1. Philosopher Immanuel Kant would likely say that both inception and extraction are immoral, despite your intentions, because because you (as the extractor) are violating the autonomy of the individual. These actions disrespect humanity because your personal autonomy (or ability to control yourself, your thoughts, and actions) is a mark of your humanity, what makes you different than other animals in this world. If someone has implanted an idea in your head, how can you be responsible for it or the actions that come from it?
2. Ariadne acts like Cobb's therapist throughout the movie and helps him with the guilt that is sabotaging his dreams and memories. In the first dream (Yusuf's, in the scene in the warehouse), Cobb tells her why he feels so guilty - because, after 50 years in Limbo, he had planted the idea in Mal's head that this world (Limbo) wasn't real and that they needed to kill themselves to get back to reality (being awake). She brought this idea back with her into reality and flipped the idea around - her waking state was Limbo and that she needed to get back to reality (in her mind, Limbo). My question for you is: is Ariadne practicing her own version of inception w/ Cobb by placing the ideas in his head that he needs to confront Mal's projection and rid himself of the guilt of her suicide (which he eventually succeeds in doing)? Why or why not?
3. Catharsis -- a concept first introduced to us by Aristotle (a purging or purification of the self or the transformation as a result of the catharsis), Cobb, Arthur and Eames have all talked about Fischer reaching a state of catharsis with his father so that their inception idea can take hold. Reconciliation with positive emotion is much stronger, according to Cobb, than with a negative emotion. So we see that Fischer is reconciled with his father at the end and decides to break up his company when he awakes from the kidnapping scene. But, does Cobb reach his own catharsis when he finds that he's allowed into the United States and can finally see his children's faces again? Throughout the movie, that's all he's ever wanted is to get back home to his kids, and the ending scene shows that reunion (with his children a couple of years older - I checked the credits - there are two different pairs of child actors). But does this catharsis really happen because of the ending scene with the top? Did the scene turn off before the top fell over?
- Cobb also has another scene of catharsis near the end in limbo when he says goodbye to Mal "you're just a shade of my real wife..."
4. Movie - Making - Inception, as a film, is all a dream, but it's also an extended metaphor for filmmaker Christopher Nolan. Like a dream, the movie is a shared dream for the audience and has its own rules and functions along those lines. Some characters and scenes happen like dreams in which there seems to be no rhyme or reason: Mal comes out of a crowd and stabs Ariadne; the train in the first dream that blasts through downtown where there's no tracks; the elder Fischer's hospital bed in a huge vault inside of a mountain fortress; Cobb squeezing between an amazingly small gap of two buildings. Mal even makes the case to Cobb at the end that he is in fact still stuck in a dream, with feelings of persecution (the authorities or Cobol's security forces), creeping doubts, and little remembrance of how he got there. On another thought, the way the dream team works is similar to how a movie is made - they plan the scenes and the movie sets down to the smallest details, always conscious of the audience (the dreamer's projections) and its reaction. And, the way the movie ends with the cut scene of the top and then kicking into the music (Edith Piaf's haunting melody) as the credits roll is kind of like a dream because sometimes we are ripped out of a dream before its ending and we want to know how it ends. Yet we can't go back.
-- all of this is controlled by the master manipulator, the director, Christopher Nolan. Everything in this movie is done for a reason. Cobb is the director, Arthur is the producer who does the research, Ariadne the screenwriter when she acts as the architect, Eames is the actor and Yusuf is the technical guy that makes it all happen. Saito is the money guy (also a producer) who finances the whole operation and Fischer is the audience who is taken for an exciting adventure by the director, Cobb. Yet we are also the audience too, since this is a movie. Arthur mentions continuously that they cannot mess with the dream too much, otherwise the dreamer knows something is wrong. The same can be said for movies - when there's too much fakery or interference from the director, we as the audience snap out of the trance that the movie is weaving for us and see the movie for what it is. We lose ourselves in well-made movies b/c we're not paying attention to the poor acting or screenwriting or plotholes or ridiculous scenes. We care about the characters and want to see a satisfying resolution. And so Cobb, as the director, makes an amazing movie, but also brings part of himself into the movie (Mal) which can influence the audience (she shoots Fischer in the 3rd dream). Most of the jarring scenes in Inception include Mal. And it's Mal who questions Cobb and raises doubt as to his true purpose.
- And since the movie is like a dream, it has planted the idea of itself in the mind of the movie audience as well - is this a movie or was the whole thing a dream? This is where the movie becomes almost a meta-movie; it is Christopher Nolan dreaming about Cobb.
Please discuss your thoughts on 3 of 4 of these topics. 350 words minimum for your total comment.
Due Friday, May 22 by 11:59 pm.
I have to agree with Kant in that extraction and inception are immoral. It is simply wrong to implant an idea in someone’s mind without them knowing that the idea is not theirs. The one thing that makes man different from all other animals is our ability to reason. Extraction and inception affect our ability to reason well and for this reason they are immoral. You should not be responsible for ideas that are not yours placed in your head by someone else.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think Ariadne was practicing inception on Cobb. Cobb already felt the guilt from Mal’s death and eventually would have faced Mal’s projection. Ariadne may have acted as a kind of therapist throughout the movie and been supportive but it’s unlikely she planted any ideas in his head. Ariadne was probably just acting in the best interests of the team by helping Cobb to face Mal’s projection. Cobb being tormented by Mal’s memory was probably not good for his mental health and affected his work negatively. This is probably why Ariadne decided to help him.
I think Cobb did reach catharsis at the end of the movie. In the movie, Cobb states that you don’t really remember how you end up in a dream, you just kind of show up in the middle of the action and don’t remember the beginning. Because Cobb travels to see his children on a plane , the ending must be real. All the travelling scenes must be real because they do not exist in the dream world. Another clue to the ending being real is that his children aged. Projections don’t age like real people. The fact that there are two pairs of child actors points to the ending being real. Another thing to consider is that Michael Caine has recently stated in an interview that while they were filming the movie, Christopher Nolan told him that all the scenes that Caine takes part in are real. The ending shows Caine and Cobb’s children together in the house and this also points to the ending being real not part of a dream.
TB
ReplyDelete1.Just having been given an idea is not a free pass to act upon it - even if a nefarious agent decided to delve into your consciousness and give you an idea that felt that it originated with yourself, any resulting action is your responsibility. The movie Inception differentiates between ideas that seem to come from others and those that come from oneself, but when it comes to action this doesn’t matter. I can come up with the idea (all on my own, just as if somebody had placed it in my subconscious) that academic dishonesty would help me on a test - that doesn’t give me free license to act on it though, and I am perfectly able to resist that idea despite the fact that nobody else was known as a “source” for that idea in my head. It is the same with Fisher and his companies in the movie, while the plot of the movie might suggest the idea to him of breaking up his father’s companies, it is his job to evaluate whether or not that is the best option. At the same time he has probably also come up with the idea of building the company bigger - just having the idea doesn’t necessarily precipitate action.
2.As I mentioned in Q1, the movie makes a distinction (which I personally feel is meaningless) between ideas generated by oneself (or planted via inception) and those that are suggested (openly) by others and then picked up on. As Ariadne is not actually meddling with the deeper layers of Cobb’s brain (in Limbo) and only speaking to him on the upper layers, by the movie’s own definition what she is doing is not inception. Cobb knows what he needs to know to confront Mal’s projection, and he always has. Ariadne doesn’t (I believe) tell him anything new or even steer him herself, she simply acts as an observer that lets Cobb explore his own thoughts with someone else instead of by himself. She acts as a bit of a therapist, not so much placing ideas in Cobb’s head as she allows him to recognize the ideas that have been present all along.
4.Suspension of disbelief is an interesting concept - moviegoers are perfectly willing to overlook fantastical plot points or mechanisms so long as they fit the world that they’re presented in, and don’t break whatever rules are set up at the beginning. While the film may be trying to act like a dream what I think breaks that down is the fact that it is too logical, and doesn’t break nearly enough of its own rules. This makes it far better as a film but it doesn’t mesh with our understanding/experiences of dreams at all - dreams, unlike movies, don’t need to stay consistent. Their audience is so immersed in the goings on that not only do they not care when logical inconsistencies form, they don’t notice them. For the film to be a dream, it would have to be a whole lot more confusing than just having an ambiguous ending - it follows its own rules (time multiplication on deeper levels, kicks/death to wake up, avoiding projections) too well. The film seems to forget that dreams are often completely nonsensical agglomerations of jumbled experiences - running through a house made of ants, having 20 fingers and 20 toes, we see crazy and irrational things in dreams all the time without piecing them together while the film holds itself to rigorous standards of realism. I see Inception not so much as Christoper Nolan’s dream but simply as an exploration of a world that we have all had experience with yet remains murky, our own subconscious.
TB
Will Drake
ReplyDeleteInception Blog
1.
I agree that personal autonomy is one of the marks that makes humans what we are. However, I think that even if someone were to plant an idea in my head, I still maintain the final say in the actions that may result from this idea. Say, for example, that an idea was planted in my head that I should go hit somebody. I believe that ultimately I would still be able to refrain from taking this action even if the thought was tempting me to do so. Additionally, all that matters to others is that you do or do not hit someone so a valid excuse would not be that you had a thought to do so.
2.
I do believe that Adriadne is practicing her own version of inception with Cobb by placing ideas in his head, such as those where he needs to confront Mal in order to get rid of his guilt of her suicide. I think that she is practicing inception because Ariadne is starting, or planting, the thought of confronting Mal in Cobb’s head which is the literal definition of inception. Additionally, as she plants this thought in his head Cobb is eventually successful in confronting Mal’s projection which adds more evidence that Adriadne is successfully practicing inception on Cobb by putting ideas in his head which he then carries out an action on.
4.
This is an extremely complex question so I will try to address it one step at a time. I find it very interesting that the movie is similar to a dream itself. I had not noticed at first how similar the movie was to a dream itself but looking back at it now I can see that similar to the train going without tracks I have had dreams where a car will go by floating. Next, to answer the question proposed in the last paragraph I can tell that this is obviously a movie. But, it is a movie that has a lot to do with dreams and false reality. I do not think that the movie is attempting to say that this is what is happening in someone else’s dream. Rather, I think that this movie is about a different world in which people can enter dreams, plant thoughts in people’s minds and do a whole lot more.
This even makes me question whether anything in my own life is real, or is it all a dream? AHHHH!
1. I think that planting ideas into people's heads is immoral. Even without the idea of inception or extraction people still plant ideas into others heads. I feel like this is immoral if they are not given the chance to properly seek out a decision. The more immoral thing about inception is that you are doing it against their will. You cannot tell somebody to get out of your head if they are physically there, but in real life people have always been known to plant bad ideas in simple conversations. Is this as immoral as inception? No because you can make the decision to choose right from wrong. I think you cannot be responsible for your actions if you have literally gotten a memory planted into your mind, but you can be responsible if you get the idea in a conversation. In that case, you are acting on an idea that you have reviewed over and over again. Even though it may not be your own, in real life you have the decision to say yes or no to wrong things. Inception you have no free will and you are at the will of the people planting the memory.
ReplyDelete2. I really haven’t thought of this idea until it was brought up in the question. It is a very cool idea though, because in this case Ariadne is technically practicing inception on Cobb by acting as his therapist. She plants the idea in the real world, which isn’t exactly the way that they usually go about it, but then as they get into the job of planting memories into Fischer she continues to remind him to confront Mal. I think that Ariadne is practicing inception on Cobb in the form of his therapist and a friend, it may not be the technical way that they do it, but she is doing it by constantly reminding him of the situation.
3. I think that Cobb reaches catharsis when he is in Limbo and he says that Mal is just the shade of his wife. All of the pent up emotions that he had had kept inside of him was finally released and he was able to be free from her. I also think this happened again when he saw his children, because he finally allowed himself to look into their faces. I also think that the pin was about to drop over before the scene cut, so he did make it back into reality and escaped his dream in Limbo. You can see the top kind of shaking and it looked like it was about to fall over. And just adding on top of that, he looked at his kids, and he never did that in his dreams. I think he just spinned his pin in a moment of like “Am I dreaming, do I finally get to see my kids?” He had to have checked if he was dreaming before he landed in America.
-Dominick Stoops
I agree with Immanuel Kant’s statement that inception and extraction are immoral. As a human, you have no right to infringe on the personal autonomy of another human - in other words, no right to act like God. I don’t believe that you can be completely responsible for the actions that result from an idea implanted in your head. As your free will becomes less and less free, your responsibility for those actions decreases. However, not all situations are so black and white; sometimes, a mix of personal autonomy and external forces drive a decision. Thus, the responsibility for it is harder to pinpoint.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that Ariadne is practicing inception on Cobb; rather, I find her efforts to be therapeutic while maintaining his autonomy. As far as the viewer knows. Cobb was right in that the world he and Mal were living in before was limbo, and the world afterward was reality. Thus, Cobb truly should not blame himself for Mal’s suicide; he wanted to bring her back to reality and did so the only way he knew how. Ariadne does not delve into his subconscious without him also being there (when he stayed late in the warehouse). She provided him with both the confidence and reason (protect the other team members from his projection of Mal) to confront his subconscious. Ariadne helps him realize this while allowing him to forgive himself on his own. For example, she trusted him to deal with Mal and find Saito near the end of the film.
I do not believe that the the similarities between the inception process and the production of a movie were intended, but they were not coincidental either. Dreams are remarkably like movies to begin with. They provide a medium where the impossible becomes possible, often weaving a story that reels the subject in but leaves them seeking more. Dreams can be considered a form of artistic expression, just like a movie. Thus, the director did not intend to create such parallels. The top, spinning at the end of the movie, begins to wobble unevenly, a telltale sign that it is going to fall over. In the movie, this indicated that the present was not a dream. The fact that it was going to fall implies that Cobb truly is reunited with his children and has forgiven himself for Mal’s death.
1) If someone implanted an idea, then it is the implanter’s responsibility for any actions springing from the idea, at least on face when using the movie’s logic. While it feels vile to have your thoughts being directly altered by a 3rd party, where does the line stop between persuasion and inception? IF we are to assume that a manipulation of your thoughts is immoral, then persuasion of any form whether it be information or emotional is also immoral as it also relies upon twisting your thought. I think the answer to this quandary comes in the form of Freud’s psychoanalysis of the mind. Despite how the movie poses the subconscious, as a bulldozer that prompts your every action and will eventually shape you, it is far more complicated than that. Freud proposed an idea of the Ego, Superego, and Id, an idea that is still used today by psychoanalysts. If an idea was planted, your Ego and Superego would still force a compromise of your desires to match the reality and rationalism of your consciousness. So in that realm of your brain still processing this inceptioned idea to some degree, the responsibility falls upon the one who is inceptioned or persuaded because your free will does exist on some level (if you think there is no free will then this entire question is nullified due to responsibility being a hoax).
ReplyDelete2) I think it is likely that Ariadne is attempting some level of inception, possibly accidentally. Ariadne first talks to Cobb about Mal in ‘reality’, then again on each level down all the way to limbo. At each point Adriane tells Cobb that it either isn’t his fault or that he needs to let go. The only evidence that shows this to be on purpose is her asking to be on the mission, as she has little training in anything but architecture and has no ability to restrain Mal. Adriane argues that only she knows about the risks, so she should be in, but that makes no sense on the face of it. She didn’t stop the train from Cobb’s subconscious, yet she did act as a gadfly to goad Cobb into taking the shot or eventually giving up on her. This constant support does appear more methodical in hindsight, yet she could simply just be attempting to follow common sense in these situations. It’s possible she joined the mission to ensure its effectiveness, aiding with her knowledge of the layouts. While I’d love to just say she didn’t do it on purpose by Occam’s razor, knowing the overthinking that surrounds much of this movie, I can’t simply make that decision.
3) I think Cobb definitely reached his catharsis, but not due to his children, more so due to his confrontation with Mal. The turning point is when he tells Mal that they did grow old together, and that he has reached a satisfying conclusion for their story. While being reunited with his children is important, it doesn’t act as the ultimate release for Cobb. We see this in the phone call he makes to his children, they want to know about mom, which would haunt him regardless of reuniting. The children in inception act as an anchor for Cobb to ‘reality’ and Mal to what she believes to be reality. Without those children, I imagine Cobb would have simply forgot reality along with Mal. I don’t think Cobb’s feeling of catharsis is linked to the top by the end, since he has realized that experiences are true regardless of where they are experienced, noted by him moving on before the top stops. The scene faded to black before the top fell, signifying a possibility that ‘reality’ isn’t reality, acting as both an in story questioning of Mal’s suicide and a more philosophical questioning of what living may be in comparison to the afterlife.
1. I don't believe anyone can actually plant an idea in someone’s mind, but rather they were told something that they have never heard before and it now won't leave their head. If that happens, I think you are responsible for the actions that do result from that idea, because at the end of the day you let that idea stay in your head. I mean it might not be entirely your fault, but I don't think someone can actually manipulate your brain into doing something unless you let that idea control you. Ideas may be planted into your mind by your surroundings on a daily basis, but you are the one to decide if you are going to act on those ideas or forget about them. On the other hand, in the movie, Cobb says that once you implant an idea in someone’s mind, it eats away at them until they fulfil it. In this sense, it seems almost like a threat. Like they are practically forced to fulfill whatever was implanted into their minds. In this case, I wouldn't say they would be responsible for their actions because they are basically not executing the idea by choice.
ReplyDelete2. I don’t think Ariadne was trying to use inception on Cobb, but thinking about it, she kind of did. I don’t see that it was her main intention, but she cared a lot about Cobb’s well-being and wanted him to be able to move on from Mal’s death. She realized that Mal was a prominent part of his subconscious, so she knew she needed to convince him to let go of his guilt and begin moving forward in his life. So, she got into Cobb’s subconscious, learned about Mal, which made it easier for Cobb to talk about his feelings, letting Ariadne help him overcome his guilt. Even though she didn’t directly plant an idea into Cobb’s mind, I would still consider this inception, since she was able to get into the subconscious part of his mind.
3. I think Cobb reaching catharsis was seeing his children at the end of the movie. During the film, Cobb’s main goal was to be able to get back to the US to see his kids, and with Saito’s help, he was able to fly to them. And right when Cobb saw his children, he was immediately filled with joy and ran over to hug them. Moreover, I believe when the top was starting to spin slower at the end, almost falling over, signified that Cobb is no longer in a dream, and is finally back to reality, alongside his kids.
When watching Inception, the whole time I was thinking that what they’re doing was immoral. The idea that they could go into someone's head and plant thoughts in their mind felt like something that should never be done, especially to someone who hadn’t actually done anything wrong like Fischer. This made me feel weird about rooting for the characters, even though I did and I enjoyed the movie a lot. The movie sort of made the job seem like they were just doing something cool and didn’t give you much of a chance to realize how wrong what they were doing is. I think if someone planted thoughts in your brain you can’t be responsible for how you act on them, but there would be no way to prove it. I think in a universe in which this is possible, there are likely people who are imprisoned or have done things that permanently changed their lives due to someone who implanted thought in their minds which isn’t fair.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think what Adriene is doing is inception because she is more helping Cobb to help himself, not tricking him into doing something that he doesn’t want to do. She is helping him to stop rid himself of his guilt because he wants to do it deep down, but just isn’t strong enough to do it himself. I think what she’s doing is moral because ultimately it saves Saito's life and gives Cobb a happy life with his family, or at least that’s what we are led to believe. She doesn’t seem to have the intention of manipulating him, but more helping him to achieve something he needs to do to be happy. While it could be said that this is als what Cobb was trying to do with Mal, Cobb had full knowledge of what Adriene was doing and there doesn't seem to be any repercussions to helping Cobb relieve himself of his guilt.
I like to think that the top falls after the scene ends and that Cobb reached his catharsis due to the way the top wobbles before the scene cuts. I haven’t used a top in a while but usually when a top wobbles like that it is going to fall. Regardless of if he was dreaming or not however, he reached his catharsis regardless because the way he abandons the spinning top without checking if it fell shows that he doesn’t care. If he is living the life he wants to live I think his catharsis is reached.
1. In Inception, the main characters attempt to place an idea inside the head of a man, leaving no room for doubt, so he will inevitably adopt that idea as his own. I agree with Kant that this would be immoral because by removing his own decision making, it is immoral, because he won’t be able to think for himself. Now, to the question of how someone could be held accountable for acting on an idea that isn’t their own, I think in this case, they should not be. In this sci-fi world the movie creates, they leave no option for Fischer, the man they are placing the idea into, to see any other option than the one that they plant. They essentially create a unary choice, where Fischer can’t choose anything else, which deprives him of his reason. Without his reason, he should not be held accountable, because he is essentially being forced to act.
ReplyDelete2. I don’t see Ariadne as creating her own inception on Cobb because she doesn’t leave him with one choice like they do with Fischer. Ariadne only pleads with Cobb to leave Mal and the fake world behind, but she ultimately leaves the choice open to him, as she isn’t really convincing him that one option is better than the other, and instead, asking him to choose one or the other. If this was supposed to be a form of inception, it wouldn’t match the complexities of the inception they do on Fischer, because if they followed the same technique as Ariadne’s “inception:” just asking Fischer to split up his father’s company, it would fail because Fischer would easily be able to tell the idea is not his own. Back to Cobb, he would easily be able to tell that the idea to come back is Ariadne’s, so the inception wouldn’t work. Cobb made the decision on his own.
3. I think Cobb is still dreaming at the end of the movie. While the children at the end of the movie may have been different actors than at the beginning, it is weird to me that those children, supposedly many years older, would be wearing the exact same clothes, and be in the exact same positions as they were in his memory. So I don’t see this as a catharsis, because Cobb never came out of the dream that he was in, meaning he still has the same fixations and obsessions, therefore never having changed.
Nick J.
I do agree that what they did was immoral. They violated Fischer's mind, psychologically manipulated him, and lied to him so he would break up his own company. Of course, big monopolies are to be broken up and I agree with what they did and so would my man Teddy Roosevelt. Cool motive, still immoral. However, if one is to say doing this takes away ones personal autonomy, it leads me to think we don't have that much personal autonomy to begin with. I don't think there is such thing as a truly original idea because all ideas are formed information we take in from our surroundings and experiences. The ideas are already out there whether we think of them or not, so in a way I think our ideas belong to us as much as the west indies belong to Columbus. Sure we can claim them as ours, but did we really come up with them ourselves? This might make absolutely no sense anywhere outside of my own head, please just pretend I'm saying something smart and profound. What I'm trying to say here is we already draw all our ideas from other people, things and events, just how big a difference does it make if someone planted the idea from inside our mind in terms of how responsible we are for our actions?
ReplyDeleteWhile Ariadne does try to help Cobb through his whole murderous-subconscious-dead-wife-he-feels-responsible-for situation, I don't think what she did was really all that similar to an inception. She wasn't going deep into his mind and she wasn't planting any of her ideas into his mind, more like giving him a nudge in the right direction. The idea that shes gone and he needs to let her go is already in his mind, Ariadne just gave him a nudge in the right direction in realizing that.
While getting back home to his kids is what he's been trying to do throughout the whole movie and it is his primary motive, I think the real catharsis happened when Cobb let go of Mal. The guilt he carried around with him was a huge burden on him and was taking a toll on his mental state and when he became free of that guilt it he purified himself, resolving what was arguably the biggest, most pivotal conflict in the film.
At the end of inception the top is proof that Cobb is still dreaming, since the top never falls. This is Cobb reaching catharthesis with his family, he is in the deepest state of a dream and didn't make it back. This event of Cobb still being in the dream raises so many questions. Did
ReplyDeleteCobb and Saito not make it back to reality? What happened to Cobb's real children? Did they fail the mission? But this could also be a version of what Cobb was searching for in the movie. The Mal Cobb created was part of his subconscious, she was constantly telling him what needed and that his reality was wrong. Maybe she was himself telling himself what he really wanted. But this would be contradicting the end when Cobb finally lets go of Mal and reaches catharthesis. He would’ve finally let his guilt go and reach his children but that only happened in his dream. But him letting go of Mal could have really happened, though he was in a dream at the end of the movie, Mal wasn't there. Her not being there could mean that letting her go was part of his catharthesis. Cobb knew that he had to let Mal go throughout the whole movie. He understands that she shouldn't be there but he can't help it because he loves her. The movie itself was a beautiful explanation of inception, but the perfect example of a dream. The whole movie is not only about a dream but it feels like a dream. As the prompt said earlier, the randomness in the movie, the way the scenes all start in the middle as a dream but are all still connected, to even the way the camera is angled sometimes. This all works together to create the feel of the movie; a serious dream. Though there is the feeling of a dream there is still this seriousness of a movie, a plot, and a mission. This is also a reason why the movie gets away with its randomness. Since it's so serious you feel you don't need an explanation for some of the things that happen.