The Philosophy of Rick and Morty

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?
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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.

Have you been abusing your PM privileges, Trixie?

Why do I keep thinking Mork and Mendy? :confused:

You know, James and Trixie, I’ve been thinking:

I think the color purple is proof that the brain can invent new colors. In fact, any non-primary color is. See, the eye can only really see three colors: red, green, and blue. In order for the brain to mix these colors and get things like orange, yellow, brown, and yes, purple, it has to create new ones out of the primary three.

It has to invent the experience of seeing a color that would make one behave and speak as though it saw a color mid-way between red and green (for example). There is no color receptor in the eye for yellow, but if the brain receives the right amount of signal from the red receptors and the right amount from the green receptors, it will produce the visual experience of seeing yellow.

Purple was an especially tricky one for the brain to create because it is stimulated by both the red receptors and the blue receptors in the eye, and if you look at any ordinary linear color spectrum, you find that exactly mid-way between red and blue, you have a kind of yellow-ish/green. But this color is already produced by the brain as a mix of a certain amount of red and a certain amount of green. So it is already spoken for. In order to invent a new color, the brain had to somehow come up with something that actually looks like a mix of red and blue. That way, the organism can distinguish between when it is seeing a mix of red & green versus a mix of red & blue. It pulled it off with purple. Somehow, purple looks exactly mid-way between red and blue without being a yellowish/green. The brain can invent whatever experience it wants. The only condition is that the neural circuitry for such an experience causes behavior and speech as if the organism was having that experience.

This is the only reason we can draw the color spectrum as a circle–the brain invented two colors that stand mid-way between red and blue.

I know one of them.

:laughing: [size=50]…yeah right…[/size]

Btw, detecting and naming a color (or anything else), is not “inventing”, but “discovering”.

It’s not even discovering, it’s just naming.

Some cultures have the same word for green and blue. They can obviously see the difference between grass and sky, they just denote them with the same word.

English speakers see red and pink as different colours. Russians do too, but they have exactly the same with blue - navy and sky blue are not different shades, but different colours.

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. :slight_smile: