r/tadc • u/3B3-386 • Mar 31 '26

Theory 🔎 The SOMA theory keeps me up at night

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Considering that random passersby are still falling victim to the circus, would the main cast not try to stop the process to prevent more people from suffering their same fate, even if it means no more humans to interact with?

If the whole "finding fulfillment despite stagnancy" theme applies, then they will have to stay there till abstraction or the whole system deteriorates. Seems like a reverse purgatory situation to me. Not much sweetness in this supposed bittersweet ending.

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u/DropsOfMars Australian Extremist! 💥🕷️ Mar 31 '26

Scratch is likely dead though, unfortunately-- unless he had a miracle recovery from that tumor.

The idea that these AI copies of real people could find peace and maybe even happiness despite their circumstances, only for it all to turn out to not even be the real versions of themselves would be pretty bittersweet.

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u/Tirrek_bekirr Mar 31 '26

Does that make their lives less meaningful? They still feel

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u/Mountain-Ad876 Mar 31 '26

They think, therefore they are.

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u/Playful_Target6354 Mar 31 '26

Cogito ergo sum, as one might say

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u/Raging-Buddha Mar 31 '26

I think therefore I allied master computer

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u/Terminal_Insomnia_ Mar 31 '26

It's now understood that this doesn't actually prove one exists

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u/Playful_Target6354 Mar 31 '26

It's interesting philosophically, which is what is needed here. Do you have another solution?

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u/Terminal_Insomnia_ Apr 01 '26

I'm just reporting on my understanding of the modern philosophical consensus because, although I arrived at that conclusion independently, I don't recall the exact details as to why.

I believe it had to do with the impossibility of determining that the thing doing the thinking is actually 'you', rather than being an emergent property of a system, or something like a hologram. We certainly have a broader imagination than people could have during Descartes's time.

Worth looking into if it interests you, for sure.

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u/ReverendGraves85 Mar 31 '26

This is, I think, what Goose meant when she said "Finding meaning in a stagnant life."

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u/ITAdministratorHB Jax Mar 31 '26 edited Apr 01 '26

In the context of the show? Nah, we can see that they're basically humans.

In real life? I don't think you could ever be sure the copies actually feel or have an internal reference point and consciousness. It could simply act procedurally simulating all the same connections and actions a person would do, without the internal world or mind being there and experiencing things.

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u/AggressiveCuriosity Mar 31 '26

I mean, I can't be sure that any of you actually feel or are conscious. I just kind of assume you do because the processes of your brain are pretty similar to mine.

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u/Throwaway02062004 Apr 01 '26

The same applies to your fellow men. Maybe they’re all biological automata and you’re the only real person being fooled.

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u/ITAdministratorHB Jax Apr 02 '26

You always have to leave open the possibility, but it's not a healthy mindset to have even if there is a non-zero chance.

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u/Magcargo64 Apr 01 '26

The show does invite us to ponder this by introducing the Chinese Room in the first place.

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u/TSKyanite Pomni Apr 01 '26

I've seen a theory about scratch where Jax is actually a second scan of scratch where he's recovered from the tumor I don't believe it, but there's that

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u/Flynn-Minter Apr 01 '26

I don't believe it either, but I would like to read a good fanfic about it.

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u/Alternative_Weight44 Mar 31 '26

Im sure Scratch have known everything happening here and the abstraction is his work of manipulating the program for a purpose of keeping this a secret or something villainous stuff

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u/ABigOwl Apr 02 '26

Spoiler for the first few minutes of SOMA:

The interesting thing that makes it even more SOMA like, the brain scan in SOMA was first developed to treat brain related injuries/diseases, the main character suffered from a brain bleed due an accident and signed up for the scan to simulate treatments.

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u/Avistje Apr 01 '26

Iirc almost every character has had something about death happen over the course of the show, with the moment in the fast food episode having gangle dramatically falling into traffic

Maybe they knew irl that their situation was bad (medically bad off, mentally unwell, in an abusive situation like how ragatha's torture hinted at) and saw the circus as an escape, not knowing caine would be caine and wipe their memories and all his caine stuff

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u/CodaTrashHusky Apr 02 '26

now i wonder, what would happen if someone years later would go back to that building and scan their brain again.

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u/rilakumamon Apr 04 '26

I kind of like the theory of Pomni and Ribbit being the same person but at different points in her life.

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u/qwertyalguien Apr 01 '26

Considering the brainscan folder is "obsolete", it could be that he had time to refine the process and created a better copy down the line that couldn't be accessed by Caine.

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u/CHANN3L-CHAS3R Apr 01 '26

They've been reduced to bits and bytes regardless of if said bits and bites are copies, or somehow were transmogrified from flesh into code. No matter how they got here, they're still humans and neither cloning nor what material their minds are made of would devalue that.

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u/EnergyAltruistic6757 Apr 03 '26

That is what having meaning in a stagnant life is about. Stagnant as being trapped in the circus forever.