In this week’s module, we are exploring the relationship between our minds, bodies, and brains. How exactly is this relationship portrayed in Altered Carbon, Star Trek, and Futurama? Let’s go on a mission to find out.
Altered Carbon
In the pilot episode “Out of the Past”, there is a scene in which Takeshi Kovacs’ “sleeve” is about to be taken out of its bag at Alcatraz Prison. We get many close-up shots of the sleeve while it is still packaged. In the voiceover we hear, “Your body is not who you are; you shed it like a snake sheds skin.” This perfectly encapsulates the relationship between mind, body, and brain in Altered Carbon: they are separate entities to the characters. The mind is downloaded onto disks, which are like brains, that can be changed from body to body, or in terms of the show, sleeve to sleeve. The body is a commodity, not a partner to the mind. We get close-up shots of the sleeve packaged to show this. This relationship is similar to the concept of Cybernetics, which is the comparison of the mind to a computer. In Altered Carbon, the disk is like a central processing unit (CPU), aka the “brain” of a computer. The sleeve is like the tower of a computer, which essentially holds everything inside. Without the CPU, the tower is nothing. In Altered Carbon, the sleeve is nothing without a disk. The sleeve is simply used in order to experience the environment.
Star Trek
In the episode “Return to Tomorrow”, there is a slightly different approach to this mind, body, and brain. There are spheres that act as the brain and hold the mind, but the characters don’t consider the mind to be at its full potential without the body. When Captain Kirk initially hears Sargon’s voice after discovering a dead planet, we get somewhat of an eye-level shot of him (showcasing his confusion) as he says, “The planet is dead. There’s no possibility of life there as we understand life.” Sargon responds saying, “And I am as dead as my planet.” Sargon is technically not dead, as he is one of three “people” left from his planet, but he considers himself to be dead in the sense that he is there, but he has lack of experience. Sargon exists, but he has no body to experience the environment. In a later scene, Sargon’s wife goes to Sargon, she in Dr. Ann Mulhall’s body and him in Captain Kirk’s body, expressing concern about transferring their minds to the humanoid robots. She touches him and says, “Can two minds press close like this? Can robot lips do this?” It is clear that she values the capabilities of the human body in order to fully experience the mind’s reaction to the environment. This is similar to Distributed Cognition, in which the mind is how we experience the world around us- not our brains or bodies. Even though Sargon and his wife have “minds”, they feel as if they don’t have the full extent of it without bodies. With bodies, they have the 5 senses and can touch each other to experience a closeness that they can’t without their environment.
Futurama
In the episode “The Day the Earth Stood Stupid”, it is considered in the beginning that cognition is simply located in the brain. Leela escapes with Nibbler to his home planet after flying brains start attacking earth. After the Nibblonians eat food, Leela sits with them (and pets the cuties). She asks, “So why are these brain spawn attacking Earth Nibbler?” He responds and says, “The brain spawn hate all consciousnness. The thoughts of others screech at them like the forced laughs of a billion art-house movie patrons.” Another nibblonian adds on saying, “Thus they travel from world to world making everyone stupid in order to wipe out all thought in the universe.” Essentially, the brain spawn attack people’s brains in order to make them stupid, and therefore affect their cognition. It creates lack of thought. However, Leela proves this wrong as she uses her body in order to showcase her thoughts. When she arrives back on Earth, she tells Fry, “Brain! Brain make people dumb!” Fry replies saying, “No Leela, brain make people smart.” Out of frustration, she grabs him and spins him around so he can see the flying brains outside the window. Leela used her actions, therefore her body, to express her thoughts when she couldn’t explicitly share them through words. Her mind, body, and brain worked together. This is just like Embodied Cognition, as Leela shows that the body is involved in cognitive thought. It works with the brain to create our cognition. As stated in the Voicethread, the body isn’t something you have- you are the body.
All in all, all of the shows have different approaches with the mind, body, and brain, especially when it comes to the importance of the body in the cognition process.
5 thoughts on “The Mission of Cognition”
Hi Sara,
I found that our analysis on the Altered Carbon episode were pretty similar. The quote you pulled from the episode really tied together how the mind and body are separate entities, one being replaceable while the other is not. Your comparison of a CPU and computer tower to the brain and the body was useful in understanding the idea of Cybernetics. I think it’s interesting to see how in the show the brain is held so highly above one’s body because once a sleeve runs out, you are able to get a new one (pending your economic status). I think your discussion on how Sargon and Thalassa in the Star Trek contrasted the Altered Carbon episode nicely, especially because we saw the characters having an attachment to the bodies they were inside.
Sarah Murphy
Hi Sara,
So glad that you drew our attention to the line “You are not your body”—I think that you are absolutely right that it speaks to how the show views the relationship between mind and body. This is almost the exact opposite of what 4-E cognition argues, which is that you don’t *have* your body, you *are* your body. Also, great that you are thinking about how the body is a “commodity,” completely objectified, and the show is very interested in unpacking who can afford different kinds of bodies. Also, excellent unpacking the mind is software, body is hardware (or as it is sometimes (disgustingly) called in cyberpunk “wetware”– ugh). It might be interesting to consider, how, if we understand the mind as like a computer, does that affect how we conceptualized and think about our cognition (ie. How we “process” information and “store” memories.)
I also really like that you are thinking about the different shots being used in the Star Trek episode—and how they help us to make meaning from the bodies of the actors (more on that next module when we talk more about embodied cognition). In a lot of the films we are watching (I’d say Possessor and Marjorie Prime in particular), how the film is shot is also conveying information about how the mind is being conceptualized. Great discussion, too, of the quote from Thalassa. I especially like that you are thinking about the relationship between mind, body, and environment—and how we use our bodies and feelings to access and make sense of each other and the world around us.
Also, your observation about Lehia using her embodied actions to communicate with Fry, reminded me of a lot of research on gesture, which argues that our gestures are not merely communicative, but cognitive. As we speak, we are thinking with and through our gestures.
Jessica Hautsch
Hello there!
I agree that all three shows view the mind and body very differently. Altered Carbon, in my opinion, has elements from the other two shows, as well. Bancroft captures that very Cartesian way of viewing the body, as if it’s something that merely acts a vessel for one’s self. Cindy being returned to her parents as an old woman, on the other hand, highlights the importance of one’s original body. Not only that, but it shows how much our minds are conditioned to think in our own bodies, not just any random bodies.
That being said, I would never in a hundred years made the connection you made about the Futurama episode. It went right over my brain (ha, get it? Plz laugh) that Leela used her body to express what her mind couldn’t manage to because of Big Brain’s powers. Maybe you should get the name Big Brain O_o
gkhidasheli
Hi Sara,
I love your straight-to-it attitude, I often envy that in other writers, I often find myself rambling, as I am doing now (lol I’ll never change). I actually didn’t make the connection to Sargon telling Kirk that he was “as dead as the planet” to be a take on them being dead without a body, quite perceptive of you. I honestly thought he was being facetious and was joking like “I’m as dead as this planet” meaning like it wasn’t actually dead. Yeah….I see how your take on that makes more sense.
The Futurama episode really caught my eye on its take on cognition, in fact, I believe that the reason it is so accurate to how scientists believe cognition works is because of how new the show is (relatively, I know Altered Carbon is newer but just let me have this). They also played it for laughs but I genuinely believe that they based this episode on the modern take of cognition: which is quite fascinating how much effort they put into creating realistic Sci-Fi when the show itself is kind of a parody/making fun of one. Just a real favorite show of mine is all, don’t mind my fan girling over here.
Overall, fantastic job, I would also love your take on comparing these works to each other, I believe you would have such insightful things to say as for the comparing of these episodes and how they contrast and juxtapose one another. 🙂
snaraujo
Hi Steph,
One thing that I’m really interested in, and one of the reasons why I am so excited to teach this class is that even these new shows still draw on “old” (Cartesian and cybernetic) ways of thinking about the mind. Those ways of thinking about the mind are so ingrained into our conceptual and linguistic systems (saying things like “That went over my head” or “I can’t get that to stick in my brain” locates the mind in the brain; “My mind is wandering” suggests that the mind is abstract and disembodied; “we need to rewire the brain” suggest that it is like a computer or other piece of technological machinery”) it can be difficult to think outside of them!
Jessica Hautsch