New Media Technology: Fact or Fiction?
Originally written while an undergraduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz
Does the development of digital media technologies follow fiction or does fiction follow technological fact?
Science-fiction storytelling is an oxymoron that defines how a method characterized by truth can work in parallel with falsity. Both science and fiction promote advancements in the perceived standard of technology. While science pursues knowledge through realism in a structured method, fiction follows a method of imaginative creativity. Though fiction is unique in producing originality, the epistemology of fiction reveals how the authors’ and audiences’ experiences impact the perception of concepts. In the context of Christopher Nolan’s 2010 science-fiction film “Inception,” the relation between science, fiction, and individuals’ perception is explored. Notably, the film features a technology where a dream-state can be accessed and manipulated on demand through a manual connection of nodes and a central device. With the ability to explicitly enter, design, and link together dreams in the same context, a persons’ unconscious can be created, connected, and influenced, having real implications. In “Inception” the team creates a multi-level dream-state designed to insert the idea that the individual of interest in the heist should break up his father’s empire providing the sponsor of the ploy with a competitive advantage. While the team enters the dream world where levels of perceived reality are superseded by one-another, the main character, Dom Cobb struggles with his skewed sense of reality and subconscious’s effect in his unconscious given his traumatic history of differentiating reality and dreams. Though the film’s technology is currently impossible, the science of understanding and influencing others’ minds has long been in development and contention before and after the film. As a result, in the context of “Inception” and beyond, fiction is inspired by rational technological fact, while progressive science depends on the unbounded imagination and exploration of fiction.
As the team in “Inception” first plugs into their military-grade dream technology designed for soldiers to experience traumatic simulations, the distinction between truth and reality is already obscured. Military training specifically values realism, though high costs and inherent dangers are drawbacks. Therefore, new technologies such as virtual reality are already being implemented to provide a more immersive and controllable training experience. While technologically induced immersive experiences are gaining traction, “Inception” relies heavily on the ability to access and manipulate individuals’ neural function during the dream-state. Before the film’s release, fMRI and EEG technologies were a rapidly developing field of academia which provided invaluable insights into cognitive science, neuroscience, and mind-reading. Similarly, the Blue Brain project which seeks to create a complete model of the human brain for a better understanding and creating simulations using computational systems was in development as early as 2006. In 2009, the director of the project, Henry Markram even stated that he expects completing a computational simulation of the brain to be possible within a decade. Relatedly, Alan Turing pioneered the concept that “mental activity is computation” as early as the 1940s. Similarly, the concept of dreams as an access point to the unconscious and inner workings of cognition as a product of real-world stimuli and experiences were defined by Sigmund Freud in the 1900s. Carl Jung, a student of Freud, suggested that “dreams are doing the work of integrating our conscious and unconscious lives.” In the rich academic field of brain science, technological advances have supplemented psychological principles with neuroscience, dramatically accelerating the mechanical science of understanding cognition and dreaming.
Interestingly, “Inception” combines principles of the abstract dream-space and unconscious with principles of cognitive science, drawing connections between areas of scientific study. Director Christopher Nolan stated that his inspiration was “...mostly from my own experience,... I tend to examine my own process… and try and analyze how that works and how that might be changed and manipulated,” rather than research. Nolan’s reliance on his knowledge of relevant principles, such as Freud’s principle of dreams being a reflection of real occurrences, led to the creation of a fictional technology and application as a sum of contextual parts. Therefore, revolutionary paradigms proven by science influenced Nolan’s perception of the subject of dreaming and cognition and inadvertently inspired new connections and fictional applications. As a result, technological facts become both the foundation and springboard for a malleable and innovative fictional perspective on the applications and implications of proven concepts.
While “Inception” evolves the perception of the extent to which cognitive science technologies can be applied, fiction also defines future applications for developing technologies. Science and fiction serve dramatically different purposes. While science aims to explain and predict with reason, fiction questions and entertains as supported by Samuel Coleridge Tailor’s famous “suspension of disbelief.” Specifically in “Inception,” audiences are invited to let Nolan’s vivid perception of dream thievery obscure reality for the sake of entertainment. Similarly, Nolan mentions that the scientific basis for the creative topics often confirms already known subject matter and provides an opportunity for further subjectivity and originality. Interestingly, the focus on innovating regardless of existing subject matter highlights the need for working through contradictions in the scientific process as well as exploring new areas. In the case of “Inception,” cognition and neuroscience and their real application and impact through technology are intertwined and highlighted in the narrative of Dom Cobb’s struggle with his repressed emotions.
In the years since “Inception,” relevant technologies and the subject area of lucid dreaming have made great advances through the symbiosis of neuroscience and computational systems, as fantasized by Alan Turing. Specifically, MIT created the Dormio interactive dream interface in 2018 which for the first time allows for “extending, influencing, and capturing dreams” and accessing the untapped creative potential of lucid dreaming. While various individuals cannot yet join each other’s dreams and dream environments can’t be designed, a decade since “Inception,” the dream state foundational to the narrative can be accessed and influenced. Therefore, science evolved after the film, realizing certain concepts. Yet the role of fiction pushing the boundaries of what is conceptually possible rather than currently realistic is a foundational process of innovation. Similarly, the famous philosopher and logician Quine stated that “creating good hypotheses is an imaginative art, not a science. It is the art of science.” While according to Hookway “The growth in empirical knowledge provides invaluable information about how best to pursue our cognitive ends.” Quine relates that structured science needs the boundless nature of fiction to inspire and critique the scientific standard. As a result, “Inception” serves the purpose of outlining the possible future development of dream-science technology while also highlighting possible implications. By relating the sociological orientations of developing versus using technology, fiction often provides the creative impulse for new science. Considering that “inspiration is evoked rather than initiated directly through an act of will” fiction is the catalyst for innovation in science. Therefore, while “Inception” didn’t explicitly bring about the development of MIT’s Dormio project, the film’s exploration becomes a demo scenario of an alternate future that affects the public understanding of the technology and may also play a role in the scientists’ design methodology. Where science provides the method, fiction helps orient the destination.
Science and fiction though different in their fundamental purpose and associated methods best complement one another. Both the pursuit of facts and boundless imagination are essential in developing and asserting the components of innovation. By forming a feedback loop, fact inspires fiction while fiction inspires fact. In the context of Nolan’s “Inception,” fact created the foundation in audiences’ perception to understand the narrative logic of the film and extend further meaning. Relying on existing principles of cognition, Nolan provided a view into his perception of a possible reality based on new technology. Additionally, the film can take on the added demo-like role of simulating the dream technology by highlighting dream-like stylistic ambiguity and simultaneously leveraging the dream-like nature of cinema. The difference between the suspended disbelief of fiction and effort of belief in science creates meaning in the field of study over time. Notably, fact inspires fiction while technology is in its infancy and begins to provide insight into a possible future. Similarly, fiction thereby provides orientation for the future pursuit of fact. As a result, the professional ideals of establishing truth in science and curiosity in fiction align entities regardless of socioeconomic orientation to collaborate in the creation of technical innovation.
In conclusion, in the context of “Inception” and beyond, technological fact and the associated methods guided by rationality play an important role in providing the basis for fictional exploration. Similarly, fiction also realizes the power of imagination and thereby guides the pursuit of subject material worthy of proving as technological fact. In the 2010 film “Inception” this process is illustrated by the cognitive principles from decades earlier providing a foundation for the subject material that the fictional narrative explores. Similarly, since the film’s release, technology has developed and is now referenced concerning the principles set forth by the film’s fictional scenario. Similarly, even without an explicit reference, the prophetic semblance of fiction provides insight into the human response to new technologies. Thereby, a fact-and-fiction feedback loop is created that unites different approaches regarding technological exploration that are retrospectively seen as associated by the means of similar subject material. Though differentiated in their method and purpose, fact and fiction are both required for the development of new technologies.
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