The Philosophy of Rick and Morty

The visual field generates its own space.

In my view, the 3d space we are familiar with exists in consciousness. The system of qualia that make up our minds consist of all the experiences you would need to behold a fully layed out spatial extent laying there before you.

That’s interesting. Kind of makes you think of a micro-unconscious.

True, this is possible, but I don’t think the real space “out there” would be anything like the space “in here”–though I believe they would be isomorphic.

So you mean the sinewave motions of neurons are readable by consciousness but the sinewaves motions of sound and light aren’t? Do you suppose sound waves and light waves could be readable by consciousness? ← Could that be what the hippies and astral projectors call “consciousness expansion”?

I’m in the middle of a discussion with Chakra Superstar that I think might help you out, particularly the part about the “density” of consciousness (reminds me of how you described the “locality” of consciousness).

Interesting. Why do you say that?

Well, if we’re done discussing the metaphysics of consciousness and the cosmos, let’s move on to…

Rick and Morty - S1E2 - Lawnmower Dog

Check it out: Rick and Morty - Lawnmower Dog.

This one’s not too exciting. The first few in the series aren’t. They’re kind of getting the point across that these are the kinds of adventures Rick and Morty are going to go on, but they’re kind of isolated and self-contained adventures at first. Later we’ll see some continuity between the episodes, at least continuity of themes and a thicker plot line.

In fact, Rick doesn’t use his portal gun until Episode 5: Meeseeks and Destroy ← That’s when things start to pick up. The first three episodes after the pilot feature other ways besides dimension hopping that Rick and Morty go on adventures, each different, sort of signifying that this isn’t going to be just about Rick and Morty’s crazy adventures through different dimensions.

The current episode, for example, is a spoof on Inception–Rick invents a dream device that, when stuck in Mr. Goldenfold’s ear (Morty’s math teacher), causes him to fall asleep and dream, and meanwhile, similar devices are stuck in Rick and Morty’s ears, and they too fall asleep and dream–the devices coordinating their dreams together such that they experience being in each other’s presence in each of their respective dreams. They go several layers deep in dreams, of course–5 layers deep to be exact (not sure how many layers deep DeCaprio went). ← All to convince Morty’s teacher to give him straight A’s in math so that Rick can continue to pull him from school behind his parents’ backs.

^ But that’s all we’ll ever see of Rick’s inception device throughout the whole series. ← An isolated episode.

While Rick and Morty are gallivanting through dream worlds, Snuffles, the family dog, is getting smarter. Jerry bargains with Rick and convinces him to invent a device that makes dogs smarter (maybe other animals too ← I don’t know). Jerry’s sick and tired of the dog being too dumb to figure out not to pee on the carpet. So after whipping up something in 5 seconds from kitchen utensil and such, Rick comes out with a helmet that, when applied to Snuffles, makes him smarter. Then they go on their inception adventure. While they’re gone, Snuffles gets smarter… and smarter, and smarter, like Lawnmower Man. He eventually invents a walking mobility contraption and a voice synthesizer so that he can speak to humans and possibly overpower them with electronic and hydrolic appendages:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGFev2BmnhE[/youtube]

This happens quite often in sit coms: there’s the main plot line (inception) and then there’s a parallel secondary plot line (lawnmower dog), and the two needn’t have any relation to each other, but in this case, I suspect there is a connection (I can’t quite put my finger on it). The title of the episode is “Lawnmower Dog” even though that subplot is the minor one (or maybe it isn’t, maybe that’s just my perception, but it would be odd if the main characters, Rick and Morty, weren’t involved in the main plot line). Also, after Rick and Morty come back from their dream escapades, securing straight A’s for Morty in math, they go on one more dream escapade into Snuffles’ dream in order to convince him not to enslave humans. ← So there is a connection, but not a “moral of the story” so to speak–they just happen to tie two plot lines together in a trivial/meaningless way.

Actually, come to think of it, the moral might be this: the theme of the Frankenstein Monster will recur more than just a few times in the series. This is one example: Rick invents the intelligence boosting helmet for Snuffles, and while Rick has his back turned, Snuffles becomes a monster. Just like young Victor Frankenstein, Rick completely neglects his responsibility for creating the monster–he obliviously allows it to go so far while he and Morty completely ignore it for the sake of doing something equally irresponsible: helping Morty cheat in school. ← But this is not entirely fair. At least young Victor was aware of the damage he created and ran away from the problem in order to escape his responsibility. Rick, on the other hand, was oblivious during his absence. On the other hand, when they returned, Rick did say to Morty:

“Well, it’s possible that your dog became self-aware and made modifications on the cognition amplifier then turned on Jerry, Beth, and Summer after learning about humanity’s cruel subjugation to his species, but your guess is as good as mine, Morty.”

…indicating that he might have been aware of this possibility all along, but then again, he only whips up this spiel after seeing the dogs surrounding the Smith’s house and shipping boxes in and out. But in the end, Rick does handle the situation (through inception on Snuffles), which, though dampening the theme of the irresponsible Victor Frankenstein, highlights the other theme I mentioned before, namely that for all the damage Rick causes, he still pulls through and saves the day in the end. So maybe the theme is that while Rick’s escapades seem irresponsible on the surface, they can be put to good use in solving the problem that they, in a sense, helped create.

Another major theme that shows up in this episode (unrelated to the Frankenstein theme) is Jerry’s arrogance–we catch a glimpse of Jerry’s character in this episode (presumably to set the stage for how we’re supposed to feel about Jerry throughout the series) as kind of having a “master” mentality with respect to Snuffles (and by implication, with respect to his entire estate–including wife and children ← You know, the man of the house). This is not to be confused with Nietzsche’s master morality, which might be more characteristic of Rick, master of his own destiny. But Jerry is definitely portrayed in this episode as the cruel master over a victimized Snuffles. This theme actually picks up and goes to extremes, touching on political issues like slavery and racism.

After creating a whole supply line of intelligence enhancing dog helmets, Snuffles manages to form an organized army of dog rebels, all of whom have, so to speak, awoken to the horrible truth of their state of slavery, and work almost effortlessly towards overtaking the White House and (we are to presume) all humanity. If Rick represents the Conservative’s hero: the capitalist, then Snuffles represents the typical stereotype of the Liberal (seen from the point of view of the conservative creators of Rick and Morty, or so I speculate)–in a position to righteously rebel against an evil oppressor.

In an effort to play the dogs at their own game, Jerry thinks he has a clever strategy. He walks in front of their guns, stock piled in the corner of the Smith’s house, whips open his fly and pees on them, saying “See that?! I’m peeing all over your special guns! That means I own them!” ( ← Kind of homoerotic, now that I think about it… wait til we get to Total Rickall). But this does nothing but subject his face to being shoved by Snuffles into his own pee, as Jerry did to Snuffles at the beginning of this episode. ← To me, this hinted at Jerry’s faith in stereotypes, adding to his arrogance.

Morty, on the other hand, is seen in this episode in a whole other light. While Jerry is pictured as the cruel slave-driving master, Morty is pictured as Snuffles’ only friend. He protects Snuffles from his dad when Jerry pushes Snuffles’ face into his own pee, and near the end, Snuffles tells Morty that he will spare his testicles while the rest of the world will be neutered and that Morty will be his best friend and sit by his side. Morty reluctantly accepts, on the one hand feeling relieved, but on the other, worrying for his family. ← Morty here is depicted as the only worthy person, morally speaking, and this will show in later episodes. If Rick is the hero we look up to and want to be, Morty is the character we love and want to praise.

Anyway, to wrap it up, Rick and Morty come back from their successful mission to get Morty straight A’s in math to find themselves stuck in the middle of a dog rebellion, and being kept hostage in the Smith’s house. Rick comes up with the ingenious idea of incepting Snuffles with the idea that the superior thing to do, the high road to take, would be to let the humans free and find a better world in which to live using Rick’s dimension hopping portal gun ( ← So I lied–Rick does use his portal gun in this episode, but not to go on one of his crazy adventures… and technically we only see the portal’s open, not Rick using his gun.) ← So there you go, Rick comes back to find the mess that he’s made and uses his inception technology to clean it up.

(Not sure what Mr. Goldenfold did with the inception device stuck in his ear, or Snuffles for that matter, or when they found it–assuming they did at all–and it makes me wonder: did they ever explain this in the actual movie Inception, or did people just wake up not noticing the thing in their ear.)

Finally, I just wanted to point out that while this episode counts as the first “isolated” adventure, it is continuous with the first in the sense that this one in particular is a kind of “preliminary” adventure. Rick has to find a way to fill Morty into the roll of side-kick without his parents finding out he’s pulling him from school, which is a condition Jerry and Beth imposed on Rick at the end of the pilot, and in reaction to which Rick sarcastically placated Jerry with the “you’re the man of the house” bit. ← Well, he had reason to be sarcastic. But more to the point, this inception thing turns out to be a preliminary necessity that got in the way because Morty’s parents found out he was missing school–Rick wouldn’t have done this otherwise.

I was just thinking: Mr. Goldenfold is black.

Now, is this in any way linked to the theme of racism in episode 2? I mean, on purpose? I’m thinking of how Mr. Goldenfold was watching a black soap opera when Rick and Morty incepted him. Could the creators of Rick and Morty have been mocking themselves? Saying: Look! We use stereotypes too. When black people watch soap operas, do they actually prefer black soap operas? Well, they probably do, but it could be construed as a stereotype.

Rick and Morty - S1E3 - Anatomy Park

Rick and Morty - Anatomy Park.

As I said in a previous post, the first 3 episodes after the pilot are a bit lame; this one especially. Not that the notion of an entire theme park built into a hobo’s body isn’t halarious, but there’s not much to analyze in this one. It’s a pretty skin deep episode.

I suppose we can analyze Jerry’s character a bit more. We had fun analyzing most of the characters in Lawnmower Dog, but that was more in the vein of getting to know the characters, setting up a background for what to expect in later episodes. What Anatomy Park offers is a bit of an extension of this with respect to Jerry.

Jerry is depicted as a rule follower in this episode. It’s Christmas time and his parents are coming to visit. The door bell rings and Jerry says to his family:

“Ok, there’s my parents. Now remember, no TV, no phone, no laptops, we are connecting this Christmas, like old school Jews on a Saturday.”

Now there’s nothing wrong with wanting to connect during the Christmas holidays, putting away all distractions (electronics and other gadgets), but Jerry’s desire to “connect” is depicted more as doing what one is “supposed” to do during Christmas. Christmas is supposed to be a time of celebrating love and the gift of giving, of appreciating and spending time with family. It’s what “normal” people do. ← This is the way Jerry sees the world, the way things are supposed to be, a set of rules.

The rest of the family is a little less than enthusiastic (to put it mildly), especially about putting away their gadgets. They may understand that Christmas is supposed to be a time of connecting with family and loved ones, but they just don’t feel like it, so they are a little reluctant to follows Jerry’s program.

The irony, in this episode, is that it’s the rest of the family who end up connecting with Jerry’s parents (and Jake) while Jerry has an incredibly hard time connecting once he hears the news about Jake. Jake, the latest addition to the family, comes along with Jerry’s parents. No one knows what his connection to the family is at first, but then at dinner, we learn that Jake, who seems no older than half the age of Jerry’s parents, is Jerry’s mother’s lover (who, when making out with her, is watched by Jerry’s father while wearing a superman outfit). Jerry has no idea how to take this news, and quite evidently has an extremely hard time accepting it. The rest of the family, on the other hand, reacts with support and happiness for them.

The contrast here between Jerry and the rest of the family is that while Jerry is a rule follower, always doing what one is “supposed” to do, the rest of family just goes with the flow. Jerry’s difficulty connecting with his parents, and with Jake especially, is a consequence of how this arrangement between Jake and his parents is not the kind of thing people are “supposed” to do. It’s strange, it’s unorthodox, it’s very awkward. So Jerry doesn’t know how to feel about it. Actually, he thinks he does know how to feel: contempt. Meanwhile, the rest of the family has no problem accepting this new arrangement. Why? Because they have no expectations of the way things are “supposed” to be. They just go with the flow. They see that Jerry’s parents and Jake are happy with this arrangement, and as Jerry’s father says in the beginning of the episode, “Then Jake came into our lives, and we’re learning to live again.” ← What reason is there, beyond the strangeness of this affair, to object to that?

In any case, after a bit of drama and a lot of friction between Jerry and the family, Jerry comes to realize that maybe his uptight attitude towards this whole “connection” theme was a mistake, and he gives back the electronics to the rest of the family (taking a device for himself as well). But just to add insult to injury, once everyone is finally relaxed in the living room, playing with their gadgets, and once Rick rescues Morty from inside a dead and festering (and enlarged-to-the-size-of-the-Moon-and-soon-to-explode-all-over-the-US) Ruben, the dynamic duo come into the living room only for Rick to lambasted the device absorbed family:

“Oh unbelievable! We’ve got a punch of robot, computer people sitting around with their faces stuffed in their computer screens. Do you guys realize that Christ was born today? Jesus Christ our savior was born today! Ar-ar-are you people even human? What kind of Christmas is this?”

To which Jerry just shrugs his shoulders. ← Irony upon irony, especially coming from Rick.

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Now a little note on what to take out of this–and not just this but all episodes of Rick and Morty:

I would like this, in the final analysis, to touch on philosophical subjects. I’m leaving it mainly to the reader to do so if he/she finds that the events and character developments inspires certain philosophical thoughts. And there are plenty of opportunities for this in the Rick and Morty series. This episode in particle, not so much (at least not for me), but I might (if I feel like it) offer some philosophical questions for discussion at the end of each post covering the each episode.

In the last episode (Lawnmower Dog), I made it explicit that themes of racism and conservatism vs. liberalism could be gleaned from it, which are loaded with philosophical potential. In this episode, I glean the theme of trying too hard vs. going with the flow. This is sort of a Buddhist theme for me–the idea that sometimes we perform at our best, or accomplish our goals most effectively, when we simply don’t try (as master Yoda once said: Do or do not. There is no try.). Sometimes trying too hard, like Jerry trying to connect, only causes us to stumble, like a dancer trying to focus too hard on performing the right movements, whereas just going with the flow, which requires very little “trying”, often increases our performance or accomplishes our goals far more effectively than consciously trying (although I’m not sure how well the family could have “connected” if they had their faces stuck in their electronics the whole time).

I suppose there’s also the theme of going with the flow vs. rule following: what’s better, doing what you’re supposed to do or doing what you want? which can be a rich philosophical topic, but I’ll leave that one, amongst any others, up to the reader to follow up on.

I just realized something: the theme park being constructed inside Ruben is not just a money making scheme on Ricks part–it’s the cure for all Ruben’s diseases. Remember what Rick said:

“You don’t agree to have a theme park built inside you if your life’s going great.”

And right after informing Rick that the “exhibits” are unlocked, Dr. Xenon Bloom explains to Morty:

“Anatomy Park’s greatest attraction, young man, isn’t the music or the food or the Pirates of the Pancreas… It is first and foremost a living museum of humanities most noble and ferocious diseases.”

In other words, before they escaped, all Ruben’s diseases were locked up in one way or another; the whole theme park would be a flop if they had hepatitis-A or e-coli on the loose; no one would pay a dollar to visit the park if that were the case.

So not only do they lock all the diseases up for the sake of attracting visitors, but Ruben gets cured of all his diseases in the process.

Of course, Rick has one motive and one motive only–to make money–but this is the old theme of the greedy, selfish capitalist bringing a great benefit to others through his greedy, selfish acts, which we will see more of as the episodes progress.

I’d say, the space is generated for it.

What is a micro unconscious?

Hold up. The xyz value of conscious could be located in the same xyz of the brain, just only visible in another format. Consciousness could be in the space between atoms, so to speak, thus not detectable using conventional “reflective em ping” means.

Sound waves are the motions of atoms through time. We are Time itself, so we can hear sound, but on a technical standpoint, we cannot hear it until it is converted into neuronal communications. We do not directly hear the sound, we hear the sound only until it is converted into neuronal communications. Either we are connected to/in the same format of, or are, the neuronal communications themselves. And neuronal substance we detect, is either the chemical substance, light substance, electrical substance, or unique Pattern ID of the neuronal configurations, or some other substance akin to a mystery substance, or all 5.
But we know we are not linked to the original format sounds(motions of atoms) because our consciousness is limited to our brains…we cannot hear once we are deaf. If consciousness could hear sounds before they are converted, deaf people could hear the outside world and consciousness would not be limited to our brains.

Interesting. Why do you say that?
[/quote]
Don’t remember.
But I can guess what I meant by that.

I am starting to wonder that perhaps the rainbow+black and white is all we can see, because we are spiritually limited to those colors and there is not possibly any way to experience other colors, even if we had the power to modify our brains or consciousness.

What do you think it’s generated by?

This was from your comment about consciousness existing in the “tunnels” of our neurons. It’s like each one is a little micro-consciousness. But to me, they are unconscious (I’m certainly not aware of any individual consciousnesses inside my neurons); thus, the micro-unconscious.

Well, if by xyz, you mean spatial coordinates, then sure, but that’s (perhaps) all they have in common (it’s what would maintain their isomorphism). Color space is a good example of this idea. You can think of colors as three dimensional: each color is just a certain degree of red, green, and blue. You can vary the amount of red, green, or blue for any color. These primary colors are the “dimensions” in which colors have room to “move around” (i.e. become different hues). But for a color to vary like this doesn’t require literal space (even though we have to draw color spectra in at least one dimension on paper, but this is only so that we can see all colors as co-present). You can see a single pixel go through all the colors of the rainbow without budging an inch. Maybe the “space” outside our perception of space is something like this: a field in which things can vary along at least 3 independent but non-spatial dimensions (call them x, y, z), and it comes through into our subjective world as the vast emptiness between solid objects that we see everyday.

Right, so it sounds like the expansion of consciousness.

The only sense in which I can imagine color being spiritual is in the sense that it is typically thought to be purely subjective (thus, of the mind, of the spirit); but in that sense, I would think anything would qualify as spiritual. In a sense, I believe this. I believe that all is spiritual (ultimately) as it is all rooted in subjectivity, but that includes physical matter and objectivity. ← These are reducible to sensory perception after all (and maybe rational thought for objectivity), so they too are spiritual. What this means, for me, is that though color may indeed be spiritual, as a property of objects, it is also physical.

Well, the way I see it, if we modify our brains, we modify our behavior and our speech. If we modify our brains such that we act and talk like we can see other colors, then those very modifications count as neural circuitry for seeing other colors. The wiring of the brain is what causes us to act and talk as we do. The mind supplies the accompanying reasons and justifications.

“expansion of consciousness”
Show me one enlightened guy who can hear without ears.

“Well, the way I see it, if we modify our brains, we modify our behavior and our speech. If we modify our brains such that we act and talk like we can see other colors, then those very modifications count as neural circuitry for seeing other colors. The wiring of the brain is what causes us to act and talk as we do. The mind supplies the accompanying reasons and justifications.”
Ridiculous nonsense. Are you even trying?

I’m not saying without ears, I’m just analyzing the concept of “consciousness expansion”. ← I don’t even know if it’s possible.

Given my views on consciousness, there is a way to interpret “consciousness expansion” (but I admit up front that I have no idea how this would be possible): my views say that there is subjective experience accompanying any physical action (i.e. qualia of an inconceivable sort), including sound waves and light (and everything else in physics that can stimulate the senses). The problem is not that our consciousness is disconnected with these other forms of experience (corresponding to sound waves, light, etc.); it’s that our epistemic reach is disconnected. If our brains could somehow form a direct epistemic connection with the experiences accompanying sound waves, light, etc. we might be aware (directly) of these experiences. ← That would be “consciousness expansion”. But I have no idea how the brain would accomplish that.

Now, when you say it’s ridiculous nonsense, do you mean I haven’t supplied enough information or that it conflicts with something you already believe? If the latter, I can’t always predict what’s going to conflict with another person’s belief system. If the former, give me a break. I wrote a whole book on this. On ILP, I can only deliver it piecemeal.

Utter nonsense.
The whole tenant of conscious expansion is that it expands outside of the brain. So you are trying to circumvent the foundational premise of what it’s saying.
We already have a direct epistemic connection.
It’s called our ear drums.
Like I said earlier I don’t believe sound waves have an inherent experience of their own, they must be converted into a spiritual substance to be experienced (associated with neuronal communications).

I mean what it says, that it is utter ridiculous nonsense.
You are saying if you program someones verbal system (in essence, causing them to spout delusions) it means that by virtue of speaking the delusions, the delusions exist.
So if I type write now that I just saw colorX, a color that doesn’t exist and noone has seen before, by the power of word I make that color come into existence.

Yep, that’s the schism between you and I. And I’ll fully concede your point given your views on consciousness. Won’t stop me, however, from expressing my views and what they say about the topics we touch on. ← Remember, it’s not a “I’m right, you’re wrong” game to me.

I thought we were talking about re-wiring the brain, specifically re-wiring the color perception centers in the brain. I’m say that if you take the “red” centers in the brain, for example, and re-wire them such that you end up speaking and behaving as if you see a new color X where you used to see red, then what we have re-wired the red centers into is a neural circuit for perceiving color X.

But you brought up a good point: although actually seeing a specific color like red is a reasonable justification for why one might say things like “I see red” or behave as if one sees red (stopping at red lights, for example), it needn’t be the only reason. One might wish to lie. Or maybe one is acting in a play. But these alternate reasons for speaking/acting come along with alternate brain activity. If you were to scan the brain of someone who said “I see red” because they actually do see red, you’d get a different signature than someone who said “I see red” because they were lying or performing in a play.

Sounds like a macguffin to me.

You expect to be able to rewire the brain to see a new color with little to no resistance.
Now lets say its they year 3000 and we can rewire the brain very easily with the press of a button.
I suspect there is still no possible way to reconfigure it, when you try to do it you are just gonna loop around to one of the old colors, I suspect its at max cap.

What you’re suggesting is that the brain has completely exhausted all neural configurations for color perception.

But could we not be like the color blind man? Color blind to one specific color, say green? He can see the other primary colors: red and blue, but he has no idea what green looks like. But it’s not so far fetched to us to suggest to him that there are other colors he can’t imagine.

Rick and Morty - S1E4 - M. Night Shaym-Aliens!

Rick and Morty - M. Night Shaym-Aliens!.

I’ve been trying to figure out what the theme of this episode–namely, aliens and simulations–has to do with M Night Shyamalan apart from the play on the name. The only real relation I see is that Shyamalan directed Signs, which involves aliens. Shyamalan’s movies are, in general, sci-fi and supernatural oriented, but pretty much all Rick and Morty episodes are sci-fi oriented (and none of them are supernatural oriented… well, except Something Ricked but even in that one, Rick manages to bring the supernatural back to science).

Oh well… not gonna dwell on that one.

So far, the Rick and Morty series has taken us through multiple approaches to visiting other worlds. In the Pilot, we had parallel universes to which Rick and Morty could travel using Rick’s portal gun. In Lawnmower Dog, we had inception–visiting dream worlds. In Anatomy Park we had the microscopic world of inner space (well, OK, I don’t know if that counts as a “world”). And in this episode, we have simulated worlds, like the Matrix.

The episode begins with Rick being very suspicious, even certain, that he is indeed inside a simulation; he says to no one in particular after Morty questions his weird behavior:

“Oh, responsive too, in real time! I love it!.. Careful guys, you’re gonna burn up the CPU with this one.”

But after witnessing Mr. Goldenfold and other students in Morty’s math class trying to extract the secret of how to make concentrated dark matter out of Morty, Rick intervenes, pulling Morty out of class because of a “family emergency,” indicating that he’s now convinced Morty isn’t part of the simulation. He explains that they are in a simulation on board an alien space ship, the Zigerions’, and that they have been trying to scam the secret of how to make concentrated dark matter from Rick for years.

This time however, Rick says something that shows he may have a soft spot:

“But they made a big mistake this time, Morty: they dragged you into this. Now they’re gonna pay.”

IOW, Rick is especially angered this time because they endangered (or at least exploited) his grandson. Of course, knowing Rick, this might just be a reaction to the fact that he now realizes that the Zigerions are going around Rick to get at his secrets, and so he has to up the ante. But if there is any doubt that he has a soft spot for his grandson, there is the scene in which they goof around while collecting a bunch of CPU crystals (this is after they manage to escape the simulation by overloading the CPU and causing it to freeze, thereby giving them time to reach the edge of the simulation and jump off before it reboots). While giving Morty a nuggy, he says:

“Nothing wrong with just a little horse play every now and then, little fella.”

I like scenes like this because they reveal a hidden, more caring side to the character; makes him seem more human. It’s actually a motif I really like in a lot of characters in more or less any genre. I like characters whose ethics are questionable and whose compassion and empathy for others is barely even noticeable, but they surprise you once in a while with great displays of kindness and caring, with evidence of their humanity; it’s like the rarity of it makes it all the more sweet, causing one to like the character even more than characters who show signs of compassion and caring all the time. If you think this display of bonding between Rick and Morty isn’t really that great, I’d agree, but wait 'til we get to season 2–the first and last episode. This is just foreshadowing.

Now, parallel to this, we once again get to analyze Jerry’s character. Why all these opportunities to look into Jerry’s character? Well, like I said in the OP–Jerry is like Rick’s alter-ego–so if Rick is the main character (along with Morty), Jerry must receive just as much attention and development. And in this episode, Jerry’s polar opposition to Rick really shows. While Rick is suspicious to the point of paranoia, Jerry is gullible and oblivious as they come. The Zigerions discover Jerry in the simulation. While it was planned to have Rick, and possible Morty, in the simulation, Jerry somehow slipped in there. While Rick is wary of every flaw and glitch in the simulation (and there are tons!) Jerry simply accepts the most awkward and unusual occurrences, like a man reaching out to shake no one’s hand at a business meeting or “Earth Radio” playing “human music”.

The irony of Jerry’s life, which we saw in Anatomy Park, makes an appearance here as well. The irony in this case is that Jerry is so incredibly nervous about a sales pitch he is on his way to make even though, unbeknownst to him, it’s just a simulation (the same irony we saw in Anatomy Park also recurs here: trying too hard resulting in failure–Jerry tries to relax but becomes undeniably nervous during the pitch). As the plot unfolds, we see what is probably the greatest irony Jerry will ever experience in his life: he ends up selling his pitch “Hungry for Apples” (not hard when the simulated characters don’t seem to have “no” in their vocabulary), then goes home to his “wife” and makes love to her (while she remains perfectly still and doesn’t make a peep), later gets a promotion (after talking himself into getting fired and then re-hired), gets nominated for an award, and finally wins the award.

During the award speech, Jerry reveals something very interesting about his character. He says: “I am finally complete.” This indicates, and is totally consistent with his character throughout the series, that he depends almost entirely on external validation to feel good about himself. This is followed by the irony of all ironies: the simulation shuts down (not sure how, but Rick and Morty suddenly enter the simulation room with Jerry in the middle clutching at thin air where his trophy once was–so maybe Rick shut the simulation off). IOW, at the moment when Jerry attains ultimate fulfillment in his life, he’s hit with the fact that it was all a sham ( ← Hey! Shaym Aliens! ← Maybe that’s the play on words I was missing!).

It’s also interesting how oblivious Jerry is to the fact that all the miseries and highlights he experienced on this journey were completely brought about by himself. The example I’m thinking about is how he talked himself into getting fired and then talked himself into getting re-hire, promoted, and nominated for an award. Since his boss, being the limited simulation he was, could only respond with “yes,” all of Jerry’s questions and comments to him were pointless and of no consequence. Yet Jerry took those "yes"s seriously, and therefore interpreted them for being fired, being re-hired, being promoted, and being nominated. But he was clueless to the fact that all of this was self-induced and a product of his own interpretation. He has no idea of the power he holds within.

Finally, Rick and Morty discover that they are still within a simulation. They get home and Rick attempts to open his safe box in order to put the CPU crystals in. He punches in the code. Then the simulation shuts down. Turns out all the Zigerions wanted was the code to Rick’s safe box. (And apparently, Jerry was always in the outer simulation, not the inner simulation as it is shortly after this that Rick and Morty meet up with him).

But once again, this turns out to be yet another simulation. Not sure how, but this time Rick knows it’s a simulation. He tricks the Zigerions into blowing themselves up by revealing to a simulated Morty a fake recipe for concentrated dark matter: cesium, plutonic quarks, and bottled water. He instructs Morty on how to make it so that they can escape the Zigerions who are hot on their trail (concentrated dark matter, Rick says, is "a special fuel I invented to travel through space faster than anybody else). ← But really, it’s an explosive substance that will blow as soon as it’s made. Rick must have known this was a simulation because if he was wrong, they (Morty, Jerry, and himself) would all be dead as soon as Morty poured the water into the mix. Anyway, the simulation ends, Morty the simulation disappears, leaving just Rick and Jerry on the Zigerion space ship. They now have the secret to making concentrated dark matter, and after taunting Rick about being fooled so many times, they let him and Jerry go. But of course, the joke is on the Zigerions. Once Rick and Jerry are a safe distance away from the ship, the Zigerions concoct the recipe… only to explode as soon as the water hits the mixture.

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Now one thing that’s left unexplained is: how did Rick and Jerry get into the simulation in the first place. We are given no explanation of this. The episode opens with Rick dissecting a dead rat and expressing loads of suspicion about the authenticity of the world, including Morty (why he’d be dissecting a rat if it’s just a simulation is beyond me). I’m pretty sure Rick was convinced of Morty’s authenticity when he pulled him from class since he’d have no reason to do so if Morty was just a simulation serving the purpose of trying to extract the secret of how to make concentrated dark matter. A simulated Morty would not be able to reveal the secret and there’d be no point in trying to extract it out of him. On the other hand, Morty didn’t seem to even know what concentrated dark matter was–so why would Rick feel threatened by the prospect of Morty revealing how to make it–maybe it was just uncertainty, or maybe it was just the prospect of extracting any information from Morty period.

Anyway, I found no answers in my attempt to research this question: how did Rick and Jerry get into the simulation in the first place? But I did find something interesting that I didn’t notice before: early in the episode, Rick disposes of his and Morty’s clothes and dumps them into the sewer (the Zigerions can’t stand to look at nudity which offers Rick and Morty an excellent way to avoid being seen by them). But later, in that same simulation, we find Rick and Morty up on stage in their clothes (with some chain necklaces and backwards caps, etc.). Since Rick threw their clothes down the sewer, the clothes they are wearing on stage must be simulated clothes (unless they went into the sewer to grab them, but then why throw them into the sewer in the first place). Yet at the end, when Rick and Jerry are in a space pod on their way home, Rick is wearing clothes and Jerry is in his underwear. This has lead some on the internet to suppose that even in the end, Rick and Jerry are still in a simulation. ← Not sure about that one… I’d be willing to entertain a goof up on the part of the creators–you can’t always catch all the inconsistencies.

And finally, we get one last taste of irony in the post-credit scene: Jerry, again, attempts his sales pitch for “Hungry for Apples”–this time in the supposedly real world–and his audience ain’t full of “yes” men this time. In fact, he is fired. The irony is this: Jerry, this time around, didn’t seem nervous at all. He trusts that his sales pitch was tested in a “state of the art simulation”. ← Gullibility, even after being disillusioned, and another form of external validation. I guess the take home lesson for Jerry is: whether you try too hard because you’re so nervous or you breeze through it because you’re so confident, none of it matters if you’re dependent on external validation.

And there’s also the second post-credit clip: A drunk Rick comes into Morty’s room in the middle of the night, much like at the beginning of the pilot, supposedly after he gets home from his space adventure. He wakes Morty up telling him he’s a good kid only to suddenly spring on him with a knife to his throat shouting with an interrogating tone: “Are you a simulation?! Huh?! Are you a simulation?!” After a few seconds of this, Rick seems to be convinced, once again, that this Morty is the real McCoy, reassuring him one more time that he’s a good kid.

The last words out of Morty’s mouth before the episode finally ends are: “What a life.” ← Not sure if he means his own or Rick’s. But we do get an idea in this episode of what makes Rick Rick. We know by now that Rick is a very untrusting and quite paranoid person–very cynical and unimpressed about human nature–and in the last four episodes, especially this one, we know why. Rick’s life, as Morty seems to insinuate here (if indeed he’s not talking about himself), is full of danger and near death experiences, full of deception and tricks, full of people trying to double-cross and extort things from him. He lives in a world (several worlds) in which no one can be trusted–lies within lies within lies, like simulations within simulations within simulations–so much so that he goes to the lengths of threatening his own grandson with a knife to his throat; and why not? By now we realize that Morty could very well be a simulation.

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Finally, what are the springboards in this episode from which a philosophical discourse can happen?

  • Again, the irony of trying too hard: the opposite effect often results.
  • The theme of external validation vs. internal validation: can we really find fulfillment and completion through internal validation?
  • The old question of: how do we know if any of this is real? Is this a dream, the Matrix, a simulation?
  • How gullible are we, really? I mean, it’s one thing to label Jerry “stupid” because he’s fooled into believing “human music” is real, but don’t we all fall for things simply because we aren’t expecting deception? We often only question the authenticity of things when we come at it already suspicious. Rick only notices the flaws in the simulation because he doesn’t trust anything.
  • Trust: how can we really trust without certainty? Can we really blame Rick for interrogating Morty so aggressively when we know what he’s been through? Wouldn’t you be on the verge of “snapping” if you knew the chances of being deceived were extremely high?
  • The diamond in the rough character: Rick, teetering on the edge of psychopathy and paranoia, shows signs every now and then of actual feeling and a hint of humanity. Why do we like these characters more than those who always show feeling and humanity (or is that just me)?

^ Take your pick.

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And finally–really finally–here’s the lyrics to Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street, the song that played a couple times in the episode (after Jerry sold the slogan and during the end credits). Any relation to the themes of this episode?

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PS - Did anyone notice the misspelling of Shyamalan?

We shall “see”.

Indeed, Trixie, indeed.

BTW, have you talked to Chakra yet? He claims to have actually seen a whole new color (but can’t remember it).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ecYoSvGO60[/youtube]

Why am I doing this:

I’m going to start doing this:

Going back to Lawnmower Dog, there’s something I’m wondering:

When Ruben explodes all over the US and it starts raining blood, is this supposed to have religious connotation? What would you think if on Christmas it started raining blood? It’s exactly at that moment when Jerry decides to give up his ambitions for wholesome “connecting” at Christmas and just go with the flow. I’m wondering if he took it as a sign that if God wasn’t going to make this Christmas “traditional”, then who is he to try?

Just a thought.

Now back to M. Night Shaym-Aliens, there’s something I’m wondering:

The post-credit scene: Rick comes up to Morty’s room and let’s him know that he’s a good kid, followed by knife to the throat, followed by reiterating that he’s a good kid. I think the first show of affection (when he came stumbling into the room) was a setup. I think Rick, just coming home from the Zigerion’s now-exploded spaceship (and having finished his mickey) gets the drunken idea to test Morty just to be absolutely sure he’s not still in the simulation. He comes in acting all affectionate, hoping to lower Morty’s guard, and then pounces on him. The second show of affection, however, I think was genuine, almost like a confirmation to himself that this was the real Morty (not to be confused with the one true Morty :laughing:).

^ You never know with Rick. The minute he shows real human feeling, you gotta wonder what he’s up to.

He’s been afk for quite a while now, and the mods have removed my PM ability.