Our visual media of the week, Possessor and Futurama‘s “I Second that Emotion”, explore the topic of empathy. However, it shows empathy in a way that the average person may find unsettling. Empathy is expressed in a manner that is forced or curated, not natural. How far does the mask of empathy go?

Possessor

In Possessor, empathy is a rather disturbing topic. Our main character, Tasya Vos, is arguably unable to feel the emotion or characteristics of others without observation. She is the opposite of our module’s discussion of direct perception: when you can feel how another is feeling without interpretation. Vos plays people (including herself) like characters in order to get into their mindset. Early on in the film, Vos talks to Girder about the assassination of Elio Mazza. Girder asks, “Why stab Elio Mazza. You were provided with a pistol.” Vos answers, “Well maybe it just seemed more in character.” Girder replies, “Whose character?” Vos doesn’t provide an answer to this question. The way Vos views herself as being “in character” implies that she cannot directly feel emotion.

There is another account in the film that exhibits the idea of playing a character. Vos observes Colin Tate with his fiancée Ava through a camera with a large lens. Colin says things such as, “I don’t think there’s any left” and “You wanna get dinner?” In this scene, we can see Vos copy his mannerisms to emulate his character before she must take over his cognition. She repeats the lines multiple times to perfect them. We come to a close-up shot of her face as she copies the words, “Let’s just go walk and find somewhere.” She closes her eyes and repeats it to herself as if she is trying to memorize it. She is like an actress practicing her lines. She cannot naturally feel what Colin is feeling.

Part of what makes us human is our emotion affected by the experiences of others’ and our own. Vos doesn’t quite have this. If anything, she is robotic. She can be compared to the concept of cybernetics. Kind of like how AI uses the information around it to learn, she does the same in order to play her characters. She stores the information in her mind for later use.

Futurama

The way empathy is showcased in Futurama‘s episode
“I Second that Emotion” is not disturbing, but we are dealing with another character that has a lack of natural empathy. Without the empathy chip that is attached to Bender by Professor Farnsworth, he cannot feel any of the emotion that radiates from others.

Before the empathy chip, there is a scene in which Bender watches the television. A robot is visiting the doctor, and the doctor tells him, “Your entire family died when a plane piloted by your fiancée crashed into your uninsured home, and you have inoperable cancer.” A normal, empathetic individual would feel terrible for the robot, but in the next seen we get a medium shot of Bender laughing at the television. He doesn’t feel the pain of the character on screen.

After the empathy chip, Bender can feel Leela’s emotions. Leela and Fry find Bender in the sewer. Leela says, “Bender, you didn’t have to come down here.” Bender responds, “I know, but I just miss Nibbler so much.” Leela says, “He was so cute.” Bender adds, “He was so sweet.” The two end up hugging while Bender cries. Bender has emotion in this scene because he can directly feel how Leela is feeling- the love and longing for Nibbler. This scene encapsulates emotional empathy, which is defined as feeling similar emotions to someone else in the VoiceThread. Bender can feel the same emotions as Leela, but only with the chip.

Conclusion

Both Possessor and Futurama share a mask of empathy. Vos’ is curated, and Bender’s is forced. Neither can feel the natural empathy that we do.

“The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world”- Plato. This quote in my opinion really is what empathy is all about in a few words.  I believe it really explains Possessor and the episode, “I Second That Emotion” in Futurama.

In an ultra- violent sci-fi- horror freak- out, Possessor has different scenes where empathy plays a huge role. The main character Tasya Vos is an agent whose job is to learn about one person at a time, enough to be able to mimic that person when she is in control of their body. This time Colin is her next victim. Tasya’s one task is to kill John who is the owner of a big company and Ava who is his daughter. By using Colin’s body (Ava’s fiancé), Tasya’s mission is possible. Tasya has shown throughout the movie that she has a conscious, unlike the people she works for. Her conscious can be seen as embodied empathy because many times during the movie, she has a hard time about killing the person’s body she was in. She starts feeling their emotions and she has internal battle of killing them off. Having her small family can be seen as dangerous in her line of work because she cannot have empathy when in someone’s body. Tasya goes through exercises in the beginning and end of the movie to check her consciousness is back in her own mind and there are no gaps in memories. One example was a framed butterfly, in the beginning of the movie she states, “I killed and mounted it one summer when I was a girl, and then I felt guilty about it. I still feel guilty about it”.  This is an example of who she is and the empathy she has. In the end, after killing her family, when Tasya returns to her own body, she picks up the same butterfly. She says, “I killed and mounted it one summer when I was a little girl”. This now shows a different Tasya and that she no longer feels empathy or guilt for her kills, be it the butterfly, her ex-husband, or her own child. Vos no longer feels any emotions of her own because of how many times she had to train to be someone else in another person’s body.

After watching possessor, Futurama was a breath of fresh air (literally). The entire episode had perfect examples how Bender the robot does not feel empathy. It also seems like Bender does not mind NOT feeling this emotion. Of course, the professor puts an empathy chip, as if it was so easy to give someone the feeling of empathy. After feeling all Leela emotions, he fights it every time. He does not want to feel this way, maybe because he feels weak. Of course, when Leela feels something now he feels it as well. What I thought was interesting is how he knows that is Leela’s feelings and not his own. So, the chip gave him the feeling, but it wasn’t true empathy it was Leela’s feelings. Showing that what we learned in this week’s lesson of theory of mind. The professor even states at the end of the episode that the chip was turned off, viewers believe that bender can feel empathy without the chip. Quickly after the professor states that the chip was working in triple capacity. Which than we see the normal Bender that did not change because of this adventure. Bender really had no empathy for Leela’s feelings when she lost Nibbler. At the end, when Leela is crying and tied up and needs Bender to save her, Bender can’t because of Leela’s emotions. How ironic, that now he feels so much of Leela’s feelings and can’t help her. This is a true example of Embodied Cognition, how the body influences the mind. Bender can’t save her until she figured out how to not feel her sad emotions, she needed to be selfish and only care about her own emotions.

Not everyone can feel empathy, it takes a human form to have the capability of feeling ones feeling. But the feeling empathy does not make you weak- like I stated above, it is the highest form of knowledge.

Emotions are powerful. They show to others that the human body is not just an emotionless slab of stone. And with emotions comes empathy. According to Merriam Webster, empathy is defined as “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thought, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner”.

When I think of the word empathy, the first thing that comes to mind is empath, which is defined as “a person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual”. The first example that came to my mind was the character “Alex Chen” from the videogame “Life is Strange: True Colors”, who has the ability to read a persons mind and emotions, and in some cases can forcefully change a persons emotions. I would highly recommend playing it.

Anyway, back to the point of this blog post, two things that I watched this week that explored the concept of empathy and embodied cognition, being the movie “Possessor” and the Futurama episode “I Second that Emotion”.

The first thing that I watched was the movie “Possessor”. The film was released back in 2020, and to my surprise it was directed by Brandon Cronenberg. I first thought to myself “wait, why does that last name sound so familiar”? So, I looked it up and I realized that Brandon was the son of David Cronenberg, a Canadian film director who is best known for his body horror movies such as “Videodrome” and “The Fly”. So, after watching the movie, I can say without any uncertainty “Like father, like son”, because Brandon’s use of body horror was phenomenal. One scene that I want to focus on is the scene that takes place in the middle of the movie where Vos, already possessing Colin’s body, is feeling sick and heads to the bathroom. When we see Colin’s eyes, we see a light cross, which is apparently what Vos is currently seeing through her eyes from being strapped to the possession machine. This is an example of perception, because we are seeing things from Vos’ point of view thru the body of Colin as Vos’ perspective is being perceived from somewhere else.

After watching “Possessor”, I watched the Futurama episode “I Second that Emotion”. In this episode, Bender flushes Leela’s pet Nibbler out of jealousy, so to get back at him, Professor Farnsworth installs an empathy chip to Bender so he can feel all the emotions Leela is feeling. The scene that I want to focus on is at the end of the episode, when Leela is tied to a pole and is about to be eaten by El Chupanibre, and thanks to the chip, Bender is too scared to fight El Chupanibre because Leela’s afraid. This is the perfect example of embodied cognition, where we see the body of another person and we “sense in” into their body and “live through it”. Now, even though Bender “sensing” Leela’s emotions is coming from an empathy chip, the point still stands.

In this week’s film Possessor and Futurama episode “I Second that Emotion”, we can see how empathy is an aspect of cognitive science, and plays a role within the relationship between body and mind. In one of the scenes from Futurama, Leela is at the bar crying about missing Nibbler, but we also see Bender at home on the couch with Fry crying as well (10:19). The cross-cutting technique is used here to show that these two events are happening at the same time, and that both Leela and Bender are experiencing the same emotion.  The emotion is “traveling” from Leela to Bender through empathy, just as the camera has switched from Leela to Bender. Theory of Mind is explored in this scene, as earlier in the episode Bender receives a special empathy chip in his head that is in tune with Leela’s emotions. He is able to recognize that he is crying because he is feeling the sadness that Leela feels. When Fry questions if Bender misses Nibbler, Bender replies saying “Hell no. Its Leela’s stupid feelings”.

In the lecture it mentioned that Theory of Mind is “understanding that other people’s perspectives and thoughts are different from one’s own”, which is demonstrated by Bender admitting that the emotions he is feeling are not his own, and he is able to differentiate between the two. But, further into the scene, Bender feels the emotion of jealousy and starts going off on Fry saying things that Leela is feeling while she is in the bar. The lines between the two merge in that moment, showing how the body is necessary for the context of a situation and the emotions that are being felt in them. 

I found it interesting that Bender is a robot, and in lacking a human body he seems to be the only one in the group who is not empathetic towards Leela’s situation. This episode highlighted how important empathy is in relationships and social settings. Connecting with others on deeper levels involves being emotionally mature and in tune to your environment. In a scene earlier in the episode, right after Bender has the empathy chip placed inside of him, the Professor is flipping through the different frequencies in the room (9:13). He experiences everyone’s emotions in a short span of time before finally getting to Leela, and even when he is experiencing her emotions for an extended period of time, there still is an emotional disconnect. He is fighting and complaining about the connection to Leela that he now shares. Although empathy is being shown as something that can be “placed” into someone’s brain, I think it requires the person themselves to want it themselves, as it is something that cannot be forced. His robotic body was not a factor experiencing empathy, but the chip placed inside his head was the main focal point. I think that maybe the show was trying to comment on how the mind and body actually work together when it comes to empathy. 

In the film Possessor, assassin Taysa Vos jumps into the bodies of others in order to complete her assignments. In preparation of entering someone else’s body, Vos studies their behavior and vocal patterns in order to get into character. During one scene we see Vos watching footage of Colin Nate (the man she will be going into), and his girlfriend Ava (22:38). Vos repeats the words and phrases that Colin says, using different inflections to try and match his speech pattern. She takes notes of how he reacts in conversation as well as body language. She is trying to become Colin before even entering his body. This could be related back to simulation theory and how Vos is trying to get inside the headspace of Colin, so that she will be ready for different scenarios and interactions that may occur. If she can get an idea of what he is feeling and thinking about, it will be easier for her to replicate it in his body. It’s not just about going into their body as yourself, but changing yourself to fit their body. I think that’s where it becomes foggy for our main character as she slowly loses herself while being trapped inside of Colin’s body, while he fights for dominance over his mind. The empathy and emotion she is feeling can no longer be distinguished as her own because it is merging with the host. 

The two scenes that really demonstrated the fragility of empathy were when Vos is being interviewed by Girder after coming out of someone’s mind. We see Vos examining some of her old belongings and identifying the significance of each one (8:38). In the beginning scene, Vos seems more aware and present while talking about the history of the specific items. She shows a sort of an emotional attachment to them, whereas in the ending scene she is shown more cold and robotic while shuffling through the case. I think this was meant to show how the time spent away from her body actually affected the way she was able to process emotions, especially because her mind was in a body that was not her own. Vos was able to feel what her host was feeling as the mission went haywire, and was no longer in control of how she was processing the events around herself. In the end it was as though Vos didn’t have any emotions of her own because she became so entangled with other peoples over the course of time. 

This week I watched the movie “Possessor” and a Futurama episode titled “I second that Emotion”. They were both interesting and one was even quite terrifying. Most importantly they both touch on the subject of empathy in their own ways as discussed in the voice thread lecture for this week. Before I delve into each film I did want to discuss their titles. I found “Possessor” as a title to have a double meaning. Although one might see the title as straightforward in discussing the woman’s job to possess others, I think it’s possible that possessor as a title could be describing the way emotions possess us as humans. Most of the time we have no control over our emotions, they become us, they possess us. Secondly the title “I second that emotion” is also an important way of describing emotions. Although we might not always have control over our emotions there are a lot of times that humans share an emotion because the way one person feels can lead others to feel the same way. 

“POSSESSOR”

“Possessor” left me feeling sick to my stomach. The first reason for this was the graphic nature of the film. There was a bit too much blood throughout the movie for my liking. The second reason was that the film provokes such a heavy feeling of empathy within viewers. The film revolves around a woman who’s job is to possess others and carry out different murders. We see throughout the movie the way in which the woman struggles to do these murders presumably because she has a level of empathy for the people she is possessing. In order to complete her job the body in which she possesses must be killed whether by others or by themselves. I felt bad for the woman and I also felt so bad for the people that were being possessed. It just felt so inhumane to see someone not have control over their bodies. In some ways I wondered if the film was commenting on the human need to make sense of things. Perhaps this film was creating a scenario that explains why people murder others. 

FUTURAMA “I SECOND THAT EMOTION”

The episode of Futurama titled “I Second that Emotion” deals with empathy in a more direct way. Bender flushes Nibbler down the toilet because Bender is jealous of Nibbler getting all the attention. All the characters realize that Bender doesn’t feel empathy. This was clearly shown when he was watching tv and kept laughing as clearly devastating news. I found it interesting that although Bender lacked some human emotions like empathy he could feel others like jealousy. I think this might be the case because empathy is sometimes harder to feel than jealousy. The scientist creates a way for Bender to feel exactly what Leela is feeling and as a result Bender feels so bad about Nibbler that he flushes himself down the toilet to save Nibbler. Leela and Bender are able to share their feelings of longing and sadness. 

Possessor (2020)

Wow, what a film. A little gory for my taste but the concept was insanely interesting. A seemingly average woman’s job is to be an assassin by taking over the mind and body of another person by having her mind transplanted into theirs. The hosts mind is subdued to lead out these murders. While watching the film, I thought a lot about the lecture on empathy, specifically embodied cognition. Tas seems to struggle with primodality when she is in the mind of the host, but also appears to be affected by Colin’s own feelings as well. Embodied cognition can be looked at from two different perspectives in regards to this film, Tas’s struggles with her own primodality, she seems to be suffering from PTSD from all the murders she’s committing but also thoughts about her family. While her body isn’t physically present, her mind is and when her mind is put back into her own body, she appears to visualize herself committing these acts versus the body of the person she took over. But we do later learn that she may resent her husband which makes you wonder who was the killer in the final scene where he is killed. 

The second way to look at the idea of embodied empathy within this film is when she is in Colin’s body and seems to be battling his own consciousness, that she is empathizing with his experiences and his own feelings in his life. When it comes to taking the persons life in all scenes where that moment comes, we don’t get to see if the internal battle to take their life is because she has a connection to the host’s mind that’s preventing her from committing suicide. Is she feeling badly over the crimes committed? Or does the host’s mind become more powerful in that moment that she can’t pull the trigger? Is the true emotions of Tas rubbing off on Colin, making him the killer in the end? The film left some of this up to interpretation but a lot of the concepts of empathy could be applied. 

This movie made me feel a lot of empathy for the character’s having their minds taken over without consent. I felt for Colin when he was fighting for his body back and the anger, sadness, and fear he felt. I found this movie really hard to watch.

“I Second That Emotion” Futurama

In the Futurama episode we watched this week, the concept of empathy was much more literally portrayed. Professor Farnsworth puts a chip into Benders head when it’s revealed he can’t feel “humanoid” emotions when he flushes Gibbler down the toilet at his own birthday party. Leela is devastated over losing Gibbler and just wants Bender to feel like she does. The use of the chip helps him to feel her emotions versus simply understanding, which is a basic definition of empathy. They also took the concept of “mirror neurons” in a literal sense. When Professor Farnsworth was trying to dial into Leela’s emotions, he dialed into other characters as well repeated exactly how they felt and thought. In the sewer system, when Leela would scream, Bender would see and then have the same reaction because of the chip. This episode is a great example of empathy in a really literal sense. 

The first show I watched was Star Trek. In the episode, “Return to Tomorrow”, the crew of the Enterprise encounter a planet that was decimated by a cataclysmic event. Eminating from the planet’s center (an example of extended-cognition) is a voice called Sargon who asks Captain Kirk, accompanied by Spock, McCoy, and Dr. Mulhall, to beam down to the planet. When they beam down, the crew finds Sargon speaking through an orb asking Kirk to allow him to take control of his body. Through Emboddied Cognition, Kirk touches Sargon’s orb and Sargon transfers his consciousness into Kirk’s body.

Through Kirk’s voice, it seems that Sargon feels immense freedom after being “trapped” in his orb for half a million years. He goes on to explain that Kirk’s mind has an insuffcient amount of energy for him to speak freely while Sargon is in control and his energy is too powerful for Kirk’s body to handle which, according to McCoy and Dr. Mulhall, will result in Kirk’s death. In this episode, I feel as if Sargon has an appreciation for Kirk’s well-being in that he factors in the emboddied relationship between mind and body–this being the health and safety of Kirks body as it effected by Sargon’s mind.

The next show I watched was Altered Carbon with the episode titled “Out of the Past”. 250 years after being shot and killed, Takeshi Kovacs wakes up in an entirely new body called “a sleeve”. While doctors prep Kovacs’ new body, a voice over states: “Your body is not who you are. You shed it like a snake sheds its skin. Leave it, forgotten, behind you.” This quote is a direct contrast to the basis of Embodied Cognition which says “a body is not something you have, but something you are.”

Compared to “Return to Tomorrow”, the relationship between the mind and the body “Out of the Past” is vastly contrasted. In this episode, the body is seen as disposable whereas the mind is seen as something that can essentialy transcend permanent death by being placed into new bodies. It seems the mind is the only constant in this relationship.

The last show I watched was Futurama with the episode titled “The Day the Earth Stood Stupid”. This episode, unlike Star Trek and Altered Carbon, is an example of the concept of the “Brain in a Vat”.

In one particular scene from the episode, the Big Brain, who is a member of a collective brain conciousness trying to wipe out all thoughts in the universe, transports Fry and Leela to “a mental realm” which lies in each book. In this scenario, the Big Brain would be the mad scientist and the act of him transporting Fry and Leela to different mental realms is an example of the creation of virutal stimuli that is being fed directly to their brains. As the Brain in a Vat concept states, the brain would register all these stimuli in exactly the same manner as normal human experiences. We see this as Fry and Leela can interact different objects and environments within each realm.

First of all I just would like to say the episodes we watched really had me thinking. How does my mind actual interact with my body? Are they separate entities that support each other? Can one really exist without the other? These are just the few questions that circulated my mind as I watched these episodes.

I started off watching the “Out of the Past” episode from Altered Carbon (I am definitely watching the rest of this show). The show takes place in the future so of course they have developed a way to live longer… however it’s a very interesting take. They literally take the consciousness or the mind and put it in a stack where essentially the body comes disposable after. I feel like this encompasses the concept of cybernetics because  essentially this stack is like computer software which can be transferred over to a new sleeve (body). Therefore the body is essential because the stack can’t continue without a new sleeve. This shows how the body is a necessity to the mind as it provides the necessary feedback for the mind to continue.

The scene above really shows this transfer from on sleeve to another. It’s really trippy. I feel this scene is like a computer going through an update. The mind which has just been placed into a new body and it is updating to adjust to this new body. I mean talk about a long update!

The “Return to Tomorrow” episode from Star Trek: The Original Series was next on my list. For me, it really reflected the thought of 4e cognition. But in particular embodied cognition was highlighted throughout the episode. In particular when the mind entity of Sargon transmitted into Captain Kirk’s body, it was almost as if Sargon felt euphoric to be in a body once again. He is so happy to finally feel all his sensorimotor capabilities and how desperately he needs it which is what embodied cognition represents.

We can’t have our mind and the emotions without a body to really feel all those emotions. Which is why Sargon so desperately needs help in order to regain his body again. To me it makes sense, I would not want to exist without actually being able to physically feel. It is a necessity.

The last stop for me was the Futurama episode, “The Day the Earth Stood Stupid.” Now first I feel like I went from very realistic and probably to very unrealistic and not possible. I mean after all it is Futurama. I feel like here we really see that common  concept of the “Brain in a Vat.” I mean after all the big brains say it all. The brain essentially is suspended in a vat as it is floating around in what appears to be liquid. Here the mind is separate from the body and is located only in the brain which is why the these big brains have immense power and able to take over.

Really though…this is Futurama so I can’t fully take it seriously.

I will say though all these episodes allow me to really explore the concepts of the mind and body and that relationship. It really does make me question which is more important or if they are equally important. I mean its a trip which I don’t think we will ever have a solid answer for.

The three episodes for this module, Altered Carbon, “Out of the Past,” Futurama, “The Day the Earth Stood Stupid,” and Star Trek, “Return to Tomorrow,” are all centered around the brain and cognitive function both in and outside of the body.

In Altered Carbon, the body is considered a sleeve into which different individuals’ consciousness can be uploaded. The consciousness is not a physical brain but more like embedded cognition that comes in the form of a cortical stack (disc) inserted into the spinal column of an interchangeable sleeve (body). A person can stay alive for eternity moving from sleeve to sleeve, as long as the cortical stack remains intact; if it is destroyed, death is permanent. A short scene in this episode stuck out to me the most. A young girl was killed by a hit-and-run driver, and the government told the family they would receive a new sleeve for their deceased child. When this young girl received her sleeve, she was embedded into an old woman even though she was no older than 8. When the parents complained, they were told that she was lucky to have received any sleeve at all, and if they wanted an upgrade, they were welcome to pay for one; if not, just to shut up and go away. When the little girl heard this, she cried and said no, she did not want to go back into the dark. This scene made me realize that the show’s foundation was not about the physical body and the connection to its consciousness but the power of the consciousness as it correlates to any physical form.

I am a Futurama fan, though I haven’t watched it for quite some time this episode, “The Day the Earth Stood Stupid,” was one of my favorite ones. This episode starts at a talent competition for the people in New New York after the talent show concludes, Leela is attacked and escapes floating brains bent on making people on Earth stupid. The brains achieve this, and everyone but Frye is turned stupid, and that is because Frye is already stupid, so it doesn’t work on him, which makes this episode hysterical. In this episode, there is no connection between a body and the brains that have attacked earth. According to the Niblonians, the brains hate all consciousness and want to make everything in the universe stupid. I feel like this episode would be considered extended cognition because the brains can create stupidity in any living being and do not possess bodies or need them to create destruction.

I am not a Trekkie. However, I have some family members that grew up loving Star Trek, and I do remember watching a few episodes at family get-togethers. In this episode, “Return to Tomorrow,” the USS Enterprise happens upon a new planet whose inhabitants are so powerful they direct the Enterprise to its location. According to the ship’s system, the planet has been dead for half a million years, but a voice that can read thoughts and communicate with or without words tells Captain Kirk and his crew that this is not true; life is on his planet. Captain Kirk is inhabited by an alien after being coerced to beam to the planet he and his crew were led too. This episode would define embodied cognition because once the alien inhabits Captain Kirk, he is so enamored with Captain Kirk’s body with the heartbeat and the air filling his lungs. These beings need bodies to survive; unlike the brains in the Futurama episode, their survival depends on physical form.