Philosophical Test — Can You Survive Without Losing Yourself?
By: Luca Rossi
Tags: Test, Philosophy, Mind, Life, Death

The Game — Will You Survive?

Photo by Nicolas Lobos on Unsplash

This is a more detailed version of this game. I made some changes that I will explain later, as I will try to answer the question: what makes you “you”? There are three questions with two possible answers each and only three rules:

Survive. Your answers should be based solely on your desire to stay alive. You need to go through all three scenarios. There are some ways to “survive” by “leaving” before Scenario 3. I can’t explain it to you yet, but for now you need to know that if you don’t reach Scenario 3, you will be considered dead, even if you are “alive” under some conditions. There are no tricks, loopholes, or whatever. Just common sense.

The answers you give will determine whether you survive or not.

Scenario 1 — A Trip to Mars

We fucked up with climate change, Earth is dying. Every survivor, including you, has to leave the planet to join a colony on Mars. You have no choice, except for the means of transport:

Teletransportation. You step into a scanner which destroys every atom of your body, then an exact replica of you will be created from new atoms in a similar scanner on Mars. On the outside, it will still be “you”. This method is 100% reliable.

Space travel. Your body won’t be destroyed, but there is a 50% chance you will die before getting to Mars.

What do you choose? Remember, you want to maximize your chances of survival:

A. Teleportation

B. Space travel

Scenario 2 — Brainsick

We haven’t found a vaccine for COVID yet, and now it’s on Mars. After several years of living with the virus, it went through major mutations, and now it has a completely different set of symptoms.

Apparently, anti-maskers now exist on Mars as well, so you catch Martian COVID (M-COVID).

M-COVID messes with the brain. It doesn’t kill you, but completely remodels your neural pathways, changing your memories, abilities, and personality. It’s like a factory reset for the brain. People with M-COVID can still lead a fulfilling life, but they have been changed. On the outside, you won’t be “you” anymore.

The only way to keep your memories, abilities, and personality is to let doctors gradually replace parts of your brain with a silicon chip, until there is no trace of organic neurons anymore. This operation is 100% reliable. On the outside, you will still be “you”. A few years later, advances in technology will enable doctors to remove the chip and make your brain fully organic again.

What do you choose?

A. Let the doctors do their thing.

B. Let the virus do its thing.

Scenario 3 — Let’s Get Metaphysical

A few years passed and you made some scientific discoveries, including a couple of weird ones:

Souls exist. Reincarnation has been scientifically proven. When you die, your soul leaves your body and enters another one. It won’t keep your memories and it doesn’t affect the way your brain works. After you reincarnate, on the outside, you won’t be “you” anymore.

Souls die if stored at -200 °C or less. Yes, that’s weird, deal with it.

Now, you have been very unlucky and caught M-COVID again. In those decades, M-COVID mutated a lot, now it’s more aggressive and instead of rewiring your brain it kills you. There’s no cure yet and you are dying.

Unfortunately, people are not respecting Martian lockdown and the curve is flattening vertically. All the ICUs are at maximum capacity and there are no other silicon chips to save you.

Doctors propose another solution: cryonics. They could hibernate you, keeping your body under at -200 °C (fatal temperature for the soul), and save you when a cure for M-COVID will be found.

Cryonics is still experimental and it’s not sure whether a cure for M-COVID will ever be found, so this method has a 50% chance of success. Of course, there is a 100% chance that your soul will die, but nobody would notice. If this method succeeds, on the outside, you will still be “you”.

Otherwise, you could just accept your fate and die, hoping for a better life once you reincarnate. What do you choose?

A. Die, but your soul will go on.

B. Hibernate yourself, killing your soul but with a chance of surviving M-COVID.