Total Recall: Fact or Fiction?
Fact or Fiction?
Total Recall Paper
PHIL 2003-013
Usually at least once in a lifetime a person will question whether a dream was reality or not. It is rare to think “I am just dreaming” in a dream. In the 1990s movie Total Recall the director, Paul Verhoeven, attempts to illustrate the puzzling question of “what is reality and what is not?” With Arnold Schwarzenegger in this futuristic flick, the director cleverly confuses the audience about what is “real” in the movie, making one doubt each previous scene. Total Recall begins with the main character, Douglas Quaid, on a mission to decipher a reoccurring dream that takes place in Mars. His curiosity and frustrations take him to ReKall Inc. who has a specialty in a very unorthodox practice. There at ReKall Inc., they have a machine that will replace memories. When the memory-replacing process begins, something goes wrong--he begins to recover erased memories and realizes that what he thought was his entire life was a sham. He had been a secret agent and an enemy of the current totalitarian government. The dictator, Cohaagen, had earlier played judge and jury and ordered that he be given a false life—his wife and friends were not who they seemed. The device itself goes against numerous human rights and is ethically wrong, but that did not stop the movie’s antagonist, Cohaagen, from utilizing its special abilities for diabolical purposes. This movie illustrates some controversial ideas from two philosophers, Rene Descartes and Christopher Grau, about reality and how one knows what is real and what is not. This is most obviously illustrated in the conclusion of the movie with Schwarzenegger’s line, “I just had a terrible thought. What if this is all a dream?” (Total Recall) Rene Descartes is a very interesting philosopher due to the extremes he utilized in order to figure out what is real and what is not. The tactic that Descartes used is called Skepticism. Skepticism is the idea that one should doubt
Total Recall Paper
PHIL 2003-013
Usually at least once in a lifetime a person will question whether a dream was reality or not. It is rare to think “I am just dreaming” in a dream. In the 1990s movie Total Recall the director, Paul Verhoeven, attempts to illustrate the puzzling question of “what is reality and what is not?” With Arnold Schwarzenegger in this futuristic flick, the director cleverly confuses the audience about what is “real” in the movie, making one doubt each previous scene. Total Recall begins with the main character, Douglas Quaid, on a mission to decipher a reoccurring dream that takes place in Mars. His curiosity and frustrations take him to ReKall Inc. who has a specialty in a very unorthodox practice. There at ReKall Inc., they have a machine that will replace memories. When the memory-replacing process begins, something goes wrong--he begins to recover erased memories and realizes that what he thought was his entire life was a sham. He had been a secret agent and an enemy of the current totalitarian government. The dictator, Cohaagen, had earlier played judge and jury and ordered that he be given a false life—his wife and friends were not who they seemed. The device itself goes against numerous human rights and is ethically wrong, but that did not stop the movie’s antagonist, Cohaagen, from utilizing its special abilities for diabolical purposes. This movie illustrates some controversial ideas from two philosophers, Rene Descartes and Christopher Grau, about reality and how one knows what is real and what is not. This is most obviously illustrated in the conclusion of the movie with Schwarzenegger’s line, “I just had a terrible thought. What if this is all a dream?” (Total Recall) Rene Descartes is a very interesting philosopher due to the extremes he utilized in order to figure out what is real and what is not. The tactic that Descartes used is called Skepticism. Skepticism is the idea that one should doubt
References: Descartes, Rene. "Descartes and the Problems of Skepticism." Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings. By John Perry, Michael Bratman, and John Martin Fischer. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. 136. Print. Grau, Christopher. "Bad Dreams, Evil Demons, and the Experience Machine: Philosophy and The Matrix." Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings. By John Perry, Michael Bratman, and John Martin Fischer. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. 163. Print. Total Recall. Dir. Paul Verhoeven. Perf. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tri-Star, 1990. Laser disc.