An interesting question to ponder…
Happy Friday everyone! I thought I’d dispense with the Friday Silliness for this week, as even though I’ve had a couple of days off, I’m super busy today and can’t find anything good to post 
(I’m sure there’s a ton out there, though, so if you find something super funny, do share it in the comments!)
The question:
I recently saw “The Cutter” “The Final Cut” — A Robin Williams movie about a chip that can be implanted at birth to record a life through the chip-bearer’s eyes. I was wondering, if you knew that you had a chip like that, whereby people could view your life after you were dead from your perspective, would you live your life differently in any way? Marley & Me dvd
I’d love to hear what you think!
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I might not look at my naked self in the mirror so much.
Then again, I might do it more often.
Ah, that Robin Williams’ film, it’s called “Final Cut” (I have a copy of this DVD in my collection). Good film.
Gah! I think I’d never have sex, never dance like nobody’s watching, never EVER sing along to the radio in my car…
What a boring life that would have me lead. Methinks I’m too inhibited. Still though, I’m pretty sure if someone was going to watch my life later, I still woudln’t do those things…
Meh. I’m dead. What do I care?
I probably wouldn’t think about the chip until AFTER I’d done something I didn’t want anybody to see.
To tell you the truth, the only way I’d probably live differently is to do MORE stupid things- as kind of a gag for the people who would be watching. LOL
hm, maybe a movie i should see. i’m not much of a moviegoer.
it’s one of those schroedinger’s cat questions, isn’t it. does the observation of an event change the event? maybe. does it change the event when there is KNOWLEDGE about the observation? most definitely. the question is how?
i guess it would be an expanded facebook situation
i certainly don’t think i’ve changed my life much because i’m on twitter and facebook!
and when i’m dead – well, of course, i won’t care. but my family maybe? i often wonder what i should do with my very private documents, like my journals: should i make them available after i’m dead or should i destroy them at some point? is it the same question as the one you’re posing? (have i used up my quota of question marks yet?)
you know what, i don’t think i’d live my life much differently. there might be a few situations where i’d feel a bit more embarrassed at the thought that at some point somebody will see it, and then i’d probably just shrug my shoulders and go, oh well
The movie sounds cool. I’ve added the movie to my list on zip.ca (Canada’s parallel to America’s NetFlix).
Very interesting question. As Isabella says, it has parallels to our current online data/evidence trail. But that is (still?) almost entirely voluntary and self-reported and thus a pretty picture of who we are.
The clearest parallel I see is to our offline lives where we all leave an involuntary evidence trail behind.
Usually, after a person dies, somebody else clears out their place. They find the secrets. The stashes of X, the suspicious absence of Y, the receipts for Z. Having a full video log to go through is really just an extension of that scenario, and I think it all comes down to a question that has always been relevant. If you knew somehow that you were going to die within the next week (sickness, suicide, hopeless military mission, whatever) would you purge anything from your apartment, from your computer, from your online accounts?
I suspect many people think like Jen (“Meh. I’m dead. What do I care?”) initially. But so many other things we do are for posterity, for how others see us, etc. If things got serious would you think more about how the apartment-emptiers and your surviving relatives and friends will see you?
Jan’s comments were interesting. When my grandma (my dad’s mum) passed away they found a box of poetry that she had been clipping from newspapers and magazines over the years and my father was surprised as he didn’t know she was interested in poetry.