There are aspects of humanity — our love for one another, or our willingness to reject our animal instinct to live so that someone else might — that we’d be unable to explain even if we had all the answers. When the alien says, “we must not be understood,” it’s a front: the desperate wizard telling us not to look behind the curtain. And when Winters subsequently outsmarts the alien, the latter’s ominous posturing — and, by extension, our own preoccupation with needing answers — suddenly look silly.
And so, Winters laughs. He may be a man of science, and he may see life, from a physiological standpoint, as wholly unromantic, but in the end, it’s a combination of his knowledge of science and his love for his friend that “saves” him. As we travel through Winters’ neurons and synapses, it’s impossible not to see the distinctly human shapes in the intricate imprints and designs. Yes, they resemble the (potentially) malevolently-designed spider web, but they also resemble cave paintings: those first recordings humanity made as we evolved to question and reflect through art. We may not be the evolution superstars that the alien is, but we possess the ability to live on long after our deaths.
Thus, Winters was right all along: We are, as he says, “all heading for the same destination” — not heaven or hell or dust but memory. And Winters’ remembering that the recorder (a tech-based form of memory) will tell his story is a brilliant means of reiterating the ultimate thesis of “The Autopsy.”
