Analysis of philosophical concepts 1. Dream and Illusion: Descartes, Inception, Matrix, and Chalmers René Descartes make

Analysis of philosophical concepts

1. Dream and Illusion: Descartes, Inception, Matrix, and Chalmers

René Descartes makes us question the reality. He says dreams can be so vivid that we can be dreaming right now, thus we cannot entirely believe our senses. He also imagines an Evil Genius, sly creature deceiving us on all of them including simple facts such as 2+2=4. This makes one wonder whether or not there is anything we can know for sure. In Inception people enter dream worlds and they seem totally real and at the end we don’t know if Cobb is awake because his top keeps spinning. This is Descartes’ dream idea, this questioning of reality. In The Matrix, machines hold people in a fiction crafted by a computer, similar to the Evil Genius and Neo needs to discover what’s real. David Chalmers says that we could be living in a simulation (enough to make us distrust what we know). But he also states that even a simulated world could be real in its own way, which probably means that living in one is all right. These stories ask: When our senses can deceive us, how do we know what’s real, and if we’re dreaming or in a simulation, does it make any difference?

2. Turing, Searle, and AI in Ex Machina and Her

Alan Turing was devising a test to see if a computer could have thought as human. If it talks so smoothly that you believe it is a person, it passes the Turing Test, and you find it clever. In Ex Machina a robot calls Ava deceives Caleb into believing she cares, passes the test, but can we believe it or she just pretends? In Her, Samantha, an AI, speaks and feels so authentic that Theodore gets in love with her, yet being only software, does she really think? John Searle speaks no with his Chinese Room idea: imagine someone who does not know Chinese answering in Chinese following rules. They appear smart yet fail to understand. This means that the AI simply may have some rules but think nothing. Others say AI like Ava or Samantha could think, really think (Strong AI), as they behave so human. Others agree with Searle that they’re just good at pretending (Weak AI) as Ava does to Caleb, seemingly cold and programmed. These films ask: A machine that behaves human, can it think too, or it is simply imitating?

3. Meaning of Life and Identity in Solaris, “They,” and “The Library of Babel”

Solaris is about the purpose of life. A weird planet ocean makes copies of memories of people such as Kris Kelvin’s dead wife Hari. Kris is curious whether getting a connection with her means a life is meaningful despite not being complete. Hari’s strange combination of human and alien makes one wonder: Who is she, really? In Fiction “They” by R.W Heinlein, the main character feels that the whole world is a fake to observe him and he is trying to discover his own views and identity. Imagine knowing if you’re a secret show’s star. In “The Library of Babel” Jorge Luis Borges imagines an enormous house-library containing all books possible. People look out for one book to cover all, but the vast library makes one feels inadequate and adrift. Their search nevertheless could be what makes life meaningful. These stories ask: Is life about love, discovering who you are or going after big answers – even if you never find them?

4. Time Travel Paradoxes and Lewis’s Solutions in Sci-Fi

Time travel can be messy with paradoxes, for example what if you went and stopped your grandpa from meeting up with your grandma, how do you get born to do that. David Lewis says time travel works if all fits in one timeline where your actions were always part of the past. In Robert Heinlein’s “All You Zombies,” the main character time travels and becomes his own parent – this is crazy but works because it all overlaps into a single loop. In Norman Spinrad’s “The Weed of Time” a drug allows to see all time in a single perspective, and while there are no paradoxes, it makes free will complicated. In Looper Joe attempts to intervene but his actions only have the effect of cause things to happen exactly as they are meant to (Lewis). In La Jetée, we see a man who sees his own death among past live, trapped into a loop he cannot change. These stories ask: Can you rewrite history, or is it fate that you have to do what was always going to happen?

5. Temkin’s Perspective on Longevity and Transhumanism in San Junipero

Larry Temkin says talking about living longer is not always better. Long life can be more pain or boredom if not a good life. He says what is important is being able to enjoy meaningful moments, not more years. However, some believe technology could make long lives awesome, which Temkin doesn’t explain fully. In Black Mirror’s “San Junipero,” Kelly and Yorkie spend eternity in a virtual reality, living young and light hearted. This appears to solve Temkin’s worries as far as technology can make endless life fun and significant. And it also makes you wonder: Is a digital life just as real as something “normal”, or as Temkin fears, may it get dull in the end? This debate asks: Does being eternally alive with tech makes life better or do we require something else to remain happy?

6. Virtuality of Experience and Active Reconstruction

Plato believed the world we perceive comes as a shadow of the ideal world, hence our experience is as it were fake. Reality, Aristotle said, comes from feeling and seeing, but it can feel unreal if anything spoiled our senses. William James said our minds construct our experiences rather than passively take in the experiences. This is “active reconstruction” or when we modify what we experience, such as in the Ready Player One VR game where, if you play, you will make your own story in the OASIS. But browsing social media can seem passive, like you’re just chewing it up without considering. In the literature, the “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Borges demonstrates people that create a pretend world a reality based on what they believe, this is active. A dull manual, however, doesn’t allow you to say anything. These ideas ask: Are virtual experiences in tech or stories give us power over our reality, or do they lead us away from the reality?