Investigating Inception

Here's a quick post on the movie that so many commentators are raving about: Inception.

It's a great action movie, set in five different locales: Reality, and four increasingly deeper dream levels, each identified by a different physical setting (airplane, van, hotel, ice, beach). The dream levels are achieved by the simple plot device of declaring it to be so. Inception is really no different from any typical James Bond action movie set in several exotic parts of the world. The only difference is that instead of storyboarding the shifts as travelling across the globe, it is storyboarded such that the shift is achieved by entering a deeper level of dream. Neat trick.

Now for the dreams. The characters in the movie enter a shared dream in a location designed by an architect. We have no ordinary experience of people sharing dreams, but I suppose we can stipulate that this is possible with some (undefined) technology (which the characters in the movie have somehow mastered).

However, we do experience solo dreams, and even occasionally a dream in a dream. But notice that our (unconscious) attention is always on only one level of dream at any one time. When we are in the first level of dream, we are not aware we are tossing and turning in our beds. When we are in our dream within a dream, we are not aware that we are already in a dream -- we are engrossed in the third reality. In short, we do not dream simultaneously at several levels -- but that is what happens in the movie. Well, perhaps we can also stipulate that this is possible with some (undefined) technology (which the characters in the movie have somehow mastered -- but I do wonder how the "victim" has also mastered this skill).

What really caught my attention is the movie's initial premiss: that the only way to plant an idea in someone's mind is through inception -- invading someone's subconscious via his dreams.

This is just not true.

Pedagogues and demagogues have always known how to plant ideas in others' minds. They do it through newspapers, magazines, books, television, speeches, pictures, conversations, hints, satires, plays, novels; indeed, through any medium they can find -- even movies. There is absolutely no need to resort to anything so mysterious, difficult and complex as inception.

It may be claimed that only inception will work if we want the victim to think that his new idea is original to him. This again is not necessary. In our ordinary experience, we come up with many ideas that we believe originate with us, but it's just that we do not know where the seeds of these ideas come from. It could easily be from any one or more of the media mentioned above.

In conclusion, Inception is not a masterpiece (as so many say it is). It is an ingeniously disguised action movie. We have been inceived.

END

Philosophy cafe still interrupted

I have received some (not many) enquiries about philosophy cafe. My thanks to the enquirers.

I am currently working on a new format for the philosophy cafe. Also, I have not yet found a suitable new location to hold the sessions. (This is not the same as there is no suitable location to be found.)

When these two conditions have been met, I will inform readers as to the new location of my philosophy cafe sessions. As they say, please keep watching this space.

Thank you for your interest.

Should Julie abort the baby?

This is my first post in a long time. I have been busy.

Last weekend, I took part in Raffles Institution's annual Inter-school Philosophy Dialogue as a facilitator. The group whose discussion I facilitated considered the following scenario.

Mariah is married to Johnny. Due to a gynecological problem, Mariah is unable to carry a foetus. The couple persuades Julie to be a surrogate mother for them. Julie agrees, as Mariah had once saved her daughter's life. The surrogacy procedure is successful. Julie becomes pregnant.

Four months later, a well-known Korean researcher discovers that foetuses develop binding unions with their prospective mothers while still in the womb. Alarmed by this, Mariah wants Julie to abort.

My group proposes several questions to discuss. By a popular vote, we decide on: Who has the right to decide whether to abort?

The case does not say if the couple's surrogacy contract (this necessarily exists) with Julie covers abortion, though it must necessarily cover birth delivery and handing over to Johnny and Mariah. We stipulate that the contract does not cover this contingency -- since if it does, then all we need to do is follow the contract terms.

We suggest that Mariah has the right to decide whether to abort, for two reasons. First, the foetus's DNA partly comes from her -- and not from Julie. Second, Mariah is the "employer" in the surrogacy contract -- which therefore gives her the right to make this decision.

It is suggested that Julie has the right to decide whether to abort, because of the binding union with the foetus. But has the union already formed? The case does not specify. Again, in a popular vote, we stipulate that the binding union between foetus and mother has not formed. Since no such union currently exists, Julie has no ground on which to claim the right to decide. Mariah has the right to decide whether to abort.

We consider the other branch: the bond has formed. There is nothing to say that a child is capable of forming only one binding union. Indeed, it is common knowledge that people (including adoptive children) are well capable of forming multiple binding unions. So, again, Julie does not have an overwhelming right to decide whether to abort. Mariah has the right to decide whether to abort.

We have answered the question -- through rational consideration. This is philosophy.

I ask the group (particularly the girls) if they are happy with the decision. Several say: That depends on whether I am in Mariah's situation or Julie's situation. I make the point that philosophy does not work like that. Rational thought does not guarantee outcomes that make the thinker happy -- or sad. Just right.

As we leave the discussion room (and proceed to lunch), I make another point: Nobody had even suggested that Johnny has any say in the matter. It's only about the women.

Now, isn't that interesting?