Has anyone seen the Ben Affleck movie Paycheck? It’s been many years, so I can’t remember the exact details, but the gist of the plot is that his character is contracted to carry out certain jobs, and then he is injected (I think) with something to wipe his memory.
So he basically walks into an office, accepts the job, then ‘wakes up’ a week later or so, collects the money and he only perceives seconds have passed.
Easy money right?
Here is my hypothetical scenario.
Someone offers the exact same process, except for the following 7 days, you are to receive unimaginable pain or forced to do something psychologically harrowing. But you’ll receive a large cash sum, lets say 50k for doing so upon completion of the 7 days.
You’ll have absolutely no memory of the week, and no physical or mental scars.
Now, this is hugely philosophical - you experienced these 7 days AND have no memory of it. So while both are true - which experience (or lack of) is the most crucial to you in terms of accepting the task?
You’ll sign the contract… then you’ll be transported to wherever you’re going, and subjected to the worst week of your life… at the end of it, you’ll receive an injection, and suddenly wake up sat in the same office you originally signed the contract (but 7 days in the future). You smile, take the cash, and walk out the door.
Is it worth it? Knowing that regardless of whether you’ll come to have no memory of these 7 days - you still have to go through the experience?
I’d like to hear peoples thoughts on what they would choose and why…
No lasting harm? No scars, no serious muscular injury (i.e., as if I’d been forced to shovel coal for a week: I’d come back with a hell of a backache!) And no blackmail video of me fellating the cormorant? Guaranteed, “It didn’t happen?”
Also…I’d have to negotiate, in the contract, that I don’t do anything illegal, nor severely immoral. No contract killing, no dumping of pollutants in the bay.
Given all that…Heck yeah! It didn’t happen!
Sure, I’ll always wonder, and that curiosity will always taint the money a little. But then I count the money and smile, smile, smile!
ETA: psychologically, I’m already stuck in the position of thinking about it only from the “after” point of view. I don’t even recognize the “during” point of view as having any meaning at all.
Actually during that horrid week, swimming with spiders, eating dog poop, being thrown out of airplanes, getting water-boarded…I’ll just do all I can to remember: this will pass, and leave no memory. Therefore “it isn’t happening.”
I don’t think that you can completely erase the psychological side effects/memories. I think there would be some mental consequences somewhere down the line, and this makes me say I would probably say that don’t think I would do it.
I would have to consult with friends first, but my gut reaction is that I would decline.
Aren’t there some anaesthetics that work this way - the patient still feels the scalpel blade, etc, but just doesn’t remember it afterwards.
I think I would decline the offer. Even though I agree with Trinopus that we only have the ‘after’ point of view of anything, I generally think that suffering is to be minimised.
If it was acceptable to cause pain, then erase it, we wouldn’t be so concerned about humane slaughtering of animals.
I would think not remembering what I did to get the money would be worse. You want to subject me to something horrible in exchange for money, well then let’s dance. I’ll know something more about you, and I’ll have a better idea of what I can actually endure–that’s a reward with considerable value as I see it.
I’ve experienced my share of unpleasantness. While I’d rather none of it had happened, it’s given me perspective. To be made to forget it would be tantamount to theft.
For this to get interesting I’d have to decide if I wanted to be effectively unconscious for whatever it is.
This may be an odd thought, but I think I might approach it as if the pain was happening to somebody else; because removing those memories is similar to cutting off that timeline. So, would I take 50 thou to allow somebody else to be tortured? Heck no!
I’d probably react very differently if I didn’t have the choice of the erasure until after I’d lived through and gotten the memories. Hmm… definitely a thought-provoking question!
Do I actually have to DO something, or just experience the pain? I don’t know that I could perform in such an environment. So at minimum I’d want a guarantee that if I fail to perform whatever duties under duress that I’m supposed to, that I still get fully paid.
Also, do I know during this week that last week I agreed to all this, and that next week it will all be erased? That would also make a difference.
Twilight drugs work this way. I have vivid memories of being in an adjacent bed of the emergency room behind a curtain while the patient next to me was having his shoulder put back in place after dislocating it while playing basketball. Apparently, he was quite muscular, and it ultimately took several people pulling on him in different directions to get it back in place, and he screamed the entire time. It was agonizing to listen to. Then, there was silence, and a few minutes later, he was “awake,” and a buddy who was there with him was teasing him about what a baby he’d been during the process. He laughed right along with his friend.
I think I’d have to pass on the OP’s opportunity. I’d rather not live through it, even if I don’t remember it.
It’s a little strange, perhaps, that we take such care to give comfort to the dying. Why? In ten minutes, they won’t even exist any more… It’s strange, in the same way, that executions (in the U.S.) are conducted as humanely as possible. We don’t just jab a knife into the condemned, but, really, what’s the difference?
I think the answer might be our unconscious inability to believe in the absolute finality of death. We’re stuck with the illusion that something continues “after.” We propitiate the spirit of the meat-animal, not all that differently from paleolithic hunters.
I don’t know. I think some of it is simple empathy. We prefer to hear that someone was killed instantly than that they spent minutes or hours in agonised terror before they died - and I think it’s largely because we can imagine ourselves in the situation.
For that precise reason, I am refusing the deal offered here. I can imagine myself in the situation I would be made to forget and therefore, I prefer it not.
Whatever the deed is, whether it’s to me or by me, it’s so horrible no one should remember it, like a form of amnesia that blocks out the horror. It would be tough to choose whether the person who’d pay the money ($50,000? Pffft) or me, if I accept the deal is crazier.
Guarantees are worth nothing after the ship lifts.
Most replies are referring to physical pain, but what if during this week you just have to do something you would absolutely dread.
Like someone hugely afraid of heights being made to spend a week skydiving, abseiling, bungee jumping etc.
I think this dilemma is akin to when you turn to a friend and moan about having to do the 12 hour night shift from hell - and the friend is telling you to man up and think of the money.
These thoughts don’t help you one little bit when you’re on hour 6 and you can’t believe how slow the clock is ticking, but there is always the feeling of satisfaction afterwards, when you crawl into bed and you’re glad you went through with it and didn’t call in sick.
It’s done - you earned your overtime pay… and next time, you can tell your boss where to stick it.