Both The Exorcist and the Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back” share a common theme in questioning the meaning and nature of the “self”. What does it mean to be a person? What defines that person? Their memories? The memories others have of them? Both? Their physical self?
I would argue it’s not the physical self, meaning the person incarnate, and I believe many would agree. Our physical selves are constantly changing, reforming, like the Ship of Theseus. So if not in the physical plane, where does the “self” exist? It’s fascinating to think that such a crucial part of being human exists entirely outside of any measurable and quantifiable plane. As many questions as science has answered, and will answer in the future, it is entirely realistic to consider that maybe the “self”, the “consciousness”, the “ghost in the machine” will forever remain outside the reaches of any scientific method, and as such, outside the reaches of “solid evidence”. Maybe that makes sense. There is no solid evidence for something that doesn’t exist in any state, for something that hovers outside the reaches of all physicals laws. Are we looking for something that doesn’t exist? Can we just trust our instinct, our gut feeling that we do truly exist on another plane?
In Black Mirror we are shown an example of how a simulation of the “self” ultimately falls short of the true self. This is the very blatant point the show tries to make, but I like to point out something that I find much more interesting.
Let me begin by splitting the “self” in three categories. The “outer self”, the “inner self”, and the “deep self”. The outer self is a combination of everyone’s memories of us, how we exist in other “selves”. The “inner self” is our experience of ourselves and our life, which not only define us, but how we are going to live every next moment of our life. The “deep self” is the purely instinctual or the suppressed self which on extremely rare occasion surfaces.
In Black Mirror Ash has some of his outer self, very little of his inner self, and a substitute to his deep self in the form of generic behavioral patterns. Even if he had all of these fully transferred from Ash, he still wouldn’t be Ash. Not because he wouldn’t be convincing, but because his code can be traced back to its origin. This is the most defining factor of the “self” which goes beyond the aforementioned three categories and is the most important. The human “self” cannot be traced back, the code cannot be broken down and followed to its roots. Memories can change, as well as ideas, but the essence of consciousness is in its unique nature.
In The Exorcist we get another example of someone losing their “self” in the form of possession. I find this example a lot less intriguing as the girl has no recollection of her possession and as such only further emphasizes how the physical “self” doesn’t exist. While she was possessed, she was not herself, and when she returns, she reverts to her “self”.