What does it take for you to believe something as fact? Will you accept what is told to you by your parents? What if this same thought was taught by every elder or teacher you had ever encountered? It is hard to be skeptical of an idea provoked and supported by nearly every individual you've ever met. But what about when it becomes more than just an idea, and physical evidence is pushed into your face around every turn? I mean, seeing is believing, right?
This is the kind of world Carrey's character Truman Burbank in Paramount's Truman Show is born into. From birth he has been watched around the world as the star of a reality tv show he had no choice in participating he. It is the only world he knows, the only reality he has ever been given. As Truman is beginning to question his reality, he is bombarded by those closest to him that he second guesses his own independent thoughts. Just before he finally breaks free of his life long imprisonment, Truman has a short conversation with the shows producer, who speaks over an intercom system and introduces himself as the "Creator". In this conversation Truman asks the voice in the sky "Was nothing real?". The response he is given is the same as we here in clips of interviews with the fictional cast, that "everything is real, just controlled". I wish to point out a distinct separation in what is real and what is true.
I believe that in Descartes' Second Meditation he seeks to find a similar distinction. He questions not only the existence of the items and world around him, but of his own body and consciousness. Back to the movie, everything Truman came into contact with was indeed real. He could see hear and touch everything in his world, but nothing he knew was true. Every person an actor and everything nothing more than props and stages for the largest television show conceivable. In order to leave his home and set sail for what he believes is open water, Truman must accept that something is false with the town he lives in. This doubt is verified when his boat rams into the horizon-painted wall of the dome that has held him from the world his entire life. In this realization he accepts that the only thing true about the reality he was born into is himself, not far from Descartes' meditation "..was I not then likewise persuaded that I did not exist? Not at all; of a surety I myself did exist since I persuaded myself of something".
The scene you referred to in The Truman Show is an excellent example of Descartes' philosophy being applied to a realization. Descartes claims that the only true thing he knows is his very own existence, and that everything else appears to be real, but he cannot trust his own perceptions through his senses. Like Descartes, Truman lives out his life accepting his reality to be true, until he discovers it to be a controlled and planned false reality. But yet, it is still his reality, it is "real" as the Creator says. But it cannot be trusted.
ReplyDeleteI'm very glad you made the distinction between "true" and "real" because the two can sometimes be used interchangeably. The difference is paramount in discussions like this-- especially regarding Descartes' Second Mediation. This film is actually what first came to mind when we began discussing Descartes in class because its such a good example of the ideas presented.
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