Seil
07-24-2014, 07:27 PM
So this thread is mainly an excuse to talk about the mediocre Robocop remake/reboot/whatever as well as this truly amazing book Man's Search For Meaning (http://www.amazon.ca/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl/dp/080701429X) by Viktor E. Frankl.
Now, in the movie, well... a lot of things happen. Murphy gets blown up. Lewis has a sex change - and she's/he's black, now. Samuel L. Jackson plays roughly the same role as he played in Django. But one of the moments in the film is where Commissioner Gordon talks to Elliot Ness about...
03388MnBnFk
Liz Kline: Dr. Norton, how is he doing this?
Dr. Dennett Norton: His software is faster. His hardware is stronger. He's a better machine.
Liz Kline: But you said humans hesitate.
Dr. Dennett Norton: Only when they're making decisions.
Liz Kline: He's not making decisions?
Dr. Dennett Norton: Yes and no. In his everyday life, man rules over the machine. Alex makes his own decisions. Now, when he engages in battle, the visor comes down and the software takes over. Then the machine does everything. Alex is a passenger, just along for the ride.
Liz Kline: But if the machine is in control, then how is Murphy accountable? Who's pulling the trigger?
Dr. Dennett Norton: Well, when the machine fights, the system releases signals into Alex's brain making him thing he's doing what our computers are actually doing. I mean, Alex believes right now he is in control. But he's not. It's the illusion of free will.
Robocop's combat capabilities. Now, earlier, Robocop was shown to be less efficient than other robots. In order to fix this issue, Commissioner Gordon wires his brain so that the software takes over, but Robocop still has the illusion of control. He believes that he's making the decisions - which raises all sorts of interesting philosophical and lawyeriffic debates. But how does that tie in to Frankl's ideas on logotherapy?
Well, Victor E. Frankl is a holocaust survivor. He was a prisoner of the Nazi death camps, but looked at it from the perspective of a neurologist and a psychiatrist. His book is wildly fascinating not only from a historical standpoint, but he tries to describe why a true, factual, be-all end-all answer to the question "What is the meaning of life?" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aboZctrHfK8) will never actually exist.
It will never exist because we're all individuals living individual lives, so the meaning to our existences is equally as individual. He describes the people who lost themselves to the camps, who just gave up - these men were certain to die not because they would be killed for not working or not eating, but they simply refused to go on.
...Those who didn't do this (and didn't have either of the two other sources of meaning) would give up and become moribund: remaining in their bunks, lying in their own urine and excreta, disobeying all orders to get up, smoking their last cigarette, waiting for death.
He describes how they immediately tried to satisfy a need for pleasure, in this case by smoking a cigarette - which were kind of scarce for prisoners in a Nazi death camp, so it was a big deal to have a cigarette.
He describes how some men became saints in the camps, giving their meager rations to other prisoners to ease their suffering:
"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts, comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate."
Other prisoners turned on each other, and became people of importance in the camp by taking the privileges offered by the German soldiers to attack their fellow prisoners. Frankl describes how important choice is in discovering the individual meaning of life.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
So they took away Robocop's ability to choose, but left him with the impression that he had free will. They essentially robbed him of his life's meaning, his freedom, his choice.
But it could also be argued that those were taken from him after he "died."
Either way, it's still a mediocre movie, and Samuel L. Jackson has done much better (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pkq_eBHXJ4) in the past.
Now, in the movie, well... a lot of things happen. Murphy gets blown up. Lewis has a sex change - and she's/he's black, now. Samuel L. Jackson plays roughly the same role as he played in Django. But one of the moments in the film is where Commissioner Gordon talks to Elliot Ness about...
03388MnBnFk
Liz Kline: Dr. Norton, how is he doing this?
Dr. Dennett Norton: His software is faster. His hardware is stronger. He's a better machine.
Liz Kline: But you said humans hesitate.
Dr. Dennett Norton: Only when they're making decisions.
Liz Kline: He's not making decisions?
Dr. Dennett Norton: Yes and no. In his everyday life, man rules over the machine. Alex makes his own decisions. Now, when he engages in battle, the visor comes down and the software takes over. Then the machine does everything. Alex is a passenger, just along for the ride.
Liz Kline: But if the machine is in control, then how is Murphy accountable? Who's pulling the trigger?
Dr. Dennett Norton: Well, when the machine fights, the system releases signals into Alex's brain making him thing he's doing what our computers are actually doing. I mean, Alex believes right now he is in control. But he's not. It's the illusion of free will.
Robocop's combat capabilities. Now, earlier, Robocop was shown to be less efficient than other robots. In order to fix this issue, Commissioner Gordon wires his brain so that the software takes over, but Robocop still has the illusion of control. He believes that he's making the decisions - which raises all sorts of interesting philosophical and lawyeriffic debates. But how does that tie in to Frankl's ideas on logotherapy?
Well, Victor E. Frankl is a holocaust survivor. He was a prisoner of the Nazi death camps, but looked at it from the perspective of a neurologist and a psychiatrist. His book is wildly fascinating not only from a historical standpoint, but he tries to describe why a true, factual, be-all end-all answer to the question "What is the meaning of life?" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aboZctrHfK8) will never actually exist.
It will never exist because we're all individuals living individual lives, so the meaning to our existences is equally as individual. He describes the people who lost themselves to the camps, who just gave up - these men were certain to die not because they would be killed for not working or not eating, but they simply refused to go on.
...Those who didn't do this (and didn't have either of the two other sources of meaning) would give up and become moribund: remaining in their bunks, lying in their own urine and excreta, disobeying all orders to get up, smoking their last cigarette, waiting for death.
He describes how they immediately tried to satisfy a need for pleasure, in this case by smoking a cigarette - which were kind of scarce for prisoners in a Nazi death camp, so it was a big deal to have a cigarette.
He describes how some men became saints in the camps, giving their meager rations to other prisoners to ease their suffering:
"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts, comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate."
Other prisoners turned on each other, and became people of importance in the camp by taking the privileges offered by the German soldiers to attack their fellow prisoners. Frankl describes how important choice is in discovering the individual meaning of life.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
So they took away Robocop's ability to choose, but left him with the impression that he had free will. They essentially robbed him of his life's meaning, his freedom, his choice.
But it could also be argued that those were taken from him after he "died."
Either way, it's still a mediocre movie, and Samuel L. Jackson has done much better (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pkq_eBHXJ4) in the past.