There is at least one series of events that we, your humble authors, cannot formulate a feasible explanation for in terms of the brain theory. The occur- rences in the season 2 episode “Unearthed” undermine our commitment to the brain theory. In this episode the teenage coma patient Lisa Donovan is taken off of life support, declared dead, and moments later, while a medical
team begins to remove her organs for donation, springs to life and begins reciting a numerical code in a strange voice. We learn that she is reciting alphanumeric code that is Chief Petty Officer First Class Andrew Rusk’s personal identification number conjoined with launch codes for intercon- tinental ballistic missiles.
Later we learn that Lisa and Rusk both died at 5:21 a.m. and that Rusk’s “energy” and memories entered Lisa’s body, bringing both of them back to life in Lisa’s body. We are never given specific details, but Rusk is implied to have gained this ability to inhabit others as a result of being in a submarine accident in which he was exposed to high levels of radiation for sixteen hours in conjunction with his later being treated with an unknown experimental radiation inhibitor. In any case, Rusk is somehow in Lisa’s body, much like John is in Olivia’s. However, unlike John, Rusk quickly takes over the girl’s mind and body and uses her body to exact revenge on his wife.
Rusk was murdered in what his murderer, Jake Selleg, claims is retribu- tion for Rusk’s spousal abuse. Selleg claims that Rusk violently beat his wife, Teresa Rusk, whom Selleg had befriended, and for that deserved to die. Fur- thermore, when Selleg murdered Rusk, he told Rusk that it was Teresa who was “sending him to hell.” Thus, believing that his own wife ordered Selleg to kill him, Rusk uses Lisa’s body to tie Teresa up and attempt to burn her alive. Though we might think that this is all explainable in terms of Rusk being a function of the brain(s) he inhabits, as in the case of Olivia and John, something different is going on with Rusk.
Olivia and John are united through a mechanical process that is con- trolled by Walter to a large extent, as their functional brains are physically connected and their functions synchronized. In contrast, Rusk is far away from both Lisa’s body and the freshly dead car accident victim he inhabits after being exorcised from Lisa’s body at the end of the episode. Given all that we know, it seems that the only thing that connects Rusk to his hosts is their incidental deaths overlapping with the time that he becomes dis- embodied. Moreover, there is no evident scientific explanation for Rusk’s body jumping. Rather, in the episode there is talk of personal “energy” and “souls.” In fact, the only explanation for Lisa’s personality remaining in her body at all after being dead for several minutes comes via Peter reciting a passage from The Tibetan Book of the Dead. That passage reads, in Peter’s translation, “Innermost subtle consciousness is ever present. It never leaves the body, even in death.” This is, of course, far from a clear explanation of what has happened and just leaves us more confused.
Taking the events of “Unearthed” seriously, we might consider that we were wrong about the brain theory underlying the Fringe mythology. Maybe the events surrounding Rusk, among other things, really suggest that some other theory is being endorsed. It is true that there are explicit depictions of people altering physical reality with their minds, which initially seem to defy naturalistic explanations. For instance, we see haunting documentary footage of three-year-old Olivia causing some sort of disturbingly intense light after Walter, whom we can hear off camera, fails to calm her down (season 1, “Bad Dreams). We later learn that, because she was upset, she set the room ablaze with her mind, leaving a charred room with a pristine corner where Olivia sat during the incident (season 2, “Jacksonville”). We also know of two other Cortexiphan trial subjects, twin sisters Susan Pratt and Nancy Lewis, who have similar pyrokinetic abilities: the former dies by self-immolation and the latter burns corrupt agent Sanford Harris to death before he can kill her and Olivia (season 1, “The Road Not Taken”).
Likewise, there is the mysterious method by which Walter and the remaining Cortexiphan survivors get to the alternate universe to retrieve Peter at the end of the second season: they simply stand in a circle in a theater, collectively concentrating, and are then somehow transported to the other world (season 2, “Over There, Part 1”). We learn that this travel between worlds is possible because Olivia is exercising her ability to “open a door” between universes; in the first instance the door is held open by the energies of the other Cortexiphan trial survivors, and it is later held open by the energy created by William Bell’s self-induced molecular disintegra- tion (season 2, “Over There, Part 2”). This might suggest that the travel between worlds has some explanation that is consistent with current phys- ics. However, we have no apparent explanation for the fact that Olivia can travel between universes with the power of her mind alone, as when she return to her universe for the second time. This is not explained in terms of physical mechanisms; she just takes Cortexiphan, gets in a sensory depri- vation tank, and somehow ends up in the counterpart tank in Walter’s lab (season 3, “Entrada”).17
Nonetheless, this may all be consistent with the brain theory, given that our minds are functions of our brains. In the show, all of these events are explained as true potentials of the human brain, aided by Cortexiphan treatments. Nina Sharp explains this, saying, “Doctor Bell theorized that the human mind, at birth, is infinitely capable . . . and that every force it encounters, social, physical, intellectual, . . . is the beginning of the process
he referred to as ‘limitation’—a diminishing of that potential.” Furthermore, she says that Cortexiphan “was meant to ‘limit’ that ‘limitation’—to prevent the natural shrinking of that brain power” (season 1, “Ability”). This is why Walter and Bell tested Cortexiphan on young children like three-year-old Olivia, because their brain’s potential had not yet been fully limited. Not- withstanding, we remain without an explanation for Rusk’s means of inhab- iting others. At this point, pending further information, all that we can do is speculate.
Thus we might entertain the theory that there is a third world that the episode with Rusk stands as a cryptic introduction to.18 Although this is
plausible, it is unlikely that even if there is a third world it would have a completely different basis for what persons are. Rather, there is evidence that whatever universe Rusk’s inhabitations are occurring in, it is one that is con- nected to the others in some way. In the episode, notice that the Observer is noticeable in the background as Olivia and Lisa’s mother speak outside of St. Brigid’s Church. And remember that he observes events that are significant to some overarching “pattern” of interconnected events.
With this “third world” theory behind us, we might speculate further that perhaps we are wrong to assume that psychologies or minds are func- tions of brains in the Fringe universe(s). Maybe we can survive even without brains. This would suggest that some other variation of the psychological theory of persons, but not the brain theory, is a core assumption of the Fringe mythology. We could then speculate even further that all of the business with brains and brain parts is, perhaps, owing to the plausible assumption that having functional brains is just one means of having a continuous psychology. However, then we are left wondering what it is that our psychology consists of. Energy? Souls? If so, how does that work? Where is this “energy” in our brains? As we have said, the answer to which theory of persons underlies the events of Fringe is open to speculation until we have more information. We must leave it at that for now and hope that Fringe Division will help us figure this out in episodes to come.
Notes
1. Good introductions to the philosophy of mind, philosophy of personal iden- tity, and philosophy of identity include, Keith Maslin, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007); Harold Noonan, Personal Identity (London: Routledge, 1989); John Perry, ed., Personal Identity (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2008); Michael Tooley, ed., Particulars, Actuality, and Identity over Time (Lon- don: Routledge, 1999).
2. Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, ed. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
3. Eric T. Olson, What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 27; David Degrazia, Human Identity and Bioethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Peter Van Inwagen, Material Beings (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990).
4. We should note that this theory does not imply “speciesism” regarding persons. That is, it does not entail the claim that only human beings are persons. Rather, the theory permits that the various genetic mutants, hybrids, and (apparently) alien beings of Fringe might also have personal identities of their own.
5. Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984). 6. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 2.28.9.
7. Ibid., 2.28.10. 8. Ibid., 2.28.1.
9. It is possible that the two universes are in fact spatially coincident and that per- haps the inhabitants of each are somehow psychologically blind to the features of the counteruniverse.
10. Recall that Olivia has a similar experience with Nick Lane, whom she met as a child during Cortexiphan trials and with whom she shares consciousness for a short time (season 1, “Bad Dreams”).
11. Since we are entertaining various theories of personal identity, it is worth not- ing that our employment of the name “Fauxlivia” is not meant to signify that Olivia’s alternate is any less real or lacking a distinctive personal identity. Accordingly, we also do not intend the usage of “Fauxlivia” to indicate that the character is somehow more or less immoral than Olivia.
12. It is implied that Olivia is “haunted” by an event in which she shot her estranged stepfather after he beat her mother. At the end of season 3 it remains open whether Fauxlivia has done the same and whether she too receives yearly birthday cards from her stepfather—whereabouts unknown—like Olivia.
13. The manner in which Olivia is able to travel between worlds and retain her iden- tity, sanity, and tie to her universe is reminiscent of the manner in which Desmond Hume time-travels, or “mind-travels,” in Lost (season 3, “Flashes Before Your Eyes”). Equally, Desmond’s need to have a “constant,” which for him is his lover Penny, in mind to retain his sanity and identity when traveling between times is echoed by Olivia’s holding her memories of Peter and Ella constant in order to reclaim her identity and get back home.
14. For example, see Mark Johnston, “Human Beings,” Journal of Philosophy 84 (1987): 59–83.
15. For the history of personality affective brain traumas and surgeries and examples of actual cases, see Jack D. Pressman, Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medi- cine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
16. It is worth noting that Walternate is not portrayed as being evil, nor should we presume that Walter and his universe are good, while the other is evil. Recall that, unlike Walter, Walternate seems to have rigid moral boundaries that guide his decisions. For instance, in the season 3 episode “Immortality” we learn that he is adamantly opposed to testing on children. When Cortexiphan trials appear to have a more marked effect on younger test subjects, the mention of testing on children is quickly met with a stern objection from Walternate: “No children. That is not an option.” Later in the same epi- sode he confides in his mistress, Reiko, “If you had asked me a week ago, I would have told you that I would sacrifice anything . . . to save our world. But in fact, there are lines I simply cannot cross.”
17. There are various indications that Olivia needs to be in a heightened emotional state in order to traverse universes. Accordingly, having heightened emotions is sup- posed to be what explains Alice and Dereknate Merchant’s coability to begin to traverse whatever barrier exists between the universes (season 3, “6B”).
18. Speculation of a third world is mentioned at “Unearthed,” Fringepedia.net, http:// fringe pedia.net/wiki/Unearthed.
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