Is Anything Certain?

“What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient. Highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain its almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed – fully understood – that sticks, right in there somewhere.” Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Cobb, opens and closes the film Inception (2010) with this quote. Inception toys with the concept of the real world and the dream world, or subconscious, and the ability to enter ones’ subconscious during the dream state, in which the mind is most vulnerable, and extract the valuable secrets that we have taken such care to place deep within our minds. However, the film’s main focus is the idea of inception; the concept of planting ideas into another’s subconscious. The film takes us through several levels of the subconscious, each time further obscuring the viewer’s perception of what is real and what is not. Thus, throughout the film we are left to question this sense of reality versus the subconscious, and whether anything we see is in fact the truth. How, then, are we able to separate the two? In the film, the characters are able to do this through the use of totems, objects whose sensible qualities (i.e. appearance, feel, etc.) confirm reality. Cobb’s totem, a spinning top, will cease to spin in reality, but will spin forever in the subconscious. Do we all have totems?

René Descartes explores these similar concepts in his Second Meditation. Like Inception, Descartes poses the question of reality, and what, if anything, can we accept as truth. In attempting to explore this further, Descartes analyzes two concepts: “cogito ergo sum,” or “I think therefore I am,” and the wax argument. In analyzing the first concept, Descartes comes to the conclusion that in addition to thinking and understanding, this “thing that thinks” also imagines and senses. However, the only truths of which we are certain are those, which come from our own thoughts, or what Descartes refers to as “I.” What we imagine, or sense, has no distinction between what is or is not the truth. Descartes claims that beyond our own thoughts is a reality of the senses, and that “…there may be nothing left beyond what is absolutely certain and indubitable” (134). Thus if something is not certain, does it really exist? This is explored further in Descartes’ analysis of the wax. If a piece of wax, taken directly from a beehive, is placed above a flame and melts, is the puddle of melted wax the same wax as it was before? Our senses would lead us to believe that it is not, as all the sensible qualities (taste, shape, smell, etc.) have changed; however, our thoughts and knowledge of the wax confirm that it is the same object, further supporting Descartes’ first claim that we can only trust that which we know because our senses can deceive us.

So, if we are able to distinguish what is true through our own thoughts and understandings, is this concept of “I” a valid totem? You would assume the answer to be yes; however, Inception manipulates Descartes’ concepts and once again blurs the lines of reality. The film poses the question: How can we accept our own thoughts as the truth when we can’t be certain the thoughts are even our own? If we are unable to define this line then can we even trust ourselves? Going back to Descartes’ quote about the truth being only what is “certain and indubitable,” if we can’t be certain that our thoughts are our own, then what is left? Maybe this is what Cobb is referring to in the beginning of the film when he asks, “What is the most resilient parasite?” Ideas are resilient. When planted in our mind, they begin to form until eventually they become our own and we forget they weren’t ours in the first place. But, is it even possible that an idea be completely your own, or do they always come from somewhere? If our ideas are generated through past experiences, influences, prior knowledge, etc. can they really be inherently ours? And if so, can we ever be certain of their truth? Is there a totem for distinguishing between thoughts that are actually our own and thoughts that we perceive to be our own? If not then, in the words of Descartes, “What, then, can be esteemed as true? Perhaps nothing at all, unless that there is nothing in the world that is certain?” (133).