Avengers Infinity War: The Philosophy and Psychology of Vision

Avengers Infinity War: The Philosophy and Psychology of Vision

The character Vision is the dream of Tony Stark (in the movies) or Hank Pyn (in the comics), as it takes its own course. The vision of the future we work hard to make happen, once we get the ball rolling, it takes on its own character. Jeff Bezos, for example, started Amazon.com, which was just a place to sell specifically books, and we can see now what that vision has morphed into. Every idea that is born has an actual origin story and an actual purpose, both of which become mythologized as those ideas reach further and further beyond their source.

We have a concept of ourselves as a character sketch, and our concept of other people, and the concept of us and other people together in friendship. We often act differently around different people. We likely all have certain people that bring out the child-like carefree silliness, other people that bring out our fiercest competitive nature, and people who bring out terrible qualities we can scarcely believe are part of us.

Have you ever told a story about something that happened to you, and then realize that it actually happened to a friend? Or heard someone tell a story that they think happened to them, but it was actually something you told them that happened to you?

It’s not that we are all pathological liars, it’s just that our concept of ourselves, and the reality of us as both individuals and connected as humanity or friends, the borders are blurred between what is us, what is someone else, and what is the world. “My,” or “Mine,” are quite complex ideas, there seems to little difference between, “my body,” “my idea,” “my friend,” and “my car.” “I just lost everything,” can refer to anything from someone who tragically loses all their family and friends in some large-scale disaster, to someone whose financial investment tanks. If we could print out the snapshot of our self-image, what would it look like? And what would be included that is not really part of us? 

It is very convenient is Avengers that Bruce Banner has pants that stretch to fit him when he turns into the Hulk. We are alive, we have an awareness, an imagination, and a will-power that are always growing, but we hold onto to inanimate objects and concepts that don’t grow with us. There are a few people that probably still regret not following their dream to become an astronaut, but likely the rest of us, either know the difference between a rocket and a bomb are milli-seconds, or we know that odds are we would never make it into space, and if we did, we’d either end up with osteoporosis or floating out in the cold emptiness of space. It is for this reason that either inanimate objects become mythologized and take on a life of their own, or they are shed as we grow. 

Mythologization though illogical, does have value. There are ideas too big to logically conceptualize, that we can process as symbols. It’s not a coincidence that Robert Downey Jr. played both the role of Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes, because it is the same archetypal character, and when we realize in a situation that maybe a problem could be solved by finding and correctly understanding a clue, we use that archetypal function. These archetypal functions, I have categorized into interpersonal tools, and the Iron Man or Sherlock Holmes tool would be Investigation. Each interpersonal tool comes from one of the three systems of the psyche, Intuition (Awareness), Intellect (Imagination) or will-power, combined with one of the seven aspects of value that match up with our seven emotions. 

Our emotions suggest one of seven general ways to approach a situation based on what aspect of value is perceived to be most important. Our intuition perceives value, then suggests a general approach to the intellect which is communicated via an emotion. Then the intellect which perceives logic identifies the risks, and lastly, our will-power formulates and employs a plan.

The seven emotions, corresponding aspects of value, and fundamental actions are: 

1) Contempt - functionality/purpose - to receive

2) Sadness - accuracy/reproducibility - to refine

3) Surprise - exploration/perspective - to expand

4) Happiness - response/continuity - to incorporate

5) Anger - stability/strength - to hold 

6) Fear - protection/preservation - to take

7) Disgust - excellence/transcendence - to give

An investigation is a tool in the fear emotion, with the intellect part of the psyche. The fundamental action of taking includes finding because it is taking advantage of the clues around us. Each aspect of value can have a reflex reaction instead of an intentional action. In the case of fear, the reflective reaction or mitigation is to barricade. It’s not coincident that Iron Man out of all the Avengers has the most effective barricade which is his suit. As Sherlock Holmes, he has Watson as a barricade. 

Each interpersonal tool has a corresponding interpersonal weapon, which for Investigation, the corresponding weapon is Ego Inflation. Investigation as an interpersonal tool is substantiating possible negative claims or predictions to see how much weight each carries. Ego inflation is using our past accomplishments as the main supporting evidence for a claim we are making. As Iron Man’s favorite tool, though he does a lot of investigating, he also does a lot of ego inflating. 

The archetype of Iron Man and Hank Pyn are very similar, that is the reason I brought it up in setting the background for Vision.

The Character Vision has two very different origins, the one from the comics and the one from the movie, but they both follow the same archetypal journey, which is that a machine takes on its own life apart from its creator.  In the Comics Vision was created by Ultron to destroy the Avengers and ends up helping the Avengers destroy Ultron. Ultron was created by Hank Pyn, who is the one who created the suits for Ant-man and the Wasp. This shows us something important, that bad things can come from good ideas, and those good things can come from bad ideas. Since nothing we do is perfect or optimal, then all of our actions should be treated the same, we should look at what parts of an action are worth repeating, and which parts are not. We can’t go back in time and change our mistakes, but we can dissect them so that we understand why they happened, and what parts are worth repeating and which are not. We so easily get caught up in the illusion of success. If we can’t look back on something we have done and distinguish the best parts from the worst, then we haven’t learned anything from our action. 

We make assumptions about life, and then combine those assumptions into expectation, and then test those expectations through action. Our assumptions should not be the same before and after we put them to the test because that means we weren’t really testing them. All too often we look at what we do as either successful or not—this polarization leads to us either wholly repeating an action or completely abandoning all the components of what seemed like a failure. None of our actions will be a hundred percent right, and none will be a hundred percent wrong, each action deserves a proper post-mortem.  

A chemist, Roy Plunkett was doing research on refrigerants in 1945, and “failed” at storing in an air tank hundreds of pounds of tetrafluoroethylene gas for an experiment. When he went to use the gas, he turned the valve and nothing came out. Instead of throwing it out and feeling bad for failing, he cut the air canister in half. He found the inside of the air canister filled with a coating that was heat resistant, chemically inert, with such a low surface friction that most other substances would not adhere to it. He had accidentally invented Teflon. 

We have probably stumbled into more greatness than we would believe but missed it hurrying away with our head down in shame feeling clumsy and dumb.

At some point, we stop chasing sensations and start searching for what actually is, what actually has value, and what we can actually do. We start to see that there are assets and risks to everything, and it is just a matter of understanding them to know what to do, how to do it and whether it will be worth it.

Being alive at this point in human history is both better and worse because ideas evolve over time, good ideas have become more efficient and effective, but so have bad ideas. The vision infinity stone was held by Loki for a long time and was used for mischief. In the attempt to make a global guardian, the vision stone was used by Ultron who wanted to use it for genocide, and finally, the stone was held by Vision, who used it for good. People and ideas can become symbols and ensigns with a far-reaching influence. All the way here in the United States, in 1938, right before World War II, Adolf Hilter was named Time Magazine’s person of the year for his efforts to unify Germany… almost then unifying by forcing the world to be colonies of Germany. Ideas usually have a much longer and deeper nature and history than we know. This is why we have to consistently challenge our ideas so that they are refined over time to optimize the value and logic they are built on.

All our assumptions combine to make up our internal big picture of life that we use as a reference to interaction with life, and every component on that picture should be updated about every six months or so. If you go down to the basement of a big university library, you will likely find an aisle full of old chemistry doctoral dissertations, which are unused not because they are written in German, but because they are all outdated. That is the job of the academic community, to review current scientific literature, confirm the claims made, and juxtapose those claims with other claims to form and test new ideas. 

We probably don’t realize it, but most of the “bad decisions” we make, were built on assumptions we made when we were children. A therapist friend of mine has been trying out my personality theory with some of his patients by asking their oldest memories. One patient said that her earliest memories were her screaming in the pool and her dad dunking her head under the water. What a horrific reference for the assumption, that people that claim to love you will still try and drown you. I’m sure that experience would have created a hyper-vigilance towards betrayal, especially in vulnerable situations, making trust, empathy and a sense of belonging very difficult. 

I mentioned this to my father, and he said that apparently, some sort of immersion infant swimming lessons started becoming a somewhat common thing. He said that parents would teach their kids to hold their breath when water hit their face. Infant swimming lessons is a very controversial idea, and I am not recommending it, I only bring it up, because I was unaware that it was a common practice by people with good intentions, but that is not how my friend’s patient probably saw it—she probably saw it as cruel and terrifying. 

Contentment has the pre-requisite of understanding and gratitude, composure has the pre-requisite of productive effort, but pain has no pre-requisite. This means that in the process of learning, the first thing we are likely to find out about something is the pain associated with it. Perspective or vision makes a lot of difference because what we value shapes how we see things, and how we see things, shapes what we choose to do. What we do in turn, shapes what we will see, and what we see, and determines what value we find… and the cycle continues. What we value is not always the same as other people on the surface level, it can even seem that what we value and what someone else values are opposites sometimes. 

It fits that Loki was the one with the vision stone because in each movie he succeeded in pulling my heart strings one way and then the other. Interestingly, Loki has one of the most consistently positive attitudes of all the characters in the Avengers, and I think it’s because he sees life as a game. I don’t know that all the worrying all the Avengers do helps them. Loki, cool and collected challenges Thanos, his outcome was the same as everyone else, but he spent less time worrying. That’s is not to say he was careless, but that he took time to enjoy what he worked to obtain. There Bruce Banner is trying to stay angry all of the time, so that he doesn’t turn into the hulk, emotionally exhausted all the time, and Loki is just enjoying life. In an effort to validate we have praised people for the effort more than the results, to the point where effort has become the goal instead of the results. We often brag more about the effort and battle scars than why we put in the effort or were willing to get the scars. We look forward to the end of the semester of school to parade our report card instead of finding some way to use what we have worked so hard to learn. 

We can’t let the world tell us what to want, we can be content to champion from afar an idea or a person we don’t know, we should use our best judgement, by reframing everything we see in all seven aspects of value and find what really has value and logic, then test it, and enjoy the results. We are not going to replicate the same excitement we felt in the past by recreating exactly did, we will find that same excitement by adventuring forward, driven by a desire to find true value and logic.

To read more, check out my website, conflictandconnection.com or buy my book on Amazon, Conflict and Connection: Anatomy of Mind and Emotion http://a.co/iQaQ0VE