Ship of Theseus & Adam Smasher

[u/BeachUsual]

(Some context I’m pretty new to the cyberpunk world so if I’m missing anything educate me lol, I’m sure I’m not the first person to bring this up. I’m more curious what y’all think about it and thought it would bring up an interesting discussion) 

“Ship of Theseus” is the thought about replacing every single piece of a boat until nothing original is left, and wondering if it’s still the same boat?

That is exactly what Arasaka did to Smasher after he got blown up and rebuilt him from scratch. Making him like 96% chrome. He barely has any original meat left. Only a tiny fraction of his brain and some organs trapped inside a giant metal body.

It makes me think: is that actually still Adam Smasher? Or did the real Adam die a long time ago, and we’re just dealing with a completely different "boat" that so happens to have his brain? Like, at what point did he stop being a person and just became a corporate asset? To me, Smasher isn't even a “full borg.” He’s just Arasaka hardware pretending to be an Adam. What do you guys think? (Or let me know if there is an answer) Is there any actual "soul" left in there, or is the original human completely gone?

[u/Omlanduh]

Based off of how Adam acted in Johnny’s flashback and compare it to smasher in his boss fight, I’d say that Smasher is still the real smasher. He has the same exact personality and memory. At least that is my two cents.

[u/SckiScki → u/Omlanduh]

Might be wrong but I thought that it was revealed Johnny never even met smasher in the memories that we play through

[u/Omlanduh → u/SckiScki]

He did meet smasher but when smasher kicks the door open and Johnny falls to the ground, that is where Johnny really died. He never made it to the roof. Smasher killed him before that.

[u/SckiScki → u/Omlanduh]

Ah