Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
PHI 3038
Film as Philosophy
Limitless
What if you could know something about anything in just a number of seconds? Imagine a world where just by reading or listening to a particular language for just a few seconds, you would instantly become fluent in that language. What if you could finish a good assignment, paper or a work file in an hour? What if you could read some of the most complex texts in a number of minutes and understand them? Imagine a world where there is no limit to what you can know. Imagine that when anyone ever asks you something, you have an answer for it. Imagine having no difficulty to learn and understand things. What would you do with all this knowledge? Do you think your life would be easier and maybe even more exciting, or do you think that by knowing everything about anything without any effort in order to know it, you would be losing some value in life? Neil Burgers recent film Limitless makes its audiences ask such questions by envisioning their perfect selves. The film centres around Edward Morra, a normal human being struggling to make ends meet as a writer. However, this all changes once Morra is given a top secret drug which has the power to help him use 100% of his brain, unlike the usual 20%. Thus the pill helps Morra to become the perfect version of himself without any limitations, hence the title limitless. Throughout the film, Burger lightly portrays major philosophical themes, namely the power of memory, the continuous struggle of humans to become superhumans and lastly the power of knowledge. The first evident theme which Burger takes on in the film is the theme of memory. We are all capable of remembering experiences and events which are not happening now, but rather which have happened in the past. We all have good memories which we cherish and maybe memories which we wish we could forget or never happened in the first place. We remember what happened yesterday, a week, month, and a year from today. We remember what we did in certain situations, what we said, saw, heard and read. But how much do we 1
Eddie Morra, cited in Limitless Quotes: Clever but Flawed in Movie quotes and more <http://www.moviewquotesandmore.com> [accessed 11 November 2011]
2 3
Ibid., Ibid.,
Saint Augustine, cited in Augustine of Hippo, Confessions of Saint Augustine, Mobi Classics pp 1300.
Martin Heidegger, cited in James Phillips, Time and Memory in Freud and Heidegger: An Unlikely Congruence in Klinikum <http://www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de> [accessed 11 November 2011]
6
Richard Rorty, cited in Janine Rider, The Writers Book of Memory an Interdisciplinary Study for Writing Teachers (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc, 1995), p 62.
7
Aristotle, cited in Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy Greece and Rome, (London: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, 2003), p 287.
8
Eddie Morra, cited in Limitless Quotes: Clever but Flawed in Movie quotes and more <http://www.moviewquotesandmore.com> [accessed 11 November 2011]
9
Ibid.,
10
Friedrich Nietzsche, cited in Robin A. Brace, The God is Dead Man Died in a State of Complete Insanity but Christianity Lives On! in UK Apologetics <http://www.ukapologetics.net> [accessed 12 November 2011]
11
Eddie Morra, cited in Limitless Quotes: Clever but Flawed in Movie quotes and more <http://www.moviewquotesandmore.com> [accessed 11 November 2011]
12
Francis Bacon, cited in Richard D. Brown, Knowledge Is Power: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 1700-1865, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p 3.
13 14
Michel Foucault, cited in Sara Mills, Michel Foucault (London: Routledge, 2003), p 69.
Melissa, cited in Limitless Quotes: Clever but Flawed in Movie quotes and more <http://www.moviewquotesandmore.com> [accessed 11 November 2011]
Bibliography
Limitless Quotes: Clever but Flawed in Movie quotes and more <http://www.moviewquotesandmore.com> [accessed 11 November 2011] Nietzsches Superhuman in MSU <http://www.msu.edu> [accessed 12 November 2011] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions of Saint Augustine, Mobi Classics pp 1-300. Carolinne White, The Confessions of St Augustine, (London: Frances Lincoln Limited, 2001), pp 78-80 Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy Greece and Rome, (London: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, 2003), p 287. James Phillips, Time and Memory in Freud and Heidegger: An Unlikely Congruence in Klinikum <http://www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de> [accessed 11 November 2011] Janine Rider, The Writers Book of Memory an Interdisciplinary Study for Writing Teachers (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc, 1995), pp 60-62. Richard D. Brown, Knowledge Is Power: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 17001865, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p 3. Robin A. Brace, The God is Dead Man Died in a State of Complete Insanity but Christianity Lives On! in UK Apologetics <http://www.ukapologetics.net> [accessed 12 November 2011] Sara Mills, Michel Foucault (London: Routledge, 2003), p 69.