Cognition is universal, we all feel aware and sentient, and through our senses and our perception of the world around us, our brain is able to gather knowledge and further our consciousness and information. But how is this concept portrayed in media? Our mind has forever and always been an evolving question mark that we are trying to solve, and through the years our media has tried to solve and understand cognition.
Futurama is actually a show I am familiar with, actually, more than familiar, quite in love with in fact, and its episode The Day the Earth Stood Stupid” (A spoof off the movie The Day The Earth Stood Still, which was a terrible movie, by the way, do not recommend, at least the 2008 version) tackles this question of cognition and how it plays a role in our lives. Floating brains shut off all consciousness of the people on earth, and thusly everyone becomes stupid and loses all function. Here we first see this interesting symbiotic relationship between the brain and the body. Cognition cannot occur without outside includes from our perceptions but the perceptions are useless unless our brains are there to process them, and vice versa. Without one there cannot be the other and here we see this breakdown in communication. Their bodies were still able to feel, see, taste, hear and smell but their brains weren’t actually processing or breaking down the information to add to their cognition and therefore it did not occur at all.
Now for the much more sciencey sci-fi. Futuramas is a comedy after all and we all know we humans live for the drama and action. And may I say nothing on this watch list was as dramatic as the Altered Carbon episode Out Of The Past. Here we see another interesting correlation between the mind and body. In the episode, all humans after the age of 1 have a cortical stack that stores all of a human’s memory and consciousness on it, and if undamaged/backed up onto a storage device, people’s consciousness can essentially be placed into a new body. In this example, although there is still this massive connection between the brain and body for creating said human cognition, the body is put at a lower value than the brain. In a world where your body is disposable and replaceable the mind has all the value. This idea happens back to old-fashioned psychological ideas placed forth by Plato that the soul/mind is imprisoned within the body and that the body also is worth less than the mind. The body is more of a vessel and animalistic than the brian which is human and the primary source of consciousness. Now does the show still present the body as an important part of our cognition? Yes absolutely, but it still makes this dual-way cognition seem extremely one-sided (As if the body and mind were grouped together in a group project and the mind did the majority of the work and the body scribbled his name on top of the paper with a crayon). The mind is the handyman while the body is a tool.
And who doesn’t love a bit of old Sci-Fi, I sure do. I must admit though I had never watched Star Trek before so this was a great excuse too. Return To Tomorrow has a shocking similar premiss as Futurama. Quite frankly it is extremely fascinating to see two different shows tackling the same topic, even though they are decades apart from one another. We see in this episode that a consciousness called Sargon is in a sphere after the death of his entire species drove him to place his cognition into an orb. He is a being of pure energy and no matter, purely the mind part of cognition. And just like the Futurama episode, there is this breakdown of communication for their cognition. They are able to manipulate things around them but they are still missing a vital piece of this puzzle, a body. Without one they are stuck like a brain in a vat, not really a being anymore, not really human. The cognition that they do retain is from when they were humans when they were able to have a perfectly functional system of equal parts body and brain.
The idea of cognition is actually surprisingly tackled quite frequently in the media. I suppose it’s from our human-filled desire to understand everything but still not fully understanding ourselves. And regardless of what Sci-Fi of the past, present, or future presents to us, cognition is an equal players game between the body and mind.
6 thoughts on “Analysis 1: Wow There Sure Are a Lot of Episodes About Cognition”
Hi Stephanie,
I really liked that you thought about the relationship between the brain and body from the bodies perspective. I feel like when I think about them I almost put more emphasis on the brain and how the body is needed to interact physically with your environment, but you made a good point about the loss of a brain inside of a body and how the body would still be able to use its five sense, but the brain wouldn’t be there to process any of it. Not only is the brain using the body, but the body is using the brain in a way. In the Altered Carbon episode we see how the brain is valued more highly than the body and I liked how you compared the body to being a “vessel”.
Sarah Murphy
Hi Sarah,
Yes! This comment makes a super important point. Our physical interaction with our environment is part of our cognition. It is not that we interact with *and then* think about the environment; our perception and interaction *is part of* our cognition.
Jessica Hautsch
Hi Stephanie!
I will definitely make sure not to watch The Day the Earth Stood Still, haha! Jokes aside, it’s interesting how you noted a symbiotic relationship between the brain and the body for Futurama. It’s similar to embodied cognition, as the body is part of the cognitive system, not separate from it.
The body is certainly held at a lower value in Altered Carbon. They are treated as easily replaceable commodities. I didn’t think to connect it to Plato, but I can see it now in your analysis. I really like that comparison of the mind as the handyman and the body as the tool. That is so true! In Altered Carbon, the sleeves are invaluable without the stack inside, just like a tool. A hammer is still without someone using it. The sleeves are simply used to be able to carry out tasks within the environment… the stacks have the true power.
With Star Trek, yes, the body is again an important piece of the puzzle for cognition. Without the body, Sargon and Thalassa can’t experience the environment around them, nor can they experience the physical aspects of love between them. I think that’s also why Thalassa was so worried about being in a humanoid robot body instead of a real body- it is much different and may not have the same physical feelings as a human body.
Sara Giarnieri
Hi Steph,
The title of your blog post made me laugh out loud, because there really are—and it was very tricky narrowing down the films and television episodes that we’d be watching together (especially because we only have 6 weeks!). And I think you are absolutely right, the focus on cognition in these shows reflects our under desire to understand ourselves.
I think that your section on Futurama raises some important questions. You are absolutely correct that according to 4-E cognition, our brain plays an important role in our cognitive system, but it is not our whole system. As you note, in the episode, we see that the characters’ brains is shut down, which makes them all stupid. But what about the Evil Brains themselves? What does it mean to be a brain without a body? What would cognition look like if it is in a brain without a body?
I LOVE the metaphors that you use to discuss in your discussion of the Platonic or Cartesian view of the body. The body scribbling its name on the top of the group project is very funny. But I think your handyman/tool metaphor is also great. This connects to the cybernetic understanding of the body as the hardware, the mind as the software, which provides the operating system. What does it mean for cognition if we think of the body as nothing more than a tool? This offers an interesting connection to Star Trek episode. If the body is nothing more than a tool, then what does it matter if it is made of flesh and bone or metal and machine.
Glad to read that you are a fan of Futurama. We’ll be watching another episode next module! Also, there is a great podcast called “Star Trek: The Next Futurama” that pairs thematically episodes of Star Trek and Futurama. You comment about how similar those episodes are made me think of it.
Jessica Hautsch
Hello!
It’s crazy how much nuance a comedy animation has, isn’t it? I mostly focused on the Big Floating Brain™, and it didn’t occur to me that the way people acted with their brains practically fried was basically the show telling me, “while you need a body to be alive and process thought, a brain is equally important.” There is this duality, of sorts, not to be confused with Cartesian Dualism. Having just a brain, assuming you’re human in the first place, is useless without a body.
Neat metaphor about how the body is portrayed in Altered Carbon. It definitely feels like it’s more of a “Oh, no! Anyway…” situation whenever someone loses their body in that show.
gkhidasheli
Hi Guga,
Yes! You make a great point. The brain is an integral part of our cognitive system. But, theorist of 4-E cognition not that it is not the entire system. Our bodies and environments also play an important role!
Jessica Hautsch