Book Review: The Philosopher at the End of the Universe by Mark Rowlands

AUTHOR: Mark Rowlands
TITLE: The Philosopher at the End of the Universe
PUBLISHED BY: Ebury Press, London, in 2003.

Rowlands introduces the reader to philosophy using recent science fiction movies to illustrate the problems he has chosen to discuss. The discussions are serious, but the tone of the book is irreverent; there are laughs for both newcomers and old hands. [Note: the title of the book was no doubt inspired by Douglas Adams's comic science fiction novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.]

The Introduction identifies a new genre: "Sci-phi is the genre that deals with philosophical issues, disputes, problems and arguments through the medium of science fiction". Each chapter treats one or two sci-fi movies as sci-phi.

In his first chapter, FRANKENSTEIN - Philosophy and the Meaning of Life, Rowlands argues that the problem of the meaning of life is the central problem of philosophy. At the end of each subsequent chapter he relates that chapter's discussion to this central problem. This approach is bold, given that Rowlands is an academic and the problem of the meaning of life is usually ignored in academic philosophy. However, my reaction was to say "Of course!" For too long philosophy has been treated as the handmaiden of science; its true scope is much wider.

What is the problem of the meaning of life? Rowlands presents it as an incompatibility between our 'inside' view of ourselves as self-important centers of our own purposeful worlds, and our 'outside' or scientific view of ourselves as merely another transient species of life in the long history of a cold , uncaring and ultimately purposeless universe. It cannot be that both views are true, yet both seem necessary, and this makes human life absurd. All the big philosophical problems arise from such clashes between an inside and an outside, Rowlands suggests.

The experience of the monster in the movie Mary Shelley's Frankenstein illustrates the absurdity of human life. It has no say in its own creation, it finds the world not only uncaring but actively hostile, and it is driven by irresistible needs (for revenge and companionship) which it ultimately finds unsatisfiable and meaningless.

Chapter 1 also has an interesting discussion of the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus, who offended the gods and was punished by being given the need to keep rolling a boulder to the top of a hill even though it immediately rolled back down again. This unsatisfiable and meaningless need has been seen (by existentialist philosopher Albert Camus) as a metaphor for the absurdity of human striving.

It should be noted that Rowland's approach to the meaning of life is far from being the only possible one.

Chapter 2, THE MATRIX - Can we be Certain of Anything? presents a series of arguments for scepticism, the claim that certainty is unavailable to us. We see how the 17th century philosopher Rene Descartes failed to defeat scepticism. Descartes argued that as long as it was conceivable that all his beliefs about the world were false because they were placed in him by an "evil demon" then he must treat them as strictly uncertain. But he went on to claim that "I think, therefore I am" was certain because if he did not exist as a thinking thing he could have neither true nor false beliefs. This certainty was undermined however by critics contemporary with Descartes and by many others since.

The situation of the character Neo in The Matrix , before he is awakened to reality, is like that of someone being fed false beliefs by an Evil Demon - or an Evil Computer in Neo's case.

This chapter also has a section on the link between scepticism and idealism, the theory that the world is purely mental in character.

The problem discussed in Chapter 3, TERMINATOR I & II - The Mind-Body Problem, originated with Descartes' attempt to solve the ancient problem of scepticism. Descartes argued that the world is made up of just two fundamentally different substances: mind and matter. The mind-body problem is how to account for the apparent truth that mind and body causally interact. That is, if mind and body are fundamentally different, how does mind make body move and body make mind have experiences?

The relevance of the Terminator movies to this problem comes from Rowlands' side-stepping of the question of the nature of consciousness. Instead he concentrates on the rather different (but nevertheless interesting) question of how intelligence is to be defined. Then he moves to the question of whether a machine can truly be intelligent. He clearly rejects dualism (the theory that there is both mind and matter) in favour of the theory that mind can be accounted for in purely material terms.

However, a huge difficulty for materialism is to describe consciousness in purely material terms. When we open someone's skull we can see and describe their brain (the outside) but we cannot see nor describe their conscious mind (the inside).

Chapter 4 is TOTAL RECALL & THE SIXTH DAY - The Problem of Personal Identity. What is it that makes you the same you over time? What is it that makes the thirty-something year old Jim Biancolo essentially the same person as the ten year old Jim Biancolo? Such is the problem of personal identity.

The complicated plot of Total Recall has us wondering just who the heck is the real Big Arnie. The simpler plot of The Sixth Day asks whether a clone of Big Arnie can be the same person as the original, and, if there are several clones of the same original, can any of them be Big Arnie?

There are reasons for rejecting theories that what it is that makes you you is your soul, or your body, or your brain. There are also reasons for rejecting the theory that it is your memories that make you you, but Rowlands argues for the memory theory as the least weak one available.

Is every event that happens determined (made necessary) by what has happened before it? The theory that answers this question in the affirmative is known as determinism. The scientific ('outside') account of the world is deterministic. But where does this leave our 'inside' assumption that we have free will, that there is nothing necessary about the decisions we actually make? These are the matters discussed in Chapter 5, MINORITY REPORT - The Problem of Free Will.

Let's put this problem another way. Suppose there is a person, perhaps God, or perhaps a psychic human, who knows what will happen in the future. Where would such knowlege leave our assumption that we have free will? If we truly have free will, if there is nothing necessary about the decisions we make, then it cannot be known what we will do in future. If it can be known, then we do not have free will. The two are incompatible - or are they?

In Plato's book The Republic, we find the legend of The Ring of Gyges. Gyges, a shepherd, finds a strange ring which, when he puts it on his finger, makes him invisible (no doubt Tolkien read his Plato). Gyges immorally uses this power to seduce his queen and overthrow his king. But what exactly is it that makes immoral behaviour immoral? Why should Gyges not have behaved as he did? Chapter 6, HOLLOW MAN - Why be Moral? considers a range of answers to this question.

Now, suppose we have settled the question of why we should be moral. Who should we moral towards? What sorts of things should be included in the set of things that are worthy of our moral consideration? Chapter 7, INDEPENDENCE DAY & ALIENS - The Scope of Morality, explores this surprisingly complicated question in an admirably clear way.

Chapter 8, STAR WARS - Good and Evil, considers the question of the nature of evil. Is evil a presence or an absence (the absence of good)? Interestingly, the Christian tradition has no fiirmly settled position on this question. Religious philosophers have mostly wanted to say that evil is merely an absence (they have wanted to say this because if evil is a presence then God must have created it and be responsible for it). But what might be called the popular religious traditon has strongly tended to see evil as a presence. The Star Wars movies treat both good and evil as presences, as things that are equally real. "Use the force, Luke." "Come over to the dark side, young Jedi."

The final chapter is BLADE RUNNER - Death and the Meaning of Life. One way of understanding the movie Blade Runner is to see it as a confrontation between creatures (the androids) that must die and know they must die and their creator. The moving final scene lends support to this idea. But is death a bad thing, and, if so, why? Rowlands takes us quite deeply into these questions, asserts a definite answer, and relates his answer to his treatment of the meaning of life.

I found this book well worth reading, though I seldom agreed with Rowlands' conclusions. There is much interesting detail that I haven't mentioned. The irreverence and novelty of Rowlands' approach put a sweet coating on the somewhat bitter pill of his arguments.