Inception: Movie to "celebrate" the start of new semester

In all seriousness, I am terrified by the pace time is moving: haven't I just started 2010 but why is today the last day of July 2010? At this rate, I'll be a grandmother before I realise it!! Sometimes I am wondering, like Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie, whether what happened around me were a dream after all. Is life itself a dream, a dream so real that we all think it is reality? Is some kind of devine force the architect behind all the images, feelings, occurrences that surround us everyday life?

I like Leonardo DiCaprio as a kid (like when I was in primary 3, 9 years old) - his acting in Titanic is just magnificent beyond words. And I as a kid actually thought he looked really handsome.

Handsome-ness!!!

More than 10 years have passed and now Leonardo DiCaprio looks a lot older, and the little kid who was puzzled about why Rose didn't seem to feel embarrassed stripping in front of a young, handsome artist has grown into a 22-year-old.

Now back to the movie Inception: it is yet another good science fiction I watched in recent times after Avatar. I like the way the scriptwriter let his imagination running wild and came out with this idea of multiple layers of dreams/subconscious. It is really rare to have dream within a dream, but I think some people may have experienced it. My cousin used to tell me about this dream she had: in her dream she has had candies and when she woke up she found real candies on her bed; she was so excited and then something happened (can't remember what exactly, something like falling off the bed maybe) and she woke up again, this time back to reality. Of course there wasn't any candy on her bed this time.

I do believe in multiple layers of subconscious. We commonly call rare but accurate feelings about something that is about to happen "sixth sense" or "gut feel" - but I think they are really just wisedom that we've accumulated over time through experience, except our brain couldn't bother formulating them properly to be stored in the conscious part and therefore stored them in a haphazard manner in the closet called subconscious. 

I've also read somewhere that our subconscious mind can store things for longer period than our conscious mind. Knowledge, skills, wisedom that we pick up unintentionally and without realising them may last for decades, waiting for the opportunity to resurface as "sixth sense" to help us in decision-making.

Now, what happens if the subconscious side of our brain can be intercepted and extracted? At the current state of science I don't see how this can happen in the next century, unless mankind make some kind of impossible breakthrough on understanding ourselves: how we think, make decisions, and learn from lessons. Arguably there are currently some ways to know what a person is thinking, through hypnosis, psychological tests etc ... at present we aren't anywhere near to completely understand how the conscious side of human brain works - the subconscious end is likely to be 100 times more complex.

Leaving the science aside, this movie also provoked thoughts (in me) about whether it is worthwhile living in a dream. There is no perfection in reality, perfection only exists in dreams. Would you be willing to spend your whole life living in an artificial dream world, even though you would have everything you wish for there? This question is strikingly similar to one that I've asked myself some time ago: nobody wants to go to hell, but if heaven really exists, and so is rebirth, would I choose heaven over continuing to live on earth as an ordinary man/woman? Ultimately, is a perfect world the best world to live in? In a perfect world, everyone is equal, nobody will go hungry or homeless, wealth is everywhere, there is no need to labour hard to earn a meagre income to survive like how some unfortunate cousins of ours work in some parts of the world. But would a life under such perfect circumstances be more meaningful than living in our present world, where we have to work hard to pursue what we hope for, with no guarantee that success will come after the sweat, and with sorrows and disasters looming at the corner, warning us to cherish what we've got today because nobody knows if they would still be here tomorrow?

Dream and reality are intertwined in the movie, enormous concentration is needed to follow the storyline without getting lost in all the actions and gunshots. In many ways, I admire the scriptwriter for putting in so much thoughts into the wonders of human brain that scientists are yet to discover.

If inception and extraction of thoughts become possible, well, I can imagine that would spell chaos and the eventual self-destruction of homo sapiens. The way nature works is that all individual human, beast, plant, bacteria are independent in "internal processing" of will, wants, and actions. If it becomes possible for technology to steal/implant thoughts into someone's head, human greed would eventually guide those in power to control human minds, we would never know whether a person is acting under his/her will or is on an idea implanted in him/her. The chaos that follow would be unimaginable, but the end is imaginable. Undoubtedly, the final chapter would be disastrous e.g. wars that wipe out the whole human race.

As much as I love the movie (and Leonardo DiCaprio!), I hope the brain extraction/inception technology not to become a reality. I would like my next generations to be still enjoying the freedom of forming thoughts and dreams as they wish, and not let anyone know about them if they don't want to.

If you ask me what I think of the last scene, I really hoped that the spinning thing topples, so that it's happy ending that Cobb is awaken from his dream and back to the reality and his family. But the director is not telling! He's leaving the guesswork to the viewers. Did Cobb wake up from his dream? Or has he sunk deeped into yet another layer of dream, which is identical to the expected reality (dream completes its loop, which means he can no longer differentiate between reality and dream unless he spins that thing)?

This is indeed a very creative movie!!!