"We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"/"Total Recall"

I absolutely LOVE both of these pieces of work. Although it states in the opening credits of “Total Recall” that it was based on the story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” I don’t really think that’s accurate. I think it would be better off stated that the ideas for the movie were adapted from the story. I say this because yes, the whole concept of “Recall” and the aspect of him waking up is pretty much the same but, after he leaves the office everything is different. That being said I do think that the story was a little more plausible and realistic than the movie. However, the movie is super cool and I understand that in order to make it interesting and enticing they had to create a more intense plot line. Along with the movie being more interesting, a huge part of those efforts was the casting of Arnold Schwarzenegger. I do think that this was a good call by the writers because he adds this whole other element to the story all together. In the story the man seemed kind of average and plain but you won’t expect that of an ex-secret agent. I think giving the movie some star power and an actor who is pretty bad-ass it made viewers want to see the movie more and like I said add that extra layer of character depth. (Also let’s not forget Arnold’s wild ability to pull of those corny one-liners)

I want to address the notion that artificial memories can be implanted into your mind. To me I think that is highly implausible. The human brain is one of the most unexplained objects in our known universe. We still struggle to do brain surgery to fix little things without messing up a key part of someone’s existence. I’d also like to point out how prominent of a disease Alzheimer’s is right now. Doctors and scientists still don’t even know how the disease is caused directly, why/how it progresses, and how it can be stopped/reversed. I think that it would be an amazing thing to have considering these problems and it would mean huge technological advances in the medical field. I think that if this became a regular, casual thing, there would be a lot of room for error and the risks would be too high. If those risk were reduced I still don’t think I could see the ethical benefit in all of this. I guess it could make people’s lives easier in a way but even then, there is something to be said about real things versus artificial things. I think this is true in all aspects that the original is always better than the artificial. If artificial memories were available, it would not be something I’d participate in.

“He awoke-and wanted Mars. The valleys, he thought. What would it be like to trudge among them? Great and greater yet: the dream grew as he because fully conscious, the dream and the yearning. He could almost feel the enveloping presence of the other world, which only government agents and high officials had seen.” – “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” Philip K. Dick