For me, as a new curator, this was a very difficult situation.
“There is a suspicion that object No.564 has been misused.”
That was what our signature robot girl said to me.
“What is object No.564?”
“Decarte Murder”
“Please explain.”
“I understand. Because it is the explanation provided to guests, please bear with me.”
“That’s fine.”
“Okay. Do you know of the story of a philosophical zombie?”
“Sort of.”
“A philosophical zombie is a human who does not have conscious qualia. This cannot be discerned from the outside. They behave like a normal human, even if psychologically assessed, they would give reasonable answers. The only difference this zombie has from humans is that it is unconscious, that is to say, it is just a physical phenomenon that is a collection of electrochemical and physical responses.”
“That’s good enough for now. Can you elaborate on Decarte Murder?”
“Decarte Murder is a weapon that kills the consciousness. It seems to have been a by-product of assassination weapons research. However, even if it was used to assassinate an important person, the results wouldn’t be what you’d expect. If it has any use, it would probably be for personal revenge.”
“……Can you be a bit more detailed?”
“That is to say, we don’t know who the victim is. The victim, which is subject to a bit of philosophical debate itself, has had their consciousness killed and destroyed. Only the victim and the person who killed them would know who was killed. All that’s left is a corpse with a set of electrochemical and physical responses, but you wouldn’t be able to see that from the outside.”
“But surely there is a victim, right?”
“Yes. But from the outside, socially that is, the victim has no change whatsoever. Only their metaphysical consciousness has disappeared.”
“……Can the victim be identified?”
“There is evidence that the usage log of Decarte Murder has been erased. It’s hard to tell.”
“Okay, so.”
Someone killed someone.
I don’t know who killed who.
“Well, if you ask me.”
The robot girl spoke up while holding a handful of paperwork.
“I don’t know what the problem is with being an existence with just electrochemical and physical responses.”