1) The document is a presentation by group N3T for a Philosophy 101 class on the movie Inception. It introduces the main characters and plot of the movie, which involves stealing ideas from people's minds through shared dreaming. 2) It discusses philosophical interpretations of the movie's ending, including whether the top falls or if the entire movie could be a dream. This relates to Plato's Allegory of the Cave about reality versus appearances. 3) It also connects to Descartes' philosophical skepticism about distinguishing reality from dreams, which is a core theme in Inception as the main character wonders if he is dreaming.

1. PRESENTATION
GROUP N3T
Subject: Philosophy 101
Lecturer: Mr. Gulvin
Members: Nguyen Minh Nguyen
Nguyen Quang Tuan
Tran Thi Thanh Tam
Truong Ngoc Lan Thanh

2. INTRODUCTION
CHARACTERS:
• Cobb - orchestrates everything
• Ariadne - designs the dreams
• Saito - bankrolls the whole thing,
buys the whole airline instead of
just buying first class
• Arthur - organizes everything
• Eames - puts on characters
• Yusuf, who has the technical
savvy
• Fischer - the mark
• Mal – Cobb’s wife
CONTENT:
• Inception is about dreams and
deceptions.
• Dominic Cobb is an extraction
agent, someone who can steal
your ideas. But he is hired by a
multi-millionaire to perform
inception - to plant an idea in
someone's mind, without them
knowing. To accomplish this,
Cobb (and his team) use
something called “shared
dreaming.”

3. INTRODUCTION

4. Inception’s End: Did the
Spinning Top Fall?
At the end of the film, when he returns to his children, Cobb spins his top one
final time to see if he is awake—but his kids distract him, and the film cuts to
black before we see whether or not it fall.

5. Whether the top falls or not
doesn't matter!
• Consider how totems work
• Cobb is not the only one who knows how his totem
works
• Think about How do tops behave in the real world?
-> Cobb's totem is backwards

6. IT WAS ALL A DREAM?
Cobb could be dreaming at the end, but, truth be told, he
could have been dreaming the whole time. Might the entire
movie have been a dream?

7. IT WAS ALL A DREAM?
• The chase scene in Mombasa, has many dream-like
qualities.
• Consider where Mal sits as she threatens suicide.
• The song the dreamers use to herald the end of a
dream is 2 minutes and 28 seconds. Inception is,
exactly, 2 hours and 28 minutes.
=> Christopher Nolan seems to have left multiple
clues that suggest Cobb is dreaming the entire
movie, even when he is supposed to be in the real
world.

8. LIFE IS A DREAM?
This is a classic philosophical problem:
• First hinted at by Plato
• Clearly articulated by Descartes

9. PLATO’S CAVE AND INCEPTION
In the Republic (ca. 380 B.C.E), Plato gives us the allegory of the cave. Plato's
message is that there is something intrinsically valuable about knowledge,
about knowing the way the world really is. And that makes knowledge
preferable to blissful ignorance, even when the truth is uncomfortable.

10. PLATO’S CAVE AND INCEPTION
• A group of prisoners, forced to watch
shadows on the wall of a cave since
birth. The shadows are all they have
ever known; they think the shadows
are the highest reality and are
perfectly happy living a life of
"shadow games.“
• But when one of the prisoners breaks
loose and learns about the real world
outside the cave he looks back at his
former life and pities those still stuck
in it.
• There is something intrinsically
valuable about knowledge – about
knowing the way the world really is.
And that makes knowledge preferable
to blissful ignorance, even when the
truth is uncomfortable.
• Projection of the shadows on the cave
wall
• The shadows were projected onto the
walls
• As the people in the cave believe they
are in the real world, and will fight to
stay there, the main characters of
Inception has the world that they
believe to be real.
• “You are just a shade of my real life.”
Cobb admits while talking to Mal of
the dream world that she is only a
shadow of reality.
• Mal is uncomfortable living in the
world which is believed is the real
world by Cobb. Over time, she
doesn't know which world is reality
anymore. She becomes trapped within
the dream world completely, and kills
herself to stay in that world – the
world she’s comfortable living with.
• Creating dreamscapes
• They presented specific skewed ideas
to dreamers

11. DESCARTES’ PIT OF SKEPTICISM
AND INCEPTION
• Is Cobb in a dream or reality? And perhaps, can he know
whether or not he’s dreaming?
• Descartes pondered the same question back in 1641 in his
Meditations on First Philosophy. He argued essentially that
because we can’t know whether or not we’re dreaming,
knowledge is impossible.

12. DESCARTES’ PIT OF SKEPTICISM
AND INCEPTION
• René Descartes, in 1639, worried
that all of reality might be a
dream. What distinguishes dream
from reality?
• Descartes tell us that we cannot
dream what we have not
experienced
• It is impossible to consider within
a dream that you might be
dreaming is what proves for
Descartes that you’re awake, then
in the movie it’s impossible to tell
whether you’re dreaming or not.
• Whenever Cobb is unsure about
whether he’s dreaming or not, he
spins his totems. In fact, he’s been
wondering all the time.
• Dreamers who create the worlds
or ‘levels’ of the dreams always
use pieces of places that are
familiar to them
• Even when Cobb’s dreaming in
the movie, he’s aware of the
possibility that he might be
dreaming. Inception ends in doubt
over whether Cobb is still
dreaming or awake

13. GROUP N3T
THANK YOU
FOR LISTENING AND CONSIDERATION!