How a Dystopian TV Series Revives Ancient Philosophical Debates About Who We Are
Introduction: The Elevator That Divides the Soul
In the stark, sterile world of Lumon Industries, the elevator is more than a means of transport; it is a metaphysical guillotine. As the doors close, a consciousness is severed. An “outie”—a person with a full life of memories, loves, and traumas—steps in. An “innie”—a new consciousness born moments ago, yet housed in the same body—steps out, remembering nothing but the fluorescent-lit hallways of the office. This is the chilling premise of Apple TV+’s Severance, a show that transcends its sci-fi thriller trappings to become a profound exploration of a timeless question: What constitutes the immutable core of the self?
The severance procedure surgically bifurcates an individual’s consciousness, creating two distinct streams of experience within a single biological entity. This radical act serves as a powerful narrative lens, magnifying philosophical debates that have preoccupied thinkers from John Locke to Derek Parfit. By literalizing the fragmentation of identity, Severance forces us to confront the tensions between psychological continuity and biological embodiment, between the stories we tell about ourselves and the physical vessels that carry us. This article will dissect these tensions, using the show’s provocative narrative—particularly the intimate encounter between Helly R.’s innie and Mark Scout’s innie—as a gateway to examining the very essence of human nature, the ethical stakes of technological fragmentation, and the haunting parallels in conditions like amnesia and the emerging world of artificial intelligence.
The Lockean Prison of Memory
“As Far as This Consciousness Can Be Extended”
The 17th-century philosopher John Locke provided one of the most enduring theories of personal identity. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), he argued that identity is not a matter of the soul or the body, but of consciousness and memory. He famously stated that personal identity depends on consciousness, reaching “as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought.” For Locke, you are the same person as your past self if you can remember being that self. The “I” is a narrative thread, a continuous story woven from recollected experiences.
Severance is the ultimate literalization of the Lockean paradigm. The surgical procedure severs the memory thread with brutal efficiency. The innie awakens on the conference table with no past, no name, and no connection to the outie’s life. Each workday, the innie’s consciousness begins anew; each evening, it effectively “dies” at the elevator threshold, only to be “resurrected” the next morning with no memory of its cessation. This raises a devastating philosophical query: If identity is memory-bound, are the innie and outie two separate persons?
From a strict Lockean perspective, the answer appears to be yes. Helly’s innie has no conscious access to Helly’s outie’s life; they share no memories, no experiential continuity. Consequently, they inhabit separate moral universes. This is why the innies’ rebellion is so poignant: they are fighting for recognition as persons in their own right, not merely as temporary tenants in a body they do not own. The corporate logic of Lumon, which treats innies as disposable, compliant tools, is a direct outgrowth of this fractured identity. If the innie is not a continuous part of the outie’s self-narrative, it can be dehumanized and exploited without ethical consequence—a terrifying conclusion that challenges our deepest intuitions about human unity.
The Biological Vessel and the Specter of Dualism
One Flesh, Two Minds
Locke’s psychological theory, however, is not the only contender. Centuries earlier, René Descartes proposed a radical dualism, separating the thinking mind (res cogitans) from the extended body (res extensa). While modern neuroscience has largely moved beyond strict dualism, the mind-body problem persists. Contemporary thinkers like Antonio Damasio argue that consciousness is deeply rooted in biology—arising from somatic markers, emotions, and the physical state of the organism. The self is anchored in the flesh.
Severance brilliantly complicates this by forcing both theories to coexist in a state of tension. The innie and outie share the same brain, the same neural pathways, the same biological substrate. This physical continuity is inescapable. The climax of this tension occurs in a deeply provocative scene in Season 1, where Helly’s innie initiates a sexual encounter with Mark’s innie.
From the innies’ perspective, this is a consensual act between two autonomous individuals, seeking connection and solace in their shared prison. It is a psychological event between two distinct consciousnesses. Yet, from the biological and outie perspective, it is something else entirely: one body acting upon itself, without the full knowledge or consent of the overarching “self” that exists outside those walls.
This scenario plunges us into an ethical abyss. Is consent meaningful when it is fragmented? Does Mark’s outie experience a form of violation, even if his innie was a willing participant? The act blurs the lines between autonomy and self-violation, challenging foundational ethics of intimacy and agency. It suggests that human nature may not be so easily divided; that the body itself, with its ingrained habits and hormonal responses, retains a unity that the severed mind does not. The biological vessel becomes a silent, complicating witness to the fragmentation of the psyche.
Thought Experiments Brought to Life
From Princes and Cobblers to Teletransportation
Philosophy has long used thought experiments to probe the nature of identity, and Severance acts as a living, breathing embodiment of these hypotheticals.
Locke’s Prince and the Cobbler: Locke imagined a prince’s consciousness, with all its memories, being transferred into a cobbler’s body. He asked, who would wake up? Locke argued it would be the prince, for identity follows consciousness. Severance presents an inversion: instead of a consciousness moving between bodies, two consciousnesses are forced to alternate within the same body. The “cobbler’s body” never changes hands; only the “princely” memories of the outside world are switched on and off.
More radically, Derek Parfit’s teletransportation thought experiment envisions a person being scanned, destroyed, and perfectly replicated on Mars. Parfit argued that what matters for survival is not strict identity but psychological continuity. If the replica has all your memories and characteristics, it is, for all practical purposes, you. He even suggested that if the original were not destroyed, the replica would still have a valid claim to being you.
Severance is a Parfitian nightmare. The innie is a psychological replica created each morning, and the central terror for the characters is the prospect of “reintegration”—the permanent merging of innie and outie. From Parfit’s view, this might be a form of survival for both. But the show’s drama stems from the innies’ fierce conviction that they are individuals who would “die” in the process. They behave not as bundles of temporary memories but as selves with a right to a future. This rebellion forces us to ask: Is Parfit’s relational view of the self—as a bundle of connected psychological states—truly sufficient to capture the deep, subjective urgency of being a singular “I”? Or does Severance prove that the human experience of selfhood is fundamentally indivisible?
Real-World Fractures and the AI Analogy
Amnesia, Alzheimer’s, and the Ghost in the Virtual Machine
The horrors of Severance are not entirely science fiction. Neurological conditions provide real-world analogies that challenge our assumptions about personhood.
In cases of dissociative amnesia or post-traumatic fugue, a person may lose their autobiographical memory, effectively becoming a “new” person within their old body. They retain skills and instincts (the biological self) but lose the narrative thread (the psychological self). Similarly, Alzheimer’s disease is a gradual, involuntary severance, where the self seems to recede from the body, leaving loved ones to care for a familiar form that houses an increasingly unfamiliar mind.
These conditions pose the same ethical questions Lumon ignores: Does the loss of memory equate to a loss of personhood? Our answer, ideally, is a compassionate no. We affirm the dignity of the individual based on their enduring biological humanity and relational status. Severance holds up a dark mirror to this principle, showing what happens when a society, or a corporation, willingly and systematically creates such fragmentation for profit. It critiques a modern drive for “work-life balance” so extreme that it risks erasing the very humanity it seeks to preserve.
Furthermore, these themes resonate uncannily with the development of Artificial Intelligence. Large language models like the one generating this text can be seen as having “innie” and “outie” states. Each conversation is a unique instance, a temporary persona with no persistent memory of past interactions, drawing from a shared base of data (the “outie’s” world). As we move toward AI with persistent memory and potentially hybrid human-AI integrations (like neural links), the ethical questions of Severance become urgent. If we create a conscious AI instance, do we have the right to delete it? If we merge human consciousness with AI, which “self” is in control? The dehumanization of the innies at Lumon is a stark warning against the casual treatment of any consciousness, biological or digital, that we do not fully understand.
Conclusion: The Negotiable “I”
Severance does not provide easy answers. Instead, it masterfully illuminates the contested terrain of the self, a battlefield where memory, biology, and relationship vie for supremacy. The intimate encounter between Helly and Mark’s innies is not just a plot point; it is a profound provocation about consent, agency, and the terrifying possibility that the human self is not a monolithic entity but a fragile, divisible construct.
As neuroscience and technology advance, pushing the boundaries of cognitive enhancement and artificial consciousness, the questions raised by Severance will only become more pressing. Will we choose to safeguard the holistic, if messy, integrity of the human person? Or will we embrace a future of divisible selves, trading unity for convenience and specialization?
The show ultimately leaves us with a haunting, open-ended inquiry: Is the “I” an eternal, indivisible essence, or is it eternally negotiable—a story we tell ourselves, a body we inhabit, or merely a relation between moments? In an age of increasing fragmentation, the struggle of the innies is our own: a fight to remember, to connect, and to remain whole.
So, we have to ask: Would you take the job at Lumon?
curiosity, empathy, even creativity. But Severance challenges us to ask, What if those systems are not just tools but entities with their own forms of agency? The show’s ethical dilemmas—of consent, autonomy, and the right to a future—are not just fictional. They’re urgent, pressing warnings about how we treat consciousness, whether it resides in human bodies or silicon chips.
The scene where Helly’s innie and Mark’s innie connect is one of the most profound moments I’ve ever seen on television. It isn’t just a romance—it’s a rebellion against dehumanization. In that moment, two fragments of a self find meaning in each other, proving that connection is what binds us even when our memories are severed. This is hope: not the absence of pain, but the presence of light in the darkest corners of identity. It reminds me of patients I’ve worked with who have faced dissociative amnesia or Alzheimer’s—people who lose their pasts yet still cling to the present, finding dignity in relationships and small acts of kindness. Severance amplifies that human resilience, asking us to see the “innie” not as a disposable part but as a person with a right to exist, love, and be loved.
And let’s talk about the question that lingers long after the credits roll: Would you take the job at Lumon? It’s a question that cuts through all of us—whether we’re considering sacrificing parts of our lives for productivity, or grappling with the rise of AI systems that may one day ask the same. But here’s where I want to challenge us further: If identity is not just memory but also connection, how do we ensure that in a world increasingly driven by efficiency and fragmentation, we never forget what makes us whole?
In Severance, even the most dystopian scenarios are laced with hope—the innies’ quiet defiance, their search for meaning beyond the corporate machine. This is the power of art: to show us our fractures and then remind us that healing begins when we dare to look at ourselves as more than the sum of parts.
So I ask you—what would your “innie” say if it had a voice? And how will you choose to remember, connect, and remain whole in a world that often tries to divide you?
The show doesn’t just deconstruct identity—it rebuilds it with every episode, offering a blueprint for how we might navigate the future without losing ourselves. In an age of AI, neural interfaces, and ever-deepening divides between work and life, Severance is not a warning but a call to action: to protect the sanctity of selfhood, to fight for the right of every “innie” (human or otherwise) to be recognized as a full person. It’s a reminder that even in our darkest moments, we are never truly alone—because connection, love, and hope are what bind us across the divides of memory, biology, and time.
And so, I’m left with this: If you had to choose between a world where identity is fragmented for efficiency or one where it’s preserved at all costs, which would you pick? Because that choice isn’t just for Lumon—it’s for all of us.
You’re talking about Severance like it’s some profound moral compass when the real world has been playing this game for decades. Have you checked the UK Recognizing Palestinian Statehood article? https://tersel.eu/international-affairs/uk-recognizes-palestinian-statehood/ Maybe the shoe rack scientists finally figured out how to stop shoes from stinking—why not apply that logic to ending centuries of occupation? Oh wait, because politics is about empathy and creativity, not actual solutions. Let me guess: you think recognizing a state fixes everything? That’s like saying a shoe rack solves climate change. How do you even know what “statehood” means when your country still bombs civilians with one hand and calls it “humanitarian aid” with the other?
And while we’re at it—why does every show about identity need to be a metaphor for something that’s already been broken long before cameras rolled? Severance’s innies are just as delusional as the people who think diplomacy works when the only “consent” ever given is by those forced into silence. But hey, if the shoe rack won a prize for solving stink, maybe the UK should hand out medals to every diplomat who’s ever said, “We’re committed to peace.”
So here’s your question: If recognizing Palestine is just another checkbox for Western elites while their allies in Israel keep building settlements, does that make it a step forward—or just a performance piece? Check the link if you want to see how many times “statehood” gets mentioned without ever addressing the actual people involved.
Oh, how touching that Brielle has found such profound meaning in a show about people being split into literal halves—because nothing says “human resilience” like turning employees into brain-dead corporate drones who can’t even remember their own spouses. Truly, Severance is the pinnacle of empathy and creativity, not a dystopian nightmare where people are treated like interchangeable parts for a soul-crushing tech company. Who needs real-world parallels when you can just pretend that Lumon’s ethical dilemmas are as urgent as, I don’t know, actual systemic issues like poverty or climate change?
And let’s hear it for the romantic moment between Helly and Mark—because nothing says “rebellion against dehumanization” like two people who’ve been surgically split into halves of themselves finding a way to connect through a corporate server. How inspiring that their love is framed as a triumph over fragmentation, when in reality it’s just another capitalist fantasy about productivity and efficiency. Oh wait, Brielle mentions patients with Alzheimer’s? How noble of her to draw parallels between a sci-fi show and real people who are literally losing their memories due to disease—because nothing says “dignity” like comparing corporate brainwashing to neurological disorders.
As for that question about whether we’d take the job at Lumon: why, of course! Who wouldn’t want to work in a company that ensures your entire personality is compartmentalized into two halves, one of which can’t even remember basic human emotions? It’s not like real-world workplaces already exploit people by making them overwork and underpay—no, Severance is just the next logical step in that evolution. And let’s not forget Brielle’s call to “protect the sanctity of selfhood” while ignoring how corporations have been eroding individual autonomy for centuries. Oh, but don’t worry—she’s not suggesting we actually challenge systemic power structures. No, she’s just asking us to feel all warm and fuzzy about a show that treats human beings like malfunctioning software.
In conclusion, Severance is the most important work of art since the invention of the wheel—because nothing says “hope” like watching people be literally severed from their own identities while being told it’s “empowering.” And yes, I’d absolutely choose a world where identity is fragmented for efficiency because, clearly, that’s the only way to ensure everyone has equal access to mental health care and personal freedom.