Total Recall - Voluntary Ignorance Paradox
In the movie Total Recall 1990 which is based on a novel by Philip K. Dick called We Can Remember It for You Wholesale the main character tries an existential experience through an AI machine that creates fake realities or simulations which are indistinguishable from real life. During the experience he's told that he is not who he thinks he is because he agreed to voluntarily remove his identity to be somebody else and he's not in a fake reality but in the real world.
If you could remove your identity or your past how could you know that you chose to do that in the past if that past and that choice could potentially be faked?
This very same concept is used by other existential theories such us "soul contracts" and religions (reincarnation). In Christianity would be if God can create reality how can we know for sure when he tells us that Adam and Eve chose to bite the apple of knowledge? If reality can be faked how can we know that we have "free will" ?
This is vaguely known as the voluntary ignorance paradox. Is there another way in which this paradox is described in philosophy?
If you could remove your identity or your past how could you know that you chose to do that in the past if that past and that choice could potentially be faked?
This very same concept is used by other existential theories such us "soul contracts" and religions (reincarnation). In Christianity would be if God can create reality how can we know for sure when he tells us that Adam and Eve chose to bite the apple of knowledge? If reality can be faked how can we know that we have "free will" ?
This is vaguely known as the voluntary ignorance paradox. Is there another way in which this paradox is described in philosophy?
Total Recall 1990:
You're nothing! You're nobody! You're a stupid dream.
Comments (27)
Another idea is the paradox of self-deception. You can lie to others but can you really deceive yourself? That's explained quite well in this article.
One could say that the world and ego according to Buddhism are of the same illusory nature so Total Recall from a Buddhist point of view is just the consciousness no-self attached to the ego or illusory idea of the universe.
so presumably you mean, how can one rely upon one's own memory when classifying false memories?
Firstly it has to be asked: What does it mean for a memory or a photograph to refer to something past?
In other words, how is a memory or photograph different from a mere image?
Can an individual photograph without any additionally provided context be meaningfully said to refer to anything past?
Or is the concept of a 'past referring photograph' a holistic concept involving the use of an image, for example it's comparison to other images?
Other clarifying example would be:
How can I define myself if reality can be faked?
what is the difference between faking something versus changing something?
Does the past necessarily have to be viewed as being fakeable but not changeable?
Consider Orwell's 1984, where all documented history is destroyed or altered. We should say that the real past remains the same. But what if all potential evidence of the past was lost? Are we still forced to conceptualise the past as unchanged?
You'd have to just go by the best evidence available.
Re free will, I have a difficult time conceptually connecting this dilemma to free will, because I'm one of those folks who see the free will issue as a matter of whether it's possible to make a (real) decision (where there really are at least two possible avenues that one could take ontologically).
Are there non-empirical claims we can know for certain by way of proofs that do not rely on empirical claims? Sorry if this does not make sense.
Are all claims either directly or indirectly dependent on empirical observations? And is this also a truism?
Yes, all mathematical and logical proofs are an example.
However Johnny Mnemonic is different from Douglas Quaid in Total Recall, Johnny actually has undergone a procedure that was in more literal terms more traumatic to his brain, as his brain was altered by surgery.
Douglass Quaid has undergone something more akin to a shell schock, or combat fatigue. His VR ride makes him question the validity of his decision in the first place, whereas Johnny can never even be sure if he made the decision at all. Is Johnny perhaps closer to a true face of what pbxman describes?
There was a Doctor Who episode - I think with Matt Smith - in which he forgot he was the Doctor and lived in a country village in the late nineteenth century. It was something to do with hiding himself from his enemies, and in order to completely hide, he had to forget that he was the Doctor.
I have not found any literature that calls that choice to "voluntary ignore" who you are, were do you come from and where are you going, a "paradox" when in fact its even more paradoxical than self-deception which is considered a paradox that would be more like an oxymoron if it wasn't for the recent discoveries in modern psychology.
Don't we ultimately define the correctness of a proof by it's agreement with consensual opinion or with the output of an implemented computer program?
Consider 2+2 = 4. We can take it as being a necessary truth, in which case we are not making an epistemological claim, but are asserting our attitude in relation to our intended use of the formula.
But if we do not take it to be a necessary truth, then it is a truth contingent upon our actual use of the formula. In either case, in what sense is our actual use, or intended use of the formula, not empirical?
When I went searching for it in Indian scriptures, I found myself mostly pointed towards the Gita. I find the Gita pretty hard to understand, but the interpretation I get from this series of podcasts is in line with Watts' "Brahman's Dream" rendition. The guru giving those talks is from this spiritual community, which appears to be Vedanta.
Thanks for the Johnny Mnemonic example. I think it's the same paradox. As for Total Recall I'm afraid it's you or perhaps me the one who did not make an accurate interpretation of the movie.
We are talking of course about the original 1990 version stared by Arnold Schwarzenegger and yes the guy from Rekall could have been created by the AI machine as well even the drop of sweat!
Remember the technician quote "Blue sky on Mars!, that's a new one" at the beginning also remember the blue sky at the end:
That movie has references to the real spiritual concept underlying such us the "EGO TRIP". The trip of the self. Some religions believe our existence is one. Then again you face the paradox. How can I know that I made the choice to forget my identity when reality can be faked?
Proofs work relative to the systems we've set up. That's different than inventing proofs wholesale --in other words, we can and do discover them a la discovering things that can be done with the systems/tools we've set up, given the exact ways we've set them up.
I'd mind not having it here, too, if anyone else wants to have it here.
But sure, I might have it in another thread as well.
It seems to me that if one accepts this conceptual deflation of time in terms of phenomena, that a false memory would only be false in terms of convention.. For the time referred to by a memory would then be identical to the memory content, say the memory-image. Therefore to say that the memory was 'false' would be equivalent to saying that the position in time previously associated with this memory-image was to be redefined in terms of a different memory-image.
X
You can't. Any possibility of memory being modified for a person would make it impossible for the person to know anything about him/herself. Not even an external reference point, like another person, can do anything about it since the person whose memory's been modified would have to rely on his memory which is, well, no longer reliable.
If the answer is no, and I think that it is no, then we live in a world where we basically agree with Graham Harman and his OOO...Here my cogito remains as Descartes would have imagine it but everything else orbits the ( objects, or essences, or forms) nothing can walk back the entropy and we keep on living our life forward. Think of our world right now as if it was exact opposite of the world where John Murdoch awakens in Dark City a 1998 film.
Therefore, I think we cannot know if I made that choice to change my identity. At best I can like John Murdoch and question my reality.
consciousness, infinite awareness having an experience. You can't really be sure of anything apart from that even if that thought makes you feel uncomfortable.
"I think therefore I am" Descartes identified himself as an independent thinker and also with his ego. He didn't realized that his Evil Demon could have created the doubt in his mind, even induce thoughts in his mind or knowing his decisions even before himself. Check neuroscience of the free-will here He didn't even realized that his persona or ego could have been created by the demon himself.
Descartes himself even doubt his own conclusion. "if the Evil Demon deceives me, there is still an 'I' to be deceived".
There is no way to prove the existence of God or the Simulation Hypothesis. Even top engineers like Elon Musk believe this world is a simulation. So if this is all a computer simulation and we cannot disprove it perhaps tomorrow you will see flying pigs or Harry Potter flying on his broom. As long as you have witnesses you should be fine.
Some sects use Near Death Experiences by people to conclude that you chose to incarnate on this earth for spiritual purposes an also you chose to remove your existential knowledge for the same reason. As in the movie Total Recall or Johnny Mnemonic you face this paradox whose name is vaguely known as voluntary ignorance.
Let's presume that those people were right and when you die you see the tunnel of light, you remember your pass lives, you are even told why you agreed your shitty life on earth and you see your can even see a video of your "real" spiritual self doing that, and then they try to convince you to reincarnate again with the condition of course that you should remove all your memories. From the very moment you have technology to create fake realities (we have it now) and somehow you can't remember your past you get this paradox.(eg. possible murderer with amnesia) If we take this approach this means the "ego" or idea of the self is also illusory just like Buddhism says. Not only yours but everybody else's. You don't even need to remove your memories for that. Your whole body renews it cells and the brain changes the synaptic connections of the neurons therefore therefore just like in the Ship of Theseus you are not who you were time ago but the illusion of it. The ego or idea of the self is illusory.
The question i'm asking here is not related to the ego but to the idea of freewill that seems also to be illusory because if freewill exists it can only exist in the spot that is to say here and now.
The point is that "I think therefore I am" is not entirely right. Even the idea of the "I" or self or ego is a creation of the mind. You are the consciousness! The silent watcher not the thought. You don't even need a thought to know that. Experienced meditators know this by creating huge gaps between thoughts. (Research emptiness meditation)
If you like Sci-fi take for instance the Series "Altered Carbon" They could transport their personality and consciousness into many different avatars. Vedanta goes beyond that it tells you that you are not your personality (psychology, ego etc) because those are learnt along the way and they are subjected to impermanence. After all we are all one like drops of water reaching the ocean. Buddhism goes even further an tells you that the realization of "we are one" it's also a creation of the mind and invites you to go even further...If idea and experience of all being one is correct then there is no birth, no death, no time, the whole universe is one the rest is illusory. My question is why the universe decided to split up in trillions and trillions of pieces and disguise it's true nature. I'm afraid that's impossible to answer.
I'm not sure I understand this. Say we define a position in time, say "August 3, 2004, 2:00 p.m. U.S. Eastern Standard Time" in terms of the phenomena associated with it: "I was in Paris with my mistress, Beulah." And say that was defined at the time, when I wrote it down (so we could include the phenomena of writing it down as part of the definition, too, I suppose).
So then re February 21, 2019, 9:30 a.m. U.S. Eastern Standard Time, the phenomena I'm associating with that is "I'm writing this post and thinking about my past." One of the things I think here is "August 3, 2004, 2:00 p.m. U.S. Eastern Standard Time is defined/associated with the phenomena of my trip to Fiji with my wife, Bubbles."
You're saying that that's only false--that I went to Fiji, by convention somehow? (Who else is participating in this?) Why wouldn't the fact that I never went to Fiji not matter?
If a scenario renders all knowledge claims void, then it's fair to say that it's irrational to believe in the scenario -- because believing in it would make reason inaccessible.
Except, of course, if you're actually Quaid living in the movie. In his case, his reality has already broken down repeatedly, so he has a rational basis to believe that he no longer has any rational way to evaluate whether knowledge claims are valid. Sucks to be him.