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.

Experience To Remember

It is impossible to predict a moment of ecstasy, or pure pleasure when traveling, which is a mistake we often make when planning a trip. This is also one of the reasons that I often find such a moment on a forced business trip, rather than a deliberate vacation. It is because I am not looking for perfection or deep insight; it just sometimes happens by chance. There is a TED talk by the Nobel laureate economist Daniel Kahneman (http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html) that is very insightful about the differences between experience and memory. Though I can’t do it justice, I will mention a thought experiment he proposes. It goes something like this; if you were to choose your next vacation, and after that vacation you knew you were going to suffer amnesia and forget every detail of the trip (no pictures or writings on it either) would you pick the same vacation? What he is getting at is rather profound. We go places often to build memories, and to be able to talk about our experiences. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, as a memory will last longer than an experience. The problem arises when you are contemplating the memory in the moment of the experience, and thereby miss the experience itself. This is all too obvious at Disney World for example. At Disney World children are often crying and parents are angry. This is not because there is a problem with Disney World, it is just that the expectation for the trip, and the memories that can be created are often unrealistic, and it leads to disappointment, and to not enjoying the experience. By contrast if I show up at Disney I have a great time, because I am in my mid thirties, and not expected to enjoy roller coasters as much as I do. I just get on them, sometimes over and over again, and have a great time, and usually don’t take photos or admit it to anyone, as I am professor who should be doing more lofty things with my free time. My wife was the one to point out the Disney problem for children to me, and since then we have seen it other places, including a recent ski vacation in France. Skiing for me is completely about experience. I am going down a slope, and am not a real natural at the sport, so I am completely involved in the moment of trying not to break my neck. This is what makes skiing so different than other times in my life, and the reason I like it so much. For families on holiday at the resort we went to however, it was much more like the Disney observation. These families had planned trips for a long time, and spent a lot of money on it. The need they felt to make it perfect actually ended in tears a lot of the time. By contrast to this, business trips usually don’t have this type of hype surrounding them. This is true even when I come with my wife. Also, it is usually the unexpected moments that are the best experiences, and in contradiction to my point about memory, I actually do remember some of these moments that seemed just like chance experience.


In Tokyo it happened while having a tea at the train station and watching passengers line up perfectly to get on the train. In Bangalore it happened by the side of the road when we drank a freshly cut coconut, and the man serving us fed the remainder to the starving dog when I refused the rest. In Budapest it happened when the very nice waiter brought us friend eggs with paprika. In Athens this week it happened when a dog led us through the hills near the acropolis, as if he were a tour guide. The list of moments like this goes on, and somehow fulfills both criteria. They are good experiences and good memories. The thing that is common to all though is that they were not planned. There seems to be a problem with expectation, which can destroy the moment, if we are not careful. This is why I look forward to drinking a beer in a pub in Czech Republic next week. Damn, maybe I just ruined it.