INCOGNITO

by Nick Payne

Conceptual Thoughts &

Director’s Notes

Incognito, much like the mind itself, is murky. It links together our gritty humanness with our higher human aspirations in ways that get muddier the closer you look at them. At its core is the power play between neuroscience and identity that goes on behind the scenes in our minds. The “self”, after all, is in itself just a story we tell ourselves. But how that story is crafted and what defines the structure of the narrative is what this play is really about.

For most of history, the workings of the mind were the philosopher’s playground: lofty theories, wild guesses, and the occasional “I think, therefore I am” (R. Descartes) or “bundle of experiences” (Buddhism; D. Hume) insight. Then neuroscience came along with fancy tools and revealed that there are in fact multitudes of competing subroutines battling it out in our heads at any and every moment of every day. 

There is no “awareness module”, no area of the brain that sits apart from the rest of the brain like a cockpit, guiding or directing our actions and intentions. Conscious awareness is a scant sliver of mental activity - like an iceberg, most mental activity goes unseen beneath the surface. When one of the impulses from a given unconscious subroutine gains prominence (how long has it struggled to reach conscious awareness – moments, months, perhaps years?), it bubbles to the surface as an impulse and we blithely say that we’ve had an “idea”, we’re being “spontaneous”, or that we “decided” to do something or another. 

Our brains are also outstanding information filters and unrivaled storytellers (eat your heart out, William Shakespeare!). For example, our brains actively filter the utter chaos coming in from our senses into coherence: wavelengths become color, vibrations become sound, and scatter shot sensory impulses seamlessly become the story of our environment. The self is just another one of those stories—a narrative constructed from a chorus of neural networks and systems to define the disjointed fragments of our reality.

In short: there is no ghost in the machine, and as antithetical it may feel to acknowledge it, the self is a confabulation. Indeed, each of us exists as a mythic poem in our own mind.

Yet the more we know, the more we must come to grips with what we do not understand. We do not understand how consciousness or a concept of identity manifests. In spite of all the fancy tech researchers have at their disposal, it is still rather hard to really see the active inner workings of the human mind. Even now, most of what we know about the brain still arises only from calamity: physical trauma, emotional heartbreak, or the indelicate truths of a post-mortem.

In Incognito, Payne weaves together three intersecting stories that mirror these three types of calamities—characters navigating loss, transformation, and a healthy dose of existential crisis. Their struggles flow in an episodic and stream-of-consciousness rhythm, exploring the mind where science and philosophy diverge to reveal our failings and our greatest aspirations, the lies we tell ourselves and the truths we share with others, and above all, our eternal struggle to rise above the storm of conflicting neural impulses. 

One thread revolves around memory—the so-called architect of identity. We like to think memories anchor who we think we are, guide our choices, and anchor our personalities. But is that all we are? Memory is less like a photo album and more a game of telephone—rewritten with every recall, distorted, and notoriously fallible. But what happens when our memory truly fails or we cannot form new declarative memories? We see that Henry’s true “self” perseveres: his demeanor and bearing are generally consistent from one day to the next, he can still learn new things implicitly, and he is forever defined by his devotion to his fiancee.

Then there’s intellect, the celebrated jewel in the crown of the mind. But what actually makes someone exceptional? Payne chooses famed pathologist Tom Harvey to articulate our struggle for understanding the greatness of human potential by his desire to study Einstein’s brain and reveal the secrets of human genius to the world. But his best intentions may exceed his capabilities of planning and execution. Tom will forever be defined by his decision to abscond with Einstein’s brain at the expense of his family and reputation.

And finally identity: how can you be true to your “authentic self” in a world that would prefer you stick to the script you’re given? In the third storyline we follow Martha’s struggle for honesty as she navigates the shifting geography of her own identity.

You may see the thread here: Payne is telling us that it doesn’t matter if traditional understandings of the mind are thrown into question by neuroscience. What neuroscience reveals to us about our biology is no less astounding and splendid than any other understanding of the self. Above all, Payne suggests, our humanity is defined less by mental confabulation and more by our true intentions, our actions, and above all, our relationships. We are far more than the sum of our parts.

Science can cast no shadow of doubt on that.

- Jason Palmer