Transformers and Philosophy Read online

  Simply by attending a movie called Transformers, we know important things that Sam doesn’t. Nevertheless, his decision to say that his car “transformed . . . it stood up!” is informed by a perceptual value judgment that is at the same time a call to action: “If I had gotten closer, seen the robot in good lighting, perhaps even touched it, I would have known that this amazing machine and my Camaro were, in fact, the same thing.”

  According to Kelly, the importance of the interplay between focus of attention and background in Merleau-Ponty’s view of the perception of hidden traits of objects is not that the background provides more information about the object, allowing us to make our understanding of it more determinate (as we have seen, sometimes the background doesn’t cooperate). To have seen the object in all its hidden qualities, I would have had to move this way or adjust the lighting conditions up or down. Of course, to do these things, I need a living, acting body. Shaun Gallagher’s take on what is going on here is this: “For Merleau-Ponty, motor experience and perceptual experience are . . . reciprocally linked. The mature operation of a body schema [how the body shapes perception] depends on a developed perceptual knowledge of one’s own body; and the organized perception of one’s own body, and then of the external world, depends on a proper functioning of the body schema.”12

  Now let’s return, with this understanding, to Merleau-Ponty’s unusual statement about perception and hiddenness: “To see is to enter a universe of beings which display themselves, and they would not do this if they could not be hidden behind each other or behind me.” Now we can say that objects are not at all passively perceived, since they “display themselves” as a function of the interplay between focus of attention and background. He continues: “To look at an object is to inhabit it, and from this habitation to grasp all things in terms of the aspect which they present to it.”13

  This odd notion of “inhabiting” objects is nothing more than our unconscious yet invaluable bodily habit of making subtle value judgments about the optimal conditions for perception, then attempting to act upon them. The limits of our body imply the limits of our perceptions, and so of our knowledge. In short, the more we know about our body, the more we know about what we count as an object and how sure we can be of an object’s qualities that may be “in disguise.”

  “Until that day, till all are one.” When Our Reach Exceeds Our Grasp

  Would Merleau-Ponty have been a Transformers fan? He was fascinated by the potential for the philosophical study of the visual arts, especially painting. Like many of us, he enjoyed movies. But given this French phenomenologist’s “embodied” response to the problems with perception that we started off with, an immediate question arises with regard to the way the Transformers, as special effects, are portrayed on the big screen. That question is, does the status of CGI (computer-generated imagery) creatures and environments as “virtual objects” change the way we must look at perception?

  For anyone who hasn’t been in stasis lock for the past fifteen years, it’s no surprise to hear that the use of eye-popping CGI has mostly replaced the physical spacecraft, matte paintings, stop-motion animations, and puppets that used to populate science-fiction and fantasy films. CGI has become so pervasive that it is changing the way we look at the “real,” non-movie world: it has itself become a philosophical problem. In The Reality Effect, film studies critic Joel Black pinpoints this problem:

  It’s now common to hear the three-dimensional universe described cinematically, as a thin membrane in which we are trapped like ‘characters playing out their lives within the confines of a movie screen’. Unknown to these shallow, two-dimensional players, a larger universe spreads into numerous extra dimensions, like theaters in a multiplex.14

  Although the use of CGI has a number of different goals, the one that concerns us most directly here and now is the filmmaker’s ability, through computer-aided modeling and rendering, to achieve spectacles—armies, vast alien vistas, agile titans of steel—that were previously not possible through the deft manipulation of costumes, props, and other “real” objects. George Lucas, who championed the wholesale use of CGI in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, said in its defense, “we can create a photo-realistic, digital character that can look as real as any actor . . .” Digital characters—like the Transformers—have a wider range of expression and action than latex or animated versions would have had.15

  This greater range of expression and action—the behavioral equivalent of the “hiddenness” of everyday objects—is both the blessing and the curse of CGI. Audiences who enthusiastically pay to see Transformers or the Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings trilogies multiple times obviously know the blessings. The curse is that what is revealed about the “abilities” of virtual characters through CGI—whether this is Yoda bouncing off walls in a lightsaber duel or Brawl and Bumblebee destroying a highway overpass—can seriously overstrain our suspension of disbelief. The savvy cinemagoer knows that since anything is possible with computer imagery, no matter how big the payout might be, the original investment was essentially hollow.

  Through his phenomenological look at our perception of objects, Merleau-Ponty gives us reasons to understand why we might be discontented with grandiose CGI effects even if we enjoy them. If he’s right, then beyond the entertainment value of CG imagery, we experience a disconnect with such images at the level of embodied perception because we know that these creations of light and texture have no surfaces to investigate, no unknown aspects to provoke us.

  In other words, on a bodily level, we realize that there is literally nothing to grasp, no hiddenness of these virtual characters, and our perceptive powers are perhaps the worse for it. Maybe when the next generation of filmmakers “transform and roll out” effects that we can get a grip on, they’ll have studied some phenomenology first.16

  _________

  1 Quoted in Michael Mallory, “Creating a New Buzz,” Los Angeles Times (November 18th, 1999), Weekend Section, pp. 8, 10.

  2 Replications: A Robotic History of the Science Fiction Film, University of Illinois Press, 1995, p. 21. See also the animated episode “Nightmare Planet” in which the innocuous human capability to dream is used as a weapon by the Quintessons; only the intervention of Rodimus Prime can overcome this threat from within.

  3 www.takaratomy.co.jp/products/TF/kiss.

  4 As Merleau-Ponty (who we will meet later) puts it, the object “is none of these appearances; it is . . . the flat projection of these perspectives and of all possible perspectives, that is, the perspectiveless position from which all can be derived.” The Phenomenology of Perception, excerpted in Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Basic Writings, Routledge, 2004, p. 79.

  5 For details on how philosophy has ignored or marginalized the body, and on current approaches that take the body seriously, see Kevin S. Decker, “Knockout! Killer’s Kiss, the Somatic, and Kubrick,” in The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick, edited by Jerold J. Abrams, University Press of Kentucky, 2007.

  6 How the Body Shapes the Mind, Clarendon, 2005, p. 8.

  7 See Husserl, “The Basic Approach of Phenomenology,” in The Essential Husserl, edited by Donn Welton, Indiana University Press, 1999, pp. 60–63.

  8 Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Basic Writings, p. 86.

  9 Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Basic Writings, p. 81.

  10 Merleau-Ponty, quoted in Sean Dorrance Kelly, “Seeing Things in Merleau-Ponty,” The Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 80.

  11 Kelly, “Seeing Things in Merleau-Ponty,” p. 84; italics added.

  12 How the Body Shapes the Mind, p. 67.

  13 Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Basic Writings, p. 81.

  14 The Reality Effect: Film Culture and the Graphic Imperative, Routledge, 2002, p. 206; Black is quoting K.C. Cole, “Unseen Dimensions Hold Theory Aloft,” Los Angeles Times (November 18th, 1999), p. B2.

  15 Quoted in The Reality Effect, p. 206. Contrast Lucas’s conviction with the often-heard complaint on Star Wars blogs th
at the puppet Yoda, for example, had more “human qualities” when controlled by Frank Oz than the CGI version in Episodes II and III.

  16 Special thanks go out to William Franklin Campbell IV for loaning us his Transformers library and extensive expertise.

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  What Changes when Transformers Transform?

  MICHAEL SPICHER

  Everybody experiences change. People change from infants to adults. Transformers change from robots to vehicles—Optimus Prime changes from a semi truck to a robot, and back again. Something changes in a person who develops amnesia. Modern surgery even allows people to change their sex.

  When a person changes, we still think he or she is the same person after the change. So there has to be something that remains the same throughout all of these transformations. Grown-ups commonly assume that they were infants years ago—that they are the same person as that long-vanished child. But what is it that stays the same when a person changes? Philosophers have investigated this question, which they call Personal Identity, but they have not been able to reach agreement on the answer.

  We humans are persons, and Transformers are also persons. Since the Transformers are still in control of their actions when they change to vehicle form (and then back to robot form), it seems evident that something about them has remained the same over the course of their changes through time. These transformations occur in just a few seconds, whereas changes in human being may take several years. But by considering the changes undergone by Transformers, we may come up with some answers about changes in human beings.

  A Pile of Parts or a Unified Whole?

  Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle observed the distinction between a unity and a heap. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle attempted to understand the cause of unity: why is each human considered to be one thing and not just a bunch of things thrown together? Aristotle’s answer? He believed that each part of a human needs the whole in order to survive.

  What Aristotle meant was that a human is not a random collection of parts, for example hands, feet, a mouth, and so on. Each part of the human being exists for the sake of the whole human being, to perform certain functions. If one of these parts were removed, that part would only remain the same in appearance. For example, if my hand were cut off, then it could not perform the functions of a hand anymore. It could not grab things or touch things. Once it’s separated from my body, my hand is more similar to a statue of a hand than a real, living hand. A detached hand only looks like a hand; it’s no longer a hand in actuality. I would become a man missing a hand, but I would still be a unity.

  Similarly for Transformers, if Megatron’s leg were severed in the midst of battle, then his leg would no longer be part of his identity. However, the rest of his body would still be a unity. On the other hand, a pile of bricks is considered to be a heap. There is no unity among them. You could remove one brick. It is still a brick, and the pile is still a pile. However, after a builder makes a house from this pile of bricks, then the pile becomes a unity and not a mere heap. A unity continues through change, but a heap, as in the case of the bricks, becomes something different. When bricks are put together to make a house, we call it a house, not a pile of bricks in the shape of a house. When the house was built, the heap of bricks actually became something else, something with a different identity.

  Accidental and Substantial Change

  Two broad categories of change have been considered in metaphysics: accidental and substantial. In order to understand the transformation of robots into vehicles and back again, it seems necessary to know the nature of the change.

  If you paint your red bicycle green, it’s still a bicycle. This kind of change is considered accidental because it does not change anything essential to the thing, in this case a bicycle. Examples of common accidental changes among human beings are getting a haircut, growing bigger (in height or weight), or changing clothes. These changes do not add to or subtract from the essence of being a human individual.

  A substantial change, however, involves the cessation of one being and the beginning of a new one, at least in a sense. Suppose a tree gets cut down and trimmed into small pieces of wood. The tree cannot function as a tree any longer; therefore, a substantial change has occurred. If the wood, which could be used to make a table and chairs, is burned in a fire, then another substantial change occurs. After the wood is burned up, it does not have the potential to become a table and chairs anymore. When the essence of the thing changes, then a substantial change has taken place.

  A Transformer is always in control of his actions, regardless of whether in the shape of a robot or vehicle. Recalling a scene from the movie Transformers will be helpful to illustrate this point. The Transformers are able to choose the disguise into which they transform. Bumblebee originally chose to become an old car, which Sam Witwicky purchased as his first car, not realizing it was a robot in disguise. Later on, Mikaelea Banes comments that for such a sophisticated being, the car was a piece of junk. At that comment, Bumblebee, perhaps embarrassed, ejects them from the car, and chooses for his new disguise a cooler car. This scene shows Bumblebee in control of his actions at all times. Their ability to transform is part of their essence, who they are as beings. This ability is comparable to a human putting on a mask to disguise his or her identity. Therefore, the transformation is an accidental change, not a substantial one.

  Two Popular Views about Identity through Time

  What preserves the identity of beings that change through time? Why is Bumblebee the same Transformer when he’s a car as he is when he’s a robot?

  There are two types of identity which can easily be confused: numerical identity and qualitative identity. If a man had a religious conversion, then we might say that he has become a new or different person. However, this is just a manner of speaking. A religious conversion is a change of qualitative identity, which is an accidental change. In this chapter, we’re more interested in numerical identity. Numerical identity concentrates on one thing being the same thing, despite any qualitative changes that may have occurred. Starscream today has the same numerical identity of the Starscream that existed two years ago, even if, for example, he decided to change color.

  Identity Means Psychological Continuity?

  The main way in which philosophers have attempted to explain personal identity is in terms of people’s psychology: the continuity of their minds. Memories, beliefs, consciousness, and so on are each possible candidates for that which preserves one’s identity. Basically, a person yesterday that is psychologically continuous with a person today is the same person, regardless of which facet of psychology preserves identity. So a Transformer would need to have some capacity for memory, consciousness, or belief, in order to have his or her identity preserved. John Locke (1632–1704) pioneered the notion that memory is the aspect of psychology that preserves identity.1

  The memories stored within a person’s mind must be causally connected to the events they depict. In other words, it’s not sufficient to rely on someone else’s claim that they performed a task yesterday. My memory of a particular task must be caused by that task itself. But still, the view that memory is all we need for preserving personal identity has some problems. When someone has lived a long life, it can quite easily happen that the person thinks that events occurred one way, even though they actually happened in a different way. Imagine two ninety-year-old sisters, and each one believes that it was she who did X at age ten (when we know that it could only have been one of them who did X).

  Memory can be mistaken, and so it doesn’t seem enough to guarantee continued personal identity. Let’s suppose that you have a memory of playing soccer in 2000. An implicit presumption of having this memory is that the current ‘you’ is identical with the ‘you’ playing soccer in 2000. Some recent philosophers have tried to find ways to avoid the inadequacies of memory, usually by trying to uncover a different aspect of psychology to posit as the criterion for identity. Consciousness, beliefs, and intenti
ons are some of the other psychological aspects that philosophers have considered as possibly preserving personal identity.

  Identity is Equivalent to Bodily Continuity?

  The other main way philosophers have attempted to answer the question of personal identity is to relate it to the individual’s physical or bodily existence. The philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson, for instance, has advocated the view that people are their bodies.2 Wherever the body is, that’s where someone’s identity also is. When we see someone we know from far away, we often recognize them simply in virtue of their body. Even in those cases where I think I see one of my friends far away and it turns out that I was mistaken, my realization that it was merely someone who resembled my friend is also based on physical appearance. We recognize Optimus Prime as a robot or in his disguise as a truck.

  The view that people’s continuing identities are to be found in their bodies has become more popular recently, because it is able to handle some of the problems facing the psychological view. One problem is the beginning of human life. If memory or consciousness is required for personal identity, then an embryo, a fetus, or someone’s body in a persistent vegetative state (such as a coma) is not part of the continuous existence of a human person. Once memory or consciousness develops, then the embryo or fetus becomes a new being, a human person. However, in the bodily view, persons, in the most basic sense, are identical to their bodies at all phases of bodily development. So there’s no problem about me believing I’m the same entity I was when I was a fetus or a newborn baby.