Our Bodies as Vessels.

Episodes blog #2

In Altered carbon Out of the past Takeshi Kovacs wakes up resurrected 250 years after he had died.  What it is interesting is the body is referred to as a sleeve. The scene in the beginning where there is a body floating in a dark fluid and then you see the body breathing heavily as he rises to the surface. You see a shadow of a nude body. The woman he is with is seen cleaning and stacking cortical stacks they have collected. A cortical stack is basically people’s minds downloaded into these.  The mind can be put into any “sleeve” or body. Takeshi was sent into the future to solve his own murder.  Showing the mind and his sixth sense is a very powerful thing. To compare this to what we have learned it is like Cartesian Dualism: The mind body split.  It is said that the mind is separated from the elevated above the body.  Plato believed the mind and soul were imprisoned in the body. I think this episode seems to metaphorically stand for the mind is thought as a computer with software and the body is the hardware. The body is the vessel transporting important information from the brain.

In Star Trek Return to Tomorrow The starship meet Sargon who has telepathic powers and tells them to arrive at his planet where he and two others are the last surviving of their kind.  Their minds have been stored in spheres.  In need of human bodies Sargon transfers his mind in Kirk’s body and then kirks mind into this sphere. The bodies again comparing to the first episode are just vessels and the mind is the power.  The transferring into the bodies can be exhausting.   Henoch begins to prepare a serum as kirks body becomes weaker, he requires this serum. This is almost like the brain in the vat thought experiment.  Neuro activation.  Like a mad scientist, our professor users an example as phantom limb, through neuroactivational.  The brain plays an important role in our perception.

“The Day the Earth Stood Stupid.”                                                                                                   
Futurama

Is a play on human and alien life.  This show is a comedy and the part of the episode, Nibbler uses telepathically That he is an ambassador sent to observe humans.   Brains then starts sending beams toward buildings and fry discovers all the citizen of New York have are now “stupid”. A brain spawn was sent to invade earth and wipe it out.  Everyone is powerless against the stupidity of brain spawn.  Since Fry was the only one not stupid, she is the only one who can defeat it.  The part in the scene where they pin the information to her shirt was funny because once she entered back into the earth atmosphere, she would be too stupid and would not remember.

One common theme between all three episodes is the body seems like it is treated as just a vessel.  We can interchange the body, but the mind is what makes us who and what we are. In embodied cognition, this believes are bodies are just as important as our minds. “Cognition is not limited to the brain, rather we think through and with our bodies.” The interpretation in these episodes that the brain is strong and there can be powers beyond with mind control.  The future could be where we can upload our brain into other bodies.  We must take care of our minds and our bodies.  We have to make sure we take care of these vessels for the brain to work as well.