Submitted by Holyman Preter on
Possession is a common theme in myth, fiction and religion. The general idea is that possession occurs when one mind displaces another for control of a body. Alternatively, possession can occur when a mind takes over a body that is unoccupied (a corpse, for example) or a body that never had a mind of its own (a vehicle, for example).
The most traditional form of possession is supernatural in character: a spirit, muse, god, demon, ghost, witch or other supernatural entity takes control of a body. In most cases this is supposed to be for evil purposes, such as when a demon possesses a victim. In other cases the possession is benign or even beneficial, such as Plato’s view that poets are possessed when they produced their poetical works.
From a philosophical perspective, this sort of possession is possible (but suspect). After all, it simply requires that metaphysical mental entities exist and that they can assume control over physical bodies. The famous Cartesian mind could, presumably, do such a thing. The immaterial mind supposedly controls its original body and could be supplanted by another mind. John Locke also explicitly discusses a case of possession in his example of the spirit and consciousness of a prince entering the body of a cobbler and taking over.
In addition to human (or animal) bodies being possessed by supernatural entities, there are also stories of physical objects such as statues and cars (most famously Christine) being possessed by supernatural entities. While these cases seem more odd than those of living (or dead) bodies being possessed, perhaps there is no more mystery in a non-material mind controlling a car than there is in one controlling a body. After all, once you accept that the ghost can drive the machine, it would not seem to matter whether this is a human body or a car.
Of course, immaterial minds are rather suspect in philosophy these days and demons, gods and such are regarded with (at best) little love. However, this sort of possession is not beyond the realm of philosophy as the above examples show.
Interestingly enough, there are also cases of material being (or at least non-supernatural being) taking possession of bodies. For example, Sturgeon’s classic story “Killdozer” features a bulldozer that is possessed by an energy being (not an alien-it is from earth) that can directly control machines. As another example, Heinlein’s puppet masters can control their victims by bypassing their brains and directly controlling their bodies (another example of this sort would be the Goa’uld of Stargate fame). As a third example, a nervous system from one being could be implanted in another (the classic brain transplant) and this would, technically speaking, be a form of possession. While these examples are from science fiction, they do make sense. After all, there are organisms on earth ( such as theinfamous ant controling fungus) that can take control of a victim. Also, brain transplants are at least theoretically possible since they are mainly a matter of perfecting surgical techniques. All of these types of possession are perfectly compatible with physicalism and hence do not require any odd metaphysics. Just odd critters or odd science.
One final type of possession I will consider is “functionalism” possession. Functionalism is the theory that mental states are defined in functional terms. Roughly put, a functional definition of a mental state defines that mental state in terms of its role or function in a mental system of inputs and outputs. To be a bit more specific, a mental state, such as being in pain, is defined in terms of the causal relations that it holds to external influences on the body, other mental states, and the behavior of the body. A mind, then, would be a set of functions.
Presumably it would be at least possible for one set of functions to overwrite or overwhelm another set. To use an analogy, possession of this sort might be like installing a new (or another) operating system onto a computer. There are examples of this in science fiction, perhaps the best known being when the Agent took over one of the humans in the Matrix trilogy. Other science fiction examples include writing memories onto cloned bodies or reprogramming a person. Of course, there cases do leave open the question of whether the body is actually being possessed by a new mind or if the contents of the mind have merely been altered. Put another way, this would be a question of whether a new person is in charge of the body now or whether the person was merely changed.
In any case, Happy Halloween.
Author Mike LaBosiere
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