John Weldon's "To Be"

Canadian animation by John Weldon offering a lighthearted overview of a central problem of ontology: the continuity of existence.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• animation
• john
• weldon
• canada
• CFB

[ChipArgyle]

It all seemed like fun and games until the method of destruction was revealed to be a blender! That's just gross!

If teleportation can ever be realized, this is how it's going to have to basically work. There will have to be tanks of primordial slime on either end, one that the teleported person is relegated to at point A and one that the reconstituted person is made from at point B. If this can be achieved, it would pretty much negate the veracity of the soul.

[steveasat2]

@ChipArgyle Not necessarily. If the soul is an epiphenomenon of the mind, it would manifest wherever the mind was recreated. Or what if you don't even have a soul until the moment you die and it is created by your death as a sort of data-only escape pod? This style of teleportation really messes up that scenario. You'd soon have dozens of souls wafting around, doing whatever souls do after you die.

[heartxofxbutter]

So, it's like a 10 minute version of the movie Moon.

[steveasat2]

@heartxofxbutter Yes, although where Moon explored the personal tragedy of such a situation and how deception complicates things, this version sticks pretty much to the bare-bones moral and logical issues. They'd make a great double feature.

[Oecobius]

What's with that fishbowl at 6:05?

[steveasat2]

@Oecobius I've always taken that as a visual pun indicating the scientist's foolishness in accepting the narrator's proposal. But, come to think of it, I can't say exactly what the pun is. Fished in? Fish in a barrel?

[steveasat2]

@snowyowl0 If that third scenario isn't a Schwarzenegger movie already, it soon will be.

[urizen123]

I was about nine or ten years old when I first watched this cartoon, and it's stayed with me, (particularly the image of the man being crushed in the booth at 2:46) branded into my subconscious, for the better part of a decade and a half.

Although in the intervening time I would forget much of what happens in the cartoon, the melody from the song that plays over the credits would still intermittently pop into my head. I caught myself humming it earlier on today, and I finally decided [cont.]

[PleasedToBeHere1]

@vinguru896 Could you please explain your position regarding this video being biased? How an unbiased video would be?.

[cartoonlover2326]

Im not a scientist, but i wouldn't go into the teleporter if that was how it was done. The copy would seem like me to everyone else, but i would still die, ithe copy wouldn't be me.

[vinguru896]

@Slacktoo Since when does critical thinking and rational criticism make someone a "complete fucking idiot?" This animation not only provides an inaccurate and biased picture, it is just outright uninformed.

I'm sure you're happy being a moron, but some of us are not.

[Slacktoo]

@vinguru896 You're a complete fucking idiot

[vinguru896]

This is nonsense. Anyone who actually concerns himself with questions of existence without first considering the pragmatic implications is a useless human that does not really contribute to society.

Further, any rational human would recognize that it's obviously irrelevant whether the copy or original was destroyed. I can therefore conclude that the "scientist" in this animation is irrational and therefore NOT a scientist.

[ModestDollesin]

This cartoon horrified me when I was younger, I hated Canadians ever since.

[Linz2Binz]

I miss you Gramma <3 xoxoxo Thankyou. RIP <3