Question On The Meaning Of Reality In Christopher Nolan's Movie Inception

What is reality? Reality is the particular amount or collection of all that is concrete and existent. According to Plato, Athenian philosopher, true reality could not be found through the senses, but through phenomena. He described phenomena being insubstantial and weak forms of reality. He also believed that they do not represent an object's quality of having existence or substance.

The movie Inception, produced by Christopher Nolan in 2010 was and is a huge hit and won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The movie is considered to have close resemblance with “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato. The two famous works share similar aspects and features in their themes. The highly complex movie does not only explore the many different natures of the human mind and the thought of reality but it also makes you wonder about your own life.

What is the nature of reality? According to a definition, “The true nature of reality is found in the intelligence that observes and expresses itself through the physical world.” So in other words, the true nature of reality is purely tied to ones’ awareness and consciousness. The pure awareness humans have is what exists on even after when physical forms fade away. In Inception, several unique techniques are being used when it comes to the nature of reality and the concepts of reality. Christopher Nolan bring in the concept of dreams and how one dream can effect another dream is a broad idea throughout the movie. Dreams and realities are complex ideas and conceptual with endless possibilities and outcomes. Dreams, illusions, and reality are just a matter of perspective and can be debated against, which is why the movie Inception, till today, has been a major topic of debate amongst philosophers and movie critics.

In Plato's “Allegory of the Cave”, the cave, in which the prisoners have lived in their entire lived, represents the obscurity and the ignorance the prisoners have on their world, which they are convinced to be the “real reality” because that's all they see and know. The prisoners are not only ignorant but chained and have their minds fixed on the shadows on the wall. They are not aware that the shadows on the wall which are being produced by a fire behind their backs. For all the prisoners know and see, the shadows in front of them are the only forms of reality they know. Throughout the movie, numerous similarities between the “Allegory of the Cave” are being shown.

Towards the end of the movie for example, Cobb, who is played by Leonardo DiCaprio, has similar beliefs as the prisoners in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and starts to believe that the dream world he is in is his only reality and the only way to separate dream and reality from each other is spinning the top. The dream world that the characters, in the movie, are restricted and where they are in a state of unawareness, is closely connected to the allegory of the cave in which the prisoners are confined in. Another striking similarity is when Cobb confronts Mal saying, “You are just a shade of my real life”, and lets her acknowledge that she is only a shadow of reality, just like how Plato describes the shadows in the cave being the only “reality” known to the prisoners.

René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. He pointed out that, according to the rule of logic, we as humans can never be certain if we are dreaming or not. One cannot use their subjective thoughts and feelings as evidence when it comes to proving whether we are dreaming or not. This issue is a classic philosophical problem and the issue was first suggested by Plato but in reality it was articulated by René Descartes himself. Descartes questioned our experience of reality and through this he created one piece of absolute certainty, God. With this certainty he was able to eliminate doubts, ensure existence, come to the conclusion that our thoughts were our own, and be certain that our senses were not able to deceive us. Like René Descartes, Inception showed how Cobb was able to create his own personal totem to help him ensure that reality was reality and not a dream world.

Although many philosophers throughout the centuries have tried to solve this major philosophical problem, all have not succeeded. One simply cannot be confidant that one is not dreaming; in fact, it appears that one cannot even know.