Title:

Becoming John Malkovich

: 1263

Summary: The fundamental question is "whose brain is it, anyway"? Does John Malkovich OWN his brain?

Key phrases: philosophy, mind, ethics, robot, Turing, automata, cognitive, psychology, physics, science, culture, power, technologies, virtual, ontology, quantum mechanics, epistemology, AI, artificial intelligence, Lasch, Althusser, narcissism, dream, consciousness, machine, superman, art, artist, cognitive, society

Write-up Body: A quintessential loser, an out-of-job puppeteer, is hired by a firm, whose offices are ensconced in a half floor (literally. The ceiling is about a metre high, reminiscent of Taniel's hallucinatory Alice in Wonderland illustrations). By sheer accident, he discovers a tunnel (a "portal", in Web-age parlance), which sucks its visitors into the mind of the celebrated actor, John Malkovich. The movie is a tongue in cheek discourse of identity, gender and passion in an age of languid promiscuity. It poses all the correct metaphysical riddles and presses the viewers' intellectual stimulation buttons.

A two line bit of dialogue, although, forms the axis of this nightmarishly chimerical film. John Malkovich (played by himself), enraged and bewildered by the unabashed commercial exploitation of the serendipitous portal to his mind, insists that Craig, the aforementioned puppet master, cease and desist with his activities. "It is MY brain" - he screams and, with a typical American finale, "I will see you in court". Craig responds: "But, it was I who discovered the portal. It is my livelihood".

This apparently innocuous exchange disguises a couple of really unsettling ethical dilemmas.

The fundamental question is "whose brain is it, anyway"? Does John Malkovich OWN his brain? Is one's brain - one's PROPERTY? Property is typically acquired somehow. Is our brain "acquired"? It is clear that we do not acquire the hardware (neurones) and software program (electrical and chemical pathways) we are born with. But it is equally clear that we do "acquire" both brain mass and the contents of our brains (its wiring or irreversible chemical modifications) by means of understanding and expertise. Does this method of acquisition endow us with property rights?

It would appear that property rights pertaining to human bodies are fairly restricted. We have no correct to sell our kidneys, for instance. Or to destroy our body via the use of drugs. Or to commit an abortion at will. However, the law does recognize and strives to enforce copyrights, patents and other forms of intellectual property rights.

This dichotomy is curious. For what is intellectual property but a mere record of the brain's activities? A book, a painting, an invention are the documentation and representation of brain waves. They are mere shadows, symbols of the real presence - our mind. How can we reconcile this contradiction? We are deemed by the law to be capable of holding full and unmitigated rights to the Items of our brain activity, to the recording and documentation of our brain waves. But we hold only partial rights to the brain itself, their originator.

This can be somewhat understood if we had been to take into account this Post, for instance. It is composed on a word processor. I do not own full rights to the word processing software program (merely a licence), nor is the laptop I use my property - but I posses and can physical exercise and enforce full rights concerning this Post. Admittedly, it is a partial parallel, at finest: the laptop or computer and word processing software program are passive elements. It is my brain that does the authoring. And so, the mystery remains: how can I own the Write-up - but not my brain? Why do I have the correct to ruin the Write-up at will - but not to annihilate my brain at whim?

One more angle of philosophical attack is to say that we rarely hold rights to nature or to life. We can copyright a photograph we take of a forest - but not the forest. To decrease it to the absurd: we can own a sunset captured on film - but by no means the phenomenon thus documented. The brain is natural and life's pivot - might this be why we can't totally own it?

Wrong premises inevitably lead to wrong conclusions. We frequently own natural objects and manifestations, such as those related to human life directly. We even problem patents for sequences of human DNA. And individuals do own forests and rivers and the particular views of sunsets.

Some scholars raise the problems of exclusivity and scarcity as the precursors of property rights. My brain can be accessed only by myself and its is one of a type (sui generis). Accurate but not relevant. One can't rigorously derive from these properties of our brain a proper to deny other people access to them (ought to this turn out to be technologically feasible) - or even to set a cost on such granted access. In other words, exclusivity and scarcity do not constitute property rights or even lead to their establishment. Other rights may possibly be at play (the correct to privacy, for instance) - but not the appropriate to own property and to derive economic rewards from such ownership.

On the contrary, it is surprisingly straightforward to believe of many exceptions to a purported natural proper of single access to one's brain. If one memorized the formula to cure AIDS or cancer and refused to divulge it for a reasonable compensation - surely, we really should believe entitled to invade his brain and extract it? Once such technologies is accessible - shouldn't authorized bodies of inspection have access to the brains of our leaders on a periodic basis? And shouldn't we all gain visitation rights to the minds of excellent people of science, art and culture - as we do nowadays gain access to their houses and to the Goods of their brains?

There is one hidden assumption, although, in both the movie and this Post. It is that mind and brain are one. The portal leads to John Malkovich's MIND - However, he keeps talking about his BRAIN and writhing physically on the screen. The portal is useless without having JM's mind. Indeed, one can wonder no matter whether JM's mind is not an INTEGRAL part of the portal - structurally and functionally inseparable from it. If so, does not the discoverer of the portal hold equal rights to John Malkovich's mind, an integral part thereof?

The portal leads to JM's mind. Can we prove that it leads to his brain? Is this identity automatic? Of course not. It is the old psychophysical question, at the heart of dualism - still far from resolved. Can a MIND be copyrighted or patented? If no one knows WHAT is the mind - how can it be the subject of laws and rights? If JM is bothered by the portal voyagers, the intruders - he surely has legal recourse, but not via the application of the rights to own property and to benefit from it. These rights present him with no remedy due to the fact their subject (the mind) is a mystery. Can JM sue Craig and his clientele for unauthorized visits to his mind (trespassing) - IF he is unaware of their comings and goings and unperturbed by them? Moreover, can he prove that the portal leads to HIS mind, that it is HIS mind that is Becoming visited? Is there a way to PROVE that one has visited Yet another's mind? (See: "On Empathy").

And if property rights to one's brain and mind had been firmly established - how will telepathy (if ever confirmed) be treated legally? Or mind reading? The recording of dreams? Will a distinction be produced between a mere visit - and the physical exercise of influence on the host and his / her manipulation (comparable questions arise in time travel)?

This, precisely, is where the film crosses the line between the intriguing and the macabre. The master puppeteer, unable to resist his urges, manipulates John Malkovich and lastly possesses him totally. This is so clearly wrong, so manifestly forbidden, so patently immoral, that the film loses its urgent ambivalence, its surrealistic moral landscape and deteriorates into Yet another banal comedy of scenarios.