vaknin@link. Com. Mk Visit the Author Archive of Dr. Sam Vaknin in "Central Europe Review": http://www. Ce-review. Org/authorarchives/vaknin_archive/vaknin_main. Html Visit Sam Vaknin's United Press International (UPI) Article Archive-Click HERE! Philosophical Musings and Essays http://samvak. Tripod. Com/culture. Html Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited http://samvak. Tripod. Com/ Created by: LIDIJA RANGELOVSKA REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA C O N T E N T S I. The Talented Mr. Ripley II. The Truman Show III. The Matrix IV. Shattered V. Titanic VI. Being John Malkovich VII. Dreamcatcher - The Myth of Destructibility VIII. The Author IX. About "After the Rain" The Talented Mr. Ripley By: Sam Vaknin "The Talented Mr. Ripley" is an Hitchcockian and blood-curdling studyof the psychopath and his victims. At the centre of this masterpiece, set in the exquisitely decadent scapes of Italy, is a titanicencounter between Ripley, the aforementioned psychopath protagonistand young Greenleaf, a consummate narcissist. Ripley is a cartoonishly poor young adult whose overriding desire isto belong to a higher - or at least, richer - social class. While hewaits upon the subjects of his not so hidden desires, he receives anoffer he cannot refuse: to travel to Italy to retrieve the spoiled andhedonistic son of a shipbuilding magnate, Greenleaf Senior. He embarksupon a study of Junior's biography, personality, likes and hobbies. Ina chillingly detailed process, he actually assumes Greenleaf'sidentity. Disembarking from a luxurious Cunard liner in hisdestination, Italy, he "confesses" to a gullible textile-heiress thathe is the young Greenleaf, travelling incognito. Thus, we are subtly introduced to the two over-riding themes of theantisocial personality disorder (still labelled by many professionalauthorities "psychopathy" and "sociopathy"): an overwhelming dysphoriaand an even more overweening drive to assuage this angst by belonging. The psychopath is an unhappy person. He is besieged by recurrentdepression bouts, hypochondria and an overpowering sense of alienationand drift. He is bored with his own life and is permeated by aseething and explosive envy of the lucky, the mighty, the clever, thehave it alls, the know it alls, the handsome, the happy - in short:his opposites. He feels discriminated against and dealt a poor hand inthe great poker game called life. He is driven obsessively to rightthese perceived wrongs and feels entirely justified in adoptingwhatever means he deems necessary in pursuing this goal. Ripley's reality test is maintained throughout the film. In otherwords - while he gradually merges with the object of his admiringemulation, the young Greenleaf - Ripley can always tell thedifference. After he kills Greenleaf in self-defense, he assumes hisname, wears his clothes, cashes his checks and makes phone calls fromhis rooms. But he also murders - or tries to murder - those whosuspect the truth. These acts of lethal self-preservation proveconclusively that he knows who he is and that he fully realizes thathis acts are parlously illegal. Young Greenleaf is young, captivatingly energetic, infinitelycharming, breathtakingly handsome and deceivingly emotional. He lacksreal talents - he know how to play only six jazz tunes, can't make uphis musical mind between his faithful sax and a newly alluring drumkit and, an aspiring writer, can't even spell. These shortcomings anddiscrepancies are tucked under a glittering facade of non-chalance, refreshing spontaneity, an experimental spirit, unrepressed sexualityand unrestrained adventurism. But Greenleaf Jr. Is a garden varietynarcissist. He cheats on his lovely and loving girlfriend, Marge. Herefuses to lend money - of which he seems to have an unlimited supply, courtesy his ever more disenchanted father - to a girl he impregnated. She commits suicide and he blames the primitiveness of the emergencyservices, sulks and kicks his precious record player. In the midst ofthis infantile temper tantrum the rudiments of a conscience arevisible. He evidently feels guilty. At least for a while. Greenleaf Jr. Falls in and out of love and friendship in a predictablependulous rhythm. He idealizes his beaus and then devalues them. Hefinds them to be the quiddity of fascination one moment - and thedistilled essence of boredom the next. And he is not shy aboutexpressing his distaste and disenchantment. He is savagely cruel as hecalls Ripley a leach who has taken over his life and his possessions(having previously invited him to do so in no uncertain terms). Hesays that he is relieved to see him go and he cancels off-handedlyelaborate plans they made together. Greenleaf Jr. Maintains a poorrecord of keeping promises and a rich record of violence, as wediscover towards the end of this suspenseful, taut yarn. Ripley himself lacks an identity. He is a binary automaton driven by aset of two instructions - become someone and overcome resistance. Hefeels like a nobody and his overriding ambition is to be somebody, even if he has to fake it, or steal it. His only talents, he openlyadmits, are to fake both personalities and papers. He is a predatorand he hunts for congruence, cohesion and meaning. He is in constantsearch of a family. Greenleaf Jr. , he declares festively, is the olderbrother he never had. Together with the long suffering fiancee inwaiting, Marge, they are a family. Hasn't Greenleaf Sr. Actuallyadopted him? This identity disturbance, which is at the psychodynamic root of bothpathological narcissism and rapacious psychopathy, is all-pervasive. Both Ripley and Greenleaf Jr. Are not sure who they are. Ripley wantsto be Greenleaf Jr. - not because of the latter's admirablepersonality, but because of his money. Greenleaf Jr. Cultivates aFalse Self of a jazz giant in the making and the author of the GreatAmerican Novel but he is neither and he bitterly knows it. Even theirsexual identity is not fully formed. Ripley is at once homoerotic, autoerotic and heteroerotic. He has a succession of homosexual lovers(though apparently only platonic ones). Yet, he is attracted to women. He falls desperately in love with Greenleaf's False Self and it is therevelation of the latter's dilapidated True Self that leads to theatavistically bloody scene in the boat. But Ripley is a different -and more ominous - beast altogether. Herambles on about the metaphorical dark chamber of his secrets, the keyto which he wishes to share with a "loved" one. But this act ofsharing (which never materializes) is intended merely to alleviate theconstant pressure of the hot pursuit he is subjected to by the policeand others. He disposes with equal equanimity of both loved ones andthe occasional prying acquaintance. At least twice he utters words oflove as he actually strangles his newfound inamorato and tries toslash an old and rekindled flame. He hesitates not a split second whenconfronted with an offer to betray Greenleaf Sr. , his nominal employerand benefactor, and abscond with his money. He falsifies signatureswith ease, makes eye contact convincingly, flashes the most heartrending smile when embarrassed or endangered. He is a caricature ofthe American dream: ambitious, driven, winsome, well versed in themantras of the bourgeoisie. But beneath this thin veneer of hardlearned, self-conscious and uneasy civility - lurks a beast of preybest characterized by the DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistics Manual): "Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviour, deceitfulness as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, orconning others to personal profit or pleasure, impulsivity or failureto plan ahead... Reckless disregard for safety of self or others... (and above all) lack of remorse. " (From the criteria of theAntisocial Personality Disorder). But perhaps the most intriguing portraits are those of the victims. Marge insists, in the face of the most callous and abusive behaviour, that there is something "tender" in Greenleaf Jr. When she confrontsthe beguiling monster, Ripley, she encounters the fate of all victimsof psychopaths: disbelief, pity and ridicule. The truth is toohorrible to contemplate, let alone comprehend. Psychopaths are inhumanin the most profound sense of this compounded word. Their emotions andconscience have been amputated and replaced by phantom imitations. Butit is rare to pierce their meticulously crafted facade. They moreoften than not go on to great success and social acceptance whiletheir detractors are relegated to the fringes of society. BothMeredith and Peter, who had the misfortune of falling in deep, unrequited love with Ripley, are punished. One by losing his life, theother by losing Ripley time and again, mysteriously, capriciously, cruelly. Thus, ultimately, the film is an intricate study of the perniciousways of psychopathology. Mental disorder is a venom not confined toits source. It spreads and affects its environment in a myriadsurreptitiously subtle forms. It is a hydra, growing one hundred headswhere one was severed. Its victims writhe and as abuse is piled upontrauma - they turn to stone, the mute witnesses of horror, thestalactites and stalagmites of pain untold and unrecountable. Fortheir tormentors are often as talented as Mr. Ripley is and they areas helpless and as clueless as his victims are. The Truman Show By: Sam Vaknin "The Truman Show" is a profoundly disturbing movie. On the surface, itdeals with the worn out issue of the intermingling of life and themedia. Examples for such incestuous relationships abound: Ronald Reagan, the cinematic president was also a presidential moviestar. In another movie ("The Philadelphia Experiment") a defrosted RipVan Winkle exclaims upon seeing Reagan on television (40 years afterhis forced hibernation started): "I know this guy, he used to playCowboys in the movies". Candid cameras monitor the lives of webmasters (website owners) almost24 hours a day. The resulting images are continuously posted on theWeb and are available to anyone with a computer. The last decade witnessed a spate of films, all concerned with theconfusion between life and the imitations of life, the media. Theingenious "Capitan Fracasse", "Capricorn One", "Sliver", "Wag the Dog"and many lesser films have all tried to tackle this (un)fortunatestate of things and its moral and practical implications. The blurring line between life and its representation in the arts isarguably the main theme of "The Truman Show". The hero, Truman, livesin an artificial world, constructed especially for him. He was bornand raised there. He knows no other place. The people around him -unbeknownst to him - are all actors. His life is monitored by 5000cameras and broadcast live to the world, 24 hours a day, every day. Heis spontaneous and funny because he is unaware of the monstrosity ofwhich he is the main cogwheel. But Peter Weir, the movie's director, takes this issue one stepfurther by perpetrating a massive act of immorality on screen. Trumanis lied to, cheated, deprived of his ability to make choices, controlled and manipulated by sinister, half-mad Shylocks. As I said, he is unwittingly the only spontaneous, non-scripted, "actor" in theon-going soaper of his own life. All the other figures in his life, including his parents, are actors. Hundreds of millions of viewers andvoyeurs plug in to take a peep, to intrude upon what Truman innocentlyand honestly believes to be his privacy. They are shown responding tovarious dramatic or anti-climactic events in Truman's life. That weare the moral equivalent of these viewers-voyeurs, accomplices to thesame crimes, comes as a shocking realization to us. We are (live)viewers and they are (celluloid) viewers. We both enjoy Truman'sinadvertent, non-consenting, exhibitionism. We know the truth aboutTruman and so do they. Of course, we are in a privileged moralposition because we know it is a movie and they know it is a piece ofraw life that they are watching. But moviegoers throughout Hollywood's history have willingly andinsatiably participated in numerous "Truman Shows". The lives (real orconcocted) of the studio stars were brutally exploited andincorporated in their films. Jean Harlow, Barbara Stanwyck, JamesCagney all were forced to spill their guts in cathartic acts of oncamera repentance and not so symbolic humiliation. "Truman Shows" isthe more common phenomenon in the movie industry. Then there is the question of the director of the movie as God and ofGod as the director of a movie. The members of his team - technicaland non-technical alike - obey Christoff, the director, almostblindly. They suspend their better moral judgement and succumb to hiswhims and to the brutal and vulgar aspects of his pervasive dishonestyand sadism. The torturer loves his victims. They define him and infusehis life with meaning. Caught in a narrative, the movie says, peopleact immorally. (IN)famous psychological experiments support this assertion. Studentswere led to administer what they thought were "deadly" electric shocksto their colleagues or to treat them bestially in simulated prisons. They obeyed orders. So did all the hideous genocidal criminals inhistory. The Director Weir asks: should God be allowed to be immoralor should he be bound by morality and ethics? Should his decisions andactions be constrained by an over-riding code of right and wrong?Should we obey his commandments blindly or should we exercisejudgement? If we do exercise judgement are we then being immoral because God (andthe Director Christoff) know more (about the world, about us, theviewers and about Truman), know better, are omnipotent? Is theexercise of judgement the usurpation of divine powers and attributes?Isn't this act of rebelliousness bound to lead us down the path ofapocalypse? It all boils down to the question of free choice and free will versusthe benevolent determinism imposed by an omniscient and omnipotentbeing. What is better: to have the choice and be damned (almostinevitably, as in the biblical narrative of the Garden of Eden) - orto succumb to the superior wisdom of a supreme being? A choice alwaysinvolves a dilemma. It is the conflict between two equivalent states, two weighty decisions whose outcomes are equally desirable and twoidentically-preferable courses of action. Where there is no suchequivalence - there is no choice, merely the pre-ordained (given fullknowledge) exercise of a preference or inclination. Bees do not chooseto make honey. A fan of football does not choose to watch a footballgame. He is motivated by a clear inequity between the choices that hefaces. He can read a book or go to the game. His decision is clear andpre-determined by his predilection and by the inevitable andinvariable implementation of the principle of pleasure. There is nochoice here. It is all rather automatic. But compare this to thechoice some victims had to make between two of their children in theface of Nazi brutality. Which child to sentence to death - which oneto sentence to life? Now, this is a real choice. It involvesconflicting emotions of equal strength. One must not confusedecisions, opportunities and choice. Decisions are the mere selection of courses of action. This selectioncan be the result of a choice or the result of a tendency (conscious, unconscious, or biological-genetic). Opportunities are current statesof the world, which allow for a decision to be made and to affect thefuture state of the world. Choices are our conscious experience ofmoral or other dilemmas. Christoff finds it strange that Truman - having discovered the truth -insists upon his right to make choices, i. E. , upon his right toexperience dilemmas. To the Director, dilemmas are painful, unnecessary, destructive, or at best disruptive. His utopian world -the one he constructed for Truman - is choice-free and dilemma-free. Truman is programmed not in the sense that his spontaneity isextinguished. Truman is wrong when, in one of the scenes, he keepsshouting: "Be careful, I am spontaneous". The Director and fat-catcapitalistic producers want him to be spontaneous, they want him tomake decisions. But they do not want him to make choices. So theyinfluence his preferences and predilections by providing him with anabsolutely totalitarian, micro-controlled, repetitive environment. Such an environment reduces the set of possible decisions so thatthere is only one favourable or acceptable decision (outcome) at anyjunction. Truman does decide whether to walk down a certain path ornot. But when he does decide to walk - only one path is available tohim. His world is constrained and limited - not his actions. Actually, Truman's only choice in the movie leads to an arguablyimmoral decision. He abandons ship. He walks out on the whole project. He destroys an investment of billions of dollars, people's lives andcareers. He turns his back on some of the actors who seem to really beemotionally attached to him. He ignores the good and pleasure that theshow has brought to the lives of millions of people (the viewers). Heselfishly and vengefully goes away. He knows all this. By the time hemakes his decision, he is fully informed. He knows that some peoplemay commit suicide, go bankrupt, endure major depressive episodes, dodrugs. But this massive landscape of resulting devastation does notdeter him. He prefers his narrow, personal, interest. He walks. But Truman did not ask or choose to be put in his position. He foundhimself responsible for all these people without being consulted. There was no consent or act of choice involved. How can anyone beresponsible for the well-being and lives of other people - if he didnot CHOOSE to be so responsible? Moreover, Truman had the perfectmoral right to think that these people wronged him. Are we morallyresponsible and accountable for the well-being and lives of those whowrong us? True Christians are, for instance. Moreover, most of us, most of the time, find ourselves in situationswhich we did not help mould by our decisions. We are unwillingly castinto the world. We do not provide prior consent to being born. Thisfundamental decision is made for us, forced upon us. This patternpersists throughout our childhood and adolescence: decisions are madeelsewhere by others and influence our lives profoundly. As adults we are the objects - often the victims - of the decisions ofcorrupt politicians, mad scientists, megalomaniac media barons, gung-ho generals and demented artists. This world is not of our makingand our ability to shape and influence it is very limited and ratherillusory. We live in our own "Truman Show". Does this mean that we arenot morally responsible for others? We are morally responsible even if we did not choose the circumstancesand the parameters and characteristics of the universe that weinhabit. The Swedish Count Wallenberg imperilled his life (and lostit) smuggling hunted Jews out of Nazi occupied Europe. He did notchoose, or helped to shape Nazi Europe. It was the brainchild of thederanged Director Hitler. Having found himself an unwillingparticipant in Hitler's horror show, Wallenberg did not turn his backand opted out. He remained within the bloody and horrific set and didhis best. Truman should have done the same. Jesus said that he shouldhave loved his enemies. He should have felt and acted withresponsibility towards his fellow human beings, even towards those whowronged him greatly. But this may be an inhuman demand. Such forgiveness and magnanimityare the reserve of God. And the fact that Truman's tormentors did notsee themselves as such and believed that they were acting in his bestinterests and that they were catering to his every need - does notabsolve them from their crimes. Truman should have maintained a finebalance between his responsibility to the show, its creators and itsviewers and his natural drive to get back at his tormentors. Thesource of the dilemma (which led to his act of choosing) is that thetwo groups overlap. Truman found himself in the impossible position of being the soleguarantor of the well-being and lives of his tormentors. To put thequestion in sharper relief: are we morally obliged to save the lifeand livelihood of someone who greatly wronged us? Or is vengeancejustified in such a case? A very problematic figure in this respect is that of Truman's best andchildhood friend. They grew up together, shared secrets, emotions andadventures. Yet he lies to Truman constantly and under the Director'sinstructions. Everything he says is part of a script. It is thisdisinformation that convinces us that he is not Truman's true friend. A real friend is expected, above all, to provide us with full and trueinformation and, thereby, to enhance our ability to choose. Truman'strue love in the Show tried to do it. She paid the price: she wasousted from the show. But she tried to provide Truman with a choice. It is not sufficient to say the right things and make the right moves. Inner drive and motivation are required and the willingness to takerisks (such as the risk of providing Truman with full informationabout his condition). All the actors who played Truman's parents, loving wife, friends and colleagues, miserably failed on this score. It is in this mimicry that the philosophical key to the whole movierests. A Utopia cannot be faked. Captain Nemo's utopian underwatercity was a real Utopia because everyone knew everything about it. People were given a choice (though an irreversible and irrevocableone). They chose to become lifetime members of the reclusive Captain'scolony and to abide by its (overly rational) rules. The Utopia came closest to extinction when a group of stray survivorsof a maritime accident were imprisoned in it against their expressedwill. In the absence of choice, no utopia can exist. In the absence offull, timely and accurate information, no choice can exist. Actually, the availability of choice is so crucial that even when it isprevented by nature itself - and not by the designs of more or lesssinister or monomaniac people - there can be no Utopia. In H. G. Wells'book "The Time Machine", the hero wanders off to the third millenniumonly to come across a peaceful Utopia. Its members are immortal, don'thave to work, or think in order to survive. Sophisticated machinestake care of all their needs. No one forbids them to make choices. There simply is no need to make them. So the Utopia is fake and indeedends badly. Finally, the "Truman Show" encapsulates the most virulent attack oncapitalism in a long time. Greedy, thoughtless money machines in theform of billionaire tycoon-producers exploit Truman's life shamelesslyand remorselessly in the ugliest display of human vices possible. TheDirector indulges in his control-mania. The producers indulge in theirmonetary obsession. The viewers (on both sides of the silver screen)indulge in voyeurism. The actors vie and compete in the compulsiveactivity of furthering their petty careers. It is a repulsive canvasof a disintegrating world. Perhaps Christoff is right after al when hewarns Truman about the true nature of the world. But Truman chooses. He chooses the exit door leading to the outer darkness over the falsesunlight in the Utopia that he leaves behind. The Matrix By: Sam Vaknin It is easy to confuse the concepts of "virtual reality" and a"computerized model of reality (simulation)". The former is aself-contained Universe, replete with its "laws of physics" and"logic". It can bear resemblance to the real world or not. It can beconsistent or not. It can interact with the real world or not. Inshort, it is an arbitrary environment. In contrast, a model of realitymust have a direct and strong relationship to the world. It must obeythe rules of physics and of logic. The absence of such a relationshiprenders it meaningless. A flight simulator is not much good in a worldwithout aeroplanes or if it ignores the laws of nature. A technicalanalysis program is useless without a stock exchange or if itsmathematically erroneous. Yet, the two concepts are often confused because they are bothmediated by and reside on computers. The computer is a self-contained(though not closed) Universe. It incorporates the hardware, the dataand the instructions for the manipulation of the data (software). Itis, therefore, by definition, a virtual reality. It is versatile andcan correlate its reality with the world outside. But it can alsorefrain from doing so. This is the ominous "what if" in artificialintelligence (AI). What if a computer were to refuse to correlate itsinternal (virtual) reality with the reality of its makers? What if itwere to impose its own reality on us and make it the privileged one? In the visually tantalizing movie, "The Matrix", a breed of AIcomputers takes over the world. It harvests human embryos inlaboratories called "fields". It then feeds them through grim lookingtubes and keeps them immersed in gelatinous liquid in cocoons. Thisnew "machine species" derives its energy needs from the electricityproduced by the billions of human bodies thus preserved. Asophisticated, all-pervasive, computer program called "The Matrix"generates a "world" inhabited by the consciousness of the unfortunatehuman batteries. Ensconced in their shells, they see themselveswalking, talking, working and making love. This is a tangible andolfactory phantasm masterfully created by the Matrix. Its computingpower is mind boggling. It generates the minutest details and reams ofdata in a spectacularly successful effort to maintain the illusion. A group of human miscreants succeeds to learn the secret of theMatrix. They form an underground and live aboard a ship, looselycommunicating with a halcyon city called "Zion", the last bastion ofresistance. In one of the scenes, Cypher, one of the rebels defects. Over a glass of (illusory) rubicund wine and (spectral) juicy steak, he poses the main dilemma of the movie. Is it better to live happilyin a perfectly detailed delusion - or to survive unhappily but free ofits hold? The Matrix controls the minds of all the humans in the world. It is abridge between them, they inter-connected through it. It makes themshare the same sights, smells and textures. They remember. Theycompete. They make decisions. The Matrix is sufficiently complex to allow for this apparent lack ofdeterminism and ubiquity of free will. The root question is: is thereany difference between making decisions and feeling certain of makingthem (not having made them)? If one is unaware of the existence of theMatrix, the answer is no. From the inside, as a part of the Matrix, making decisions and appearing to be making them are identical states. Only an outside observer - one who in possession of full informationregarding both the Matrix and the humans - can tell the difference. Moreover, if the Matrix were a computer program of infinitecomplexity, no observer (finite or infinite) would have been able tosay with any certainty whose a decision was - the Matrix's or thehuman's. And because the Matrix, for all intents and purposes, isinfinite compared to the mind of any single, tube-nourished, individual - it is safe to say that the states of "making a decision"and "appearing to be making a decision" are subjectivelyindistinguishable. No individual within the Matrix would be able totell the difference. His or her life would seem to him or her as realas ours are to us. The Matrix may be deterministic - but thisdeterminism is inaccessible to individual minds because of thecomplexity involved. When faced with a trillion deterministic paths, one would be justified to feel that he exercised free, unconstrainedwill in choosing one of them. Free will and determinism areindistinguishable at a certain level of complexity. Yet, we KNOW that the Matrix is different to our world. It is NOT thesame. This is an intuitive kind of knowledge, for sure, but this doesnot detract from its firmness. If there is no subjective differencebetween the Matrix and our Universe, there must be an objective one. Another key sentence is uttered by Morpheus, the leader of the rebels. He says to "The Chosen One" (the Messiah) that it is really the year2199, though the Matrix gives the impression that it is 1999. This is where the Matrix and reality diverge. Though a human who wouldexperience both would find them indistinguishable - objectively theyare different. In one of them (the Matrix), people have no objectiveTIME (though the Matrix might have it). The other (reality) isgoverned by it. Under the spell of the Matrix, people feel as though time goes by. They have functioning watches. The sun rises and sets. Seasons change. They grow old and die. This is not entirely an illusion. Their bodiesdo decay and die, as ours do. They are not exempt from the laws ofnature. But their AWARENESS of time is computer generated. The Matrixis sufficiently sophisticated and knowledgeable to maintain a closecorrelation between the physical state of the human (his health andage) and his consciousness of the passage of time. The basic rules oftime - for instance, its asymmetry - are part of the program. But this is precisely it. Time in the minds of these people isprogram-generated, not reality-induced. It is not the derivative ofchange and irreversible (thermodynamic and other) processes OUT THERE. Their minds are part of a computer program and the computer program isa part of their minds. Their bodies are static, degenerating in their protective nests. Nothing happens to them except in their minds. They have no physicaleffect on the world. They effect no change. These things set theMatrix and reality apart. To "qualify" as reality a two-way interaction must occur. One flow ofdata is when reality influences the minds of people (as does theMatrix). The obverse, but equally necessary, type of data flow is whenpeople know reality and influence it. The Matrix triggers a timesensation in people the same way that the Universe triggers a timesensation in us. Something does happen OUT THERE and it is called theMatrix. In this sense, the Matrix is real, it is the reality of thesehumans. It maintains the requirement of the first type of flow ofdata. But it fails the second test: people do not know that it existsor any of its attributes, nor do they affect it irreversibly. They donot change the Matrix. Paradoxically, the rebels do affect the Matrix(they almost destroy it). In doing so, they make it REAL. It is theirREALITY because they KNOW it and they irreversibly CHANGE it. Applying this dual-track test, "virtual" reality IS a reality, albeit, at this stage, of a deterministic type. It affects our minds, we knowthat it exists and we affect it in return. Our choices and actionsirreversibly alter the state of the system. This altered state, inturn, affects our minds. This interaction IS what we call "reality". With the advent of stochastic and quantum virtual reality generators -the distinction between "real" and "virtual" will fade. The Matrixthus is not impossible. But that it is possible - does not make itreal. The Shattered Identity By: Sam Vaknin Read these essays first: The Habitual Identity Death, Meaning, and Identity Fact and Truth Dreams - The Metaphors of Mind I. Exposition In the movie "Shattered" (1991), Dan Merrick survives an accident anddevelops total amnesia regarding his past. His battered face isreconstructed by plastic surgeons and, with the help of his lovingwife, he gradually recovers his will to live. But he never develops aproper sense of identity. It is as though he is constantly ill at easein his own body. As the plot unravels, Dan is led to believe that hemay have murdered his wife's lover, Jack. This thriller offersadditional twists and turns but, throughout it all, we face thisquestion: Dan has no recollection of being Dan. Dan does not remember murderingJack. It seems as though Dan's very identity has been erased. Yet, Danis in sound mind and can tell right from wrong. Should Dan be held(morally and, as a result, perhaps legally as well) accountable forJack's murder? Would the answer to this question still be the same had Dan erasedfrom his memory ONLY the crime -but recalled everything else (in anact of selective dissociation)? Do our moral and legal accountabilityand responsibility spring from the integrity of our memories? If Danwere to be punished for a crime he doesn't have the faintestrecollection of committing - wouldn't he feel horribly wronged?Wouldn't he be justified in feeling so? There are many states of consciousness that involve dissociation andselective amnesia: hypnosis, trance and possession, hallucination, illusion, memory disorders (like organic, or functional amnesia), depersonalization disorder, dissociative fugue, dreaming, psychosis, post traumatic stress disorder, and drug-induced psychotomimeticstates. Consider this, for instance: What if Dan were the victim of a Multiple Personality Disorder (nowknown as "Dissociative Identity Disorder")? What if one of his"alters" (i. E. , one of the multitude of "identities" sharing Dan'smind and body) committed the crime? Should Dan still be heldresponsible? What if the alter "John" committed the crime and then"vanished", leaving behind another alter (let us say, "Joseph") incontrol? Should "Joseph" be held responsible for the crime "John" committed?What if "John" were to reappear 10 years after he "vanished"? What ifhe were to reappear 50 years after he "vanished"? What if he were toreappear for a period of 90 days - only to "vanish" again? And what isDan's role in all this? Who, exactly, then, is Dan? II. Who is Dan? Buddhism compares Man to a river. Both retain their identity despitethe fact that their individual composition is different at differentmoments. The possession of a body as the foundation of a self-identityis a dubious proposition. Bodies change drastically in time (considera baby compared to an adult). Almost all the cells in a human body arereplaced every few years. Changing one's brain (by transplantation) -also changes one's identity, even if the rest of the body remains thesame. Thus, the only thing that binds a "person" together (i. E. , gives him aself and an identity) is time, or, more precisely, memory. By "memory"I also mean: personality, skills, habits, retrospected emotions - inshort: all long term imprints and behavioural patterns. The body isnot an accidental and insignificant container, of course. Itconstitutes an important part of one's self-image, self-esteem, senseof self-worth, and sense of existence (spatial, temporal, and social). But one can easily imagine a brain in vitro as having the sameidentity as when it resided in a body. One cannot imagine a bodywithout a brain (or with a different brain) as having the sameidentity it had before the brain was removed or replaced. What if the brain in vitro (in the above example) could notcommunicate with us at all? Would we still think it is possessed of aself? The biological functions of people in coma are maintained. Butdo they have an identity, a self? If yes, why do we "pull the plug" onthem so often? It would seem (as it did to Locke) that we accept that someone has aself-identity if: (a) He has the same hardware as we do (notably, abrain) and (b) He communicates his humanly recognizable andcomprehensible inner world to us and manipulates his environment. Weaccept that he has a given (i. E. , the same continuous) self-identityif (c) He shows consistent intentional (i. E. , willed) patterns("memory") in doing (b) for a long period of time. It seems that we accept that we have a self-identity (i. E. , we areself-conscious) if (a) We discern (usually through introspection) longterm consistent intentional (i. E. , willed) patterns ("memory") in ourmanipulation ("relating to") of our environment and (b) Others acceptthat we have a self-identity (Herbert Mead, Feuerbach). Dan (probably) has the same hardware as we do (a brain). Hecommunicates his (humanly recognizable and comprehensible) inner worldto us (which is how he manipulates us and his environment). Thus, Danclearly has a self-identity. But he is inconsistent. His intentional(willed) patterns, his memory, are incompatible with thosedemonstrated by Dan before the accident. Though he clearly ispossessed of a self-identity, we cannot say that he has the SAMEself-identity he possessed before the crash. In other words, we cannotsay that he, indeed, is Dan. Dan himself does not feel that he has a self-identity at all. Hediscerns intentional (willed) patterns in his manipulation of hisenvironment but, due to his amnesia, he cannot tell if these areconsistent, or long term. In other words, Dan has no memory. Moreover, others do not accept him as Dan (or have their doubts) because theyhave no memory of Dan as he is now. Interim conclusion: Having a memory is a necessary and sufficient condition for possessinga self-identity. III. Repression Yet, resorting to memory to define identity may appear to be acircular (even tautological) argument. When we postulate memory -don't we already presuppose the existence of a "remembering agent"with an established self-identity? Moreover, we keep talking about "discerning", "intentional", or"willed" patterns. But isn't a big part of our self (in the form ofthe unconscious, full of repressed memories) unavailable to us? Don'twe develop defence mechanisms against repressed memories andfantasies, against unconscious content incongruent with ourself-image? Even worse, this hidden, inaccessible, dynamically activepart of our self is thought responsible for our recurrent discerniblepatterns of behaviour. The phenomenon of posthypnotic suggestion seemsto indicate that this may be the case. The existence of aself-identity is, therefore, determined through introspection (byoneself) and observation (by others) of merely the conscious part ofthe self. But the unconscious is as much a part of one's self-identity as one'sconscious. What if, due to a mishap, the roles were reversed? What ifDan's conscious part were to become his unconscious and hisunconscious part - his conscious? What if all his conscious memories, drives, fears, wishes, fantasies, and hopes - were to becomeunconscious while his repressed memories, drives, etc. - were tobecome conscious? Would we still say that it is "the same" Dan andthat he retains his self-identity? Not very likely. And yet, one's(unremembered) unconscious - for instance, the conflict between id andego - determines one's personality and self-identity. The main contribution of psychoanalysis and later psychodynamicschools is the understanding that self-identity is a dynamic, evolving, ever-changing construct - and not a static, inertial, andpassive entity. It casts doubt over the meaningfulness of the questionwith which we ended the exposition: "Who, exactly, then, is Dan?" Danis different at different stages of his life (Erikson) and heconstantly evolves in accordance with his innate nature (Jung), pasthistory (Adler), drives (Freud), cultural milieu (Horney), upbringing(Klein, Winnicott), needs (Murray), or the interplay with his geneticmakeup. Dan is not a thing - he is a process. Even Dan's personalitytraits and cognitive style, which may well be stable, are ofteninfluenced by Dan's social setting and by his social interactions. It would seem that having a memory is a necessary but insufficientcondition for possessing a self-identity. One cannot remember one'sunconscious states (though one can remember their outcomes). One oftenforgets events, names, and other information even if it was consciousat a given time in one's past. Yet, one's (unremembered) unconsciousis an integral and important part of one's identity and one's self. The remembered as well as the unremembered constitute one'sself-identity. IV. The Memory Link Hume said that to be considered in possession of a mind, a creatureneeds to have a few states of consciousness linked by memory in a kindof narrative or personal mythology. Can this conjecture be equallyapplied to unconscious mental states (e. G. Subliminal perceptions, beliefs, drives, emotions, desires, etc. )? In other words, can we rephrase Hume and say that to be considered inpossession of a mind, a creature needs to have a few states ofconsciousness and a few states of the unconscious - all linked bymemory into a personal narrative? Isn't it a contradiction in terms toremember the unconscious? The unconscious and the subliminal are instance of the generalcategory of mental phenomena which are not states of consciousness(i. E. , are not conscious). Sleep and hypnosis are two others. But soare "background mental phenomena" - e. G. , one holds onto one's beliefsand knowledge even when one is not aware (conscious) of them at everygiven moment. We know that an apple will fall towards the earth, we know how todrive a car ("automatically"), and we believe that the sun will risetomorrow, even though we do not spend every second of our waking lifeconsciously thinking about falling apples, driving cars, or theposition of the sun. Yet, the fact that knowledge and beliefs and other background mentalphenomena are not constantly conscious - does not mean that theycannot be remembered. They can be remembered either by an act of will, or in (sometimes an involuntary) response to changes in theenvironment. The same applies to all other unconscious content. Unconscious content can be recalled. Psychoanalysis, for instance, isabout re-introducing repressed unconscious content to the patient'sconscious memory and thus making it "remembered". In fact, one's self-identity may be such a background mentalphenomenon (always there, not always conscious, not alwaysremembered). The acts of will which bring it to the surface are whatwe call "memory" and "introspection". This would seem to imply that having a self-identity is independent ofhaving a memory (or the ability to introspect). Memory is just themechanism by which one becomes aware of one's background, "always-on", and omnipresent (all-pervasive) self-identity. Self-identity is theobject and predicate of memory and introspection. It is as thoughself-identity were an emergent extensive parameter of the complexhuman system - measurable by the dual techniques of memory andintrospection. We, therefore, have to modify our previous conclusions: Having a memory is not a necessary nor a sufficient condition forpossessing a self-identity. We are back to square one. The poor souls in Oliver Sacks' tome, "TheMan Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" are unable to create and retainmemories. They occupy an eternal present, with no past. They are thusunable to access (or invoke) their self-identity by remembering it. Their self-identity is unavailable to them (though it is available tothose who observe them over many years) - but it exists for sure. Therapy often succeeds in restoring pre-amnesiac memories andself-identity. V. The Incorrigible Self Self-identity is not only always-on and all-pervasive - but alsoincorrigible. In other words, no one - neither an observer, nor theperson himself - can "disprove" the existence of his self-identity. Noone can prove that a report about the existence of his (or another's)self-identity is mistaken. Is it equally safe to say that no one - neither an observer, nor theperson himself - can prove (or disprove) the non-existence of hisself-identity? Would it be correct to say that no one can prove that areport about the non-existence of his (or another's) self-identity istrue or false? Dan's criminal responsibility crucially depends on the answers tothese questions. Dan cannot be held responsible for Jack's murder ifhe can prove that he is ignorant of the facts of his action (i. E. , ifhe can prove the non-existence of his self-identity). If he has noaccess to his (former) self-identity - he can hardly be expected to beaware and cognizant of these facts. What is in question is not Dan's mens rea, nor the application of theMcNaghten tests (did Dan know the nature and quality of his act orcould he tell right from wrong) to determine whether Dan was insanewhen he committed the crime. A much broader issue is at stake: is itthe same person? Is the murderous Dan the same person as the currentDan? Even though Dan seems to own the same body and brain and ismanifestly sane - he patently has no access to his (former)self-identity. He has changed so drastically that it is arguablewhether he is still the same person - he has been "replaced". Finally, we can try to unite all the strands of our discourse intothis double definition: It would seem that we accept that someone has a self-identity if: (a)He has the same hardware as we do (notably, a brain) and, byimplication, the same software as we do (an all-pervasive, omnipresentself-identity) and (b) He communicates his humanly recognizable andcomprehensible inner world to us and manipulates his environment. Weaccept that he has a specific (i. E. , the same continuous)self-identity if (c) He shows consistent intentional (i. E. , willed)patterns ("memory") in doing (b) for a long period of time. It seems that we accept that we have a specific self-identity (i. E. , we are self-conscious of a specific identity) if (a) We discern(usually through memory and introspection) long term consistentintentional (i. E. , willed) patterns ("memory") in our manipulation("relating to") of our environment and (b) Others accept that we havea specific self-identity. In conclusion: Dan undoubtedly has a self-identity (being human and, thus, endowed with a brain). Equally undoubtedly, this self-identityis not Dan's (but a new, unfamiliar, one). Such is the stuff of our nightmares - body snatching, demonicpossession, waking up in a strange place, not knowing who we are. Without a continuous personal history - we are not. It is what bindsour various bodies, states of mind, memories, skills, emotions, andcognitions - into a coherent bundle of identity. Dan speaks, drinks, dances, talks, and makes love - but throughout that time, he is notpresent because he does not remember Dan and how it is to be Dan. Hemay have murdered Jake - but, by all philosophical and ethicalcriteria, it was most definitely not his fault. Titanic, or a Moral Deliberation By: Sam Vaknin The film "Titanic" is riddled with moral dilemmas. In one of thescenes, the owner of Star Line, the shipping company that owned thenow-sinking Unsinkable, joins a lowered life-boat. The torturedexpression on his face demonstrates that even he experiences more thanunease at his own conduct. Prior to the disaster, he instructs thecaptain to adopt a policy dangerous to the ship. Indeed, it provesfatal. A complicating factor was the fact that only women and childrenwere allowed by the officers in charge into the lifeboats. Another wasthe discrimination against Third Class passengers. The boats sufficedonly to half the number of those on board and the First Class, HighSociety passengers were preferred over the Low-Life immigrants underdeck. Why do we all feel that the owner should have stayed on and faced hisinevitable death? Because we judge him responsible for the demise ofthe ship. Additionally, his wrong instructions - motivated by greedand the pursuit of celebrity - were a crucial contributing factor. Theowner should have been punished (in his future) for things that he hasdone (in his past). This is intuitively appealing. Would we have rendered the same judgement had the Titanic's fate beenthe outcome of accident and accident alone? If the owner of the shipcould have had no control over the circumstances of its horribleending - would we have still condemned him for saving his life? Lessseverely, perhaps. So, the fact that a moral entity has ACTED (oromitted, or refrained from acting) in its past is essential indispensing with future rewards or punishments. The "product liability" approach also fits here. The owner (and his"long arms": manufacturer, engineers, builders, etc. ) of the Titanicwere deemed responsible because they implicitly contracted with theirpassengers. They made a representation (which was explicit in theircase but is implicit in most others): "This ship was constructed withknowledge and forethought. The best design was employed to avoiddanger. The best materials to increase pleasure. " That the Titanicsank was an irreversible breach of this contract. In a way, it was anact of abrogation of duties and obligations. The owner/manufacturer ofa product must compensate the consumers should his product harm themin any manner that they were not explicitly, clearly, visibly andrepeatedly warned against. Moreover, he should even make amends if theproduct failed to meet the reasonable and justified expectations ofconsumers, based on such warrants and representations. The paymentshould be either in kind (as in more ancient justice systems) or incash (as in modern Western civilization). The product called "Titanic" took away the lives of its end-users. Our"gut justice" tells us that the owner should have paid in kind. Faultyengineering, insufficient number of lifeboats, over-capacity, hubris, passengers and crew not drilled to face emergencies, extravagantclaims regarding the ship's resilience, contravening the captain'sprofessional judgement. All these seem to be sufficient grounds to thedeath penalty. And yet, this is not the real question. The serious problem is this :WHY should anyone pay in his future for his actions in the past?First, there are some thorny issues to be eliminated. Such asdeterminism: if there is no free will, there can be no personalresponsibility. Another is the preservation of personal identity: arethe person who committed the act and the person who is made to pay forit - one and the same? If the answer is in the affirmative, in whichsense are they the same, the physical, the mental? Is the "overlap"only limited and probabilistic? Still, we could assume, for thisdiscussion's sake, that the personal identity is undeniably andabsolutely preserved and that there is free will and, therefore, thatpeople can predict the outcomes of their actions, to a reasonabledegree of accuracy and that they elect to accept these outcomes priorto the commission of their acts or to their omission. All this doesnot answer the question that opened this paragraph. Even if there werea contract signed between the acting person and the world, in whichthe person willingly, consciously and intelligently (=withoutdiminished responsibility) accepted the future outcome of his acts, the questions would remain: WHY should it be so? Why cannot weconceive of a world in which acts and outcomes are divorced? It isbecause we cannot believe in an a-causal world. Causality is a relationship (mostly between two things, or, rather, events, the cause and the effect). Something generates or producesanother. Therefore, it is the other's efficient cause and it acts uponit (=it acts to bring it about) through the mechanism of efficientcausation. A cause can be a direct physical mechanism or anexplanatory feature (historical cause). Of Aristotle's Four Causes(Formal, Material, Efficient and Final), only the efficient causecreates something distinguishable from itself. The causal discourse, therefore, is problematic (how can a cause lead to an effect, indistinguishable from itself?). Singular Paradigmatic CausalStatements (Event A caused Event B) differ from General ones (Event Acauses Event B). Both are inadequate in dealing with mundane, routine, causal statements because they do not reveal an OVERT relation betweenthe two events discussed. Moreover, in daily usage we treat facts (aswell as events) as causes. Not all the philosophers are in agreementregarding factual causation. Davidson, for instance, admits that factscan be RELEVANT to causal explanations but refuses to accept them ASreasons. Acts may be distinct from facts, philosophically, but not inday-to-day regular usage. By laymen (the vast majority of humanity, that is), though, they are perceived to be the same. Pairs of events that are each other's cause and effect are accorded aspecial status. But, that one follows the other (even if invariably)is insufficient grounds to endow them with this status. This is thefamous "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc" fallacy. Other relations must beweighed and the possibility of common causation must be seriouslycontemplated. Such sequencing is, conceptually, not even necessary:simultaneous causation and backwards causation are part of modernphysics, for instance. Time seems to be irrelevant to the status of events, though both timeand causation share an asymmetric structure (A causes B but B does notcause A). The direction (the asymmetry) of the causal chain is not ofthe same type as the direction (asymmetry) of time. The former isformal, the latter, presumably, physical, or mental. A more seriousproblem, to my mind, is the converse: what sets apart causal (causeand effect) pairs of events from other pairs in which bothmember-events are the outcomes of a common cause? Event B caninvariably follow Event A and still not be its effect. Both eventscould have been caused by a common cause. A cause either necessitatesthe effect, or is a sufficient condition for its occurrence. Thesequence is either inevitable, or possible. The meaninglessness ofthis sentence is evident. Here, philosophers diverge. Some say (following Hume's reasoning andhis constant conjunction relation between events) that a necessarycausal relation exists between events when one is the inevitableoutcome (=follows) the other. Others propound a weaker version: thenecessity of the effect is hypothetical or conditional, given the lawsof nature. Put differently: to say that A necessitates (=causes) B isno more than to say that it is a result of the laws of nature thatwhen A happens, so does B. Hempel generalized this approach. He saidthat a statement of a fact (whether a private or a general fact) isexplained only if deduced from other statements, at least one of whichis a statement of a general scientific law. This is the "Covering Law Model" and it implies a symmetry betweenexplaining and predicting (at least where private facts areconcerned). If an event can be explained, it could have been predictedand vice versa. Needless to say that Hempel's approach did not get usnearer to solving the problems of causal priority and ofindeterministic causation. The Empiricists went a step further. They stipulated that the laws ofnature are contingencies and not necessary truths. Other chains ofevents are possible where the laws of nature are different. This isthe same tired regularity theory in a more exotic guise. They are alldescendants of Hume's definition of causality: "An object followed byanother and where all the objects that resemble the first are followedby objects that resemble the second. " Nothing in the world is, therefore, a causal necessity, events are only constantly conjoined. Regularities in our experience condition us to form the idea of causalnecessity and to deduce that causes must generate events. Kant calledthis latter deduction "A bastard of the imagination, impregnated byexperience" with no legitimate application in the world. It alsoconstituted a theological impediment. God is considered to be "CausaSui", His own cause. But any application of a causal chain or force, already assumes the existence of a cause. This existence cannot, therefore, be the outcome of the use made of it. God had to be recastas the uncaused cause of the existence of all things contingent andHis existence necessitated no cause because He, himself, is necessary. This is flimsy stuff and it gets even flimsier when the issue ofcausal deviance is debated. A causal deviance is an abnormal, though causal, relation betweenevents or states of the world. It mainly arises when we introduceintentional action and perception into the theory of causation. Let usrevert to the much-maligned owner of the sinking Titanic. He intendedto do one thing and another happened. Granted, if he intended to dosomething and his intention was the cause of his doing so - then wecould have said that he intentionally committed an act. But what if heintended to do one thing and out came another? And what if he intendedto do something, mistakenly did something else and, still, accidentally, achieved what he set out to do? The popular example isif someone intends to do something and gets so nervous that it happenseven without an act being committed (intends to refuse an invitationby his boss, gets so nervous that he falls asleep and misses theparty). Are these actions and intentions in their classical senses?There is room for doubt. Davidson narrows down the demands. To him, "thinking causes" (causally efficient propositional attitudes) arenothing but causal relations between events with the right applicationof mental predicates which ascribe propositional attitudes superveningthe right application of physical predicates. This approach omitsintention altogether, not to mention the ascription of desire andbelief. But shouldn't have the hapless owner availed his precious place towomen and children? Should not he have obeyed the captain's orders(=the marine law)? Should we succumb to laws that put our lives atrisk (fight in a war, sink with a ship)? The reason that women andchildren are preferred over men is that they represent the future. They are either capable of bringing life to the world (women) - or ofliving longer (children). Societal etiquette reflects the arithmeticof the species, in this (and in many another) case. But if this wereentirely and exclusively so, then young girls and female infants wouldhave been preferred over all the other groups of passengers. Old womenwould have been left with the men, to die. That the actual (anddeclared) selection processes differed from our theoretical exercisesays a lot about the vigorousness and applicability of our theories -and a lot about the real world out there. The owner's behaviour mayhave been deplorable - but it, definitely, was natural. He put hisinterests (his survival) above the concerns of his society and hisspecies. Most of us would have done the same under the samecircumstances. The owner of the ship - though "Newly Rich" - undoubtedly belonged tothe First Class, Upper Crust, Cream of Society passengers. These weretreated to the lifeboats before the passengers of the lower classesand decks. Was this a morally right decision? For sure, it was notpolitically correct, in today's terms. Class and money distinctionswere formally abolished three decades ago in the enlightened West. Discrimination between human beings in now allowed only on the basisof merit (=on the basis of one's natural endowments). Why should wethink one basis for discrimination preferable to another? Can weeliminate discrimination completely and if it were possible, would ithave been desirable? The answers, in my view, are that no basis of discrimination can holdthe moral high ground. They are all morally problematic because theyare deterministic and assign independent, objective, exogenous valuesto humans. On the other hand, we are not born equal, nor do we proceedto develop equally, or live under the same circumstances andconditions. It is impossible to equate the unequal. Discrimination isnot imposed by humans on an otherwise egalitarian world. It isintroduced by the world into human society. And the elimination ofdiscrimination would constitute a grave error. The inequalities amonghumans and the ensuing conflicts are the fuel that feeds the enginesof human development. Hopes, desires, aspirations and inspiration areall the derivatives of discrimination or of the wish to be favoured, or preferred over others. Disparities of money create markets, labour, property, planning, wealth and capital. Mental inequalities lead toinnovation and theory. Knowledge differentials are at the heart ofeducational institutions, professionalism, government and so on. Osmotic and diffusive forces in human society are all the results ofincongruences, disparities, differences, inequalities and the negativeand positive emotions attached to them. The passengers of the firstclass were preferred because they paid more for their tickets. Inevitably, a tacit portion of the price went to amortize the costs of"class insurance": should anything bad happen to this boat, personswho paid a superior price will be entitled to receive a superiortreatment. There is nothing morally wrong with this. Some people getto sit in the front rows of a theatre, or to travel in luxury, or toreceive superior medical treatment (or any medical treatment)precisely because of this reason. There is no practical orphilosophical difference between an expensive liver transplant and aplace in a life boat. Both are lifesavers. A natural disaster is no Great Equalizer. Nothing is. Even theargument that money is "external" or "accidental" to the richindividual is weak. Often, people who marry for money considerationsare judged to be insincere or worse (cunning, conspiring, evil). "Hemarried her for her money", we say, as though the she-owner and themoney were two separate things. The equivalent sentence: "He marriedher for her youth or for her beauty" sounds flawed. But youth andbeauty are more temporary and transient than money. They are reallyaccidental because the individual has no responsibility for or sharein their generation and has no possibility to effect their long-termpreservation. Money, on the other hand, is generated or preserved (orboth) owing to the personality of its owner. It is a better reflectionof personality than youth, beauty and many other (transient orsituation-dependent) "character" traits. Money is an integral part ofits owner and a reliable witness as to his mental disposition. It is, therefore, a valid criterion for discrimination. The other argument in favour of favouring the first class passengersis their contribution to society. A rich person contributes more tohis society in the shorter and medium term than a poor person. VincentVan Gogh may have been a million times more valuable to humanity, as awhole, than his brother Theo - in the long run. But in theintermediate term, Theo made it possible for Vincent and many others(family, employees, suppliers, their dependants and his country) tosurvive by virtue of his wealth. Rich people feed and cloth poorpeople directly (employment, donations) and indirectly (taxation). Theopposite, alas, is not the case. Yet, this argument is flawed becauseit does not take time into account. We have no way to predict thefuture with any certainty. Each person carries the Marshall's baton in his bag, the painter'sbrush, the author's fables. It is the potential that should count. Aselection process, which would have preferred Theo to Vincent wouldhave been erroneous. In the long run, Vincent proved more beneficialto human society and in more ways - including financially - then Theocould have ever been. Being John Malkovich By: Dr. Sam Vaknin A quintessential loser, an out-of-job puppeteer, is hired by a firm, whose offices are ensconced in a half floor (literally. The ceiling isabout a metre high, reminiscent of Taniel's hallucinatory Alice inWonderland illustrations). By sheer accident, he discovers a tunnel (a"portal", in Internet-age parlance), which sucks its visitors into themind of the celebrated actor, John Malkovich. The movie is a tongue incheek discourse of identity, gender and passion in an age of languidpromiscuity. It poses all the right metaphysical riddles and pressesthe viewers' intellectual stimulation buttons. A two line bit of dialogue, though, forms the axis of thisnightmarishly chimerical film. John Malkovich (played by himself), enraged and bewildered by the unabashed commercial exploitation of theserendipitous portal to his mind, insists that Craig, theaforementioned puppet master, cease and desist with his activities. "It is MY brain" - he screams and, with a typical American finale, "Iwill see you in court". Craig responds: "But, it was I who discoveredthe portal. It is my livelihood". This apparently innocuous exchange disguises a few very unsettlingethical dilemmas. The basic question is "whose brain is it, anyway"? Does John MalkovichOWN his brain? Is one's brain - one's PROPERTY? Property is usuallyacquired somehow. Is our brain "acquired"? It is clear that we do notacquire the hardware (neurones) and software (electrical and chemicalpathways) we are born with. But it is equally clear that we do"acquire" both brain mass and the contents of our brains (its wiringor irreversible chemical changes) through learning and experience. Does this process of acquisition endow us with property rights? It would seem that property rights pertaining to human bodies arefairly restricted. We have no right to sell our kidneys, for instance. Or to destroy our body through the use of drugs. Or to commit anabortion at will. Yet, the law does recognize and strives to enforcecopyrights, patents and other forms of intellectual property rights. This dichotomy is curious. For what is intellectual property but amere record of the brain's activities? A book, a painting, aninvention are the documentation and representation of brain waves. They are mere shadows, symbols of the real presence - our mind. Howcan we reconcile this contradiction? We are deemed by the law to becapable of holding full and unmitigated rights to the PRODUCTS of ourbrain activity, to the recording and documentation of our brain waves. But we hold only partial rights to the brain itself, their originator. This can be somewhat understood if we were to consider this article, for instance. It is composed on a word processor. I do not own fullrights to the word processing software (merely a licence), nor is thelaptop I use my property - but I posses and can exercise and enforcefull rights regarding this article. Admittedly, it is a partial parallel, at best: the computer and wordprocessing software are passive elements. It is my brain that does theauthoring. And so, the mystery remains: how can I own the article -but not my brain? Why do I have the right to ruin the article at will- but not to annihilate my brain at whim? Another angle of philosophical attack is to say that we rarely holdrights to nature or to life. We can copyright a photograph we take ofa forest - but not the forest. To reduce it to the absurd: we can owna sunset captured on film - but never the phenomenon thus documented. The brain is natural and life's pivot - could this be why we cannotfully own it? Wrong premises inevitably lead to wrong conclusions. We often ownnatural objects and manifestations, including those related to humanlife directly. We even issue patents for sequences of human DNA. Andpeople do own forests and rivers and the specific views of sunsets. Some scholars raise the issues of exclusivity and scarcity as theprecursors of property rights. My brain can be accessed only by myselfand its is one of a kind (sui generis). True but not relevant. Onecannot rigorously derive from these properties of our brain a right todeny others access to them (should this become technologicallyfeasible) - or even to set a price on such granted access. In otherwords, exclusivity and scarcity do not constitute property rights oreven lead to their establishment. Other rights may be at play (theright to privacy, for instance) - but not the right to own propertyand to derive economic benefits from such ownership. On the contrary, it is surprisingly easy to think of numerousexceptions to a purported natural right of single access to one'sbrain. If one memorized the formula to cure AIDS or cancer and refusedto divulge it for a reasonable compensation - surely, we should feelentitled to invade his brain and extract it? Once such technology isavailable - shouldn't authorized bodies of inspection have access tothe brains of our leaders on a periodic basis? And shouldn't we allgain visitation rights to the minds of great men and women of science, art and culture - as we do today gain access to their homes and to theproducts of their brains? There is one hidden assumption, though, in both the movie and thisarticle. It is that mind and brain are one. The portal leads to JohnMalkovich's MIND - yet, he keeps talking about his BRAIN and writhingphysically on the screen. The portal is useless without JM's mind. Indeed, one can wonder whether JM's mind is not an INTEGRAL part ofthe portal - structurally and functionally inseparable from it. If so, does not the discoverer of the portal hold equal rights to JohnMalkovich's mind, an integral part thereof? The portal leads to JM's mind. Can we prove that it leads to hisbrain? Is this identity automatic? Of course not. It is the oldpsychophysical question, at the heart of dualism - still far fromresolved. Can a MIND be copyrighted or patented? If no one knows WHATis the mind - how can it be the subject of laws and rights? If JM isbothered by the portal voyagers, the intruders - he surely has legalrecourse, but not through the application of the rights to ownproperty and to benefit from it. These rights provide him with noremedy because their subject (the mind) is a mystery. Can JM sue Craig and his clientele for unauthorized visits to his mind(trespassing) - IF he is unaware of their comings and goings andunperturbed by them? Moreover, can he prove that the portal leads toHIS mind, that it is HIS mind that is being visited? Is there a way toPROVE that one has visited another's mind? (See: "On Empathy"). And if property rights to one's brain and mind were firmly established- how will telepathy (if ever proven) be treated legally? Or mindreading? The recording of dreams? Will a distinction be made between amere visit - and the exercise of influence on the host and his / hermanipulation (similar questions arise in time travel)? This, precisely, is where the film crosses the line between theintriguing and the macabre. The master puppeteer, unable to resist hisurges, manipulates John Malkovich and finally possesses himcompletely. This is so clearly wrong, so manifestly forbidden, sopatently immoral, that the film loses its urgent ambivalence, itssurrealistic moral landscape and deteriorates into another banalcomedy of situations. Dreamcatcher - The Myth of Destructibility By: Dr. Sam Vaknin Read these essays first: The Habitual Identity Death, Meaning, and Identity Being John Malkovich "Shattered" Identity More Film REVIEWS - HERE! In the movie "Dreamcatcher", four childhood friends, exposed to analien, disguised as a retarded child, develop psychic powers. Yearslater they reunite only to confront a vicious extraterrestriallife-form. Only two survive but they succeed to eradicate the monsterby incinerating it and crushing its tiny off-spring underfoot. Being mortal ourselves, we cannot conceive of an indestructibleentity. The artifacts of popular culture - thrillers, action andsci-fi films, video games, computer viruses - assume that allorganisms, organizations and automata possess fatal vulnerabilities. Medicine and warfare are predicated on a similar contention. We react with shock and horror when we are faced with "resistantstains" of bacteria or with creatures, machines, or groups able tosurvive and thrive in extremely hostile environments. Destruction is multi-faceted. Even the simplest system has a structureand performs functions. If the spatial continuity or arrangement of anentity's structure is severed or substantially transformed - itsfunctions are usually adversely affected. Direct interference with asystem's functionality is equally deleterious. We can render a system dysfunctional by inhibiting or reversing anystage in the complex processes involved - or by preventing theentity's communication with its environs. Another method ofannihilation involves the alteration of the entity's context - itssurroundings, its codes and signals, its interactive patterns, itspotential partners, friends and foes. Finding the lethal weaknesses of an organism, an apparatus, or asociety is described as a process of trial and error. But the outcomeis guaranteed: mortal susceptibility is assumed to be a universaltrait. No one and nothing is perfectly immune, utterly invulnerable, or beyond extermination. Yet, what is poison to one species is nectar to another. Water can beeither toxic or indispensable, depending on the animal, the automaton, or the system. Scorching temperatures, sulfur emissions, ammonia orabsolute lack of oxygen are, to some organisms, the characteristics ofinviting habitats. To others, the very same are deadly. Can we conceive of an indestructible thing - be it unicellular ormulticellular, alive or robotic, composed of independent individualsor acting in perfect, centrally-dictated unison? Can anything be, inprinciple, eternal? This question is not as outlandish as it sounds. By fighting diseaseand trying to postpone death, for instance, we aspire to immortalityand imperishability. Some of us believe in God - an entity securelybeyond ruin. Intuitively, we consider the Universe - if not time andspace - to be everlasting, though constantly metamorphosing. What is common to these examples of infinite resilience is theirunbounded and unparalleled size and might. Lesser objects are born orcreated. Since there has been a time, prior to their genesis, in whichthey did not exist - it is easy to imagine a future without them. Even where the distinction between individual and collective isspurious their end is plausible. True, though we can obliteratenumerous "individual" bacteria - others, genetically identical, willalways survive our onslaught. Yet, should the entire Earth vanish - sowould these organisms. The extinction of all bacteria, thoughpredicated on an unlikely event, is still thinkable. But what about an entity that is "pure energy", a matrix of fields, athought, immaterial yet very real, omnipresent and present nowhere?Such a being comes perilously close to the divine. For if it isconfined to certain space - however immense - it is perishabletogether with that space. If it is not - then it is God, as perceivedby its believers. But what constitutes "destruction" or "annihilation"? We are familiarwith death - widely considered the most common form of inexistence. But some people believe that death is merely a transformation from onestate of being to another. Sometimes all the constituents of a systemremain intact but cease to interact. Does this amount to obliteration?And what about a machine that stops interacting with its environmentaltogether - though its internal processes continue unabated. Is itstill "functioning"? It is near impossible to say when a "live" or "functioning" entityceases to be so. Death is the form of destruction we are mostacquainted with. For a discussion of death and the human condition -read this Death, Meaning, and Identity T H E A U T H O R SHMUEL (SAM) VAKNIN Curriculum Vitae Click on blue text to access relevant web sites - thank you. Born in 1961 in Qiryat-Yam, Israel. Served in the Israeli Defence Force (1979-1982) in training andeducation units. Education Graduated a few semesters in the Technion - Israel Institute ofTechnology, Haifa. Ph. D. In Philosophy (major : Philosophy of Physics) - Pacific WesternUniversity, California. Graduate of numerous courses in Finance Theory and InternationalTrading. Certified E-Commerce Concepts Analyst. Certified in Psychological Counselling Techniques. Full proficiency in Hebrew and in English. Business Experience 1980 to 1983 Founder and co-owner of a chain of computerized information kiosks inTel-Aviv, Israel. 1982 to 1985 Senior positions with the Nessim D. Gaon Group of Companies in Geneva, Paris and New-York (NOGA and APROFIM SA): - Chief Analyst of Edible Commodities in the Group's Headquarters inSwitzerland. - Manager of the Research and Analysis Division- Manager of the Data Processing Division- Project Manager of The Nigerian Computerized Census- Vice President in charge of RND and Advanced Technologies- Vice President in charge of Sovereign Debt Financing 1985 to 1986 Represented Canadian Venture Capital Funds in Israel. 1986 to 1987 General Manager of IPE Ltd. In London. The firm financed internationalmulti-lateral countertrade and leasing transactions. 1988 to 1990 Co-founder and Director of "Mikbats - Tesuah", a portfolio managementfirm based in Tel-Aviv. Activities included large-scale portfolio management, underwriting, forex trading and general financial advisory services. 1990 to Present Free-lance consultant to many of Israel's Blue-Chip firms, mainly onissues related to the capital markets in Israel, Canada, the UK andthe USA. Consultant to foreign RND ventures and to Governments onmacro-economic matters. President of the Israel chapter of the Professors World Peace Academy(PWPA) and (briefly) Israel representative of the "Washington Times". 1993 to 1994 Co-owner and Director of many business enterprises: - The Omega and Energy Air-Conditioning Concern- AVP Financial Consultants- Handiman Legal Services Total annual turnover of the group: 10 million USD. Co-owner, Director and Finance Manager of COSTI Ltd. - Israel'slargest computerized information vendor and developer. Raised fundsthrough a series of private placements locally, in the USA, Canada andLondon. 1993 to 1996 Publisher and Editor of a Capital Markets Newsletter distributed bysubscription only to dozens of subscribers countrywide. In a legal precedent in 1995 - studied in business schools and lawfaculties across Israel - was tried for his role in an attemptedtakeover of Israel's Agriculture Bank. Was interned in the State School of Prison Wardens. Managed the Central School Library, wrote, published and lectured onvarious occasions. Managed the Internet and International News Department of an Israelimass media group, "Ha-Tikshoret and Namer". Assistant in the Law Faculty in Tel-Aviv University (to Prof. S. G. Shoham). 1996 to 1999 Financial consultant to leading businesses in Macedonia, Russia andthe Czech Republic. Collaborated with the Agency of Transformation of Business withSocial Capital. Economic commentator in "Nova Makedonija", "Dnevnik", "Izvestia", "Argumenti i Fakti", "The Middle East Times", "Makedonija Denes", "TheNew Presence", "Central Europe Review", and other periodicals and inthe economic programs on various channels of Macedonian Television. Chief Lecturer in courses organized by the Agency of Transformation, by the Macedonian Stock Exchange and by the Ministry of Trade. 1999 to 2002 Economic Advisor to the Government of the Republic of Macedonia and tothe Ministry of Finance. 2001 to present Senior Business Correspondent for United Press International (UPI) Web and Journalistic Activities Author of extensive Websites in Psychology ("Malignant Self Love") -An Open Directory Cool Site Philosophy ("Philosophical Musings") Economics and Geopolitics ("World in Conflict and Transition") Owner of the Narcissistic Abuse Announcement and Study List and theNarcissism Revisited mailing list (more than 3900 members) Owner of the Economies in Conflict and Transition Study list. Editor of mental health disorders and Central and Eastern Europecategories in web directories (Open Directory, Suite 101, SearchEurope). Columnist and commentator in "The New Presence", United PressInternational (UPI), InternetContent, eBookWeb and "Central EuropeReview". Publications and Awards "Managing Investment Portfolios in states of Uncertainty", LimonPublishers, Tel-Aviv, 1988 "The Gambling Industry", Limon Publishers. , Tel-Aviv, 1990 "Requesting my Loved One - Short Stories", Yedioth Aharonot, Tel-Aviv, 1997 "The Macedonian Economy at a Crossroads - On the way to a HealthierEconomy" (with Nikola Gruevski), Skopje, 1998 "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited", Narcissus Publications, Prague and Skopje, 1999, 2001, 2002 The Narcissism Series - e-books regarding relationships with abusivenarcissists (Skopje, 1999-2002) "The Exporters' Pocketbook", Ministry of Trade, Republic of Macedonia, Skopje, 1999 "The Suffering of Being Kafka" (electronic book of Hebrew ShortFiction, Prague, 1998) "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East", Narcissus Publicationsin association with Central Europe Review/CEENMI, Prague and Skopje, 2000 Winner of numerous awards, among them the Israeli Education MinistryPrize (Literature) 1997, The Rotary Club Award for Social Studies(1976) and the Bilateral Relations Studies Award of the AmericanEmbassy in Israel (1978). Hundreds of professional articles in all fields of finances and theeconomy and numerous articles dealing with geopolitical and politicaleconomic issues published in both print and web periodicals in manycountries. Many appearances in the electronic media on subjects in philosophy andthe Sciences and concerning economic matters. Contact Details: palma@unet. Com. Mk vaknin@link. Com. Mk My Web Sites: Economy / Politics: http://ceeandbalkan. Tripod. Com/ Psychology: http://samvak. Tripod. Com/index. Html Philosophy: http://philosophos. Tripod. Com/ Poetry: http://samvak. Tripod. Com/contents. Html Return After the Rain How the West Lost the East The Book This is a series of articles written and published in 1996-2000 in Macedonia, in Russia, in Egypt and in the Czech Republic. How the West lost the East. The economics, the politics, the geopolitics, the conspiracies, the corruption, the old and the new, the plough and the internet - it is all here, in colourful and provocative prose. From "The Mind of Darkness": "'The Balkans' - I say - 'is the unconscious of the world'. Peoplestop to digest this metaphor and then they nod enthusiastically. It ishere that the repressed memories of history, its traumas and fears and images reside. It is here that the psychodynamics of humanity - the tectonic clash between Rome and Byzantium, West and East, Judeo-Christianity and Islam - is still easily discernible. We are seated at a New Year's dining table, loaded with a roasted pig and exotic salads. I, the Jew, only half foreign to this cradle ofSlavonics. Four Serbs, five Macedonians. It is in the Balkans that all ethnic distinctions fail and it is here that they prevailanachronistically and atavistically. Contradiction and change the only two fixtures of this tormented region. The women of the Balkan - buried under provocative mask-like make up, retro hairstyles and too narrow dresses. The men, clad in sepia colours, old fashioned suits and turn of the century moustaches. In the background there is the crying game that is Balkanian music: liturgy and folk and elegycombined. The smells are heavy with muskular perfumes. It is like time travel. It is like revisiting one's childhood. " The Author Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisitedand After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist forCentral Europe Review and eBookWeb, a United Press International(UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental healthand Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government ofMacedonia. Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak. Tripod. Com