[SPOILERS] Soulkiller technology

[enkee23]

In the first meeting, Alt says that she will record consciousness and engram, but the soul will cease to exist.
But then in the final after Mikoshi Alt says that V will continue to live as before if he returns to his body.

Are there any other references in the game about the soul and what does it mean?
Does soulkiller really transfer the real V? Do we see the new copied V in the epilogue?
I ask you not to speculate and to show facts from the game itself or lore if it's possible.

 

[StarkHelsing]

The truth is we don't know. Lore doesn't really answer this but instead leaves for open speculation. All we have are the words of an uncaring AI and spiritual passages, along with scientific jargon. The soul has yet to be discovered and proven to exist.

 

[InSanor]

It is the cornerstone questions of cyberpunk genre, some titles go rather deep in that, as they seek answers to it and to question of which point human has enough cyber installed that they lose their soul and/or hunanity.
In one book (can't remember the name after all these years, I'm sorry.. unless it was in Neuromancer.) a man uploaded his consciousnes into the net, got captured and was downloaded into something that is essentially an usb stick. When asked if he still had he's soul, he replied that he wasn't sure.

So the answer to that question is: No one knows for sure.

Edit: I really need to read some books again.

 

[StarkHelsing]

It is the cornerstone questions of cyberpunk genre, some titles go rather deep in that, as they seek answers to it and to question of which point human has enough cyber installed that they lose their soul and/or hunanity.
In one book (can't remember the name after all these years, I'm sorry.. unless it was in Neuromancer.) a man uploaded his consciousnes into the net, got captured and was downloaded into something that is essentially an usb stick. When asked if he still had he's soul, he replied that he wasn't sure.

So the answer to that question is: No one knows for sure.

Edit: I really need to read some books again.

Pretty sure it was Neuromancer. The relic is a nod towards the 'construct' Dixie was downloaded onto.

 

[InSanor]

Pretty sure it was Neuromancer. The relic is a nod towards the 'construct' Dixie was downloaded onto.

Had a vague memory it being precisely in Neuro. Thanks from confirming this.

 

[Jan0sh]

What is soul (not in CP77)?
I ask you not to speculate and to show scientific facts.

 

[Buckadoz]

Given spirituality in the game is most often used to represent humanity in the face of technology, combined with the fact that it's a very... "roboticized" Alt talking about it, I don't think it's referring to some actual supernatural soul. If it is, I don't think the conversation can actually go anywhere from here. I think, given language such as "recording", "you have to kill me to save me", "your engram copy", etc, it's more reasonable to believe that what's "lost" in Soulkiller is that you will actually die, and what lives on is a copy with a new sense of self.

But really, the problem with Soulkiller is that this conversation has to happen. When you first meet Alt, this "death of the soul" is portrayed as the steep cost of using Soulkiller. "Everything changes." However, once you reach the end of the game, a line of dialogue of V being mad that it was used on her without her permission is about the extent the game grapples with the whole thing. The actual soul killing part of Soulkiller is a perfect example of Chekhov's Gun, and simply bad writing rather than something intentionally left open to interpretation. If they weren't even going to acknowledge the consequences of Soulkiller that they set up earlier in the story, those consequences shouldn't have been set up to begin with.

"One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn't going to go off. It's wrong to make promises you don't mean to keep."

 

[brago90]

Given spirituality in the game is most often used to represent humanity in the face of technology, combined with the fact that it's a very... "roboticized" Alt talking about it, I don't think it's referring to some actual supernatural soul. If it is, I don't think the conversation can actually go anywhere from here. I think, given language such as "recording", "you have to kill me to save me", "your engram copy", etc, it's more reasonable to believe that what's "lost" in Soulkiller is that you will actually die, and what lives on is a copy with a new sense of self.

But really, the problem with Soulkiller is that this conversation has to happen. When you first meet Alt, this "death of the soul" is portrayed as the steep cost of using Soulkiller. "Everything changes." However, once you reach the end of the game, a line of dialogue of V being mad that it was used on her without her permission is about the extent the game grapples with the whole thing. The actual soul killing part of Soulkiller is a perfect example of Chekhov's Gun, and simply bad writing rather than something intentionally left open to interpretation. If they weren't even going to acknowledge the consequences of Soulkiller that they set up earlier in the story, those consequences shouldn't have been set up to begin with.

"One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn't going to go off. It's wrong to make promises you don't mean to keep."

The consequences will surely be something that we see in the DLCs, perhaps all those elements of humanity so present in the original game is the price to pay which if we survive 6 months and find a cure for the body, the only thing that awaits us is to lose ourselves and get closer and closer to a cyberpsychosis-like state.

 

[enkee23]

I'm more inclined to think that the original V ceases to exist, the feeling is that the whole game is about this
even official launch trailer begins from this idea
but if you look in general, then constructs are treated as original personalities
for example, Saburo recorded himself but it is unclear whether he was flatlined as V or not.

 

[Jan0sh]

I'm not the one expecting a game developer to tackle such profound questions like "what is soul"? The concept of digitalizing one's consciousness is quite old and appears in a lot in sci-fi literature, movies, etc. Some authors try to tackle spirituality's place in all that but it is always speculation. There is no data, obviously, on how would such a digitalized consciousness function. Nor are there any facts to support the existence of soul. This is down to faith. And what you believe in is largely influenced by the culture and religion you've been brought up in. I'm glad they do not go to deep with this as religion and spirituality is usually a delicate subject and there is no "one right answer".
Not sure if this got out the way I intend it. English is not my native language.

 

[BroNice]

The soul is a spiritual concept. In the realm of meaning it imbues our individual life and our personality with a sacred dignity that can’t be quantified or constructed. By digitizing your neural engram, you destroy the sanctity of the person as an individual and thereby “killing” its soul. It becomes something tangible and therefore absolutely material, loosing its spiritual properties. Just as the Age of Enlightenment “killed” god, soulkiller “kills” the soul.

 

[lokozar]

To verify whether something exists, you first have to know what it is you're talking about. The use of the word "soul" is easy. What a soul actually is, however, that's the question that needs to be answered first.

 

[EngryEngineer]

In the side content there is a lot of speculation on this, with some pretty significantly different view points. I don't think it can be known, and it seems pretty clear that CDPR didn't attempt to define it. To not throw out a bunch of spoilers you can have conversations with religious figures, different AI, etc who might not all talk about Soulkiller, but all are talking about their views on the elusive qualia. In my opinion, their treatment of this was pretty much perfect (aside from not allowing the player or V much chance to express their take on it in any meaningful way, I guess the opt out ending option is a stab at it).

 

[enkee23]

have to change topic of thread because the question is whether V remains himself after the soulkiller or becomes a copied program

 

[BroNice]

have to change topic of thread because the question is whether V remains himself after the soulkiller or becomes a copied program

If you travel with a ship, and on your journey you exchange bit by bit the parts of that ship, is it still the same ship?

We could probably agree that it is still the same ship, but it changed.

This applies also to V. She stays V, but she changed.

 

[enkee23]

If you travel with a ship, and on your journey you exchange bit by bit the parts of that ship, is it still the same ship?
We could probably agree that it is still the same ship, but it changed.
This applies also to V. She stays V, but she changed.

this is not exactly the same example, because you are comparing temporary changes, for example, growth, that child is no longer there, there is an adult, of course the person is the same

wiki is just as vague
2077: Soulkiller only copies the psyche and memories of a person, killing the person and does not transfer a consciousness ... engram can .... overwrite any previous engram's on it ... while keeping his consciousness and memories ...

 

[TintelFruit]

Remember Alt might sound very confident but even she doesn't know everything, the situation V is in is quite unique because it's presumably the first time the relic has been used (to imprint Johnny) and then the first time it's been used to return an engram to an original hosts body. Honestly who can say if V retained their "soul", maybe because body and mind were reunited the soul returned too? Maybe because of the training from our mysterious zen master or soul survived?

 

[nadsh]

I think it's left ambiguous by choice, yes.

Soulkiller 1.0 only copies data, a collection of memories, and the engrams are not self aware. How Soulkiller 2.0 works is up for debate even with the ingame information though - if used on a dead person it seems to work like version 1.0, if used on a living person it seems to imply consciousness is preserved. AI Alt warns V against using it but doesn't go into details, and both V and Johnny brush it off like unimportant information as long as the engram is returned to V's body. Plus Alt named it Soulkiller as a human programmer with her own personal biases, and as an AI she has her own agenda and is either not infallible, too literal or a flat out liar given she didn't mention V's 6 months shelf life.

If you consider consciousness as an ongoing process based on the underlying data and Soulkiller 2.0 is able to maintain it active while creating the engram and then returning it to V's body, I would consider post Soulkiller V the same V. Not worse than being clinically dead and then revived. Both the belief in a "soul" in a traditional sense and lack of it are compatible with this interpretation.

These are from the wiki but not necessarily accurate, anyone can edit it:

Alt Cunningham appears after V breaches the blackwall to ask about the Soulkiller program. It is revealed that she is not Alt Cunningham but an image of her due to Johnny Silverhand severing the connection between her engram and body which hosted her consciousness while trying to rescue her. For 50 years she held onto the image of Alt to ensure she did not get turned into complete data like other AIs.

If the host is still connected to the Soulkiller the engram can be transferred back to the host's body and overwrite any previous engram's on it, giving V a chance to overwrite Johnny Silverhand's psyche and memories from his brain while keeping his consciousness and memories.

But the wiki also contains this bit that didn't happen at all in my game, biochip Johnny sure thinks he's the original Johnny, so I would take it with a grain of salt:

Johnny Silverhand's engram later admits that he has always been dead due to the Soulkiller actually killing souls and believes his nature is to rebel from beyond the grave to honor the real Johnny Silverhand's mission.

 

[Queen_Skadi]

I ask you not to speculate and to show facts from the game itself or lore if it's possible.

Fact is there are no facts and I think that is the point, it is deliberately vague to allow the player to ponder the question.

Truth is nobody knows what the soul is or whether it even exists or whether if you transfer and copy your consciousness into a chip if it is really you, this is part of the philosophical question that the story wants you to ask yourself and I don't think it is truly a question that we can answer at this time.

 

[TintelFruit]

If you consider consciousness as an ongoing process based on the underlying data and Soulkiller 2.0 is able to maintain it active while creating the engram and then returning it to V's body, I would consider post Soulkiller V the same V.

I think this is the most logical way of looking at it.