Mentally Divergent

Locke discusses the common human occasion of our minds thinking about the being of objects and bodies in the present state of space and time. No doubt many of us have wondered at some point or another if an object that appears in front of us also exists in some distant galaxy. We are quick to accept (and love) this idea of the earth floating in some galaxy, surrounded by an endless universe. This idea is so popular in our minds because it gives our imaginations very few limits. Knowing that we are just one civilization existing in an indefinite space gives reason to believe that anything could be happening in some distant galaxy light years away. It gives people ideas, such as having an identical twin of oneself in some other dimension or what have you. 

Locke states that, according to the principium Individuationis, it is impossible for a single object (or any particle of matter) to exist beside itself. That is, an object is subject to its own individuality and therefore exists, and “cannot exist in different times or indifferent places” (Fumerton and Jeske, 193). Locke says that the fact that we have notions and names of identity and diversity for objects bounds them to a certain sort of law explaining that there can not be duplicates of objects. The objects would have to be “one and the same.” Without these defined limits, Locke says that we would not be able to distinguish any objects or substances “or anything else from one another” (192). 

In 12 Monkeys, a film documenting the life of a convict time traveler in the late twentieth century, James Cole travels back to the past (which the audience identifies as the present, making where he came from the future). We of course know that time travel is a hypothetical rendition of alternate dimensions, featuring complex science fiction theories of particulate matter and light. However, Locke would say that time traveling is impossible for a different reason. That is, due to the principles upon which objects and bodies exist, that there can only be one of something in time and place, traveling back in time to see oneself younger would be impossible. As Locke says, “A colt grown up to a horse, sometimes fat, sometimes lean, is all the while the same horse” (193).

Therefore, according to Locke, while one can see a picture of himself in a photograph (which is itself its own object also), he can not see another body of himself existing because his identity and “bodyness” can only exist in one place and one time. His body has been determined to a particular time and place.

But Descartes asks “How can we know if anything is true? (Which is an entirely separate question from “How can anything be true?”) For if he really means that “there is really nothing easier to know than my mind,” and his mind is trusted by himself, than anything that he deems true in his trusted mind would make it true to him. For Descartes, thinking is truth because thinking justifies existence. However, according to his descriptions of the immortal and the soul, Hume states that “the immaterial substance can lose its memory or consciousness” (230). Would this mind, affected by memory loss or damage, be any more unreliable for discovering truth? It would of course still be the same mind, as Locke would put it, but would it be capable of distinguishing the truth as it had formerly done?

In 12 Monkeys the interesting phrase “mentally divergent” is used to describe a state of mind. What does this mean? The audience comes to grasp a sort of understanding by the end of the film. A man in the beginning uses the phrase to describe a sort of psychosis or a state of mind in which he is. It is interesting to hear such a phrase because the film does a nice job of tying this idea in with time travel. Cole travels back in time to warn the human race, but his cries are only met with disbelief, restraining trips to a mental institution, and violent interactions with law enforcement. He even begins to question his own sanity. The psychiatrist with whom Cole flees mentions that she has seen him before, but at first still thinks him insane. Later in the film we witness a sort of role reversal, wherein she must keep him going after Cole breaks down and begins saying that he is actually mentally ill. Has she only seen him in a dream, or has this “mentally divergent” syndrome allowed her to come across him in another time?

Identity Through Mental Divergence

Before analyzing the philosophy of mind in Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys (1995), one must put the film into their own perspective of reality. According to René Descartes, the truth that one exists stems from merely the acknowledgement of personal perceptions to observations (133). By watching the film, people must question reality. Is reality that these events are taking place? Is the act of these events taking place because the actors were physically and mentally at the shoots? Does that mean that the film depicts reality because the actors were in fact there and executed the events that would eventually be laid out in the form of a movie? In the film, James Cole (Bruce Willis) notes that simply because one is different, they may see the film differently, echoing Locke’s theories on distinguishing between the man, the person, and the substance and how that can change perception.

James struggles to find his true sense of reality throughout the film. Essentially, he is sent in the relative past of 1990 to gather research on a viral outbreak that would wipe out most of the human race. While traveling between gaps of time and through his own dreams and memories, James gets lost in the idea that he is “mentally divergent” by escaping one reality and entering a dream-like fantasy, known as the past. The difference, however, is that some divergences are memories and some are physical transportations to the past. John Locke suggests in Of Identity and Diversity that a soul of the conscious mind may be tied to different physical bodies at two different times, and the same man would be (202). He continues to ponder the idea of identity through the confusion of the wandering consciousness due to breaking the tie of thought and physical mass, reflecting the writings of David Hume. One wouldn’t necessarily apply the same memories to the different body they hold, perhaps confusing the consciousness. Eventually James becomes so lost in his different “people” that he simply wants one to be a reality and the others to be forgotten thoughts distinguishing his experiences as madness. Ultimately, James makes the choice for the “past” to be the present time he exists, and the “future” to be a past delusion in his mind. At one point in the film, James states to the scientists of the future, “I am insane, and you are my insanity.”

Building off of the ideas of identity in reality, the film constantly addresses how seeing and hearing is not grounds for truth. From the very start of the film, James’ fellow inmates suggest that both what you see and what you haven’t seen are similar in that the truth will always be held, especially in this oppressive society. This starts with James’ doubts of the reality of this futuristic society and continues as Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt) suggests the ideas of consumerism and capitalism to James. In whatever time James exists, he is being fed what he wants to hear in order to manipulate his actions through the sense of self-awareness and selfishness. The constant advertisement of the Florida Keys metaphorically represents this idea. The only advertisement seen on television is seen through bars, suggesting an almost impossible goal. Going back to Descartes’ ideas of perception of observations defining the self, every character’s motives are clear due to their observations and the identities established early on. This is apparent in the contrasting motivations of both James and Jeffrey, ultimately causing what is said in the film to be inevitable.

At one point near the end of the film, James as well as Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) quickly change physical appearance, James having a mustache and long hair while Kathryn sports blonde hair. While the only truly explained change is the mustache that James keeps gluing back on, this transformation of the matter of the characters represents Locke’s theories that since the “substance” has changed, the “person” is different yet the “man” is the same. This is reference by the change in Hitchcock’s films in the theater AS the change in the characters’ substance occurs. The change from Vertigo (1958) to The Birds (1963) shows that while the film is different, the same man is still behind them. Although the movies suggest a progression forward in time, the characters take a step back in time, becoming familiar characters in James’ dreams/memories. We then, as an audience, take a step back in time, seeing James as a child at the airport.

Even as an audience, one must decide to which period of time in the film they consider the word “present” to be associated. Ultimately it represents the past and the present. Are the viewers not presently sitting there watching the film? Yet, was the film not created in the past? Even as I write about ideas of the film, I am referring to watching in technically in the past. As the light travels from an object to one’s eyes, and through the time it takes to process the information observed, the event lies in the past. This would mean the present is simply oneself, the awareness of oneself, and the self-existence in which we believe to be true. Ultimately, the film Twelve Monkeys successfully challenges the ideas of metaphysics through time by presenting a complicated case of a mentally divergent character seeking only the understanding of his own identity.

Crazy is Majority Rules!

In movies, and in life, the steady forward motion of time is an accepted truth of existance that is not often given much thought. Stories involving time travel and discontinuity distort our chronological way of life and force the view into a new way of thinking. The audience is thrust into a new reality which forces questions about the movement of time and the influence of time travel on reality itself. For those who haven't seen it, Twelve Monkeys is a film about a future earth where 99% of the human race has been wiped out by a deadly virus. The new underground society and government decide to send an inmate, James Cole (Bruce Willis), back in time to gather information about the history of the virus by following the believed source, the Army of the Twelve Monkeys.

Throughout the film, Cole jumps back and forth in time, with landings in 1990 where he spends time in a mental institution and first meets his psychiatrist and fellow patient, Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt); 1996, the year the virus is released that causes the worldwide epidemic; and 2035 where he began. We see that each time Cole travels through history, the new reality has been affected by his activities in the past. For instance, the formation of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys begins based on a comment the Cole makes to Goines in 1990. But, the reason Cole went back to 1990 in the first place was to investigate the virus epidemic triggered by the Twelve Monkeys. Which came first: Cole’s trip to 1990, or the creation of the Army?

During Cole's visits back to the 1990's, he has run-ins with the law and mental institutions and is recorded as a paranoid schizophrenic saying “5 billion people will die from a deadly virus in 1997. The survivors will abandon the surface of the planet. Once again the animals will rule the world.” Though we, the audience, know that Cole is telling the truth about being from the future, the society he encounters on his travels question his sanity and foreknowledge of the future. Cole's psychiatrist, Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe), who becomes close with Cole, speaks about a phenomenon called the Cassandra Affect. Myth tells a fable about Cassandra, a woman doomed to an eternity of foreknowledge but without anyone ever believing her. She is left completely helpless forced the know the future without the power to change anything about it. Here Cole is left in a similar situation with the entire world calling him mental deficiency instead of heeding his warning.

The film Twelve Monkeys explores many of the facets of mental illness and the fluid concept of “crazy” throughout the film. The audience and the characters of the film are constantly questioning what is reality and what is insanity. DesCartes says that we must constantly question the world around us for how can we ever know what it reality and what is a creation of the mind. As the film develops, Cole becomes convinced by therapists that he is mentally insane and the impending doom of this future virus is a figment of his imagination. A fellow patient in the mental institute said to Cole, “There's not right, there's no wrong, there is only popular opinion.” Fighting this popular opinion to find out the truth about the virus becomes the entire focus of the film and drives the characters to explore every possible reality.

Because the film takes place in three different time periods, the audience must have a flexible construct of reality to deal with the ever changing history of the virus. The reality of every scene in questioned and judged by all the characters involved, including the audience. We follow the story-line through our own lens which can often lead to false assumptions and quick judgements of what is the truth. The truths and assumptions of the film are quickly turned on their head as we watch history unfold before our eyes. The characters of the film, especially Kathryn Railly, becomes very in tune to the truth of situations and follows in DesCartes footsteps by completely disregarding the reality that she has come to know. While trying to convince a fellow doctor of the new truth she has found, Railly says “I mean, psychiatry: it’s the latest religion. We decide what’s right and wrong. We decide who’s crazy or not. I’m in trouble here. I’m losing my faith.” This loss of faith becomes a realization of a new reality and breakaway from the mindless following of the majority.

I highly recommend Twelve Monkeys to everyone so they can experience 2035 time travel and see Brad Pitt in one of his greatest roles.