The article explores a possible conflict between practical and ethical implications of scientific and religious discourses about human nature proposed by the sci-fi series “Altered Carbon.” It discusses the clash between biopolitically implemented technology and the religious life. The scientific discourse is represented by the “ideology of the cerebral subject” (F. Vidal, F. Ortega), which establishes the connection between the brain and the self. A brief examination of examples of the embodiment of this ideology in science fiction and its general logic follows.