Introduction
In the understanding established by Heidegger, technology is neither an involvement by humans nor a way to justify the end. The two approaches taken by Heidegger result in a different definition associated with technology because contrary to the anthropological and instrumental perspectives used in technology, the truth remains hidden. Both the anthropological and instrumental approaches, as shown by Heidegger, remain a concept that requires a deeper understanding. Technology and the objects used in its realization are built and worked by humans; therefore, they are means for ends; hence the essence attributed to technology is far from technological. The essay establishes the relation between the technology in the Tenet film, and the analysis Heidegger makes concerning technology.
Understanding Heidegger’s meaning behind the term Ge-stell
Heidegger’s perspective on the essence of technology, as it relates to modern times, portrays what he refers to as Ge-stell. Ge-stell, a distinguished way of thinking, conceives that both humans and nature relate in what is known as standing-reserve (Heidegger, 2012, 45). Therefore, this perspective helps to minimize the universe to a manageable reserve that technology can quickly put to use through the assistance of calculative thinking (Rauno and Leena, 2021, 2). The essence established by Heidegger shows that through calculative thinking, a forest becomes a paper factory’s reserve and a river becomes a power station’s reserve.
The concern by Heidegger about modern people is that they generally focus on others, themselves, and nature as objects of use. The translation to the concept is that everyday people only focus on how they can use others, themselves, and characters efficiently to achieve efficiency (Rauno and Leena, 2021, 3). By disliking the familiar way people adopted interactions between machines, nature, and other people, Heidegger came up with the name Ge-stell (enframe) as the best way to illustrate the way people engage with the world. Therefore, it becomes clear that people’s mindset was a general way to show how inauthentic people were (Heidegger, 1977, 53). Furthermore, it showed how technology structured people’s experiences, values, ways of engaging with the world, and attitudes.
The concept in the film the Tenet
The central concept in the film revolves around objects and people having their time inverted. In the movie, the idea is founded on the physicists and theorists John Wheeler and Richard Feynman. Being subjects whose time can be reversed, Wheeler and Feynman’s notion is referred to as a way of showing that positrons can be electrons that can move backward in a frame of time (Hunt, 2020, n.p.). Therefore, what comes out of the film is the notion that as people move backward, a possibility exists that they could co-exist alongside their former selves with chances of them colliding with their former selves (Shaw-Williams, 2020, n.p.). From the theory, the argument placed by Wheeler and Feynman is that with positrons existing as natural phenomena and having structural similarities to electrons, they can be marched backward through time to co-exist along with their former self (Hunt, 2020, n.p.). The possibility of this hypothesis came from the idea that structurally, positrons are a mirror image of electrons.
The theory by Wheeler and Feynman is scientifically sound; however, caution is called for since the physicists in the film are not literary arguing that the universe is filled with particles that travel through time. In science, it is fundamental that positrons are objects that move forward in time. Through the theory, Shaw-Williams (2020, n.p.) shows the view of Wheeler and Feynman is a mechanism through which people’s interpretation of positrons and electrons is seen. The theory is therefore seen in terms of particles and anti-particles with objects and people being inverted.
How the film Tenet relates to Heidegger’s understanding of technology
Ge-stell, a human concept established to present a different way of thinking, moves away from the typical mindset that shows people and nature are objects of use. The director Christopher Nolan brings out the notion that while it differs from the standard concept of how positron travel, the film still makes it known that people use everything surrounding them for their benefit (Hunt, 2020, n.p.). Efficiency is the fundamental idea being played within the film, Tenet. Hunt (2020, n.p.) illustrates that the mysterious organization that recruits the protagonist uses the technology to stop a possible World War III on the horizon. The notion coming from the film brings out the understanding that the particles and anti-particles have to be used to contribute to the efforts being made to prevent the possible war from taking place.
As established, Heidegger sees people’s perspective as being structurally fixated on what they have to benefit from concerning fellow people and the surrounding nature. While Heidegger argues that it becomes possible to see resources as manageable through calculative thinking, the film contradicts the perspective by showing that through inversion, it is possible to move backward in time. Moving backward is essential since it uses this resource to safeguard the world from a potential upcoming war. To achieve how Neil does this, he uses technology to track down an arms dealer whose activities risk the start of World War III (Shaw-Williams, 2020, n.p.). The main concern in the film is that should a nuclear weapon be inverted, there would be a tipping point for endless destruction and chaos.
Heidegger argues that the essence attributed to technology has nothing to do with technology being technological through calculative thinking. On the contrary, this essence has everything to do with technology being Ge-stell (Heidegger, 2012, 38). With Ge-stell being a way through which it becomes possible to reveal that which holds sway in modern technology essence, it, therefore, becomes nothing that has to be attributed to the technology itself. However, from Tenet, this form of modern technology has everything to do with technology. Contemporary technology translates to the understanding that for the inversion to be possible and the war on the horizon to be stopped, it is up to technology to take people back (Hunt, 2020, n.p.). Therefore, the role of the inversion becomes to change what is bound to happen before it does happen.
There is a big disconnect between what the film Tenet portrays and what Heidegger associates with Ge-stell in the illustrated concept. The concept by Heidegger is established on the understanding that by using calculative thinking, people should see the environment and others as resources that are part of the bigger picture where everything relies on another. That is why Heidegger shows that instead of seeing nature and fellow men as resources for use, they should be seen as manageable resources. Through this understanding, Heidegger considers a forest a paper factory’s reserve and a river a power station’s reserve (Rauno and Leena, 2021, 2). However, Tenet makes it known that the main reason for using the inverse technology is to use it as a time enabler that helps find the arms dealer thought to be behind the upcoming war. Should the film’s director consider the concept of a forest as a paper factory reserve, then the inversion technology in the movie should have been a climate change reserve, for example.
The inverse technology from Tenet should be seen from what it can help instead, not as how efficient it can be in helping stop the upcoming war from taking place. As such, technology serves as a means through which the war has to be stopped, making it a means to an end (Shaw-Williams, 2020, n.p.). In his view, Heidegger strongly opposes the notion that technology is a human activity or a means to an end. Using anthropological and instrumental approaches in defining technology, Heidegger says the systems are not profound enough; hence, they are not valid (Heidegger, 1977, 33). Unquestionably, Heidegger points out that while technological objects might be means through which ends are met, they are developed and operated by humans. The technical essence of technology is, therefore, something entirely different. He further explains this understanding, of technological significance, by using the example that the importance of a tree is not just the tree itself (Heidegger, 2012, 53). Instead, the essence of a tree has nothing to do with the tree, and likewise, the technological importance of technology has nothing to do with the technology.
Based on the latter explanation, the inversion technology in Tenet is everything to d with technology. The reason for saying this lies in the knowledge that the inversion technology understands the theory by Wheeler and Feynman and is, therefore, a human activity utilized to go back in time. In the context of Tenet, the reality is that it is possible to manipulate particles and anti-particles to travel back in time to stop the war from taking place. However, Heidegger shows that reality only exists in terms of relations. Humans have no actual knowledge concerning what truth is and can never find out what it is once and for all making it inaccessible to people (Heidegger, 2012, 56). The moment it becomes to perceive what people consider accurate, at the same time, it is no longer accurate.
The film tells of what is being used, and in this context, it is time-reversal invariance. Through time-reversal invariance, events can play out, in the same manner, going backward or forward (Hunt, 2020, n.p.). It, therefore, becomes challenging to tell whether what is seen is in the past or the future. The central idea in the film revolves around the question of how time progresses and the order that events are taking place. As such, while people question whether time moves backward or forward, the concept of time travel has been made real. Like in the film, Heidegger argues that when people enter into any specific relationship with what is real, reality becomes revealed in a certain way (Rauno and Reena, 2021, 6). The film and Heidegger share this concept in the sense that in Tenet, the moment people establish that relationship that they are free to go back and forth in time, it becomes natural to them.
However, like in the film, Heidegger on technology to reveal, that reality is not the same every time. That is why inversion in Tenet is exact. In the film’s early moments, the concept is hidden from Neil when he questions why he cannot pick the bullets. As used to explain to Neil, the revealing nature of technology makes him understand that to determine the shell, he must have released it, not just picked it up from the table. The revelation allows Neil to pick the bullet, unlike he would not come before the explanation.
The base of Heidegger’s argument and its fundamental critique concerning modern technology shows that technology is far from being comprehended. The absence of this understanding places people in a rather dangerous position that can result in disasters; the same is true in the film. Before realizing the challenge faced and the upcoming disaster, Neil does not comprehend what is going on. With this knowledge and understanding, one can tell that Neil does not know the impending danger before being recruited as an agent. The lack of contract positions Neil and every other person in this film world in a place of danger.
Conclusion
Heidegger establishes the notion that technology is neither a way of justifying an end of involvement by humans. By using concepts like Ge-stell to reveal and neutral, Heidegger shows that unless people comprehend technology in what it is, it possesses a danger. In the film, unless it is understood, the inversion technology exposes every person in the movie to risk. The revealing aspect of the technology becomes a turning point in how Neil perceives the war at hand. However, time’s progressive nature in the film shows that unless one understands what technology can do, it is impossible to fathom what lies in the surrounding environment.
References
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Heidegger, M. (2012). Bremen and Freiburg lectures: Insight into that which is and basic
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Hunt, J. (2020). Tenet: Inversion & Reverse Time Travel Explained. ScreenRant. Web.
Rauno Huttunen & Leena Kakkori (2021): Heidegger’s critique of the technology and the educational ecological imperative, Educational Philosophy and Theory, Web.
Shaw-Williams, H. (2020). The Science of Tenet Explained: Entropy, Annihilation, & Time Inversion. ScreenRant. Web.