The Philosophy of Rick and Morty

During the past few months, I have become an avid fan of the adult cartoon series Rick and Morty. It’s sort of a sit com, a cartoon for adults like I said, like Family Guy, only it’s a lot more intelligent and gets quite deep and philosophical at certain points. I think a philosophical dissection of Rick and Morty can easily be done, going episode by episode, which is something I’d like to do. Hence, this thread.

To start, watch this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWFDHynfl1E[/youtube]

For the most part, the above video touches on some fascinating philosophical questions indeed–what I call insight philosophy–but for me, the really interesting parts of Rick and Morty are the one’s that strike at things personal within me, and which I assume are within everyone to one degree or another. ← I call this depth philosophy; the philosophy of what lies deep within the human soul.

Rick and Morty is good at drawing this out, especially if you watch while stoned. I want to put that out front right at the beginning: I watched each episode twice, first while stoned, then sober. Watching it stoned on pot, like experiencing almost anything stoned on pot, stirs up emotions and personal angst even more than being sober during therapy with a viciously penetrating psychoanalyst.

So while I intend to go through each episode (there are two seasons: 11 episodes and 10 episodes, respectively), touching on some of the personal angst they made me feel and the philosophical questions that brings forward, I want to lay out, in this introduction, some of the basic themes I got out of the series overall.

First, a bit of political philosophy: the series seems almost definitely written by conservatives. The theme of the ruthless, selfish capitalist is definitely embodied in Rick’s character. He’s a jerk, he’s an asshole, and he walks all over even his own family, but he’s smart enough and has the wherewithal to save the day at the end of every crisis, just like the capitalist, who is a ruthless soul, ends up improving life for everyone (producing goods and services that benefit us all, and also jobs and wealth to those who need to put food on the table). He’s the guy you love to hate and hate to love. As much of a jerk as you think he is, you can’t help but to see him as the good guy in the end. Even Morty can’t rid himself of this impression: he hates Rick’s manipulative and exploitative antics, and let’s him know this, but then thanks his lucky stars when Rick is around to save the day. Morty even goes so far as to sometimes idealize him and relish the thought of being Rick’s side kick, going on adventures and exploring strange new worlds with him.

Second, a bit of personal philosophy: the dichotomy of Rick and Jerry, a contrast of polar opposites, strikes me as two sides of myself. Rick is the person I wish I was, while Jerry is the person I’m afraid I am. And I think this is most likely true, to one degree or another, of everyone, particularly men. Just as Rick’s exploits to other planets and different dimensions have turned him, over the years, into the thick-skinned, cynical, unfeeling jerk we know him to be from the series, my drug exploits, at least the harsh ones, have taken a somewhat similar toll on me (in effect, this is definitely what Rick’s interdimensional/otherworldly exploits symbolize for me). But I’m nothing like Rick in person–the inner Rick sometimes comes out here at ILP, but if you were to meet me in person, you would definitely not see the same gib you think you know. In real life, I’m definitely more beta-male than alpha, and sometimes very insecure, much like Jerry. I don’t want to be like that, I hate being like that, and so I hope the inner Rick is somewhat a part of who I really am and not a complete sham. Realistically, though, I think I’m an even mix of the two.

^^ That’s personal, but I think it applies to everyone to a certain degree. And as something universal to human beings, I definitely think we can turn it into a bit of depth philosophy.

These two points aren’t really the central focus of this thread, but I mention them just because they are the two most relevant points that come to mind having to do with the Rick and Morty series as a whole (as opposed to themes which we will look at on a per-episode basis). So I mention them if for no other reason than to get them out of the way.

This undoubtedly is going to be another lengthy project much like my Reforming Democracy thread and I think I’ll be able to post on, at most, a weekly basis (realistically, it will probably be more like every two weeks). But that’s fine. There’s no rush.

We’ll start with episode 1 of season 1 next time.

My PC is on the blink. :confused: No vid. then I post asking for vid. and “voila” vid. appears. Looks like I’ll have to watch your clip Gibballoons, now that it’s visibly available.

Huh? Let me translate this to English:

You’ve got a virus on your computer (we’ve established that in other threads), which is why your computer is on the blink. You’re obviously still able to surf the net which is why you’re able to say “No vid.” ← You came to ILP, saw my post, and the video didn’t render/display (presumably 'cause of the virus). You initially posted a reply to me saying “gib, can I get an actual video please?” only to find, once you hit submit, that your request was magically granted. (You can thank me later. :smiley: ).

Ask and ye shall receive, I guess.

But then seeing as you now got a video, you went back and edited your post to give me:

Have I translated properly?

Seriously, you should wipe out and reinstall your whole OS. I can even help you through it (I run a software business).

Oh Gibweiser,

I will accept your help.(English translation to follow :mrgreen: )

I think the cosmic insignificance of humanity, shows the cosmic insignificance of a universe without humanity.

How shall I interpret this? Are you saying that the cosmos itself is insignificant when you remove humanity form the picture? And what if you didn’t remove humanity? Would the cosmos then be significant even though humanity itself remains insignificant?

If humanity is insignificant, why does Consciousness find itself on this planet?

Personally, I think consciousness is everywhere, but to me, that makes everything significant.

Should be interesting…

Consciousness isn’t everywhere, there is only One consciousness.

The theoretical potential for consciousness is everywhere.

well just saying that without the presence of the experiencer nothing is being experienced, and is at least in that sense is insignificant. The world would be turning, bodies would be in motion, and it would all be like a merry-go-round but with no one taking the ride.

Consciousness probably only exists where there is a ‘projector’, no?

Yes, Trixie, we’ve been over this before: you have your view of consciousness, I have mine.

So you mean that in order for something to be considered significant, it must be experienced as significant? Yes, this is very true.

Yes, which is everywhere.

You only have one consciousness. Yours is one, mine is one. These are the facts.

Gib

Yes its almost like it doesn’t exist or is in some way futile, pointless, ~ billions of galaxies or not.

Wow really?!

I was thinking that you need the instrument. I am intrigued to know what you mean by that though?

Ok, so this didn’t take as long as a I thought.

The pilot is relatively simple. Before we go any further, however, I would like to say something which I should have said in the OP: SPOILER ALERT!!!

This whole thread is one gargantuan spoiler.

There, now that that’s out of the way, watch this:

Rick and Morty - Pilot.

If you want to browse all episodes ← well now you can.

I’m sorry I couldn’t get a link to a youtube video, thereby allowing you to watch it without leaving ILP, but most of the R&M pilots that managed to get on youtube are low quality (half of them, for some reason, have the tempo of the characters’ voices raised).

Anyway, on with…

Rick and Morty - S1E1 - Pilot

The pilot was kind of shallow. Not much to dig into yet. Not a big surprise, mind you–when you release a pilot, you do want to be careful not to go too extreme–not at first.

But I really like how it starts out: Rick comes into Morty’s room completely drunk. Right away, this must have reminded me of myself (I don’t quite remember). I’m a conditional alcoholic (conditional on caffeine). You can read all about it here. ← That’s a personal issue. I don’t have anything philosophical to make out of it. Maybe someone else can.

Right away, I see symbols of American Conservatism: Rick’s ship has something almost resembling the American flag sticking out of the back (I take it the creators must have had to deal with certain legal considerations about putting an actual American flag on Rick’s ship, but that’s shear speculation).

Jerry waltzes in on Beth while she’s performing life-determining surgery on a horse. He wants to go out to lunch with her. She kinda gives him the tone that “now’s not a good time”–he appears oblivious. He proceeds to walk out but “accidentally” drops a brochure for a senior’s home. ← All of a sudden, we see why he wanted to take Beth out to lunch.

^^ We’re going to see a lot of this from Jerry. I didn’t quite see it myself until the last episode of season II, but once I saw it, and watched the pilot once again, I now see it was there from the beginning: Jerry doesn’t know how to love. He expects that every kind act should be followed by a reward. He didn’t come by to take Beth out for lunch just to spend some time with her, he wanted to slip the idea of putting Rick, Beth’s father, into a home (not to mention the fact that he did it anyway–got the idea of the senior’s home across to Beth–when he got the hint that lunch wasn’t in the cards).

However, to be fair to Jerry, there will be times when he pulls through and becomes a “real man”. They’re far and few between, but it’s in him.

Furthermore, when Beth finally does have some time, and talks with Jerry, we find that she’s not so virtuous either. They have a relatively meaningful talk, and Jerry finally sees it from her point of view (that Rick, Morty’s grandpa, is Morty’s only friends). He says “I suppose you’re right.” Beth, in turn, says in a rather sarcastic tone “Uh, yeeeaaah, I’m smart. I am my father’s daughter, after all.” (or something to that effect). ← So Jerry concedes, sees it from her point of view, and she responds with sarcasm. Like Jerry, we will be seeing a lot of this from Beth.

Then there’s Rick and Morty’s first adventure:

There was a short little speech Rick gave to Morty upon arriving in what Rick called an “alternate evolutionary timeline” (presumably still Earth, but where evolution went in a wildly different direction?). I’m not going to quote characters verbatim (unless I happen to have it memorized), but Rick said something along the lines of: I’ve been through a lot of dangerous adventures, Morty, and seen some pretty crazy shit. I know what it’s like because I’ve been there. So just stick with me and you’ll be all right. I’ll get us through this. ( ← Probably not my best Rick impression :laughing: ).

^^ This speech pretty much sets the theme for the whole series. This speech pretty much defines their relation and their rolls with respect to each other. Morty defies this quite a bit in the series, usually on principled grounds, and this almost always gets him in trouble. But of course, Rick always comes around to get him out of trouble. He’s really very unforgiving of Morty when he does this (and quite frankly abusive), going so far as to rename “taking a shit” to “Morty” ( ← as in: “I’m going to take a big Morty.” ← but that’s in another episode. ), but he always proves to be the good guy who gets Morty’s ass out of trouble while everyone else would either have not given a flying hoot or have been trying to kill/hurt him. The idea, we are lead to believe, is that everything would go just swimmingly if Morty would simply listen to everything Rick says (of course, the series has several examples of how Rick, with his arrogantly cocky attitude, is the one to goof up but somehow always finds a way to blame Morty ← And that’s another thing about Rick we’ll learn–that he has a tendency to place the blame wherever’s convenient for him, and he does this through his determinism). ← Once again, the theme of the ruthless, greedy capitalist comes to mind–seen, of course, through a conservatist’s eye.

As we get to know the character, we get a sense that he brings Morty into these situations in the first place because he honestly believes he can easily get himself and his grandson out of any sticky situation whatsoever, and all due to his superior intellect. Yes, he is incredibly cocky (which is what I love about him!), and his ego is blown way out of proportion, but he’s not all together mistaken about himself. He is smart enough to get himself and his grandson out of any sticky situation–not as smoothly as he’d like to think, but he gets the job done–but it’s these sloppy imperfections that occasionally get in through the blind-spots that his ego creates for him that end up hurting Morty more than it’s worth.

We get a perfect example of this when Morty falls off the edge of the cliff (because he didn’t realize he had to turn the boots on), and ended up writhing on the ground in extreme pain, his legs mangled and broken. Right away, Rick blamed him: “You have to turn the boots on, Morty!” We also get a sense of Rick’s insensitivity here. The first thing he says, after blaming Morty, is: I know you’re in a lot of pain, Morty, but can you still help me? Finally he resolves to go to another dimension where they have an instant cure for “mangled legs” and bring it back. There’s a good 5 second wait time while Morty lays there moaning in agony, and it makes you wonder: could Rick have returned instantly if he cared to? Anyway, he fixes Morty’s legs, and Morty says that he “never felt better in his whole life.” ← I don’t know if we’re supposed to take that literally or not, but it’s a perfect example of what I said above: how Morty will praise Rick, or at least marvel at Rick’s work, when he saves the day.

Beth is surprised to find that Rick has been taking Morty out of school to go on his adventures with him, and she is furious. Jerry, while also furious, plays a petty game of “see, I told you so,” with Beth. Yes, Morty may have a “friend”, but that’s definitely not worth taking him out of school for. It’s decided (somehow) that Rick should leave. But Rick, of course, finds a way to manipulate his way back into staying (mainly appealing to Jerry’s “wearing the pants” in the household).

There’s a weird sequence at the end (which I swear has hidden messages in it :laughing: ) with Morty writhing on the garage floor in a semi-vegetated state with Rick looming over him talking about “Rick and Morty for 100 years” or something and “www.rickandmortyadventures.com”. ← I didn’t remember that sequence being at the end of the pilot first time around. I think it’s because the first time around was on youtube; they must have cut it short.

^^ Now, besides the possible marketing ploy (i.e. go to rickandmortyadventures.com*), I came up with an interpretation of this scene which I’m not sure is obvious to everyone: those seeds which Morty has up his ass did indeed have the effects that Rick said (made him really smart then made him really dumb), but there’s an additional effect Rick did not tell him, and that’s this: in the dumb phase, where Morty is writhing on the ground in kind of a semi-vegetated state, he can be brainwashed extremely easily. This weird speech that Rick gives is not just Rick mentally masturbating but mentally programming Morty to become his side kick for all the adventures they will go on. ← That was the whole point of getting the seeds (it’s kind of suspicious, isn’t it, that while Rick expresses disappointment that the seeds have already dissolved in Morty’s system, he’s taking it rather lightly for something that was that important to his research).

Wow, this turned out to be more of a character analysis than a philosophical one. ← But like I always say, that’s fodder for depth philosophy.

yes but first I want to know what you mean by projection being everywhere? …sounds interesting. :slight_smile:

Hey guys,

You both just so happen to be posting while I was ready to post my analysis of the pilot. So I guess we’ll argue around that.

Trixie,

What you are calling “consciousness,” I consider an island in a sea of cosmic mind. The boundaries between “me” as my own consciousness and the outer world is illusory. We experience things in all kinds of physical systems all around us–we just can’t know it. It is experienced “unconsciously” so to speak. Of course, this very interpretation of mine has implications for what counts as “we”–“we” ends up just meaning all those experiences which we are consciously aware of having. ← But we are still connected through continuous experience with the rest of the universe.

Yes, inconsequential.

I mean that I don’t think of consciousness (i.e. qualia) as something that requires a functioning brain in order to be had. Consciousness (qualia) is something that comes with any physical system undergoing any kind of activity. The kind of activity it undergoes determines the quality felt in the quale. And whatever the quality, it will project as some aspect of a reality (experienced by the system in question) and will be meaningful to it.

I should say thanks first, I don’t get the show on the channel setup I have.

This is going to sound mad but when I was a glue-sniffing young punk, the onlooker would see me as a dribbling wreck. However, I remember clearly that I could think if anything more intelligently than normal. So the brain is mush, and the intellect is enhanced!

You see consciousness as ‘qualia’? Does e.g. colour experience itself? ergo we can surely think of the experiencing thing as categorically different to the class of non-experiencing things i.e. all qualia, qualities and info.

I think there is something else which communicates between categorically different things, and between one quality or qualia & another, …and between those things and the experience. Info in terms of language, is not the same as physical information, but for us to know it, again there must be a thrid party communicative aspect to the equation.

I don’t know how the projection could be everywhere, but perhaps as physical info is talking to us in English - so to say, that could mean that every perspective point in existence is a projector. but that would infer an observer ~ experiencer, is also at every point?
_

You’re welcome! Are you getting the videos here at ILP all right?

Drugs can perform either enhancement or degradation to the brain’s functioning. Drugs are sometimes prescribed to enhance certain brain functions. Think about the effect caffeine has on the brain. It enhances thinking.

Drugs have one of two effects on neurons: they either 1) increase the neuron’s sensitivity to firing or 2) decrease the neuron’s sensitivity to firing. They increase brain activity or they decrease it. Sometimes increasing brain activity is a good thing, sometimes it’s a bad thing. Same with decreasing brain activity. It all depends on whether you have too much of it in your brain or too little. Sometimes decreasing brain activity is a good thing in itself, other times it’s a good thing because it indirectly increases other brain activity, brain activity that you need more of. Same with increasing brain activity. ← It all depends.

In a manner of speaking, yes. Consciousness, qualia, color (the projection of qualia)–all these things are different conceptions of a single thing–it’s all rolled into one–at least for me. Being conscious of a color, feeling it, is part and parcel of the quale of color itself, essential to what makes it a quale. There is no quale which isn’t felt. So if there is a quale of the color red (say), that quale is felt by itself, it experiences itself. ← But this is to be contrasted with knowing about the quale. The quale of red will feel itself as the existence of red, but that does not mean any knowledge (i.e. any thought) about the existence of red will arise from that. Knowledge (i.e. thought) is a whole other quale and, at least with humans, does arise out of the perception of color, but that’s an artifact of how our brains are wired.

Well, as I said, the “experience” part is essential to what makes it a quale. It only exists by way of being experienced.

Ok, I appreciate your view. If you thought of all these things as separate–the qualia from consciousness from physical existence from info–then you would have to have some conduit in order for any one of these things to affect any other.

Yes, as “experience” is just a synonym of “quale”, but that’s not to be confused with individuation at every point–where “individuation” means a separate being at every point–it still forms a seamless continuum. Individuation in the case of human beings is another story–it has centrally to do with knowledge (as I alluded to above).

What i dont get, is if they are all active projectors at the same time…then what arbitrary mechanism divides and localizes it to me, instead of you?

clearly, they are not all active at the same time, they are only potentially active, and one of them decides to be active at a time, ala in a priority queue, inside of another metatimespace in which it can go backwards and reactivate the others, or none at all, if it so chooses, rendering all of you nonsentients.