SOMA - What does it mean to be alive? To hope?

I just finished a really interesting horror video game called SOMA. Without spoiling the plot too much, you explore an abandoned/infested underwater facility that's the last place on the world where humans live after a comet hit the earth. While it was originally a science and research station, the growth and expansion of a controlling computer program with some kind of nano-technology has rendered things into a twisted fusion of organic and mechanical, including some of the inhabitants.

The core of the game is about trying to launch the ARK to space. Its' a virtual reality machine that stores the brains scans of the last surviving humans on earth and the hope is that by launching it into space, humanity will live on, in some form at least.

What was so moving for me is that the game asked over and over what it means to be alive. Your character, Simon, is no longer in his own body, but rather is hosted in a robot chip inside other bodies. At some points in the game you transfer to a new body but leaving a copy of your personality behind, which begs the question, which one of you is now the real Simon? Can there even be a real person any more once you start copying yourself?

The question comes up again and again as you move forwards and meet other "people" living now in robot bodies. When you turn off the power they are "living" off in order to get to where you need to go, are you in fact killing someone? At what point does a computer based simulation become complex enough to warrant being called "alive"?

I've read this question in the Culture novels by Iain Banks where his super intelligent Minds, effectively near-godlike in their capacity and power debate the merits of this question. To study problems, they will run simulations and the more complex the characters in the simulations, the more accurate they are. Beyond a certain point of complexity, they are considered by some Minds to be alive and the simulation must therefore be maintained moving forwards otherwise it would be akin to genocide. Other Minds consider them simply data constructs and once the simulation is finished they are deleted with no more thought than than we might give to deleting a mistyped letter on our PC.

Not only did I wrestle with this question in the game, but I also had to consider the concept of hope and meaning.


SPOILER BELOW***


At the conclusion of the game, you copy yourself onto the ARK as it is shot into space, only to remain inside the twisted underwater facility when the ARK launches. Nothing went wrong, it's simply that another copy of you gets to live in the ARK while "you" are left behind. Your companion urges you to be happy knowing that "you" survived even though "you" are now doomed in a decaying and haunted underwater world.

What hope does Simon have left to live at the bottom of the ocean with a rogue AI and twisted creatures around him? Does it make sense to even try and find meaning in what's happening? Could he (or I, or you) find a way to still contribute to the world by being there? Study something the situation? Learn more of the world above after the comet or even return there? Is it worth even hoping when the chance of something is so remote? What if you found something new and important if there is nobody to share it with, perhaps ever? Would you give up and choose suicide, if you can call it that since you're effectively a robot body now?

What about the Simon who is on the ark? The game teases you with a wonderfully different, beautiful landscape after the credits roll. You are back in a human body and finally see daylight, trees and no more underwater horror. You even meet a companion "in the flesh" who you'd previously only spoken to. It's beautiful. It's also completely unreal. You now "live" inside a simulation aboard a satellite floating amidst the stars. Is that a better way to pass time and existence? Knowing that everything you experience is false, would that make your life worthless? Every struggle is artificial, every success simply a simulation. Does life hold meaning then?

There are no clear answers to these questions for me but I'm glad to have played a game that posed them to me. Life is enriched by looking at perspectives and challenges and, to my mind, video games do this in a far more powerful and personal way than most other media since you are now the active protagonist.

I look forward to more experiences like this.