So, what of the Severed?

With the end of the second season of Apple TV's masterpiece, "Severance," there has been great debate within the community regarding the central plot device of the show, which fully exposes the philosophical underlying question of the show. And, depending on your answer, the connotations of the actions taken by our protagonists wildly change character.

The following discussion will be entirely spoiler-free and will not involve any characters or plot points, as the show ought to truly be experienced as blind as possible. We will merely examine the psychologically complex situation proposed by the show — mainly, what of the Severed?

Severance is a dystopian mystery thriller which follows a select group of people who have undergone a medical procedure to manipulate their memories. A brain implant divides the person's stream of consciousness into two: an 'outie,' who retains all memories except for those made by their counterpart, and an 'innie' who has no recollection of the outie's experiences. Therefore, the person becomes Severed: two independent streams of consciousness and sets of memories share a single physical body, swapping control routinely.

Both innie and outie thus have gaps in their consciousness as one takes over the other and generates their own experiences and memories with the body. Importantly, the innie is a clean slate: a fully functional adult with no identity or past: they maintain general knowledge but not their individual name, family or experiences. They are "born" from the procedure, whereas the outie continues their life, albeit unaware of the innie's experiences in their shared body. And so, the two continue to persist, so long as they keep swapping control.

Immediately, the fascinating scenario triggers a barrage of interpretations. I encourage you to consider them thoroughly with time, for this brief column could never make the full circumstances justice, but let us focus on arguably the most important. That is, the fundamental question throughout the show is that of identity: who, precisely, is the innie? Are they the same person as the outie? Or, perhaps, are they a "true" version of the Severed person, having been released of their memories who shaped them? Better yet, are they even a person? They certainly feel that way, yet the show's world is unsure—who gets to decide?

To begin to decipher the powerful question of personal identity, we can consider our own intuitive case. How do you know you're you, as opposed to someone else? Sure, you have your own body, but you are not literally your body: if I slice your finger off, you would not say I took a part of your identity. If I transfer an organ into your body, you wouldn't say you’ve become a hybrid two-person entity or consumed someone else's identity. Or so we think, except for a very special organ of ours: the brain.

While brain transplants remain a matter of science fiction for now, many of us have the strong intuition that if our brain was transferred into another body, so would our identity. Same person, different body. Naturally, this is the case because our brain is the physical center of our cognition and what allows us to experience a stream of consciousness. Nevertheless, we would not say we are literally our brain, no one neuron maps one-to-one with a part of your identity. An identity is not something physical, after all. Whether it manifests directly through the brain or not, the identity remains a subjective, psychological matter. You know you are you because you experience your being you. You know you are not someone else because you cannot experience their being them. Note that by "experience" I do not refer to memory, feelings or qualia, but a much more intrinsic subjective undergoing. And this answers the first component of our question: the innie, by definition, does not have any psychological continuity or experience of the outie's life. All the innie has ever known is their being them. Therefore, they must be different from the outie. 

However, from this it does not immediately follow that the innie is a person. A rock possesses a different experience than I, but it is not a person. But we can then ask, if the innie were not a person, what would they be? We have comprehensive evidence that the innie possesses a body, a stream of consciousness and an innate psychological experience, for we know that their experience parallels the outie's. For most, the outie is indisputably the same person as who they were before Severance, for there is an evident psychological continuity.

Given that the experiences of the outie and innie are equivalent, if we were to say the innie is not a person, the outie would necessarily not be a person either. Other than the particular memories created, the outie and innie have the same medium with which to experience the world—they both have fully independent emotions, memories, hopes and dreams. If we argued these were not sufficient elements to qualify for personhood, then what is left? None of us would be persons at all then, would we? 

Thus, the innie and outie are both fully independent persons who possess their own identity, and are deserving of the same rights as any other human. Or in other words, such is the argument I postulate given our current evidence. What characterizes the masterful philosophically challenging media is their refusal to provide a full answer. Even if we take all that has been stated for granted, the show throws one final twist into this dilemma of personhood: reintegration. Reintegration is the opposite procedure of Severance, merging both streams of consciousness and memories back into a single person.

What, precisely, happens then? What would happen if you tried to merge your consciousness with someone else? Would you still be you? Would you be them, or perhaps someone else entirely? What happens to you? Do you die? Do you persevere in a different mode of existence? Or does nothing at all change your identity? Does having similar dispositions affect this procedure? 

Will we ever know? That which distinguishes us, that which severs us from all others, what if that went away? What happens then?