24 Mar 2007, 11:34 pm
Okay, if you haven't seen Red Dwarf, Rimmer is a hologram of a man who died that has his memories, personality, and form, only he can't touch anything, or experience real sensations. So he walks around and talks with the other characters like he's alive, and there's one point where he gets the opportunity to go back into the past and save his physical form (which he screws up). It sounds really simple, but it makes me think. If he had succeeded, the hologrammatic Rimmer would have ceased to exist, thus the Rimmer who chose to save the other Rimmer would be effectively killing off his existential self so that his conceptual self would be able to fufill his potential.
How many people, realistically, would do that? What aspect of ourselves is important to us? When I apply for a job, or go to school, or try to make friends, or do anything to make my life better, is it because I have to be me, or is it because I think I deserve good things? If I fail to make friends, I can either take it as read that I'm not good enough for them (which would be a natural assumption), or think that I deserve and have the capacity to have friends and keep trying. If I go the first route I'll inevitably end up committing suicide, because I'm miserable. (This is hypothetical, by the way).
So the conceptual, non Aspergers me, is he the same me that I am? (Is dead Rimmer hologrammatic Rimmer?) Should I wish well for him? Or is he as me as anyone else on the planet? Would he make fun of me if I were to meet him? Asperger's can be a MacGuffin if you want.
