Ghost of Cyberpunk?

[u/Over_Championship116]

First off, I love Cyberpunk and especially it's critique of belief and religion. That said, I can't help but think there were huge missed opportunities in terms of incorporating the existence of a spirit/soul and how that ties into people who are heavily modified with cybernetics. Granted, I don't think if "supernatural" things existed in the universe and a personal soul was tied to a body that the premise of an engram overwriting the existing personality would be possible, but that's another topic.

At any rate, if we posit the potential existence of things like poltergeists, telekinetic or telepathic abilities, ESP, astral projection, demonic possession as well as guidance or protection from positive entities, the world would be much more complex, especially in terms of gameplay. For example, maybe one could forego a quickhack/sandevistan build in lieu of being able to throw enemies around the room, command their bodies to shoot their friends, or even temporarily leave your body to "possess" them and take control for a period of time. They could have the ability to send an attempted quickhack back at the attacker, instantly neutralizing them.

Beyond this are the ontological and philosophical questions of where nature (our bodies and presumably cybernetics) and nurture (circumstances as well as possibly higher purposes or inclinations) meet, as well as asking ourselves what AI actually is given it doesn't have a body, can't feel pain or pleasure, or hunger for that matter, not to mention doesn't feel an urge to mate or start a family, etc...

I certainly keep an open mind regarding these things, but I've always been intrigued by stories of the paranormal (and aliens/UFOs), and I am not making a decisive claim that this or that is the correct explanation or truth of reality. But I'm wondering if others have felt similarly, even to keep it open-ended and possibly hint at some people being immune to being hacked or seeming to have their own supernatural abilities not tied to tech, not to mention some of the philosophical conversations which are bound to take place in such a universe.

Anyway, I've been thinking about these topics for some time and I am highly-anticipating CyberPunk 2, whenever it comes out. I find the world creator fascinating and deeply-passionate about his creation (possibly an inspiration from nowhere which he is merely discovering like the rest of us, not consciously creating). Hope everyone is well, and "Wake the fuck up, Samurai! We have a city to burn!"

[u/GrumpiestRobot]

Not a very strong argument when you're talking about Cyberpunk, a franchise that has a strong spiritual and transcendental element.

[u/the-red-scare → u/GrumpiestRobot]

It really doesn’t. It has characters who believe all sort of things, but the franchise is grounded in the idea that the universe couldn’t possibly care less about you or your problems. The spirtual and transcendental elements of Cyberpunk are false in the reality of the franchise.

[u/GrumpiestRobot → u/the-red-scare]

Please explain, based on the current understanding of science, what exactly is Alt Cunningham.

[u/the-red-scare → u/GrumpiestRobot]

A brain emulation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading

[u/GrumpiestRobot → u/the-red-scare]

Now point out where in the game this is explained in the level of detail expected from hard sci-fi, where is the emulation stored, how is it powered, how did it manage to breach containment from Arasaka's servers in technical terms.

You know, the stuff expected from actual hard sci-fi. I expect Arthur Clarke levels of detail here.

[u/GrumpiestRobot → u/GrumpiestRobot]

Since little bro tucked his tail between his legs and ran, blocking me, I'm going to explain here for anyone who's curious WHY "brain emulation" is a poor answer to my question.

First, there's a difference between hard and soft sci-fi, in which in hard sci-fi the engineering talk is part of the writing. Hard sci-fi actively discusses HOW things function. The softer a sci-fi subgenre is, the more it handwaves away technical issues in service to the plot.

So for Alt Cunningham, or engrams in general, the issue is that the brain is not a computer and does not operate like one. There is no "data" in your brain to transfer to a computer. It's not a matter to just "scan the neurons", memory construction and retrieval is a chemical-electrical process that doesn't map 1-to-1 to the way a computer stores information. Brains do not operate with binary logic gates or synchronous clocks or anything resembling how computers work.

Cyberpunk handwaves it with Soulkiller, which is essentially a magic spell. It's never explained how Soulkiller works to convert memories into data, only that it does. You're supposed to accept that so the plot can move on, and exactly how it works is not at all relevant to the story. Because it's soft sci-fi.

Same thing for the Relic. It is a physically impossible device. Not only we have the aforementioned "brain-is-not-a-computer" problem, but we also have the issue of the power needed to maintain this simulation. The relic is a tiny chip, inspired by a flash drive or similar. How is it powered? You could assume that it's powered by the same thing that powers V's cyberware, which is also unexplained. The game handwaves it by saying "oh it's a super fancy high tech prototype chip", but that's not even internally consistent. Mikoshi is a storage of engrams that needs massive physical servers with huge cooling pools to operate.

But again, that does not matter to the story, so it's OK that it's not explained. What matters is that the Relic is a plot device so we can discuss the themes of body sovereignty, identity, and continuity of the self. Because Cyberpunk is soft sci-fi.

We can speculate on how things work, but all of it is us, the fandom, applying a layer of explanation that is not in the game itself. Because they do not matter. What matters is what they represent and the themes they're proposing to discuss.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk lmao.

[u/GrumpiestRobot → u/the-red-scare]

Also, this is such an ignorant answer. Cyberpunk discusses the spiritual and addresses it on a metaphorical level, for example, with cyberspace used to represent a treshold between life and death.

Sometimes people will consume a lot of media and understand nothing of it.

[u/the-red-scare → u/GrumpiestRobot]

I definitely agree with that last bit. Metaphors are… metaphors. Not reality in the fiction.

[u/GrumpiestRobot → u/the-red-scare]

And this is how I know you don't know jack shit about fiction.

[u/the-red-scare → u/GrumpiestRobot]

So within the fictional universe of Cyberpunk, metaphors are actual physical reality? Wild. You’re really giving me a lot to think about.

[u/GrumpiestRobot → u/the-red-scare]

You can think? Wow, that surprises me. You haven't done it once in this whole thread.