Wolverine and The Art Of Healing

Yeah yeah okay, so he's special. But along the lines of "[Pop culture icon] and philosophy", the series of books which I cut my philosophical teeth by, I thought I could extract some ethics and philosophical discussions out of Wolvie too. Subtly the thing that got to me was the matter of healing. So we know that basically Wolvie's cells regenerate. This way he doesn't die, and (conveniently, for plot purposes) ages only into his prime and no older. Smart old man, this Stan man.

Complete regeneration implies the state of perpetual freshness. This being a Wolvie movie, there was bound to be some scenes where we see his wounds close up almost instantly. Taken philosophically, this could be a representation of Wolvie the man, the being, and not just the physical body. And yet we saw, as we saw in previous movies, that this dude got an attitude problem and had a hard time trusting people. So this proves that Wolvie got scars too. He got emotional ones. I hope one line out of the entire movie is not much of a spoiler, but I think a line near the end of the movie hit it home for me. "His brain will heal, but his memory will not come back", was the line.

This line is interesting. See it from the dualist side, it says that memory is more than just cells in a brain. See it from the materialist side, it says that yes memory is just cells in a brain. The materialist wins early, by pointing out that when the brain cells regenerate they regenerate as fresh cells, and thus the information stored in old cells are gone. Double-whammy from the dualist will then point out that if motoric functions can be restored, then why can't the memory parts? Also, say that what keeps Wolvie alive is the regeneration of cells. That is to say that every once in a while cells are replaced by new ones. If this applies to the brain as well, wouldn't that mean Wolvie would forget old memories eventually, as the cells that hold them would be replaced by fresh ones? I'm not gonna drop the verdict myself on this one.

Technicalities aside, there is the soul to be discussed. I'm a dualist, I believe in souls. And as far as Wolvie's flick went, it seemed to me that Wolvie changed as a person during the course of the movie. The final moments of the movie propped forward two opposing sides of an argument. Does memory loss play the part of a reset button, clearing one's slate of mind back into a primal state, with only the most basic functions intact? Or is there something, beyond memories, that is still attached somewhere deep inside? I'll leave that argument alone, I think.

At some point in the beginning, though, it reminded me to move on, to keep looking forwards in life. I had a slightly buggy day today, and got big things lined up this week. This Sunday I'll play my first proper Sunday Service gig, and quite frankly right now it fills up the space in my head pretty much constantly. Going back to the wilderness, to cool my head under the stars is out of the question right now, just tonight it's about 7 degrees out there.

But the idea itself was enough to set me on my path again. Get a job. Find a girl. Don't let the bugs hold you down. Move on. Scars will come anew, and the past will catch up and bite you on the ass eventually. Shake 'em and trash 'em, but don't let them hold you back. Fight back, fight back, fight back. This life ain't easy, nobody ever said it was gonna be easy. But in fighting back, remember, you're not an animal.

Last point I want to make out of the movie: Ever wonder why we keep on fighting, keep on searching, keep on working, keep on digging, endlessly laboring and never finding? Maybe, like a wolverine, we got tricked, we fell from grace, and now at night we gaze and howl at the moon, for the beauty we can always see but can never touch again. Maybe.