
to the philosopher but
we couldn't find any possible
interpretation besides a champagne
cognac brand so
maybe it's on purpose but importantly
this becoming an
assemblage business for duluth doesn't
merely amount to
things are complicated it speaks to the
breaking down of identity categories and
the fluidity of all things
the lose and those influenced by his
work like philosopher donna haraway
argue that for instance
delineation between man and animal or
man and machine
is a fiction even if we're not adam
smasher yet
there are plenty of cyborgs combinations
of human and machine
running around with pacemakers and
eyeglasses and sure the game messes with
identity a bit
like when two characters merge
consciousness for a romantic encounter
too steamy to show on youtube
or in its open-ended character creation
and while the game gives us plenty of
scenarios that question binaries like
self versus other
that kind of slotted in as if to say
wouldn't this be wild and sometimes
these scenarios are just lifted from the
cyberpunk genre itself
like the sex workers who practically
become someone else this conceit is once
again
more or less lifted from the og
cyberpunk novel neromancer
and the game usually ends up treating
these instances as exceptions to the
rule rather than really breaking down
categories
it's a doll poor proxy in the end
despite quotes about how you and johnny
are becoming more alike know what
you're starting to remind me of me 50
years back all the endings really stress
the salience of your individual
identities
what's more all the game's endings still
set up a choice between v
and johnny in other words which person's
consciousness
a la lac gets to keep the body sure
johnny might learn a thing or two from v
but this isn't a questioning of our
identity any more than it's just a
character arc
even the last line in one of the johnny
endings stresses the way
living in v's consciousness has changed
them haven't forgotten a thing never
will
but this sentiment could just as easily
be about a dead friend who didn't happen
to share a body with you
so if this game wants to be about duluth
and becoming it's being a little dumb
about it
but now it's time for what is perhaps
the most airtight interpretation of them
all
cyberpunk is about aging and personal
identity and also
this thing called the ship of theseus to
lay it out briefly
the experience of someone slowly
overwriting your brain as you disappear
while they take over
may actually just be akin to the normal
process of getting old
like if 12 year old me's consciousness
was implanted into my brain
we might have just as hard of a time as
johnny and v
this is pretty explicit in the game in
one dialogue option a character explains
that you're always becoming someone else
every day
relic virus or otherwise you're already
becoming someone else
every second of every day and in a
mission where you reunite johnny's old
band
denny remarks that she feels like she
has to pretend that she's a younger
version of herself
a version that is now completely alien
to her are you feeling ahead of the show
weird like i'm about to pretend to be
myself now all this is embodied by an
old philosophical paradox known as
the ship of theseus in short it's a
thought experiment that asks you to
consider a ship that
like all ships undergoes repairs but
over the years as each plank is removed
and replaced with a new one
it adds up and that ship eventually no
longer has any of the original materials
is it the same ship lock in his theory
of identity would say yes
even if you were to consider a person
who atom by adam is continually replaced
they still have the same conscious
memories and thus are the same person
but cyberpunk isn't so sure in the world
of cyberpunk you might be becoming
someone new every day
until like denny you look back and don't
recognize your old self
if you're not buying this whole aging
thing consider the poem recited by alt
in the game's ending once out of nature
i shall never take
my bodily form from any natural thing
but such a form as grecian goldsmiths
make
of hammered gold and gold enameling
to keep a drowsy emperor awake that's
from sailing to byzantium
a poem by william yates it's about
getting old but specifically about a man
who wants to escape from his dying body
into an artifice of eternity
you know like storing your consciousness
in cyberspace forever
so is johnny's journey or even arasaka's
secure your soul program a commentary on
this
um not really i mean in the sense that
it's warning you don't let amazon store
your soul
on their servers sure it's a nice poetic
flourish for a game about aging
and the pains of growing old before
games so obsessed with how intellectual
it is this still feels a bit lacking
like what is the message here
that preserving your soul in digital
form is bad that what we think
of as human and inhuman is all wrong
these themes are pretty masterfully
tackled in something like westworld but
in the case of cyberpunk
it just seems like a meditation on how
much getting old sucks
and don't get me wrong i dig the story
but for a game that wants to throw
friedrich nietzsche
you know how it goes stare too long into
the abyss the abyssals stare
right back at you and aristotle quotes
at you the greatest crimes issue from a
desire for excess
and not from necessity say what now
aristotle guess you read me then i don't
think cyberpunk is nearly as deep as it
thinks it is
sure it can toss in a copy of ernest
hemingway's for whom the bell tolls
pop in a yay's poem as thematically
similar and name missions after clever
cultural references but that's about as
deep as it gets
and even for all its attempts to honor
its cyberpunk roots
many have said that the game has failed
in this respect it might be quick to pay
homage but at times doesn't seem to
understand its source material
it's a bummer because the game had
everything it needed to do a really cool
mind-blowing story
it almost feels like if the game hadn't
been so rushed it might have succeeded
but overall we're gonna call cyberpunk a
little dumb we really did like the story
but like everything else about the game
we're left wondering what the team at cd
projekt red could have done with a
little more time
but what do you guys think was cyberpunk
a missed opportunity to explore what
constitutes identity
or should we put the philosophy books
away while we're gaming let us know in
the comments
big thanks to all our patrons for all
your support smack that like button like
you're high fiving a digital keanu
reeves and don't forget to ring that
bell
as always thanks for watching peace
[Music]
you