It was never explained why [spoilers]

[Ryusho]

Simon and Catherine couldn't just cut and paste themselves rather than copy and paste themselves into the Ark or the diving suit, especially now that they aren't biological at all and they are just stored on hard drives. Or was it and I just missed it?

[Danny_G13]

Originally posted by rkfg:

Originally posted by Dammekos:

...what the game shows you. Nothing more. For each instance it's the only genuine one. But the game is free to follow any of them so there's no flip but the developers decision. It's not like a probability of "switching bodies" exists (nor "luck"), nothing changes for you after a brain scan and after writing the scan to another body. Nothing. It's just that body starts thinking it was suddenly teleported from the pilot chair.

Good way to put it. Like I said, there's no luck, no coin toss, just two consciousnesses rather than one. And the game shows you the perspective of one of them - like with the dive suit - the game chooses to show you the perspective of the Simon scan in the new suit, but he becomes bluntly aware that he still exists in that chair. Although the game downplays the importance after the revelation, and when dive suit Simon is about to kill robot Simon, robot Simon doesn't protest at all.

And at the end we see BOTH perspectives - the scan left on earth and the one which got copied to the ARK.

[Danny_G13]

Originally posted by VanGoth:

There's no need for explanations. It's funny how some of you are falling for this thing called human science, in this case human science grasping at straws, trying to cheat away the rules of nature and life. There never was and never will be a "coin toss" in any way or form.

It was the only way Cath could try to make the copied Simon not completely implode when he realised his previous incarnation hadn't been cut & pasted.

He had trouble with that. Although one suspects the copy of him on the ARK probably doesn't care and I doubt Cath will bring it up.

[Meebly Glort]

Originally posted by Lancevere:

Originally posted by Joseph:

Even then, it was never explained why they couldn't just be moved

Raith is right. The difference between a cut and copy function is that when you "cut" you delete the information when it is copied into memory.

The only way that Simon could be "moved" into the ARK is if his Cortex Chip (his brain) were to be physically interfaced with the ARK. There would need to be a hardware and software modification to the ARK to include his Cortex chip.

The ARK was designed to only have information uploaded to it - for software to be "copied" to it.

Edit: Think of it as you asking why you can't just play Sony PS4 exclusive game discs on the PC.

Yea, but I'm thinking about it as moving a file. Simon number 1 being scanned had to be a copy. No two ways of going about it, a scan is a scan. But now that a copy has been made, whats the point in copying a copy? The Simon we played as was like a file copied onto a database. Once we have our local copy, we don't need to make more copies to move it around. Just move it. If I'm not mistaken, Simon and Catherine were bound to their cortex chips. Why copy them again if they could just transfer files from the cortex chips? If I'm moving a picture from one folder to another, why would I make a copy rather than simply move it?

[Rnlngstrt]

The idea of cut and paste, as opposed to copy and paste does get addressed. If you read everything in the living quarters, (of Theta, I believe?) the deletion of the original copy of one's self, the "cut", is their suicide. The use case of copying a copy (Simon 2.0 and Catherine 2.0, our protagonists.) and placing it in the ARK wouldn't have been thought of, or deemed important by those making the ARK. Everyone on PATHOS was the OG version of themselves, and thus they didn't have the need to transfer conciousness as opposed to just copying it.

[Sytch]

Originally posted by Meebly Glort:

If I'm moving a picture from one folder to another, why would I make a copy rather than simply move it?

Did you know that if you move a picture between different physical drives it's get copied and then the original gets deleted?

Originally posted by Meebly Glort:

Why copy them again if they could just transfer files from the cortex chips?

They did it, transferred their cortex chips files to the ARK. They just didn't delete the originals. Moving their files would look exactly like moving a file between different drives, copy&delete. Some think that moving a physical cortex chip to the ARK would do the trick but it's also all the same. The 3rd Simon (in the deep diving suit) would actually "die" after removing the chip and then "revive" in the ARK environment. The 2nd Simon (that we play as we get to Pathos-II) was put to sleep after the scan so he never had a choice to live or die.

[Purity+Control<]

copy / paste or cut / paste makes no difference technically. All you do is copy the data, every time. When you select to cut, it doesn't take it from somewhere to put it elsewhere, it copies it and deletes the original, giving the illusion of displacement.

Morally it'd be worse to delete each time a copy is made than to leave it as is. It's the same problem the "continuity" cult had without realizing it, they thought they would somehow magically live on in the ark if they killed themselves immediatly after a scan, which is ridiculous since a copy will always be a copy.

[PHJF]

Boy you are having a rough time understanding this.

THERE IS NO SIMON. There is no Catherine. Simon died a hundred years ago, Cath was murdered trying to launch the ARK. Catherine understands this because she is obviously very well educated and has had time to come to grips with her biological demise, whereas Simon is the embodiment of modern man, selfish, terrified, and stupid right up to the end. He spends the entire game ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and whining about how wrong it is to copy a human conscience into a robot body, nevermind this is literally humanity's absolute last chance of having ANY kind of survival, and nevermind HE HIMSELF SIGNED UP FOR IT WHEN HIS BRAIN WAS SCANNED. The doctor says, "Are you OK with us using your brain scan in the name of science," to which Simon says, emphatically, "yes, I'm dying anyways so I hope I can still do some good."

Maybe this is why Simon's scan is ultimately the one that ends up being the player character. Simon is so stupid and totally detached from the PATHOS project that, while all other human scans go insane when they end up in a robot body, Simon just does his damnedest to convince himself he is still human. His end goal is to SAVE HIMSELF because he still thinks he exists to BE SAVED, and Catherine knowingly uses his total ignorance to get the ARK launched.

These aren't new questions and they've been raised in science fiction time and again for decades. Go read some Philip K. ♥♥♥♥.

[Clord]

Originally posted by PHJF:

Boy you are having a rough time understanding this.

THERE IS NO SIMON. There is no Catherine. Simon died a hundred years ago, Cath was murdered trying to launch the ARK. Catherine understands this because she is obviously very well educated and has had time to come to grips with her biological demise, whereas Simon is the embodiment of modern man, selfish, terrified, and stupid right up to the end. He spends the entire game ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and whining about how wrong it is to copy a human conscience into a robot body, nevermind this is literally humanity's absolute last chance of having ANY kind of survival, and nevermind HE HIMSELF SIGNED UP FOR IT WHEN HIS BRAIN WAS SCANNED. The doctor says, "Are you OK with us using your brain scan in the name of science," to which Simon says, emphatically, "yes, I'm dying anyways so I hope I can still do some good."

Maybe this is why Simon's scan is ultimately the one that ends up being the player character. Simon is so stupid and totally detached from the PATHOS project that, while all other human scans go insane when they end up in a robot body, Simon just does his damnedest to convince himself he is still human. His end goal is to SAVE HIMSELF because he still thinks he exists to BE SAVED, and Catherine knowingly uses his total ignorance to get the ARK launched.

These aren't new questions and they've been raised in science fiction time and again for decades. Go read some Philip K. ♥♥♥♥.

Isn't that obvious?

I agree with you but in these forums it feels like you're trying to go against windmills.

[Sytch]

Originally posted by PHJF:

His end goal is to SAVE HIMSELF because he still thinks he exists to BE SAVED, and Catherine knowingly uses his total ignorance to get the ARK launched.

Hmm, this idea is kinda fresh for me. Yeah, Simon is no scientist, it's obvious. But this degree of egoism? Didn't think about him this way. I though his intention of saving the humanity was real and it had priority over saving himself. You know, like any generic movie/game hero would do. Now I'm not so sure.

[PHJF]

Dude the entire end of the game completely undoes that. Simon the robot launchers the ARK, then wonders why he's still sitting in the Pilot seat, then throws a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hissy fit. Catherine finally gets sick of him and decides robot Simon just is never going to "get it" and abandons him, and powers down the station (effectively "killing" herself and leaving robot Simon to rot in the darkness of the now dead PATHOS facilities).

She shouldn't have let Simon's scan into the ARK, if you ask me. I think the second ending was a conceit to the players.

And by the way, there's noooooooooooooooooooooooo way the ARK project works. It can't possibly be a complete enough simulation of human existence to "fool" anyone, and the human mind will eventually break living in such a false little Eden as they've created. Cath says she's to appoint herself god of the ARK, an allpowerful virtual steward in a perfect little eden populated by a handful of other immortal brain scans. I wonder how THAT'S gonna turn out.

[Mikel S]

Because cutting something is merely the deletion of the original data (read: Marking it as free space, usually without doing anything else to it). In the case of some sort of AI system, this would be perceived as instantaneous death. Moving data across your computer never actually moves the file, but makes copies and marks the old ones as invisible, able to be written over. Sure Catherine could have wired a killswitch into the system, but she understood what was happening, that a copy of hers was getting aboard the ARK, and probably expected Simon to understand after what happened in Omicron. But even with that killswitch, if the game progressed as it did with the credits rolling after Simon watches the ARK launch, from the players point of view, the game would have INSTANTLY gone black the moment the upload was done. Sure, it might have looked like that Simon had gotten on the ARK after the credits, but in reality, that Simon was just euthanized so he would never know that it was a copy which made it, and his copy might assume the same.

[Danny_G13]

Originally posted by PHJF:

Boy you are having a rough time understanding this.

THERE IS NO SIMON. There is no Catherine. Simon died a hundred years ago, Cath was murdered trying to launch the ARK. Catherine understands this because she is obviously very well educated and has had time to come to grips with her biological demise, whereas Simon is the embodiment of modern man, selfish, terrified, and stupid right up to the end. He spends the entire game ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and whining about how wrong it is to copy a human conscience into a robot body, nevermind this is literally humanity's absolute last chance of having ANY kind of survival, and nevermind HE HIMSELF SIGNED UP FOR IT WHEN HIS BRAIN WAS SCANNED. The doctor says, "Are you OK with us using your brain scan in the name of science," to which Simon says, emphatically, "yes, I'm dying anyways so I hope I can still do some good."

Maybe this is why Simon's scan is ultimately the one that ends up being the player character. Simon is so stupid and totally detached from the PATHOS project that, while all other human scans go insane when they end up in a robot body, Simon just does his damnedest to convince himself he is still human. His end goal is to SAVE HIMSELF because he still thinks he exists to BE SAVED, and Catherine knowingly uses his total ignorance to get the ARK launched.

These aren't new questions and they've been raised in science fiction time and again for decades. Go read some Philip K. ♥♥♥♥.

He does exist, in digital form. That's what all the scans are, a digital footprint image of a biological mind, which, as you'll know, is still based on electric impulses binary language; which can be easily turned into a digital software version (if the tech exists).

And the point of the ARK is to allow these digital versions (which are exact copies of the mind at the point of scanning) to live on - to give some last existence in humanity, even though it's not in human form.

PS: you creative a metaphysical dichotomy when you say 'there's no Catherine' then add 'Catherine understands this'.

It might be semantics but that's a paradox.

And that's my point; her digital footprint understands it, but Simon's doesn't - how could he, he's just a basic guy and these are metaphysical questions and components that Cath is trying to make a Layman grasp, and he can't.

[PHJF]

I refer to Catherine as Catherine because it's easier than saying the-brainscan-of-the-now-deceased-Catherine-whose-digital-image-now-resides-in-a-handheld-multitool.

And what exists in the ARK, that's not humanity. The ARK is a tomb, a cave painting on the walls of an endless cosmos. You can't reduce humanity into binary code because humans are part of and shaped by an entire universe. In order for the simulation to encompass all that is, it would have to BE all that is, which isn't possible, and it's pretty clear how limited the ARK actually is in scope by a) the number and size of the protocols it is based on (a forest, a river, some physics systems, etc) and b) how VERY little time Cath had to develop it.

Cath can "code" the ARK from within (like I said, she is a digital god in that respect), but the ARK has, compared to physical existence, terribly small proportions. You can't tell me a tiny handful of human minds will be able to exist in perpetuity confined to such a cage. And even if they could, would they want to? Ever notice the lower answers to the "ARK arrival survey" essentially amount to "I'm going to go insane in here" (much like they did on the PATHOS survey)? The ARK is a cage, and everyone in it knows it. Worse yet, there is NO WAY OUT from within.

I'm glad a game can encourage such discourse. Talos Principle hit on exactly the same notes, though.

[Danny_G13]

Yes, this is by far the most intelligent and non-aggressive forum I've seen on Steam, the first time I've engaged in debate about a game including opinion of it without being attacked.

To touch on a point or two though - you CAN reduce humans into binary code because that's exactly what we are - genes may define our lifespan, our eye colour etc but break down the complexities of thought and they're all carried within binary code. Either the signal is sent by the brain or it isn't - 1, or a 0.

Not hard to simulate that in a virtual world.

As for a tomb - well, Earth was a tomb for every being who's become extinct before us, during us, after us, and inevitably including us.

And as for no way out - what's your way out of Earth?

[Dammekos]

It makes a lot of sense to me that Simon-3 is mad when the transfer doesn't work for him. Keep in mind that from his perspective he has transfered bodies THREE times. Even though Catherine has explained clearly that you don't get "transfered" he doesn't get it because so far that isn't his actual experience.

Yes, there is no coin-flip but consider the copys perspective. They do not feel like they have just been created but rather that they were actually transfered. Simon-4 believes the transfer works, just like Simon-3, and Simon-2....

The coin-flip is basically you crossing your fingers and hoping that you are the copy that wakes up and not the sucker stuck at the bottom of the ocean.