Anyone else see the parallels to the film "The Prestige"? [SPOILERS]

[PathOS]

Of course I'm talking about the whole idea of "cloning" or "copy-pasting" "consciousness/the soul". Note: This is in no way me saying that the game copied the film or that the film was even original in this regard. It's just the first similar media that came to mind for me.

Spoilers for both the film and the game below:



In The Prestige, we have the character of Angiers (played well by Hugh Jackman) who seeks out the scientific genius of Nikola Tesla (brilliant casting of David Bowie) to create a Machine that can Teleport a Man across distances for a magic trick. What no one realizes until after it's been built is that the machine doesn't really teleport, it creates a copy/clone of the object which appears a distance away (hats, cats and people).

When Angiers first tests the Machine, he loads a gun and places it next to him before starting the machine, once it's finished and the Clone appears (or what he believes to be the clone), he kills him, despite the clone beginning to protest that he was the original. Angiers then proceeds to perform "The Teleporting Man" trick 100 times, each time the Machine creates a clone a distance away, while the original (or is it?) get dumped into a water tank to drown.

The film of course doesn't go into greater depth than this of this theme, other than Angiers admitting that he felt it was similar to the "Coin Toss" theory that Catherine in SOMA spells out, where he didn't know if he was going to be "The Man in the Box" (Dead) or The Prestige (Alive).

In SOMA of course we have something similar, while not clones of bodies, it is cloning of consciousness. We saw it first in the Vivarium Teaser which was explained in game that the WAU copied Imogen Reed's consciousness into the machine which Reed then shutdown (Killed?). And of course it's the basis of The ARK project, and also Mark Sarang's "Continuity" movement in terms of ensuring that only one "consciousness" can remain alive and true. And then we see it plainly in the fates of Simon-2 and Simon-3.

In both cases though, there's the theme of "killing the original". Whether the machine in the Prestige either copied the original a distance away, or moved the original while leaving a copy, the original still died. And in SOMA, well, all the originals are dead anyway.

The real question is whether this truly is a "Coin Toss" or not. Would a copy/paste of your consciousness put you in a different body? It seemed that the transition from Simon 2 - 3 was continuous from our points of view, where as 3-4 was not. And after all, any copy/clone would have the exact same memories/experiences so in their minds they'd be the original no matter what.

[Kein]

Also the Swapper. Also any other media regarding this topic. Yes, it is not new.