The Metaphysics Of Lucy

Metaphysics of Lucy:

Although the neural science behind the brain transfiguration dramatized in the recent Luc Besson film Lucy has been debunked in multiple critiques and prior scientific literature related to cortical functionality, the concept of a human brain using only ten percent of its cerebral capacity still creates a stable narrative for furthering interest and inquiry into the limits of mental augmentation and the expansion of consciousness.

However, irregardless of the present scientific narratives regarding the framework and potential of neurological evolution, Besson raises a series of philosophical questions, social critiques, and aesthetic rearrangements in his recent film using the ten percent benchmark.

The plot of the film, entirely predictable from its trailer, follows the rapid neurological transformation of protagonist Lucy, played by Scarlett Johanasson. The bio-transformation, initiated by a botched attempt of Lucy to mule large quantities of a prenatal chemical, (known for its intimate relationship to fetus neurodevelopment) thrusts the naive Lucy into a kind of Matrix like state of hyper awareness coupled with a sudden utility of unrealized, innate cognitive and physiological abilities.

The usual follows: kicking ass, downloading metadata, transcending space/time, etc. My personal favorite expression of Lucy’s power was a phone call she made to her mother in which an intimate and profound dialogue emerged. I found this exchange, in contrast to the multiple sci-fi action sequences, extremely powerful in its ability to illustrate the beauty of raw human emotion and its natural desire for deep and meaningful connectivity. This scene, for me, was more indicative of the human potential than any other narrative inserted by Besson throughout the film.

But what I found most interesting in regards to the entire structure of Besson’s direction and script, was his ultimate recognition of the limits inherent to human spirituality in its current form. For Lucy’s ultimate destination was not grounded in Being, but rather distributed through a cloud like apparatus of immaterial information. For Besson, Lucy’s humanity was not enough to contain its own desire for expansion, and the apparent limits of human potential can only be transcended through its merger into a digital universe.

Nature becomes insignificant, and certainly any conception of God becomes irrelevant as well for Besson. Lucy, like other recent Hollywood productions dealing with the {alleged} approaching singularity, are slowly creating fragments of a new narrative in popular culture that centers around the replacement of Being with ‘being'; as the capacity for availing oneself into a kind of self-download incarnation.

The mixed messages of Besson, going between an activist for the natural world of biological processes and a propagandist for techno-capitalism and its potential to save humanity by downloading it created a bi-polar effect that rippled through its ending.