How We Are Who We Are

Filmmakers seem to be fascinated with Rene Descartes’ discussion of reality. Descartes was a French philosopher who, among other things, is famous for his questioning of what he sees and feels, stating that everything he believes to be there, might, in fact, be an illusion created by a demon, who has taken his body. The only truth that can be known, he states, is the truth of self. Cogito ergo sum. We cannot, he argues, accept everything we think we know to be real because, in the end, we know almost nothing except what we assume to be true.

What’s fascinating to me is that what Descartes describes here is somewhat similar to how our memories work. After something happens, anytime we attempt to remember that event, we essentially wind up recreating the event with our imaginations. No two memories of one moment are the same. While sometimes certain feelings can be triggered by specific memories, that’s more of the body responding to certain emotional cues than anything else. We, in effect, fool ourselves into believing in something that is not there that’s created solely from the ether of our brains. What we think of as a database isn’t really there at all; rather, we create an extension of reality for ourselves. What we remember, I suppose, is more a reflection of how our brain truly works rather than a test of our mental capabilities. I think it demonstrates how reality and memory play tricks on us.

These ideas have become the starting points of explorations through films that attempt to make us view our world in a different light. The most famous film of this type is probably the Matrix, but it is far from the first, the last, or even the best. Films like the Truman Show, Dark City, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind all discuss this. They become an exploration of the inner workings of not only the mind, but of the soul. What happens to us if everything we know is wrong or incomplete? Are we the same people in the end?