Can we believe ourselves? Can we trust the world around will always hold true? For example if you just wake up from a coma into a new consciousness, into a new world. A metaphor that can be applied to each of the concepts of the aforementioned films. Could you believe anything? What are the fundamental truths that we know exist? We know we are alive because we can doubt. To doubt proves that we do and can exist because it tells ourselves that we can think. Think with free will and be able to discover.
This is actually relevant when dreaming. We can let our minds wander and simply spectate in the wonders that it presents to us while we sleep. But if by chance a person could doubt the dream they is in, they could manipulate the world around them. Doubting has proven the world they seem to be presented in false. Doubt is the key to the understanding one would need to prove or disprove existence. It was proven in the films in their own ways. Inception with their totems. The Matrix with its super human movements with simply doubting physics. The Cuckoo Cuckoo's Nest with Chief smashing the window to freedom doubting his feebleness instilled in him by the nurse. Doubt is the base for discovery.
I like the idea that what certifies our reality is our ability to have doubt. It means that sentient beings that do question the world around them definitely exist. But what about those who don't have doubts and instead trust the world emphatically? Do they not exist as well? A computer program can be created to question and respond but does that mean it exist or has consciousness. By saying the proof of existence is the ability to doubt everything that doesn't posses the ability to doubt and question is rendered existence less. Are the the beings who can doubt the only things in the universe? I don't think so, Instead I suppose that when Descartes says " But what then am I? A thing which thinks. What is a thing which thinks? It is a thing which doubts, understands, [conceives], affirms, denies, wills, refuses, which also imagines and feels." (135) he is talking about what gives a being consciousness. The thing is consciousness and existence are not mutually exclusive. Things can exist without having consciousness. Having doubts can prove consciousness and even a computer program can become conscious.
ReplyDeleteYes the movie Automata actually delves into that.
ReplyDelete