‘Arnie the Aristotelian’
The philosophical issues of PKD’s ‘We can remember it for you wholesale’ and the movie adaptation ‘Total Recall’
“It’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove!”
(Quote by Denzel Washington in the film ‘Training Day’)
This is a very powerful statement made by Denzel Washington, which I feel to be the essence of both PKD’s short story ‘We can remember it for you wholesale’ and the movie adaptation ‘Total Recall’ (directed by Paul Verhoeven). As the main character within both stories has to deal with a very difficult dilemma; for the benefit of this essay I will mostly refer to Quaid, the main character in ‘Total Recall’ (played by Arnie), which I will use interchangeably to refer the main character from both the short story and film. Quaid believes that he is Quaid; he thinks that he has a wife, who he has been married to for a number of years. He believes he is a construction worker and he believes he has fantasies about going to Mars. I suppose if you were to ask him how he knows all of this, firstly he would reply by saying that he just knows and that’s that. It seems like a silly question at first, but it is a perfectly legitimate one. How do you know who you are and can you provide anything which proves who you are?
This question runs through both the entire film and short story and can be summed up as the question of ‘Personal Identity.’ Ask yourself this question; are you the same person today as you were five years ago? Well if you think about it there are two sides that the answer can take; either the physical side or the mental side. The physical side will utilise theories such as the brain theory and the materialist theory of personal identity. The mental side will utilise theories such as the soul theory and the memory theory.
“You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.”
Heraclitus (540 – 380 BC)
This quote by Heraclitus sums up the essence of the physical side of the ‘Personal Identity’ (PI) argument. He is basically drawing attention to the fact that change is an inevitable thing, and like water, humans constantly change to. It can be said that the changes, which happen to us on a daily basis, are very unnoticeable most of the time. It is pretty hard to notice changes in ones skin and hair (unless very dramatic), and even harder to notice what is going on inside of the body (e.g. cells, organs etc). However if we take what Heraclitus says literally, then we fall into the category of flux – basically that we are instable and change rapidly to point where we are never the same person. Aristotle offers an alternative to this view; he agrees that yes we are constantly changing but that some changes are more important than others. He notes two types:
Essential Change – a change were the thing which essentially changes ceases to exist.
Accidental Change – (not a change which occurs by chance) it is simply a change which isn’t substantial enough to end the existence of the thing in question
So when applied to Heraclitus’ statement we could now say that the river goes through accidental changes, as when we step into the river it isn’t a completely new one is it. Many of the molecules have changed to form new ones, but the river hasn’t ceased to exist, it still remains. This material view of ‘PI’ fails due to the fact that what Heraclitus suggests, is that from the premise ‘everything is in constant change’ we can establish that there is no ‘PI’ which persists through such changes. This is an innate fallacy, as to jump from the premise to the conclusion that there is no ‘PI’ is completely illegitimate – yes things constantly change but you can’t disprove the existence of a ‘PI’ just because physically we change. As our ‘PI’ maybe located somewhere which doesn’t change.
What about the brain theory…well this states that what is essential to ‘you’ (your ‘PI’) is your brain. Yes, brain cells die and are replaced but these are the results of accidental changes rather than essential changes (thank you Aristotle). What is the brain? It is a complex organ with both electric and chemical systems, which regulate and stimulate certain bodily functions. However what about when there is a change in the physical composition of the brain? For example if your brain was deteriorating due to Alzheimer’s disease and artificial neurons (hypothetically speaking) could replace the decline in real neutrons, taking on the same role as your dead neurons. As long as these new cells preserved the function of the old brain cells, thoughts, feelings and so on, it seems that your PI is saved. But would you have the same brain? Obviously the answer to this is no…your brain would have become host to artificial material, merely posing as the real thing. However if the brain still performs the same function then isn’t PI still retained? If we focus not so much on what the brain is but on what the brain does, then we can overcome this dilemma. On the other hand, it still remains a fact that if vital brain cells have died and been replaced by artificial ones, then the brain is by definition no longer the same brain compositionally.
So where does the physical side of the debate rest in regards to the short story and the film? The straight answer is nowhere really…both the short story and the film rest more upon the mental side of the argument. The brain theory gets closer in pinpointing where both the film and the short story are coming from. The brain theory ultimately rests upon its functional aspect, rather than its physical arrangement. This idea closely relates to the mental side of the argument, however it differs as the mental side argues from the foundations of specifics. Where as the brain theory refers to the totality of functional attributes the brain comprises.
We turn now to the mental side of the argument, and the first question to consider is, can one PI be found in the soul? Well, the soul theory purports that our PI is essentially our soul and that the soul is embodied within the body itself. Adhering to this theory brings an immediate problem of dualism – the fact that you can’t make any justifiable claims about your own or even another persons PI. This is because you can’t actually detect the soul, even though those who adhere to this theory still make judgments based on this theory. But how can you establish a correlation between body and soul? The only way to establish a correlation between any two things is, firstly, you need to establish their existence independently of each other. You cannot do this in the case of the soul, so it remains that the idea of the soul makes it incapable of explaining the ability to make judgments about anyone’s PI, whether it is someone else or yourself.
In regards to the short story and the film, this theory once again doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Both the short story and the film put forward the idea that Quaid is in fact himself by stating memories (which I shall explain next); the short story and the film never make any claims in regards to the soul.
The last theory representing the mental side of the PI argument is the memory theory. Basically this theory purports our PI is essentially made up of a bundle of memories which can be traced through time, from past to present. There are obvious flaws with this theory – psychological issues such as amnesia, repression, false memory syndrome and so on create many problems. If a person is unfortunate to have amnesia then how do we assess the PI and more importantly how do they assess it? If they have lost vital memories that make up their PI then can they be the same person? This is the underlying question which you can answer either yes or no, but then you will fall into philosophical fallacy.
So, I have already expressed that in relation to all the mentioned theories of PI, both the short story and the film strongly take into account the memory theory of PI. Initially we see this within the institution called ‘Rekal’ (the organisation which deals with the implantation of false memories); Quaid believes that he is a married man with various other characteristics; it doesn’t explicitly call upon the memory theory within either story or film, but you can detect that the person he is, is exemplified through his memory. The is strongly emphasised within the short story;
“After all, an illusion, no matter how convincing, remained nothing more than an illusion. At least objectively. But subjectively – quite the opposite entirely.”
The Character Quail in ‘We Can Remember it for You Wholesale.’
I think this quote strongly shows the characters connection with his supposed memories; he fully believes that his memories are real, and that any implantation is objectively false. However he draws upon an important point, the fact if he was to have memory implants, subjectively he wouldn’t know the whether the memories that were implanted were real or fake. So he would without a doubt believe there supposed reality.
Furthermore how do the short story and the film differ over their presentation of the memory theory? Well, the film adaptation of the short story just adds to what PKD wrote himself. The short story ended a little abruptly I felt, so the film adaptation only differs in the ending. The character remains the same, the incidents that led the character to realise he had false memories implanted, creating a whole new person, are very similar in both the short story and the film. The plot line of the movie extends the idea of the memory theory – Quaid was the result of an essential change (memory implantation) which gave him a totally new PI to his alter ego (Hausser) shall we say. This idea damages the soul theory because how can 2 different souls have inhabited the same body? Moreover it only fuels the memory theory, both alter ego’s had memories making them the persons they were. But the realisation that Quaid goes through makes him question his own self throughout the entire film. However there is an inherent contradiction within the film; Quatto (a mind controlling mutant) makes this statement: ‘A man is defined by his actions, not his memory.’ This assertion does damage the idea of the memory theory, but aren’t physical actions a prerequisite foundation of holding a memory? Something needs to happen in the physical world, which constitutes you to either remember such incident or reject it. So does the contradiction destroy the theme of the film? I think it doesn’t; what Quatto was relating to was the fact that the previous alter ego (Hausser) was bad, so ultimately due to the fact that he was a totally new ego (Quaid) people will judge him on the actions he takes now not the previous memory of Hausser. But as I stated, action is a necessary condition for the construction of any memory, so the actions that Quaid performs i.e. killing the bad guys, saving Mars and so on, will be constructed as memories. Ultimately meaning that Quaid’s PI will have been created, not just for everyone else but also for himself.
Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, according to Mark Rowlands, before the film held an Aristotelian approach – just because we go through many changes doesn’t mean we can conclude that there is no persisting self. However after the making of the film, Rowlands points out, that he changed his mind and took a more Humean approach - believing that there is no persisting self, merely a bundle of ideas, perceptions and memories constituting a belief in selfhood. Maybe the underlying question to all of this, is really, can you ever imagine Arnie picking up a philosophical text reading it, understanding it and then forming a conclusion of his own? Well, I suppose he deserves a little more credit than I give him.
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