 What's up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And welcome back to the Black Mirror Season 4 playlist. And in this video, we're going to talk about the overarching theme of consciousness in Black Mirror. This is a topic that I absolutely love because I'm somebody who is really into meditation, as well as Buddhist philosophy. So in season 4, quite a few episodes actually touch on the topic of consciousness. It kicks it off pretty much in episode one, the USS Callister, where, by the way, if you haven't watched any of these episodes yet or even episode one, turn this video off, come back. Actually, if you haven't watched the season yet and you're worried about spoilers, go away, come back. All right, but anyways, in USS Callister, pretty much it is about a video game designer and coder who is the CTO of the company. And he's kind of a shy, laid-back dude. And he's very awkward, like typical nerd. And what he does is he has his own mod of the game at home. And what he does is he transfers the consciousness of people into his own modded version of the game, where he basically is God and he runs the whole show. He tortures people who don't play along with him. And when you think about it, the idea of consciousness is you being transported somewhere else, right? So these people are waking up in a game and wondering what the hell is going on. And they realize what's happening. But is it really them? And that goes into a deeper conversation of who are we? Who am I? Right. Some of the other episodes that touch on consciousness is the hang the DJ episode, where it's pretty much about a dating app, but this dating app and I really want to rewatch this episode and watch some other video breakdowns of it. But what it looks like this dating app does is it transfers your consciousness into this app to find you the perfect match. It runs you through a bunch of simulations with other people and they have a 99.8% success rate, but it engages and figures out how you would react to different people and in different situations, falling in love, heartbreak and things like that. The next episode that does this quite a bit is the season finale, which is Black Museum. Black Museum is an episode that kind of has like three mini episodes in one. And two of them are about transferring consciousness. First, you have the one of Jack and Kerry, where Kerry gets hit by a bus. She's in a coma. If you haven't watched my other video on this episode, click in the info card above. But anyways, she's in a coma and they transfer her consciousness into Jack, right? That is her baby daddy. And basically it's kind of like a get out where she's inside of Jack's head. She can talk to him. She can feel and experience everything that he does. And Jack can actually hear what she's saying. In the third part of Black Museum, they bring back consciousness to talk about this guy who was convicted of murder, murder, maybe wrongfully. We don't know. But anyways, they convicted of murder, but he decides to leave his family a bunch of money by having his consciousness taken out of his brain when he dies. And what we end up finding out is that this consciousness is then put into a simulation where people get to come to Black Museum and basically make this guy relive over and over and over his electrocution and some sick and twisted stuff. But what's interesting about this is just the whole idea of self. So if any of you are familiar with Buddhist philosophy, you've probably heard of non self. And this is something that's just always fascinated me. I'm currently reading a book, which I will put in the description below. It's called Waking Up by Sam Harris. And basically it's a book about the difference between spirituality and religion, how to be spiritual without being religious, which is what I am in this book, you know, and in other books that I've read about this idea of self and non self is just always fascinating to me. And anytime somebody really articulates it well, my mind literally just blows up, right? Because this idea of self and who we are, this ownership that we have, we have this kind of false idea that we are some kind of CEO of our own mind and our body and all these things. But a question I'll ask you right now is where do thoughts come from? Because if we're in control, if we're the CEO, if we're the king or queen of our own mind, how come so many thoughts come through our head that we didn't conjure up, right? When I'm sitting there at work and I get distracted by something, or when I'm sitting there having a conversation with somebody and I can't stop thinking about what I have to do later, where are these thoughts coming from? Who am I? And where does the I begin and end, right? Like this is my skin, these are my organs, right? But am I in control of them? My organs, you know, for example, my digestive system, it's doing its thing automatically based on system set up in my body, right? Now, one of the best parts of waking up that I've read so far is when it talks about this thought experiment from a British philosopher named Derek Parfit, right? And what Derek Parfit talks about is this idea, this thought experiment of you can, you can teleport to Mars, okay? You hit this little button, you teleport to Mars, your friends have told you about it, they're on Mars and they're like, yeah, man, it works. You teleport straight there. So you're like, okay, cool, I'll do that. So you teleport to Mars. Every part about you teleport to Mars, your thoughts, your experiences, your, your memories, all these things, your wants, your desires, everything. But there's one little catch. The earth you the one that hit that button you find out after you hit that button that they actually kill you there on earth. Kind of crazy, right? So some of you would sit there and kind of second guess this and say, would I really want to do this teleportation? And that brings up an interesting question. Who are you? Are you the one on earth or this other duplicate of you that's been created on Mars? Is that the you because of psychological continuity? It has all your thoughts, memories, experiences, desires, fears, all those things. Which one is you? Are they both you? So when thinking about it in this context, let's talk about the episode USS Callister real quick, one of the ways that the main character kind of keeps these people hostage is not only through torturing them, but his business partner out on the outside world, Walton, he threatens him by bringing his son's consciousness into the game. And what he does is when he threatens him, basically he's like, you're going to play along with me or I'm going to kill your son over and over and over again. And what he does is he makes the guy watch as he hits the airlock and his son flies out into space and he dies a terrible death. Right? So one of the reasons that Walton keeps playing along is because he doesn't want his son to have to go through that experience again. But this brings up that question. Who is his son? Right? I'm very interested. One of the, one of the things that I would love to see is like, how would a, how would somebody who follows Buddhist philosophy react in that situation? Right? Because somebody who understands that the self is something that's constantly changing and nothing, you know, very tangible, that is not actually his son. It's basically a simulation. Right? One of the things that Derek Parfit talks about with this psychological continuity of, you know, that is our idea of self is that we're not the same as we were even five minutes ago. We're constantly changing this idea of self, this, this static thing that always stays the same. It's not, we're constantly changed by our thoughts, but mainly our experiences. Right? You've heard that saying, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Right? When you persevere, when you get through something difficult, you are different than you were before that experience happened. So the self is something that is constantly changing. Now let's talk a little bit about the other episode, Black Museum. Right? So one of the things that happens in the third story of Black Museum is that the prisoners consciousness is transferred into this simulation where he keeps getting electrocuted over and over and over again and he's suffering. And even the people who come through there and pull that switch, they get to keep a little keepsake and watch this guy suffer over and over again. Now, in all of these, in all of these talking about consciousness, what's interesting is, and when you dive into this thing about who are we and what is this idea of self, there to this day, science cannot find where the self actually is in the brain. And I'm not going to go into that because I love black mirror and just the sci-fi ideas of it, but the brain is a series of systems and neurons and all these other things working together and constantly changing. For example, we have trillions of neurons in our brain, and they're constantly growing, changing, creating new ones based on our personal experiences. Then there are different parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus. That is the part of the brain that stores our memories, right? Now let's think about the idea of pain, what the guy in black museum was going through. How can one experience pain if they have no nerves, right? Because the nerves are what send signals to your brain, the amygdala to trigger the fight, flight or freeze mechanism, right? So that's something interesting to think about, too. And one of the, one of the interesting topics that they brought up in this was in the second part of black museum, when Carrie gets transferred first to Jack and then to this stuffed animal. And they talk about how the ACLU cracked down and said you can't quote unquote kill Carrie because unless they have ability to have five or more emotions, it's not right to kill this person. And when Carrie is transferred into this stuffed animal, she only has two emotions. And this is something that's just interesting and not much about mental health or anything, but something that I took away from this is, you know, just thinking about it like what rights would a consciousness have, right? Because Carrie technically died, her physical body died when she was transferred over to Jack. So that brings up the other topic of what is consciousness? What is the idea of self? Is it the psychological continuity or is it the physical continuity of a person, right? And that's where a lot of debates, you know, moral debates come up about, you know, somebody being a vegetable or on life support and, you know, a family pulling the plug. Like what is a person? Is it their physical being, being alive, operating on its own or even with the assistance of machines or is it a certain amount of brain activity, right? But anyways, anyways, I know this, this video is a little bit deeper than some of the other ones I go to, but I'm always really excited when I get to talk about the Buddhist philosophy of non-self and something that I will touch on real quick just because at the rewired soul, we're here to talk about mental health is when you start detaching yourself from this idea of self, which is interesting because we talk about you, I, him, her, right? But anyways, is detaching yourself from these, these thoughts that we have, these troubling thoughts, those of you who struggle with depression, these are these my thoughts, these thoughts tend to think themselves, right? If you have struggled with anxiety, these fears, sometimes irrational fears, right? Are these really mind if they're coming out of nowhere? And what meditation helps us do? And what understanding the idea of non-self does? It helps me sit back and watch. I get to watch it like I'm watching a movie rather than being the person inside the movie. And that is why meditation is such a valuable tool for anybody, anybody who struggles with mental illness. But anyways, like I said, in the description down below, I'm going to link you to the book by Sam Harris called Waking Up, great book if you want to check it out. But you know what? I'm feeling a little bit great. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to link some of my other favorite books, just about Buddhist philosophy and the idea of non-self. So if this is the kind of stuff that interests you, if you're like really into philosophy and stuff like that, check out some of the books, they'll be in the description. I will also link you over to the rewired soul page where I have a whole list of my recommended readings. So if you're a reader like I am and you want to check them out, go on, click one of those links, check some of those out. But anyways, have you watched season four of Black Mirror yet? What are your thoughts on consciousness? I would love to know your thoughts. Leave a comment down below. All right. But anyways, if you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. And if you're new here, I'm always making videos to help you out with your mental health. So click the little round subscribe button and be sure to click or tap right there on that thumbnail to check out the full playlist of Black Mirror season four, or click or tap on the one below to check out some of the other videos on this channel. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.