You Are Not Your Avatar

I responded to an article in the New York Review of Books about James Cameron,
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/post.aspx?bid=354&bpid=24897  and his exploration of what it means to be human. I have not just heard this talked about with Cameron lately, but it is an old, tired, but still somehow mainstream philosophy-light concept. I have mentioned in my blogs before that I think there is no place in modern thought for mind body duality. We know one thing with near certainty, which is that the mind (the brain) is an organ in the body. A separation from it has been speculated on by philosophers such as Plato and Descartes, but neither of these brilliant men had the tools for understanding the brain the way we do now. While the big question, the one of why we are conscious at all, is still being debated and studied, the neuro-physical partnership is well understood. I was in Athens this week and had the strong feeling that despite mythological gods and beasts, and Plato’s elevation of the mind over the body, the Greeks in general did understand the physical nature of being. The sculptures depict athletic beauty in ways that are so convincing that it is impossible to remove the mind from the physicality. In fact I would argue that theatre itself is a dedication to mind body singularity. The transformation of characters to people, is an example of muscular and memory cognition. It is also why two actors never play a role the same way.


It is understandable that we are questioning these ideas again. For once a virtual world seems actually possible. Even contemplating the downloading of the entire brain seems one day likely, as computer memory increases. The Avatar in Cameron’s film is farfetched, but not impossible. I would like to propose that a very different outcome though would occur, if it were possible to separate mind from body, in the Avatar sense. The resulting person would be nothing like us. Imagine how we change even in our own bodies. When we are sick for instance. Or when we are drunk. Or when we break a bone. To speculate on having a whole new body, other than brain is hard but not impossible. A paraplegic who was paralyzed in an accident essentially takes on a new body. The one thing that they don’t do however is take on a new brain, whether that brain is biological, as in Avatar, or a computer. If this were to happen axons would be farther from certain receptors, synapses would happen differently. Memory would last for different amounts of time, as all tissue behaves differently. Perception would be different. In essence we would not be ourselves. We could not remove our body from our mind. This doesn’t mean it would not be a fun thing to try, and I am game if anyone wants to try after my demise, but I just don’t think the new me will be my charming self.

This actually came to me in a rather decadent moment, while I was sitting in a spa in Athens. Sitting in spas in Athens is a great experience, because wrapped in those towels, with a foot bath, you really do not feel so far away from the baths Sophocles may have been taking while listening to Plato ramble on about a better republic. What I thought though, was how much the relaxation of my body affected my mind. Surely the Greeks thought of this too. When the water is bubbling, or you are having a message, it is nice to be yourself, not an Avatar.

Insanity or Persistence?

The power of a word to invoke emotions is certainly evident in the word insanity. There are 10 normal definitions for this, all of which are familiar, having to do with lack of mental health, court room pleas and your run of the mill "craziness". The definition that I have known for about 6 years now is one that was first credited to one of my heroes Albert Einstein. He said that the " definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". The reason I am familiar with this connotation of insanity is that it is the one that is explored in a movie that my wife and I were Associate Producers for, which is just now available on DVD called "The Definition of Insanity". The film deals with the stubborn passion of a talented actor who endures torturous loss of integrity, family and even mental stability in the pursuit of succeeding in the only thing he feels he must do. In one important scene, he compares his acting with a disability. This is so self analytical that the character reveals both intelligence and an insightfulness that makes us see a depth in his personality that is very profound.

The fact that this particular definition of insanity was originally Einstein's is not acknowledged in the film, but since the film was made, I haven't been able to get it off of my mind. I often wonder why Einstein addresses insanity in this way, as his most famous contributions in special and general relativity were not insane at all. In fact both have been shown to be accurate throughout many experiments. So he didn't fail at this by doing the same thing over and over. Though this is true in looking at a snapshot of that particular success, when looking at a long shot of Einstein's life we see some of the insanity he described, and not just in his wild hair. Amongst people interested in 20^th century science, Einstein is not only known for his successes. He is also known for his insistent denial of the century's other biggest breakthrough, which is the probabilistic nature of Quantum Mechanics. Einstein actually won a Nobel Prize for his contribution to Quantum Mechanics. Still he could never take the ultimate step, which was theorized by Bohr, Heisenberg, Dirac and Born. They had theorized that momentum and position of electrons and other sub atomic particles could never be located simultaneously, and with certainty. This theory has been tested thousands of times, leaving little doubt to its validity. Still, Einstein despite his rigor and genius famously said of the theory "god does not play dice with the universe". Not meaning God as a deity, but believing in a deterministic beauty of the cosmos was key to how Einstein viewed the universe. He could not break with this view, no matter how many times he tried. In other words using his own definition he was "insane". When challenged about this seemingly denialist view, Einstein would say that there were hidden variables that Quantum Uncertainty was missing. He wanted to find those, but even if he didn't he felt they were there.

Finding the hidden variables for the meaning of life is both what Einstein wanted, and what the main character in "Definition of Insanity" wants. In fact that desire, without the label of insanity, is often considered a kind of persistence that is admired; the actor trying to understand himself and others through characters, and the scientist trying to understand the universe through mathematics and observation. The difficulty becomes knowing when to stop. At what point does daily reality, like family and happiness, trump eternal questioning? More importantly, at what point is the questioning pointless as the question is already solved, or may never be solved? There is a philosophical strangeness to this whole question, and it is one that scientists seem to be aware of. In Brian Greene's book "The Fabric of The Cosmos", he has an introduction which is mentioned to me by more people than anything in the rest of the long and very engaging book. In it Greene discusses finding a copy of the Albert Camus book "The Myth of Sisyphus" as a child. Sisyphus is a book which uses the Greek legend as a backdrop to explain modern existentialism; a man endlessly pushing a bolder up a mountain, never to reach to peek. Why did this story of hopeless persistence make Greene want to be a scientist? The philosophy seems to suggest that the goal to reach a full understanding of the universe will never be achieved. Perhaps this shows Greene's self awareness. By Knowing that life will be only process and repetition; we can embrace the climb rather than the goal.

So what of insanity? I have been accused of being insane for producing plays and films, which always lose money. I have been accused of insanity for arguing about religion with religious people, as no one has ever changed their views from these arguments. The list goes on and on, and those making the accusations certainly have a point. I would say though that in the Einstein sense we are all insane, and that those of us that acknowledge it may actually be on the journey that Brian Greene has taken. It is a pointless persistence of trying and failing that is the reality of living.
By the way, please do buy "The Definition Of Insanity" I am persistently trying to make this film a much deserved success. http://www.amazon.com/Definition-Insanity-Robert-Margolis/dp/B0030EFZZ8

Re-consolidated Theatre

When I was 21 years old, and had just come to New York for a summer of acting classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse, I became friends with a young screenwriter, who was already a success by the age of 25. I respected him a great deal, and asked him one day why he wrote for the screen and not for theatre. His answer was that “film lasts longer”. This is certainly true where an individual production comes and goes, while a film is locked, and we can watch it fresh anytime. There was another dimension to his comment which he explained to me later. He felt that while the average movie is terrible, a really great one can change your life, and you remember it forever. It lasts in us, in ways that a good play does not. There have been times when I believed this, and times when I didn’t, but what I liked most about the idea was that it gave me a new way to evaluate good art. How long I kept thinking, and talking about a piece was perhaps a measure of its importance to me. I tried to see if the recollection of a piece succeeds or fails to reanimate emotions in me. I have plays, movies, operas, ballets, jazz concerts, symphonies and paintings that all have done this, so choosing the superior art form is not a valid way to for me to evaluate its worth. Still, I keep this in mind.

This week I went to see the Trisha Brown Dance Company at BAM and one of the “The Norman Conquests” on Broadway. I left the theatre loving both of these, but now two days later I realize that it is the ballet that has the more lasting powerful effect on me. So, I would judge it to be more important. I think that there is something about this power of truly profound art, rather than simpler, but still very good art, which relates to some interesting research in neuro-science regarding a neuro-function called re-consolidation. Though I have no expertise in this, I understand the main point to be, that in creating long term memories, the brain creates a hierarchy of importance, so that the crucial memories remain. This is achieved through the strong neuron to neuron connections called synapses. Long term memories were traditionally thought to be “hard wired”, not being able to be broken, therefore not being able to be forgotten. This makes sense, as we all know older people who have lost short term memory, which can be associated with the lack of ability to create new synapses, while memories from the distant past seem perfectly clear. This is still thought to be true to an extent, however newer research into re-consolidation shows that it is not actually the original memory (or synapse) that we are accessing. Instead, as we recall a consolidated event, (one that is “hard wired”) the connection is broken and replaced by a new connection. It is re-consolidated. This suggests that we are not remembering the event, but instead remembering the last time we remembered the event. So the more we think about something, the more we are potentially moving away from the original event, but the more that memory means to us, as artifacts of the replaced connections still exist. This is being studied now at McGill, and a drug actually in trials, which can neutralize the impact of a memory, by breaking the consolidated connection. This is being proposed, and been shown to work for people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). After taking the drug they remember the traumatic event, but without the terrible emotional effects of the trauma.

I don’t exactly know why I thought of this research in relation to my earlier comments about the power of art, but for me the very, very mild, but extremely vivid emotional effect that art can have, and can continue to have are memories which are not frozen in time, but recreated, and re-consolidated every time I remember the event. The more times I think about Trisha Brown these next few weeks, the more likely I am to remember it when I am old.

So what about “The Norman Conquests”? It was a terrific play, which was a creative new farce. The reason I went was that friends invited my wife and I after reading the reviews, which were the hands down best reviews of anything currently playing in New York. I understand why, as there is nothing bad to say about it. The writing and directing were perfect. The acting was amazing. Still, I already don’t think about it much. The chances that I will remember this play when I am old are unlikely. This made me think about reviews in general, and I had this desire for critics to write a second review of a play 1 year after seeing it. Of course details would be wrong, but the response, I would guess, would also be very different. What sticks with the critic, and the audience, the night they see theatre is very different from the re-consolidation of it later.

Impressions

I am just the generation, at 34 years old, to still be surprised by internet technology. Still, somehow a world of Googleing, Blogging , Twittering and Facebooking makes sense to me, as I tend to have rather jumbled thoughts, and interests. I like jumping from topic to topic, and even more I like trying to connect seemingly unrelated ideas and disciplines. It is similar to the “Six Degrees of Separation” theory of human connectivity. The same shorter sequence of connections must also exist with thoughts, and experiences. So, when I speak of two things that seem to have nothing to do with each other, the truth is they probably don’t, but it is still interesting to make the connection, and for me to see if there is any insight to be gained.

Last night I saw the play “Impressionism”, which, while likely to be forgotten (if the reviews are any indication), and though it is fairly unoriginal, it did make me think about perspective. The play deals with life and art in a way which is rather cliché, with metaphors that involve impressionist painting and real life complexity. Reflections on the need to step back to see the beauty and meaning, which the eye can not perceive when viewed too closely. It went a little further with this thought by saying that even photorealism is in itself impressionistic. It is a moment as captured by the photographer and interpreted by the viewer. The main point was to compare this to a growing love of an older couple, which is not so important to me here. So, when I left the theatre, I was neither overly impressed by “Impressionism”, nor unimpressed. It was a well acted play that again made me think about art and love, even if only in fairly commonplace ways.

This morning, after reading the reviews of “Impressionism” on the subway, I read the cover story of this month’s Scientific American. I was especially intrigued by the sub title of an article on Dark Energy which reads “Does Earth occupy a very unusual place in the Universe?”. The issue of Dark Energy and our inability to as yet accurately view it, or understand it, is an interesting one, but one that was less related to my recent experience with the play. More important is one of perspective. It has, as long as modern science has been in existence, been understood that from anyplace in the Universe the same laws of physics will apply. This has been especially well observed in recent years with accurate measurements of the microwave background. The research for this article suggests however that the place our planet resides may be unusual in the Universe. It may be in a void of sorts. It is nicely compared to a balloon, with rubber whose densities are not completely uniform. The bubble will have bumps, which do not conform to the rest of the sphere. Our Universe may, though it is still uncertain, be like this. Therefore to see ourselves as a part of the whole, our perspective would be unlike if we were viewing Earth from a far away galaxy, which may be in a different portion of the “balloon”. This is not to suggest that Physics is subjective in the same way that the Universe is. After all, there are laws, and fundamentals, even if we have not yet learned them all. The similarity though, in my mind, is the need to take a step back in order to see the truth. Maybe by doing this we can learn a little more about the big picture of the cosmos, as well as how to enjoy a night on Broadway.