Spiritual Conversation
ANALYZING…
FILE TYPE: Text Conversation
PERIOD: Expedition, prior to arrival on Tau Ceti IV
TOPIC: Spiritual Concerns
SUMMARY: Two colonists discuss the spiritual implications of cryosleep. When it launched, the UESC Marathon’s journey represented the longest duration of cryosleep in human history and such anxieties were extremely prevalent.
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[DBRY]: Of course I’m concerned about soul integrity. Especially with what we know about cryocognitive degeneration.
SGAU: If you’re referring to the Santoso papers, they had methodological problems around simulated ganglion atrophy.
[DBRY]: A dog whistle that distracts from Santoso’s point. If we’re frozen and reawoken too many times, we start losing ourselves.
[DBRY]: Imagine if the wheel of reincarnation tore pieces from you each time it turned. Pieces that could never be recovered, lost to the void.
SGAU: Hang on, I’m going back into cryo next year. Let’s pretend I forget all about arguing with you. Even without that memory, I’d still be me.
[DBRY]: How would you know the difference between what actually happened and your memory?
SGAU: As soon as we had another conversation. You’d be as insufferable as always, and you’d remind me to prove your point.
[DBRY]: I’m in the same wake cycles as you. What if I forgot about you?
[DBRY]: And we have relatively few wake cycles. Imagine what it’s like with more.
[DBRY]: You don’t know what’s changed every time you reopen your eyes. How much. Where. And neither does anyone else in your cohort because they might’ve changed too.
SGAU: There’s always the BoBs. Or the AI.
[DBRY]: You’re really going to trust the continuity of your soul to a machine?
SGAU: I don’t even believe in souls.
[DBRY]: Do you believe in yourself? Your sense of continuous existence?
SGAU: Hell, I want to. I think so. I’m still me when I’m in that pod.
[DBRY]: It’s not sleep. You dream when you’re asleep. In a cryopod, you’re closer to death than sleep.
SGAU: Sure, but I come back from the cryopod. Like reincarnation.
[DBRY]: You don’t want to face the implications, do you? Of losing ourselves piece by piece and never knowing what’s missing.
SGAU: Hell no, not when you put it like that. Makes me never want to sleep again.
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TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [ ]
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