The first episode that I watched this week was “Out of the Past”
Altered Carbon. In this episode we meet the main character Takeshi Kovacs, In the beginning we see Kovacs in the past and then we are brought to the show’s present where Kovacs is essentially being resurrected with a new body; referred to as a sleeve. We soon learn that this was done with a small disk device called a ““Cortical Stack” that is implanted in people’s heads when they are one, inside the stack is the human mind.” (11:42-12:15) Because of this stack we learn that as long as it is not destroyed when one dies their consciousness can be downloaded into any sleeve. Because of these stacks one’s consciousness is something that can be moved and transferred many times.
The next episode that I watched was “The Day the Earth Stood Stupid.” Futurama. In this episode the characters had a fight against the human brain itself. The brains have begun to work without a human body and so the characters must use their own minds in order to defeat them. When the brains begin to attack and the characters in the show begin to lose intelligence, except for Fry who is unaffected by the brains and has to use his own to defeat the mother brain.
The final episode that I watched was “Return to Tomorrow.” Star Trek: The Original Series. In this episode the characters are contacted by a consciousness named Sargon, who says that the energy of his thoughts took control of their devices and brought them to him, (1:22-1:28). Although Sargon was able to do things such as this without being constricted by a body, when he entered Kirk’s body he notes the different sensations that he experiences returning into the human form. He can feel the air in his lungs and his heart pumping, and after having been just a consciousness for 1000 years he misses those things.
4 thoughts on “Analysis 1”
Hi Rebecca,
You make a great observations about how cognition and the mind are treated in each of these episodes. As you note, in Altered Carbon, minds are downloaded into stacks, which can then be uploaded into any “sleeve”; in Futurama, we see brains flying through the air, completely disembodied; in Star Trek, we see that Sargon’s body is disembodied—downloaded into an orb—but that his experience in a body is obviously very different from when he is in the orb.
How can you connect the representations of consciousness and cognition that we are seeing in these episodes to the material that we learned about this week in the voicethread? What ways of viewing the mind are represented in these episodes? Do the episodes seem to view the mind more along a Cartesian dualistic split? A cybernetic approach? E-4 cognition? A combination of these approaches?
Through their representation of the mind, what do each of these episodes seem to be suggesting about cognition and the way that the mind operates—especially in relation to the body?
Jessica Hautsch
Hi Rebecca,
I like the way you summarize the episode of “Futurama” with: “In this episode the characters had a fight against the human brain itself. The brains have begun to work without a human body and so the characters must use their own minds in order to defeat them.” I started thinking about the irony of Fry, having a body and a not-so-intelligent brain, being the key to defeating the big brain. If he had only his intelligent brain without a body he wouldn’t have been able to defeat him. The body was also used when Leela was not able to communicate with the others with her brain (words) and used her body to show Fry what they were dealing with.
Alessa Bustillo
Hi Rebecca!
I think it interesting your emphasis on the word consciousness, there are a lot of different ways to define what is in the episodes. The discs in Altered Carbons could be consciousness, but also I question the difference between simply taking memories stored in the brain. Even then I wonder if a collection of memories makes a person. This brings me back to the original points we covered in class. We asked if a brain is you with a body, but also is a person just their memories. I also wonder in the case of the murdered man, is he less himself? then the others, considering his stack is destroyed.
onobs
Hi Rebecca,
I like that you spoke about Sargon’s happiness towards being in a human body again. Sargon misses the human form but he is still just as powerful outside of it. It begs the question: is the human body necessary? And the answer here is, that it is necessary. Yes, the brain can carry out cognition, however, the human body is what made Sargon finally feel whole again. It notes the difference between simply existing and just living. He existed as matter in an orb, but he didn’t truly start living until he entered Kirk’s body.
toyoung