Nicole (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
trickykitty) wrote2014-07-01 07:55 am
trickykitty) wrote2014-07-01 07:55 am
Entry tags:
Not a movie review, but more Neuro stuff
I went and saw The Edge of Tomorrow on Sunday with my nephews for my birthday at the movie dinner theater, and then we came home and watched some more episodes of Firefly and had popcorn and a little later brownies.
A few friends and I also went to see the latest X-Men a few weeks ago, for which sub-title I'm too tired to remember at the moment and too lazy to go searching.
And then, of course, there's the both famous and infamous Groundhog Day. The mere mention of that title causes, "They say our love won't pay the rent...," to start playing in the minds of anyone and everyone that has ever watched that movie.
All movies involve traveling back in time for the purpose of changing the present outcome. First, it's just a few hours, then it's a few years, then it's back to a certain point in time regardless of how much time went by.
My neuroscientificcy (that's TOTALLY a word, I promise) mind decided to tackle this topic yesterday. I always find it interesting when the brain more or less takes over and says, "By the way, you do know that this area over here is our area of knowledge specialty so we have to look at this problem and apply what we've got to it, right?" Okay, so maybe I don't have that conversation with my brain, but I do know that I didn't jump in the shower yesterday with the idea in my mind that I specifically wanted to uncover something about these scenarios that I hadn't previously encountered.
Now, these movies are different from the scenarios that you have in The Terminator, the TV series Continuum, Back to the Future, The Time Machine, etc., in which the characters are TRANSPORTED back in time. That's a different type of scenario in which the primary issue to be solved is that of moving physical particles from Point A to Point B, with or without the use of a change in time involved.
(As an aside, has anyone out there ever questioned why people in those scenarios aren't using the teleporting capabilities to transport from Point A to Point B WITHIN the same time? One would think there there would be a mass demand for such technology, even among the cyborgs, and that production and testing of such time traveling devices would actually start with in-time distance travel rather than out-of-time travel. Star Trek started with the in-time distance travel and only took on the idea of out-of-time travel as requiring some special trip around the sun and a really hilarious script - something that you couldn't just hop onto a transporter pod to accomplish, including the script.)
So, when a person "wakes up" in their younger self (or older self, as might be the case in some movies) with their pre-lived memories intact, we're looking at a different scenario altogether. We have to ask ourselves, what changed?
From a biological standpoint, the mind changed.
The Butterfly Effect actually shows this phenomena perfectly by causing the main character to undergo what seems to be a combination of a stroke and seizure all at once while his brain undergoes some form of change, although even in the movie the brain doctors make it sound more like every time he makes a change it "eats away" at his brain like a cancer. So, the overall concept is there, but they tie it back into an ability that he can somehow control at the cost of his brain cells. He gets a whole new set of memories on top of the previous memories, unlike Wolverine who has no new memories of his newly-created time line and therefore has to re-orient himself. (I do want to re-watch at least the beginning of that movie so that I can pay closer attention to the first time-jump sequence, now that I know what they are doing.)
It annoys me that the movies have to include the schtick that the person has to "wake up" from sleep. That was actually another thing about The Butterfly Effect I enjoyed - he never "woke up" when he went back in time, but instead took over at the exact moment of his choosing based on his journals of memory-loss moments. And, he lost memory during the times he was "back in time" because during those times his mind was being hijacked by, well, him, but an older him with a different set/accumulation of memories - read: chaos theory and critical dependence on initial conditions (which, by the way, is a very intriguing way of dealing with the inherent paradox(es) that usually exists with time travel discussions in the first place - I really do applaud the creator of the story for how that entire concept was dealt with 100%) During that time, there was ZERO change in his brain make up, which is also, by the way, how our brains interpret time. (Oh, and now I'm mentally applying calculus to a multivariate system of equations and realizing how that scenario totally screws with any sort of continuous curve of on-going change on a graph.)
Which leads me to the point I'm making. The brain and our memories exist because the brain exists in the form it presently is. I have memories of yesterday and the day before because during the course of those days my little neurons and all the chemicals and electrical signals floating around up there were actively changing themselves and rearranging and resorting and resetting, and doing whatever else it is that they do on an ongoing basis. A memory (photographic or fuzzy) is the culmination of the changes that have occurred in the brain.
When we look at a character that has "woken up" in his previous self, he would not have the memories of what just occurred during his previous "day" of living unless the neurons and neurotransmitters all rearranged themselves. Many people resolve this by thinking that it is the "soul" that remembers what happened, but that doesn't jive with what we actually know about the reality of neuroscience. There is no soul that remembers (in my book). There is the brain made up of neurons that remembers. Who we are in a moment and what we think is based on how those little dudes are arranged and handling themselves.
In quick conclusion (because I have to hurry up and get to work, because now I'm running slightly late trying to type this all out of my head so I can stop thinking about it), what Kitty in X-Men is able to do isn't "transport" someone back in time, and what the aliens in The Edge of Tomorrow do isn't quantum transport a person. Well, okay, it is possible that in The Edge of Tomorrow they actually ARE able to transport the body of the person back, but if he managed to live 50 more years before he died and reset and he didn't come back as being 50 years older, well there would be the proof that it's not his entire body that is either sent back or "adjusted" by the quantum leaping process.
Speaking of which, by comparison, Scott Bakula's character in Quantum Leap retains his mind because he's not actually there, but instead he's inhabiting another person's body. That's an entirely different scenario from either of the two previous ones I mentioned. We're also assuming that his physical body is aging during the time his mind is living in other people's bodies. If he were to get trapped for a few decades, that would totally suck having to wake back up in your body that is now crinkled and older than you remember and also has to go through months of physical therapy to regain lost muscles due to atrophy.
Instead, what Kitty is able to do isn't about "transporting a person back in time," but is instead a rearranging of someone's neurons in their past so that they have the same "brain" as the person they are in the present when she starts the process. In theory, that's also what the aliens are doing as well.
Crap, only 15 minutes to get my shower and get to work......
A few friends and I also went to see the latest X-Men a few weeks ago, for which sub-title I'm too tired to remember at the moment and too lazy to go searching.
And then, of course, there's the both famous and infamous Groundhog Day. The mere mention of that title causes, "They say our love won't pay the rent...," to start playing in the minds of anyone and everyone that has ever watched that movie.
All movies involve traveling back in time for the purpose of changing the present outcome. First, it's just a few hours, then it's a few years, then it's back to a certain point in time regardless of how much time went by.
My neuroscientificcy (that's TOTALLY a word, I promise) mind decided to tackle this topic yesterday. I always find it interesting when the brain more or less takes over and says, "By the way, you do know that this area over here is our area of knowledge specialty so we have to look at this problem and apply what we've got to it, right?" Okay, so maybe I don't have that conversation with my brain, but I do know that I didn't jump in the shower yesterday with the idea in my mind that I specifically wanted to uncover something about these scenarios that I hadn't previously encountered.
Now, these movies are different from the scenarios that you have in The Terminator, the TV series Continuum, Back to the Future, The Time Machine, etc., in which the characters are TRANSPORTED back in time. That's a different type of scenario in which the primary issue to be solved is that of moving physical particles from Point A to Point B, with or without the use of a change in time involved.
(As an aside, has anyone out there ever questioned why people in those scenarios aren't using the teleporting capabilities to transport from Point A to Point B WITHIN the same time? One would think there there would be a mass demand for such technology, even among the cyborgs, and that production and testing of such time traveling devices would actually start with in-time distance travel rather than out-of-time travel. Star Trek started with the in-time distance travel and only took on the idea of out-of-time travel as requiring some special trip around the sun and a really hilarious script - something that you couldn't just hop onto a transporter pod to accomplish, including the script.)
So, when a person "wakes up" in their younger self (or older self, as might be the case in some movies) with their pre-lived memories intact, we're looking at a different scenario altogether. We have to ask ourselves, what changed?
From a biological standpoint, the mind changed.
The Butterfly Effect actually shows this phenomena perfectly by causing the main character to undergo what seems to be a combination of a stroke and seizure all at once while his brain undergoes some form of change, although even in the movie the brain doctors make it sound more like every time he makes a change it "eats away" at his brain like a cancer. So, the overall concept is there, but they tie it back into an ability that he can somehow control at the cost of his brain cells. He gets a whole new set of memories on top of the previous memories, unlike Wolverine who has no new memories of his newly-created time line and therefore has to re-orient himself. (I do want to re-watch at least the beginning of that movie so that I can pay closer attention to the first time-jump sequence, now that I know what they are doing.)
It annoys me that the movies have to include the schtick that the person has to "wake up" from sleep. That was actually another thing about The Butterfly Effect I enjoyed - he never "woke up" when he went back in time, but instead took over at the exact moment of his choosing based on his journals of memory-loss moments. And, he lost memory during the times he was "back in time" because during those times his mind was being hijacked by, well, him, but an older him with a different set/accumulation of memories - read: chaos theory and critical dependence on initial conditions (which, by the way, is a very intriguing way of dealing with the inherent paradox(es) that usually exists with time travel discussions in the first place - I really do applaud the creator of the story for how that entire concept was dealt with 100%) During that time, there was ZERO change in his brain make up, which is also, by the way, how our brains interpret time. (Oh, and now I'm mentally applying calculus to a multivariate system of equations and realizing how that scenario totally screws with any sort of continuous curve of on-going change on a graph.)
Which leads me to the point I'm making. The brain and our memories exist because the brain exists in the form it presently is. I have memories of yesterday and the day before because during the course of those days my little neurons and all the chemicals and electrical signals floating around up there were actively changing themselves and rearranging and resorting and resetting, and doing whatever else it is that they do on an ongoing basis. A memory (photographic or fuzzy) is the culmination of the changes that have occurred in the brain.
When we look at a character that has "woken up" in his previous self, he would not have the memories of what just occurred during his previous "day" of living unless the neurons and neurotransmitters all rearranged themselves. Many people resolve this by thinking that it is the "soul" that remembers what happened, but that doesn't jive with what we actually know about the reality of neuroscience. There is no soul that remembers (in my book). There is the brain made up of neurons that remembers. Who we are in a moment and what we think is based on how those little dudes are arranged and handling themselves.
In quick conclusion (because I have to hurry up and get to work, because now I'm running slightly late trying to type this all out of my head so I can stop thinking about it), what Kitty in X-Men is able to do isn't "transport" someone back in time, and what the aliens in The Edge of Tomorrow do isn't quantum transport a person. Well, okay, it is possible that in The Edge of Tomorrow they actually ARE able to transport the body of the person back, but if he managed to live 50 more years before he died and reset and he didn't come back as being 50 years older, well there would be the proof that it's not his entire body that is either sent back or "adjusted" by the quantum leaping process.
Speaking of which, by comparison, Scott Bakula's character in Quantum Leap retains his mind because he's not actually there, but instead he's inhabiting another person's body. That's an entirely different scenario from either of the two previous ones I mentioned. We're also assuming that his physical body is aging during the time his mind is living in other people's bodies. If he were to get trapped for a few decades, that would totally suck having to wake back up in your body that is now crinkled and older than you remember and also has to go through months of physical therapy to regain lost muscles due to atrophy.
Instead, what Kitty is able to do isn't about "transporting a person back in time," but is instead a rearranging of someone's neurons in their past so that they have the same "brain" as the person they are in the present when she starts the process. In theory, that's also what the aliens are doing as well.
Crap, only 15 minutes to get my shower and get to work......