Doctor Who and Philosophy

by Courtland Lewis

  So, on our modified Grician theory, Post-Doctor Donna and DoctorDonna would be identical.

  Yay for us, right? The identity question is answered, right? . . . Not quite.

  What about total amnesia? After a severe injury, you might awake unable to remember a single day of your life. If you never regained your memory, the memory chain would be completely broken and on our new criterion that would mean you’d be, literally, a different person. But would you?

  To test your intuition on that, consider the following thought experiment inspired by Bernard Williams (1929-2003).23 In the “Human Nature”/“The Family of Blood” two-parter from 2007, the Doctor traps his memories inside the Chameleon Arch (a.k.a. his pocket watch) and “becomes” John Smith to hide from the Family of Blood. Assuming John Smith’s fictional stories about the Doctor don’t count as real memories, are John Smith and the Doctor, literally, different persons? Martha Jones, and the others in the show (including John Smith) certainly speak as though they are. But suppose the Doctor knew John Smith was going to be tortured by the Family of Blood. Would the Doctor say, “I’m not worried. I won’t even feel anything. John Smith won’t be me.” Probably not. Even if he thinks regaining his memories would erase John Smith’s, he’d probably still dread the upcoming pain because he believes, despite the memory loss, that he will feel it.

  I know I would! So unless your intuition is vastly different than mine, memory simply isn’t going to be useful in a criterion for personal identity over time. But if that won’t work, and the concept of “a soul” has been debunked, where else can we go?

  The Causal Nexus

  SUSAN: Is he really . . .

  FIRST DOCTOR: Me? Yes. I’m afraid so. Regeneration?

  FIFTH DOCTOR: Fourth.

  FIRST DOCTOR: Goodness, me, so there are five of me now!

  —(“The Five Doctors,” 1983)

  Even the First Doctor admits he’s literally identical to his regenerations. Memory can’t explain it, but there’s something else that connects his regenerations that could explain it: a causal chain. For any given moment in time, the condition of one’s body at that moment is mainly brought about, causally, by the condition of one’s body at the previous moment. This is especially true of one’s brain, where how it’s wired and firing one moment causally determines how it’s wired and firing the next. Since regeneration is a causal process, regeneration would not break that chain. So maybe it’s the fact that the Doctor’s regenerations are all linked together with a causal chain that accounts for his personal identity over time.

  Derek Parfit suggests this can account for your personal identity over time as well. But if this criterion is right, it should give us intuitive answers regarding personal identity, even in weird sci-fi circumstances. Recall “Journey’s End” when the Doctor channels his regenerative energy into his severed hand, and it grows into the New Doctor. This entire “meta-crisis” process is a causal one—both the Doctor and Donna explain it—and so by Parfit’s criterion, the New Doctor and the Tenth Doctor are, literally, the same person. But are they?

  The episode’s writer, Russell T Davies, is a bit ambiguous on this point. At Bad Wolf Bay, when Rose denies that they’re identical, the Tenth Doctor suggests they are merely similar, saying “He needs you; that’s very me.” But later, when Rose insists that “the Doctor is still you,” the Tenth Doctor replies, “And I’m him.” Their divergent answers to Rose’s later question about their final words seem to indicate that he was only being metaphorical—but it doesn’t matter. They can’t be, literally, the same person. Literal identity must pick out one and only one thing; otherwise, we’d land ourselves in contradictions—like we would if we suggested that the Tenth Doctor and the New Doctor are identical. The New Doctor isn’t a regeneration of the Tenth Doctor, so he’s not “later” in the Doctor’s time stream. So what one does, the other never does. But the Doctor can’t both be romantically involved with Rose and never have been; he can’t both regenerate into the bow-tie-wearing, Amy-Pond-adventuring, Eleventh Doctor and also live out the rest of his life in “Pete’s world” with Rose, no bow-ties, and never regenerating.

  To defend Parfit’s criterion one might suggest that, to preserve identity, an event must have the right kind of causation but the meta-crisis doesn’t have it. But why not? And what counts as the right kind of causation? Would tele-transporters—like the T-Mat in “Seeds of Death” (1969) or the transporters in “The Sontaran Stratagem” (2008)—preserve the right causal connection? If they don’t, “transporters” are really suicide machines—they kill you and create a replica at your destination. If they do, it’s possible to create more than one of you—this happened constantly on Star Trek—but again paradoxes ensue. It seems that causation isn’t going to supply us with the answer we need, either.

  The Whole Show

  Have you ever thought what it’s like, to be wanderers in the fourth dimension?

  —FIRST DOCTOR (“An Unearthly Child,” 1963)

  Maybe the answer eludes us because we’ve been asking the wrong question. Consider this:• Doctor Who, as a TV show, was a black and white kids’ show in the early 1960s—with horrendous special effects. In the late 1960s, it was a bit of a monster/detective show and the Doctor often wore costumes to fool his enemies. The early 1970s brought color and a James Bond feel—what with the Who Mobile (Betsy), the flying cars, and a regular “arch villain” (the Master). Tom Baker gave us a little more action/adventure and a season-long story arc (regarding The Key to Time). It was even a little scary at times, before it was “camped up” in the late 1970s. The 1980s was more hard core sci-fi and during one of the Colin Baker years, it was more like “Judge Judy” than anything else. It finished the decade as a show mainly dedicated to its hardcore fans, but when it was reincarnated in 2005, it was mainstream and even had respectable special effects.24 Yes, they all have the same name, “Doctor Who,” but how could they all be the same show—specifically, how could the new and the old shows be the same show?

  But when we think about this question, we realize it’s kind of silly. What do we mean by, “be the same show?” Are we asking about particular episodes—like “An Unearthly Child” (1963) and “The Big Bang” (2010)? If so, what are we asking about them? Whether they’re the same episode? Clearly they’re not. In order for the question to make sense, we must be asking whether they’re episodes of the same show. Thus “show” refers to a collection, a “set” of episodes that airs over a period of time. Asking “is it still the same show” queries whether the current episodes should be placed in the same set to which the old episodes belong.

  I think they should. The classic shows (from “An Unearthly Child” to “Survival,” 1989) all belong in the same set because there’s a causal chain that runs through them. Despite the hiatus, that causal connection remained unbroken when the show was revived in 2005. The changes were no more drastic than those that happened from season to season, on occasion, in the old days. There was even a 1990s movie to fill the gap. To boot, the new episodes are inspired by the old episodes, reference them, and are based on the same concepts: the Doctor, the TARDIS, Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, and sexy companions—some of whom have even returned from the classic shows, like Sarah Jane.

  Regardless of whether I’m right, the point is that we started with a bad question. Shows aren’t things that happen at particular times; they’re collections of things (episodes) that happen at particular times. Asking, “are the new and old shows the same show?” doesn’t appreciate this fact. We should be asking whether their episodes can rightfully be placed in the same set.

  Perhaps the same is true of persons. Perhaps persons don’t exist at particular moments, but instead are collections of things that exist at particular moments. If so, “Are the First and Tenth Doctor the same person?” is a misguided question. We should be asking whether they’re members of the set of objects that is the Doctor. What would make them members of the same set? Probably the same thing tha
t made their episodes, episodes of the same show—a causal connection and common elements. Since these are present, it seems that they are the same person; that is, they are members of the set of objects that is the Doctor.

  So the Doctor isn’t something that can exist at a particular place at a particular time; he’s not a three-dimensional object. Instead, he’s a four-dimensional object—a collection of three dimensional objects—stretched across time and space, held together by causal connections and common elements. The First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors are not “the same person,” but parts of the same person. Together, they make up the Doctor.

  We might say that the Doctor is a four-dimensional “time worm.”25

  Once again, for this theory to work, it’s going to have to remain intuitive, even in light of weird sci-fi examples. Consider again “Journey’s End,” where the New Doctor splits off from the original. The split still creates two persons, but the way we describe them will make much more sense now. They’ll both share many parts—in fact, they’ll have all the same parts up to the split. But since they diverge after that, they’re two different collections of objects and thus two different people—two different time worms.

  Since black and white make gray, you can see how the two Doctors share many parts but aren’t the same set of objects. Rose seems unsatisfied because she ends up with the New Doctor who she believes isn’t the man she originally met. But the New Doctor is a set of objects, the members of which include the “episodes” of the Doctor with which she had her original adventures. So she really has nothing to complain about.

  If persons don’t exist as three-dimensional objects, but are four-dimensional time worms, then our original question (“What makes you at ten and you now the same person?”) was ill-formed. You don’t exist like you think you do; neither you now nor you at ten are a person. You’re merely parts—time slices or “episodes”—of a person: a four-dimensional object that stretches from your birth to your death. Like the Doctor, we’re all wanderers in the fourth dimension.

  I Think, Therefore I Exist . . . I Think

  Go on, scan me. . . . I don’t exist. Therefore, you can’t kill me. . . . Brilliant!

  —TENTH DOCTOR (“Voyage of the Damned,” 2007)

  But we’ve been making one major assumption: that persons exist. Objections to the “four-dimentional time worm” theory, however, seem to entail that persons don’t exist at all. I know it sounds strange, but hear me out.

  Think about Doctor Who as a show again. Do Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures belong to that same entity? They’re related to the original, but are they related in the right way? And what about the K9 and Company Christmas special (1981)? What about “Curse of the Fatal Death” (1999)—that parody for the comic relief telethon where the Doctor starts off as Mr. Bean and regenerates five times in less than twenty minutes, once as Hugh Grant? What about Abducted by the Daleks, the “Straight-to-DVD spin-off film, in which four women . . . are captured by Daleks, groped by their plungers and forced to engage in soft porn shenanigans.” 26 What does it take for a spin-off to be a part of the original show?

  When you study this kind of stuff, you come to realize that the answers simply depend upon convention. Question: You have a small pile of sand, and you add one grain of sand at a time. At what point does the pile become a heap? Answer: there is no answer. It just depends how the situation is described—where the line is drawn. And there’s no right or wrong place to draw the line. Heaps aren’t discrete entities that “emerge” when you have the right amount of sand. “Heap” is just a word we use to describe collections of sand.

  What makes a collection of episodes “a show”? Answer: there is no answer. It depends on how the collection is described, and there’s no right way to describe it. On one description, Torchwood episodes are a part of Doctor Who; on another, they only belong to a separate entity called The Torchwood series. And neither description is right because “shows” don’t exist as discrete entities.

  What if a person-time-worm had a “spin-off”—a causally related but independent break from the original line? Given recent developments in cloning technology, such questions may not be far off. We could go round and round on this issue—but ultimately it’d seem to come down to a matter of description. So when is a collection of objects—of three-dimensional biological time slices—a person? Answer: There is no answer. It just depends on how the collection is described and there’s no right or wrong way to describe it. There’s a collection of atoms—a “body”—sitting here reading this book; that much is true. But the idea that the body reading this book is somehow tied to an independently existing discrete entity called “a person” is wrong. There’re only different, and equally valid, descriptions.

  If so, our original question was completely off the mark. But we’ve already discovered that souls don’t exist, and that persons can’t exist at specific moments in time. Is the idea you don’t exist at all any more radical? Honestly, it probably is. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true. If you don’t exist, things are much simpler. Both the Doctor’s and our regenerations raise far fewer questions. However, if this leaves “you” with an unsettled feeling, “I” understand. It might be one of those ideas that, even if we’re convinced by the arguments, we’ll never be able to accept it. Then again, maybe once “you” get used to the idea, “you” will like it—just like every new regeneration of the Doctor.

  Okay. I just reversed the polarity of the neutron flow ... so you can stop reading now.

  EPISODE 2

  Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey . . . Stuff

  The Science, Logic, and Other Really Cool Stuff of Doctor Who

  5

  Timey-Wimey Stuff

  PETER WORLEY

  People don’t understand time—it’s not what you think it is. It’s complicated—very complicated. People assume that time is a strict progression from cause to effect, but actually—from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint—it’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey . . . stuff.

  —TENTH DOCTOR (“Blink”)

  This is how the Doctor begins to explain the nature of time to Sally Sparrow in the exquisite story “Blink” (first broadcast in 2007), and Sally says to herself in response to the TV-screen Doctor, “Started well, that sentence.” “It got away from me, yeah,” replies the Doctor coincidentally.

  In this chapter, I’m going to try to finish the Doctor’s sentence that started so well.

  Vitruvian Man in the City of Death

  Is time travel possible? We could try to answer this question empirically or logically. An empirical fact is one that is open to scientific investigation. So if we ask whether time travel is possible and we try to answer it empirically then we’d need to ask whether the technology has allowed for it up to now or would allow for it in the future. In other words, will technology one day allow for a TARDIS to be built?

  A logical fact, by contrast, is one that we know to be true or false without the need for scientific investigation. So, even if technology allowed us to build a TARDIS, would it actually be possible for a TARDIS to work?

  Imagine that you’re hanging around the Doctor in Paris during the story “City of Death” (1979) and you manage to stow away in the TARDIS when he travels back in time. You step outside into a room, littered with Renaissance paraphernalia. You notice that among all the unfinished notes strewn about the place is a painting of a very familiar face, only it’s different than how you’re used to seeing it: you’re looking at an unfinished Mona Lisa, and you realize, with a wave of excitement, that you’re in the house of Leonardo Da Vinci. As you listen to the sound of footsteps coming towards you, you’re relieved to have worked so hard at your Old Italian (Florentine dialect) exam at school. As Leonardo enters the room you find you don’t need it as he says, “Who are you and what are you doing in my house?” in perfect English but with a bad Italian accent (it’s Doctor Who after all).


  You get into a conversation with the Maestro and you notice, spread out on the table, his design for one of his famous flying machines. You know that flight hasn’t been mastered at this time but you also know that in the future the Wright brothers will achieve it in 1903 and it’ll be commonplace by 2010.

  When you ask the Maestro if flight is possible he answers, “Of course . . .” and goes on to list all the reasons he has for thinking that flight can be achieved, mechanically, by humans. (You resist telling him that one of his flying machines, the hang-glider, will in fact work even though you know he’ll never get to see it for himself. The dramatic irony is moving and you feel something of the responsibility of a Time Lord).

  But when you ask him if one day someone will be able to make a ‘round-square’, he looks bemused and says, “That could never happen—it’s a contraddizione logica. The very definition of a square is such that it couldn’t contain roundness—if it did, it wouldn’t be a square. And the very definition of roundness is such that it can’t contain straight sides and right angles—if it did, it wouldn’t be round. This will never be true no matter how far in the future you find yourself.”

  “What about your Vitruvian Man, where you brilliantly use the figure of a man to describe a square and a circle. Isn’t that a round-square ?” You object tentatively, pleased with your reference, hoping that, at this point, he’s completed the Vitruvian Man. “That’s a square within a circle.” He corrects, clearly knowing what you’re talking about, to your relief. “My Vitruvian Man contains three concepts : the concept of a square, a circle, and the concept of within. The single concept of a round-square is simply impossible. Now leave me alone, I’m working!” He says, picking up his paintbrush. Then he looks at you with interested eyes and says, “Ah, but you have a very mysterious smile.” You run away quickly. (Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man was completed in 1487; his plans for the flying machine in 1488 and his Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) in 1503-1506. Have another look at the famous painting—do you recognize the smile?)