[Gwanghwamun Deok "Shin Water Drop"] Reaching for a Bottle of Wine on the Way to the Study
With a bottle of wine before me, I suddenly had this thought: "If you pour the same wine into the same glass, would it always be the same experience?" Wine flows into the Glencairn glass. The deep ruby liquid flows elegantly along the curves into the glass. The temperature of the glass in hand, the spreading gentle aroma. Taking the first sip, this thought suddenly crossed my mind: "Just as the first sip and last sip can taste different, would we always make the same choices if we repeated the same life?" If you died repeatedly but memories remained intact, would you be the same person? Mickey 17 poses exactly this question. Mickey 17 is the latest film by director Bong Joon-ho, released February 2025, based on the novel Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton. The premise: Mickey is an "Expendable" -- when he dies in dangerous missions on a colonization planet, his body is reprinted with a new clone that inherits his memories. The film becomes Mickey 17 as he reaches his 17th version. The wine parallel: a wine poured into the same glass tastes different depending on the day and state of mind; the temperature of the room, the food eaten before, the mood -- all affect the experience; similarly, Mickey who inherits the same memories makes different choices each time because the accumulated experience of each death changes him in ways that memory alone cannot capture; the "Ship of Theseus" paradox -- if all components of a ship are replaced one by one, is it still the same ship? -- applies to Mickey: with the same memories but a new body each time, is he the same person?
