He thinks, for a bit, nervously tapping his pen against the corner of the notebook.

okay so I don't yet have an answer to all of those but i have a better handle on what exactly i'm trying to preserve here

people's minds are who they are. if you change the way someone's mind works, you're just killing them and replacing them with someone else. if you directly control someone's limbs and actions so they can do something you want, you are effectively replacing them with someone else, and if you directly edit their minds to be a certain way, then they're no longer that original person.

but that logic proves too much. there's some leeway for the small amounts of changing that occur over someone's normal life, your concept of "identity" has to be robust to that

i bite a handful of bullets related to this, personally, i think it's not a stretch of the definition to say that the person i was when i was ten is not at all the same person i am right now, even if every intervening step would agree that the previous step was also themselves. so this concept of "identity" isn't a binary, it's a continuum, a fuzzy line that people transit along

i think... i'm not entirely sure how i would feel about having skipped the last eight years of my life and turning ten-year-old me into present-me overnight. it feels sketchy? my intuitions are uncomfortable with it? though given that a set of physically lawful, psychologically regular steps was in fact used to achieve this transition between 10yo!peter and 18yo!peter my intuitions are flexible on this matter

and people who are depressed and take antidepressants might take reach psychological states that they couldn't have reached merely by taking other, non-chemical actions. in a certain sense, the antidepressant is directly editing their minds and turning them into a version of themselves that couldn't be reached otherwise.

Some more tapping while he hums thoughtfully to himself.

and yet i feel like if someone were like "no, i don't want to take antidepressants" and then took them anyway, by force maybe to make the hypothetical easier, and afterwards went "actually that was a good idea and i'm thankful it happened", i still feel really uncomfortable? it feels like we were disrespecting the preferences of depressed!them and effectively forcibly replaced them with a version of themselves that we like more

i'm not sure how seriously i take this intuition, though, 'cause then the action "take an antidepressant" is identity-preserving if and only if it was taken voluntarily, so the intent of the action matters now? and that's bizarre, it's the same action, it has the same effects, whether someone is "the same person" as someone else shouldn't change depending on the intentions of the people taking the action that changes them

this may just be pointing at a different intuition, though, that compounds: in addition to preservation of identity i also care about, mm, "consent" is not exactly the best way to encapsulate it but i think it's a reasonable neighboring concept

that was a lot, does all of that make sense? do you have any questions about it? honestly i might have questions about it, i've never really had reason to go this deep into my thoughts about the ethics of mind-alteration and identity

That all makes sense, and I think I understand what you mean! It's important to you that people get to decide for themselves who to be?

What if the version of a person from before they changed and the version from after they changed could compare notes, understanding everything there is to know about each other, and decide together which one they would prefer to be? What if the power can tell what would happen in that hypothetical, and only makes the change if they would both agree that it's good?

...that sounds like a terrifying superpower for the Spirit to have but it's not, i mean, that might, entirely solve my issues? hmm

i mean i guess maybe the union of that with "via regular lawful psychologically realistic" wait sorry lemme start that sentence again

there are, you know, ways that someone can change over time such that the person they were at time X and the person they are now at time Y don't agree on which of them should exist, but if there was no mind control involved and everything was consensual every step of the way and stuff then i have no problems with that, that's normal and how things work and i'm fine with this kind of "I Can Fix Them"

and if there were some way to ensure that the thing you just described happened, i'd be okay with that, too

so i'd be okay with a power that could do both things, but didn't do the "X and Y disagree on who should take preference" thing in any non-strictly-causal unlawful psychologically out of character way

i think. but now that you've given that suggestion i feel like i should think a little bit harder about other possible additions to this, because it hadn't occurred to me that the Spirit had that much hypothetical power and that kind of really widens the possibility-space for how this power could work

I think it might not be able to tell every single time under all circumstances, but it could just not do the thing when it can't tell if it's okay.

I think thinking harder about it sounds like a great idea! I want to help you figure out exactly the powers that are right for you. ♡

so looking back on your list, it seems like the first and third ones are probably addressed by your suggestion, the second one is unclear whether your suggestion would work since they might interpret even the attempts to handshake their future and past selves as a manipulation attempt (and they would then be right, just not to hurt them), the fourth one seems like it really should be amenable to non-mind control options

the second one might benefit from something like "they will be made to believe a thing if and only if it is true and they wouldn't be able to change their mind normally because of various brain things"?

"Why are you taking so loooooong," Marcus whines.

"You can feel free to leave if you want, this will probably take a very long time because responsible protagonists are very thorough in specifying their superpowers when they can be."

Oh, I see what you mean! Yes, only making people believe things that are true and only if they wouldn't be able to change their mind by themselves sounds like a good way to make sure you're treating people well.

what kinds of actual effects would this all entail? like subjectively, from the perspective of whoever's mind is being changed, what kinds of things would happen here? sudden strikes of inspiration, epiphanies, being shown a weirdly convincing argument...?

I'm not sure! I don't often hear about details like that. I can imagine that probably it would be strikes of inspiration and epiphanies sometimes, but sometimes it might also just be an ability and willingness to understand and believe things that they wouldn't have been able to otherwise?

hmm

I think something that respected people's autonomy and self-determination like that, which only acted in their (current and future, not just future) self's interest, which only pulled out the big guns in situations where people are unresponsive to evidence even though if they were ideal reasoners they would update and which didn't actually change their priorities and goals and personality and such...

would be okay, probably

that seems sufficiently broad that it might cover everything i'm interested in but i'm definitely gonna go over everything again before finalizing my choices so i'll think about this some more later, i think this might be enough to get going for now

Okay! ♡

He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and puts the notebook down.

"Okay. That's done."

"Finally."

Felicia pinches his arm.

"Ow!"

"Great. You taking it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I am."

Vivian nods. "Cool. Have fun with the power of love."

"So, that was a sidetrack, what's next?"

"Well, Viv was looking through the list of powers and then you guys probably should, too. And then I should maybe get your opinions on the actual powers themselves and if you think there's anything I should or shouldn't pick"

"other than that one power"

"and, you know, stuff like that."

"Can we get superpowers? 'Cause if not this was a waste of time."

Gabriel elbows him, hard.