Finally, the "Truman Show" encapsulates the most virulent at_Moral Deliberations in Modern Cinema

Moral Deliberations in Modern Cinema

1sst EDITION

Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.

Editing and Design:

Lidija Rangelovska

A Narcissus Publications Imprint, Skopje 2003

Not for Sale! Non-commercial edition.

or reproduced in any manner without written permission from:

Lidija Rangelovska - write to:

palma@unet.com.mk or to

vaknin@link.com.mk

Visit the Author Archive of Dr. Sam Vaknin in "Central Europe Review":

http://www.ce-review.org/authorarchives/vaknin_archive/vaknin_main.htm

Visit Sam Vaknin's United Press International (UPI) Article Archive

-Click HERE!

Philosophical Musings and Essays

http://samvak.tripod.com/culture.html

Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited

http://samvak.tripod.com/

Created by: LIDIJA RANGELOVSKA

REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

C O N T E N T S

I. The Talented Mr. Ripley

II. The Truman Show

III. The Matrix

IV. Shattered

V. Titanic

VI. Being John Malkovich

VII. Dreamcatcher - The Myth of Destructibility

VIII. The Author

IX. About "After the Rain"

The Talented Mr. Ripley

By: Sam Vaknin

"The Talented Mr. Ripley" is an Hitchcockian and blood-curdling study

of the psychopath and his victims. At the centre of this masterpiece,

set in the exquisitely decadent scapes of Italy, is a titanic

encounter between Ripley, the aforementioned psychopath protagonist

and young Greenleaf, a consummate narcissist.

Ripley is a cartoonishly poor young adult whose overriding desire is

to belong to a higher - or at least, richer - social class. While he

waits upon the subjects of his not so hidden desires, he receives an

offer he cannot refuse: to travel to Italy to retrieve the spoiled and

hedonistic son of a shipbuilding magnate, Greenleaf Senior. He embarks

upon a study of Junior's biography, personality, likes and hobbies. In

a chillingly detailed process, he actually assumes Greenleaf's

identity. Disembarking from a luxurious Cunard liner in his

destination, Italy, he "confesses" to a gullible textile-heiress that

he is the young Greenleaf, travelling incognito.

Thus, we are subtly introduced to the two over-riding themes of the

antisocial personality disorder (still labelled by many professional

authorities "psychopathy" and "sociopathy"): an overwhelming dysphoria

and an even more overweening drive to assuage this angst by belonging.

The psychopath is an unhappy person. He is besieged by recurrent

depression bouts, hypochondria and an overpowering sense of alienation

and drift. He is bored with his own life and is permeated by a

seething and explosive envy of the lucky, the mighty, the clever, the

have it alls, the know it alls, the handsome, the happy - in short:

his opposites. He feels discriminated against and dealt a poor hand in

the great poker game called life. He is driven obsessively to right

these perceived wrongs and feels entirely justified in adopting

whatever means he deems necessary in pursuing this goal.

Ripley's reality test is maintained throughout the film. In other

words - while he gradually merges with the object of his admiring

emulation, the young Greenleaf - Ripley can always tell the

difference. After he kills Greenleaf in self-defense, he assumes his

name, wears his clothes, cashes his checks and makes phone calls from

his rooms. But he also murders - or tries to murder - those who

suspect the truth. These acts of lethal self-preservation prove

conclusively that he knows who he is and that he fully realizes that

his acts are parlously illegal.

Young Greenleaf is young, captivatingly energetic, infinitely

charming, breathtakingly handsome and deceivingly emotional. He lacks

real talents - he know how to play only six jazz tunes, can't make up

his musical mind between his faithful sax and a newly alluring drum

kit and, an aspiring writer, can't even spell. These shortcomings and

discrepancies are tucked under a glittering facade of non-chalance,

refreshing spontaneity, an experimental spirit, unrepressed sexuality

and unrestrained adventurism. But Greenleaf Jr. is a garden variety

narcissist. He cheats on his lovely and loving girlfriend, Marge. He

refuses to lend money - of which he seems to have an unlimited supply,

courtesy his ever more disenchanted father - to a girl he impregnated.

She commits suicide and he blames the primitiveness of the emergency

services, sulks and kicks his precious record player. In the midst of

this infantile temper tantrum the rudiments of a conscience are

visible. He evidently feels guilty. At least for a while.

Greenleaf Jr. falls in and out of love and friendship in a predictable

pendulous rhythm. He idealizes his beaus and then devalues them. He

finds them to be the quiddity of fascination one moment - and the

distilled essence of boredom the next. And he is not shy about

expressing his distaste and disenchantment. He is savagely cruel as he

calls Ripley a leach who has taken over his life and his possessions

(having previously invited him to do so in no uncertain terms). He

says that he is relieved to see him go and he cancels off-handedly

elaborate plans they made together. Greenleaf Jr. maintains a poor

record of keeping promises and a rich record of violence, as we

discover towards the end of this suspenseful, taut yarn.

Ripley himself lacks an identity. He is a binary automaton driven by a

set of two instructions - become someone and overcome resistance. He

feels like a nobody and his overriding ambition is to be somebody,

even if he has to fake it, or steal it. His only talents, he openly

admits, are to fake both personalities and papers. He is a predator

and he hunts for congruence, cohesion and meaning. He is in constant

search of a family. Greenleaf Jr., he declares festively, is the older

brother he never had. Together with the long suffering fiancee in

waiting, Marge, they are a family. Hasn't Greenleaf Sr. actually

adopted him?

This identity disturbance, which is at the psychodynamic root of both

pathological narcissism and rapacious psychopathy, is all-pervasive.

Both Ripley and Greenleaf Jr. are not sure who they are. Ripley wants

to be Greenleaf Jr. - not because of the latter's admirable

personality, but because of his money. Greenleaf Jr. cultivates a

False Self of a jazz giant in the making and the author of the Great

American Novel but he is neither and he bitterly knows it. Even their

sexual identity is not fully formed. Ripley is at once homoerotic,

autoerotic and heteroerotic. He has a succession of homosexual lovers

(though apparently only platonic ones). Yet, he is attracted to women.

He falls desperately in love with Greenleaf's False Self and it is the

revelation of the latter's dilapidated True Self that leads to the

atavistically bloody scene in the boat.

But Ripley is a different -and more ominous - beast altogether. He

rambles on about the metaphorical dark chamber of his secrets, the key

to which he wishes to share with a "loved" one. But this act of

sharing (which never materializes) is intended merely to alleviate the

constant pressure of the hot pursuit he is subjected to by the police

and others. He disposes with equal equanimity of both loved ones and

the occasional prying acquaintance. At least twice he utters words of

love as he actually strangles his newfound inamorato and tries to

slash an old and rekindled flame. He hesitates not a split second when

confronted with an offer to betray Greenleaf Sr., his nominal employer

and benefactor, and abscond with his money. He falsifies signatures

with ease, makes eye contact convincingly, flashes the most heart

rending smile when embarrassed or endangered. He is a caricature of

the American dream: ambitious, driven, winsome, well versed in the

mantras of the bourgeoisie. But beneath this thin veneer of hard

learned, self-conscious and uneasy civility - lurks a beast of prey

best characterized by the DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistics Manual):

"Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviour,

deceitfulness as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or

conning others to personal profit or pleasure, impulsivity or failure

to plan ahead... reckless disregard for safety of self or others

...(and above all) lack of remorse." (From the criteria of the

Antisocial Personality Disorder).

But perhaps the most intriguing portraits are those of the victims.

Marge insists, in the face of the most callous and abusive behaviour,

that there is something "tender" in Greenleaf Jr. When she confronts

the beguiling monster, Ripley, she encounters the fate of all victims

of psychopaths: disbelief, pity and ridicule. The truth is too

horrible to contemplate, let alone comprehend. Psychopaths are inhuman

in the most profound sense of this compounded word. Their emotions and

conscience have been amputated and replaced by phantom imitations. But

it is rare to pierce their meticulously crafted facade. They more

often than not go on to great success and social acceptance while

their detractors are relegated to the fringes of society. Both

Meredith and Peter, who had the misfortune of falling in deep,

unrequited love with Ripley, are punished. One by losing his life, the

other by losing Ripley time and again, mysteriously, capriciously,

cruelly.

Thus, ultimately, the film is an intricate study of the pernicious

ways of psychopathology. Mental disorder is a venom not confined to

its source. It spreads and affects its environment in a myriad

surreptitiously subtle forms. It is a hydra, growing one hundred heads

where one was severed. Its victims writhe and as abuse is piled upon

trauma - they turn to stone, the mute witnesses of horror, the

stalactites and stalagmites of pain untold and unrecountable. For

their tormentors are often as talented as Mr. Ripley is and they are

as helpless and as clueless as his victims are.

The Truman Show

By: Sam Vaknin

"The Truman Show" is a profoundly disturbing movie. On the surface, it

deals with the worn out issue of the intermingling of life and the

media.

Examples for such incestuous relationships abound:

Ronald Reagan, the cinematic president was also a presidential movie

star. In another movie ("The Philadelphia Experiment") a defrosted Rip

Van Winkle exclaims upon seeing Reagan on television (40 years after

his forced hibernation started): "I know this guy, he used to play

Cowboys in the movies".

Candid cameras monitor the lives of webmasters (website owners) almost

24 hours a day. The resulting images are continuously posted on the

Web and are available to anyone with a computer.

The last decade witnessed a spate of films, all concerned with the

confusion between life and the imitations of life, the media. The

ingenious "Capitan Fracasse", "Capricorn One", "Sliver", "Wag the Dog"

and many lesser films have all tried to tackle this (un)fortunate

state of things and its moral and practical implications.

The blurring line between life and its representation in the arts is

arguably the main theme of "The Truman Show". The hero, Truman, lives

in an artificial world, constructed especially for him. He was born

and raised there. He knows no other place. The people around him -

unbeknownst to him - are all actors. His life is monitored by 5000

cameras and broadcast live to the world, 24 hours a day, every day. He

is spontaneous and funny because he is unaware of the monstrosity of

which he is the main cogwheel.

But Peter Weir, the movie's director, takes this issue one step

further by perpetrating a massive act of immorality on screen. Truman

is lied to, cheated, deprived of his ability to make choices,

controlled and manipulated by sinister, half-mad Shylocks. As I said,

he is unwittingly the only spontaneous, non-scripted, "actor" in the

on-going soaper of his own life. All the other figures in his life,

including his parents, are actors. Hundreds of millions of viewers and

voyeurs plug in to take a peep, to intrude upon what Truman innocently

and honestly believes to be his privacy. They are shown responding to

various dramatic or anti-climactic events in Truman's life. That we

are the moral equivalent of these viewers-voyeurs, accomplices to the

same crimes, comes as a shocking realization to us. We are (live)

viewers and they are (celluloid) viewers. We both enjoy Truman's

inadvertent, non-consenting, exhibitionism. We know the truth about

Truman and so do they. Of course, we are in a privileged moral

position because we know it is a movie and they know it is a piece of

raw life that they are watching.

But moviegoers throughout Hollywood's history have willingly and

insatiably participated in numerous "Truman Shows". The lives (real or

concocted) of the studio stars were brutally exploited and

incorporated in their films. Jean Harlow, Barbara Stanwyck, James

Cagney all were forced to spill their guts in cathartic acts of on

camera repentance and not so symbolic humiliation. "Truman Shows" is

the more common phenomenon in the movie industry.

Then there is the question of the director of the movie as God and of

God as the director of a movie. The members of his team - technical

and non-technical alike - obey Christoff, the director, almost

blindly. They suspend their better moral judgement and succumb to his

whims and to the brutal and vulgar aspects of his pervasive dishonesty

and sadism. The torturer loves his victims. They define him and infuse

his life with meaning. Caught in a narrative, the movie says, people

act immorally.

(IN)famous psychological experiments support this assertion. Students

were led to administer what they thought were "deadly" electric shocks

to their colleagues or to treat them bestially in simulated prisons.

They obeyed orders. So did all the hideous genocidal criminals in

history. The Director Weir asks: should God be allowed to be immoral

or should he be bound by morality and ethics? Should his decisions and

actions be constrained by an over-riding code of right and wrong?

Should we obey his commandments blindly or should we exercise

judgement?

If we do exercise judgement are we then being immoral because God (and

the Director Christoff) know more (about the world, about us, the

viewers and about Truman), know better, are omnipotent? Is the

exercise of judgement the usurpation of divine powers and attributes?

Isn't this act of rebelliousness bound to lead us down the path of

apocalypse?

It all boils down to the question of free choice and free will versus

the benevolent determinism imposed by an omniscient and omnipotent

being. What is better: to have the choice and be damned (almost

inevitably, as in the biblical narrative of the Garden of Eden) - or

to succumb to the superior wisdom of a supreme being? A choice always

involves a dilemma. It is the conflict between two equivalent states,

two weighty decisions whose outcomes are equally desirable and two

identically-preferable courses of action. Where there is no such

equivalence - there is no choice, merely the pre-ordained (given full

knowledge) exercise of a preference or inclination. Bees do not choose

to make honey. A fan of football does not choose to watch a football

game. He is motivated by a clear inequity between the choices that he

faces. He can read a book or go to the game. His decision is clear and

pre-determined by his predilection and by the inevitable and

invariable implementation of the principle of pleasure. There is no

choice here. It is all rather automatic. But compare this to the

choice some victims had to make between two of their children in the

face of Nazi brutality. Which child to sentence to death - which one

to sentence to life? Now, this is a real choice. It involves

conflicting emotions of equal strength. One must not confuse

decisions, opportunities and choice.

Decisions are the mere selection of courses of action. This selection

can be the result of a choice or the result of a tendency (conscious,

unconscious, or biological-genetic). Opportunities are current states

of the world, which allow for a decision to be made and to affect the

future state of the world. Choices are our conscious experience of

moral or other dilemmas.

Christoff finds it strange that Truman - having discovered the truth -

insists upon his right to make choices, i.e., upon his right to

experience dilemmas. To the Director, dilemmas are painful,

unnecessary, destructive, or at best disruptive. His utopian world -

the one he constructed for Truman - is choice-free and dilemma-free.

Truman is programmed not in the sense that his spontaneity is

extinguished. Truman is wrong when, in one of the scenes, he keeps

shouting: "Be careful, I am spontaneous". The Director and fat-cat

capitalistic producers want him to be spontaneous, they want him to

make decisions. But they do not want him to make choices. So they

influence his preferences and predilections by providing him with an

absolutely totalitarian, micro-controlled, repetitive environment.

Such an environment reduces the set of possible decisions so that

there is only one favourable or acceptable decision (outcome) at any

junction. Truman does decide whether to walk down a certain path or

not. But when he does decide to walk - only one path is available to

him. His world is constrained and limited - not his actions.

Actually, Truman's only choice in the movie leads to an arguably

immoral decision. He abandons ship. He walks out on the whole project.

He destroys an investment of billions of dollars, people's lives and

careers. He turns his back on some of the actors who seem to really be

emotionally attached to him. He ignores the good and pleasure that the

show has brought to the lives of millions of people (the viewers). He

selfishly and vengefully goes away. He knows all this. By the time he

makes his decision, he is fully informed. He knows that some people

may commit suicide, go bankrupt, endure major depressive episodes, do

drugs. But this massive landscape of resulting devastation does not

deter him. He prefers his narrow, personal, interest. He walks.

But Truman did not ask or choose to be put in his position. He found

himself responsible for all these people without being consulted.

There was no consent or act of choice involved. How can anyone be

responsible for the well-being and lives of other people - if he did

not CHOOSE to be so responsible? Moreover, Truman had the perfect

moral right to think that these people wronged him. Are we morally

responsible and accountable for the well-being and lives of those who

wrong us? True Christians are, for instance.

Moreover, most of us, most of the time, find ourselves in situations

which we did not help mould by our decisions. We are unwillingly cast

into the world. We do not provide prior consent to being born. This

fundamental decision is made for us, forced upon us. This pattern

persists throughout our childhood and adolescence: decisions are made

elsewhere by others and influence our lives profoundly.

As adults we are the objects - often the victims - of the decisions of

corrupt politicians, mad scientists, megalomaniac media barons,

gung-ho generals and demented artists. This world is not of our making

and our ability to shape and influence it is very limited and rather

illusory. We live in our own "Truman Show". Does this mean that we are

not morally responsible for others?

We are morally responsible even if we did not choose the circumstances

and the parameters and characteristics of the universe that we

inhabit. The Swedish Count Wallenberg imperilled his life (and lost

it) smuggling hunted Jews out of Nazi occupied Europe. He did not

choose, or helped to shape Nazi Europe. It was the brainchild of the

deranged Director Hitler. Having found himself an unwilling

participant in Hitler's horror show, Wallenberg did not turn his back

and opted out. He remained within the bloody and horrific set and did

his best. Truman should have done the same. Jesus said that he should

have loved his enemies. He should have felt and acted with

responsibility towards his fellow human beings, even towards those who

wronged him greatly.

But this may be an inhuman demand. Such forgiveness and magnanimity

are the reserve of God. And the fact that Truman's tormentors did not

see themselves as such and believed that they were acting in his best

interests and that they were catering to his every need - does not

absolve them from their crimes. Truman should have maintained a fine

balance between his responsibility to the show, its creators and its

viewers and his natural drive to get back at his tormentors. The

source of the dilemma (which led to his act of choosing) is that the

two groups overlap.

Truman found himself in the impossible position of being the sole

guarantor of the well-being and lives of his tormentors. To put the

question in sharper relief: are we morally obliged to save the life

and livelihood of someone who greatly wronged us? Or is vengeance

justified in such a case?

A very problematic figure in this respect is that of Truman's best and

childhood friend. They grew up together, shared secrets, emotions and

adventures. Yet he lies to Truman constantly and under the Director's

instructions. Everything he says is part of a script. It is this

disinformation that convinces us that he is not Truman's true friend.

A real friend is expected, above all, to provide us with full and true

information and, thereby, to enhance our ability to choose. Truman's

true love in the Show tried to do it. She paid the price: she was

ousted from the show. But she tried to provide Truman with a choice.

It is not sufficient to say the right things and make the right moves.

Inner drive and motivation are required and the willingness to take

risks (such as the risk of providing Truman with full information

about his condition). All the actors who played Truman's parents,

loving wife, friends and colleagues, miserably failed on this score.

It is in this mimicry that the philosophical key to the whole movie

rests. A Utopia cannot be faked. Captain Nemo's utopian underwater

city was a real Utopia because everyone knew everything about it.

People were given a choice (though an irreversible and irrevocable

one). They chose to become lifetime members of the reclusive Captain's

colony and to abide by its (overly rational) rules.

The Utopia came closest to extinction when a group of stray survivors

of a maritime accident were imprisoned in it against their expressed

will. In the absence of choice, no utopia can exist. In the absence of

full, timely and accurate information, no choice can exist. Actually,

the availability of choice is so crucial that even when it is

prevented by nature itself - and not by the designs of more or less

sinister or monomaniac people - there can be no Utopia. In H.G. Wells'

book "The Time Machine", the hero wanders off to the third millennium

only to come across a peaceful Utopia. Its members are immortal, don't

have to work, or think in order to survive. Sophisticated machines

take care of all their needs. No one forbids them to make choices.

There simply is no need to make them. So the Utopia is fake and indeed

ends badly.

Finally, the "Truman Show" encapsulates the most virulent attack on

capitalism in a long time. Greedy, thoughtless money machines in the

form of billionaire tycoon-producers exploit Truman's life shamelessly

and remorselessly in the ugliest display of human vices possible. The

Director indulges in his control-mania. The producers indulge in their

monetary obsession. The viewers (on both sides of the silver screen)

indulge in voyeurism. The actors vie and compete in the compulsive

activity of furthering their petty careers. It is a repulsive canvas

of a disintegrating world. Perhaps Christoff is right after al when he

warns Truman about the true nature of the world. But Truman chooses.

He chooses the exit door leading to the outer darkness over the false

sunlight in the Utopia that he leaves behind.

The Matrix

By: Sam Vaknin

It is easy to confuse the concepts of "virtual reality" and a

"computerized model of reality (simulation)". The former is a

self-contained Universe, replete with its "laws of physics" and

"logic". It can bear resemblance to the real world or not. It can be

consistent or not. It can interact with the real world or not. In

short, it is an arbitrary environment. In contrast, a model of reality

must have a direct and strong relationship to the world. It must obey

the rules of physics and of logic. The absence of such a relationship

renders it meaningless. A flight simulator is not much good in a world

without aeroplanes or if it ignores the laws of nature. A technical

analysis program is useless without a stock exchange or if its

mathematically erroneous.

Yet, the two concepts are often confused because they are both

mediated by and reside on computers. The computer is a self-contained

(though not closed) Universe. It incorporates the hardware, the data

and the instructions for the manipulation of the data (software). It

is, therefore, by definition, a virtual reality. It is versatile and

can correlate its reality with the world outside. But it can also

refrain from doing so. This is the ominous "what if" in artificial

intelligence (AI). What if a computer were to refuse to correlate its

internal (virtual) reality with the reality of its makers? What if it

were to impose its own reality on us and make it the privileged one?

In the visually tantalizing movie, "The Matrix", a breed of AI

computers takes over the world. It harvests human embryos in

laboratories called "fields". It then feeds them through grim looking

tubes and keeps them immersed in gelatinous liquid in cocoons. This

new "machine species" derives its energy needs from the electricity

produced by the billions of human bodies thus preserved. A

sophisticated, all-pervasive, computer program called "The Matrix"

generates a "world" inhabited by the consciousness of the unfortunate

human batteries. Ensconced in their shells, they see themselves

walking, talking, working and making love. This is a tangible and

olfactory phantasm masterfully created by the Matrix. Its computing

power is mind boggling. It generates the minutest details and reams of

data in a spectacularly successful effort to maintain the illusion.

A group of human miscreants succeeds to learn the secret of the

Matrix. They form an underground and live aboard a ship, loosely

communicating with a halcyon city called "Zion", the last bastion of

resistance. In one of the scenes, Cypher, one of the rebels defects.

Over a glass of (illusory) rubicund wine and (spectral) juicy steak,

he poses the main dilemma of the movie. Is it better to live happily

in a perfectly detailed delusion - or to survive unhappily but free of

its hold?

The Matrix controls the minds of all the humans in the world. It is a

bridge between them, they inter-connected through it. It makes them

share the same sights, smells and textures. They remember. They

compete. They make decisions.

The Matrix is sufficiently complex to allow for this apparent lack of

determinism and ubiquity of free will. The root question is: is there

any difference between making decisions and feeling certain of making

them (not having made them)? If one is unaware of the existence of the

Matrix, the answer is no. From the inside, as a part of the Matrix,

making decisions and appearing to be making them are identical states.

Only an outside observer - one who in possession of full information

regarding both the Matrix and the humans - can tell the difference.

Moreover, if the Matrix were a computer program of infinite

complexity, no observer (finite or infinite) would have been able to

say with any certainty whose a decision was - the Matrix's or the

human's. And because the Matrix, for all intents and purposes, is

infinite compared to the mind of any single, tube-nourished,

individual - it is safe to say that the states of "making a decision"

and "appearing to be making a decision" are subjectively

indistinguishable. No individual within the Matrix would be able to

tell the difference. His or her life would seem to him or her as real

as ours are to us. The Matrix may be deterministic - but this

determinism is inaccessible to individual minds because of the

complexity involved. When faced with a trillion deterministic paths,

one would be justified to feel that he exercised free, unconstrained

will in choosing one of them. Free will and determinism are

indistinguishable at a certain level of complexity.

Yet, we KNOW that the Matrix is different to our world. It is NOT the

same. This is an intuitive kind of knowledge, for sure, but this does

not detract from its firmness. If there is no subjective difference

between the Matrix and our Universe, there must be an objective one.

Another key sentence is uttered by Morpheus, the leader of the rebels.

He says to "The Chosen One" (the Messiah) that it is really the year

2199, though the Matrix gives the impression that it is 1999.

This is where the Matrix and reality diverge. Though a human who would

experience both would find them indistinguishable - objectively they

are different. In one of them (the Matrix), people have no objective

TIME (though the Matrix might have it). The other (reality) is

governed by it.

Under the spell of the Matrix, people feel as though time goes by.

They have functioning watches. The sun rises and sets. Seasons change.

They grow old and die. This is not entirely an illusion. Their bodies

do decay and die, as ours do. They are not exempt from the laws of

nature. But their AWARENESS of time is computer generated. The Matrix

is sufficiently sophisticated and knowledgeable to maintain a close

correlation between the physical state of the human (his health and

age) and his consciousness of the passage of time. The basic rules of

time - for instance, its asymmetry - are part of the program.

But this is precisely it. Time in the minds of these people is

program-generated, not reality-induced. It is not the derivative of

change and irreversible (thermodynamic and other) processes OUT THERE.

Their minds are part of a computer program and the computer program is

a part of their minds.

Their bodies are static, degenerating in their protective nests.

Nothing happens to them except in their minds. They have no physical

effect on the world. They effect no change. These things set the

Matrix and reality apart.

To "qualify" as reality a two-way interaction must occur. One flow of

data is when reality influences the minds of people (as does the

Matrix). The obverse, but equally necessary, type of data flow is when

people know reality and influence it. The Matrix triggers a time

sensation in people the same way that the Universe triggers a time

sensation in us. Something does happen OUT THERE and it is called the

Matrix. In this sense, the Matrix is real, it is the reality of these

humans. It maintains the requirement of the first type of flow of

data. But it fails the second test: people do not know that it exists

or any of its attributes, nor do they affect it irreversibly. They do

not change the Matrix. Paradoxically, the rebels do affect the Matrix

(they almost destroy it). In doing so, they make it REAL. It is their

REALITY because they KNOW it and they irreversibly CHANGE it.

Applying this dual-track test, "virtual" reality IS a reality, albeit,

at this stage, of a deterministic type. It affects our minds, we know

that it exists and we affect it in return. Our choices and actions

irreversibly alter the state of the system. This altered state, in

turn, affects our minds. This interaction IS what we call "reality".

With the advent of stochastic and quantum virtual reality generators -

the distinction between "real" and "virtual" will fade. The Matrix

thus is not impossible. But that it is possible - does not make it

real.

The Shattered Identity

By: Sam Vaknin

Read these essays first:

The Habitual Identity

Death, Meaning, and Identity

Fact and Truth

Dreams - The Metaphors of Mind

I. Exposition

In the movie "Shattered" (1991), Dan Merrick survives an accident and

develops total amnesia regarding his past. His battered face is

reconstructed by plastic surgeons and, with the help of his loving

wife, he gradually recovers his will to live. But he never develops a

proper sense of identity. It is as though he is constantly ill at ease

in his own body. As the plot unravels, Dan is led to believe that he

may have murdered his wife's lover, Jack. This thriller offers

additional twists and turns but, throughout it all, we face this

question:

Dan has no recollection of being Dan. Dan does not remember murdering

Jack. It seems as though Dan's very identity has been erased. Yet, Dan

is in sound mind and can tell right from wrong. Should Dan be held

(morally and, as a result, perhaps legally as well) accountable for

Jack's murder?

Would the answer to this question still be the same had Dan erased

from his memory ONLY the crime -but recalled everything else (in an

act of selective dissociation)? Do our moral and legal accountability

and responsibility spring from the integrity of our memories? If Dan

were to be punished for a crime he doesn't have the faintest

recollection of committing - wouldn't he feel horribly wronged?

Wouldn't he be justified in feeling so?

There are many states of consciousness that involve dissociation and

selective amnesia: hypnosis, trance and possession, hallucination,

illusion, memory disorders (like organic, or functional amnesia),

depersonalization disorder, dissociative fugue, dreaming, psychosis,

post traumatic stress disorder, and drug-induced psychotomimetic

states.

Consider this, for instance:

What if Dan were the victim of a Multiple Personality Disorder (now

known as "Dissociative Identity Disorder")? What if one of his

"alters" (i.e., one of the multitude of "identities" sharing Dan's

mind and body) committed the crime? Should Dan still be held

responsible? What if the alter "John" committed the crime and then

"vanished", leaving behind another alter (let us say, "Joseph") in

control?

Should "Joseph" be held responsible for the crime "John" committed?

What if "John" were to reappear 10 years after he "vanished"? What if

he were to reappear 50 years after he "vanished"? What if he were to

reappear for a period of 90 days - only to "vanish" again? And what is

Dan's role in all this? Who, exactly, then, is Dan?

II. Who is Dan?

Buddhism compares Man to a river. Both retain their identity despite

the fact that their individual composition is different at different

moments. The possession of a body as the foundation of a self-identity

is a dubious proposition. Bodies change drastically in time (consider

a baby compared to an adult). Almost all the cells in a human body are

replaced every few years. Changing one's brain (by transplantation) -

also changes one's identity, even if the rest of the body remains the

same.

Thus, the only thing that binds a "person" together (i.e., gives him a

self and an identity) is time, or, more precisely, memory. By "memory"

I also mean: personality, skills, habits, retrospected emotions - in

short: all long term imprints and behavioural patterns. The body is

not an accidental and insignificant container, of course. It

constitutes an important part of one's self-image, self-esteem, sense

of self-worth, and sense of existence (spatial, temporal, and social).

But one can easily imagine a brain in vitro as having the same

identity as when it resided in a body. One cannot imagine a body

without a brain (or with a different brain) as having the same

identity it had before the brain was removed or replaced.

What if the brain in vitro (in the above example) could not

communicate with us at all? Would we still think it is possessed of a

self? The biological functions of people in coma are maintained. But

do they have an identity, a self? If yes, why do we "pull the plug" on

them so often?

It would seem (as it did to Locke) that we accept that someone has a

self-identity if: (a) He has the same hardware as we do (notably, a

brain) and (b) He communicates his humanly recognizable and

comprehensible inner world to us and manipulates his environment. We

accept that he has a given (i.e., the same continuous) self-identity

if (c) He shows consistent intentional (i.e., willed) patterns

("memory") in doing (b) for a long period of time.

It seems that we accept that we have a self-identity (i.e., we are

self-conscious) if (a) We discern (usually through introspection) long

term consistent intentional (i.e., willed) patterns ("memory") in our

manipulation ("relating to") of our environment and (b) Others accept

that we have a self-identity (Herbert Mead, Feuerbach).

Dan (probably) has the same hardware as we do (a brain). He

communicates his (humanly recognizable and comprehensible) inner world

to us (which is how he manipulates us and his environment). Thus, Dan

clearly has a self-identity. But he is inconsistent. His intentional

(willed) patterns, his memory, are incompatible with those

demonstrated by Dan before the accident. Though he clearly is

possessed of a self-identity, we cannot say that he has the SAME

self-identity he possessed before the crash. In other words, we cannot

say that he, indeed, is Dan.

Dan himself does not feel that he has a self-identity at all. He

discerns intentional (willed) patterns in his manipulation of his

environment but, due to his amnesia, he cannot tell if these are

consistent, or long term. In other words, Dan has no memory. Moreover,

others do not accept him as Dan (or have their doubts) because they

have no memory of Dan as he is now.

Interim conclusion:

Having a memory is a necessary and sufficient condition for possessing

a self-identity.

III. Repression

Yet, resorting to memory to define identity may appear to be a

circular (even tautological) argument. When we postulate memory -

don't we already presuppose the existence of a "remembering agent"

with an established self-identity?

Moreover, we keep talking about "discerning", "intentional", or

"willed" patterns. But isn't a big part of our self (in the form of

the unconscious, full of repressed memories) unavailable to us? Don't

we develop defence mechanisms against repressed memories and

fantasies, against unconscious content incongruent with our

self-image? Even worse, this hidden, inaccessible, dynamically active

part of our self is thought responsible for our recurrent discernible

patterns of behaviour. The phenomenon of posthypnotic suggestion seems

to indicate that this may be the case. The existence of a

self-identity is, therefore, determined through introspection (by

oneself) and observation (by others) of merely the conscious part of

the self.

But the unconscious is as much a part of one's self-identity as one's

conscious. What if, due to a mishap, the roles were reversed? What if

Dan's conscious part were to become his unconscious and his

unconscious part - his conscious? What if all his conscious memories,

drives, fears, wishes, fantasies, and hopes - were to become

unconscious while his repressed memories, drives, etc. - were to

become conscious? Would we still say that it is "the same" Dan and

that he retains his self-identity? Not very likely. And yet, one's

(unremembered) unconscious - for instance, the conflict between id and

ego - determines one's personality and self-identity.

The main contribution of psychoanalysis and later psychodynamic

schools is the understanding that self-identity is a dynamic,

evolving, ever-changing construct - and not a static, inertial, and

passive entity. It casts doubt over the meaningfulness of the question

with which we ended the exposition: "Who, exactly, then, is Dan?" Dan

is different at different stages of his life (Erikson) and he

constantly evolves in accordance with his innate nature (Jung), past

history (Adler), drives (Freud), cultural milieu (Horney), upbringing

(Klein, Winnicott), needs (Murray), or the interplay with his genetic

makeup. Dan is not a thing - he is a process. Even Dan's personality

traits and cognitive style, which may well be stable, are often

influenced by Dan's social setting and by his social interactions.

It would seem that having a memory is a necessary but insufficient

condition for possessing a self-identity. One cannot remember one's

unconscious states (though one can remember their outcomes). One often

forgets events, names, and other information even if it was conscious

at a given time in one's past. Yet, one's (unremembered) unconscious

is an integral and important part of one's identity and one's self.

The remembered as well as the unremembered constitute one's

self-identity.

IV. The Memory Link

Hume said that to be considered in possession of a mind, a creature

needs to have a few states of consciousness linked by memory in a kind

of narrative or personal mythology. Can this conjecture be equally

applied to unconscious mental states (e.g. subliminal perceptions,

beliefs, drives, emotions, desires, etc.)?

In other words, can we rephrase Hume and say that to be considered in

possession of a mind, a creature needs to have a few states of

consciousness and a few states of the unconscious - all linked by

memory into a personal narrative? Isn't it a contradiction in terms to

remember the unconscious?

The unconscious and the subliminal are instance of the general

category of mental phenomena which are not states of consciousness

(i.e., are not conscious). Sleep and hypnosis are two others. But so

are "background mental phenomena" - e.g., one holds onto one's beliefs

and knowledge even when one is not aware (conscious) of them at every

given moment.

We know that an apple will fall towards the earth, we know how to

drive a car ("automatically"), and we believe that the sun will rise

tomorrow, even though we do not spend every second of our waking life

consciously thinking about falling apples, driving cars, or the

position of the sun.

Yet, the fact that knowledge and beliefs and other background mental

phenomena are not constantly conscious - does not mean that they

cannot be remembered. They can be remembered either by an act of will,

or in (sometimes an involuntary) response to changes in the

environment. The same applies to all other unconscious content.

Unconscious content can be recalled. Psychoanalysis, for instance, is

about re-introducing repressed unconscious content to the patient's

conscious memory and thus making it "remembered".

In fact, one's self-identity may be such a background mental

phenomenon (always there, not always conscious, not always

remembered). The acts of will which bring it to the surface are what

we call "memory" and "introspection".

This would seem to imply that having a self-identity is independent of

having a memory (or the ability to introspect). Memory is just the

mechanism by which one becomes aware of one's background, "always-on",

and omnipresent (all-pervasive) self-identity. Self-identity is the

object and predicate of memory and introspection. It is as though

self-identity were an emergent extensive parameter of the complex

human system - measurable by the dual techniques of memory and

introspection.

We, therefore, have to modify our previous conclusions:

Having a memory is not a necessary nor a sufficient condition for

possessing a self-identity.

We are back to square one. The poor souls in Oliver Sacks' tome, "The

Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" are unable to create and retain

memories. They occupy an eternal present, with no past. They are thus

unable to access (or invoke) their self-identity by remembering it.

Their self-identity is unavailable to them (though it is available to

those who observe them over many years) - but it exists for sure.

Therapy often succeeds in restoring pre-amnesiac memories and

self-identity.

V. The Incorrigible Self

Self-identity is not only always-on and all-pervasive - but also

incorrigible. In other words, no one - neither an observer, nor the

person himself - can "disprove" the existence of his self-identity. No

one can prove that a report about the existence of his (or another's)

self-identity is mistaken.

Is it equally safe to say that no one - neither an observer, nor the

person himself - can prove (or disprove) the non-existence of his

self-identity? Would it be correct to say that no one can prove that a

report about the non-existence of his (or another's) self-identity is

true or false?

Dan's criminal responsibility crucially depends on the answers to

these questions. Dan cannot be held responsible for Jack's murder if

he can prove that he is ignorant of the facts of his action (i.e., if

he can prove the non-existence of his self-identity). If he has no

access to his (former) self-identity - he can hardly be expected to be

aware and cognizant of these facts.

What is in question is not Dan's mens rea, nor the application of the

McNaghten tests (did Dan know the nature and quality of his act or

could he tell right from wrong) to determine whether Dan was insane

when he committed the crime. A much broader issue is at stake: is it

the same person? Is the murderous Dan the same person as the current

Dan? Even though Dan seems to own the same body and brain and is

manifestly sane - he patently has no access to his (former)

self-identity. He has changed so drastically that it is arguable

whether he is still the same person - he has been "replaced".

Finally, we can try to unite all the strands of our discourse into

this double definition:

It would seem that we accept that someone has a self-identity if: (a)

He has the same hardware as we do (notably, a brain) and, by

implication, the same software as we do (an all-pervasive, omnipresent

self-identity) and (b) He communicates his humanly recognizable and

comprehensible inner world to us and manipulates his environment. We

accept that he has a specific (i.e., the same continuous)

self-identity if (c) He shows consistent intentional (i.e., willed)

patterns ("memory") in doing (b) for a long period of time.

It seems that we accept that we have a specific self-identity (i.e.,

we are self-conscious of a specific identity) if (a) We discern

(usually through memory and introspection) long term consistent

intentional (i.e., willed) patterns ("memory") in our manipulation

("relating to") of our environment and (b) Others accept that we have

a specific self-identity.

In conclusion: Dan undoubtedly has a self-identity (being human and,

thus, endowed with a brain). Equally undoubtedly, this self-identity

is not Dan's (but a new, unfamiliar, one).

Such is the stuff of our nightmares - body snatching, demonic

possession, waking up in a strange place, not knowing who we are.

Without a continuous personal history - we are not. It is what binds

our various bodies, states of mind, memories, skills, emotions, and

cognitions - into a coherent bundle of identity. Dan speaks, drinks,

dances, talks, and makes love - but throughout that time, he is not

present because he does not remember Dan and how it is to be Dan. He

may have murdered Jake - but, by all philosophical and ethical

criteria, it was most definitely not his fault.

Titanic, or a Moral Deliberation

By: Sam Vaknin