-There is a similarity between Hadden, a character from the movie Contact, and Edna, from The Incredibles. Both act more or less as guides or advisors. Both are trying to help but at the same time they are very ironical. Hadden is supposed to fund the project based on the information that has been received through a radio signal coming from another civillization and Edna is going to provide the incredibles with technological advanced suits that are going to protect them. Both are related to science. And they are showed in similar ways, for example, when Hadden asks Ellie, if she would like to be part of the mission, he says, “Wanna take a ride?” (minute 101) and smiles and the scene ends. And when Helen wants to find out where her husband is, Edna shows her a tracking device and asks her: “Would you like to find out?” (minute 61) and the scene ends.

-The idea of a prequel in movies is very similar to the logic of how postulates work in Kant. A prequel explains what should have happened first, so that something takes place later. Like in the Starwars franchise. In Kant´s framework, the Categorical Imperative presupposes the existence of the idea of freedom, and the concept of highest good presupposes the ideas of God and Inmortality. I say similar and not identical because in Kant´s theory there is no room for many possible explanations as postulates (and those concepts are not given in time), but from the perspective of a movie director you can imagine (for movies that are supposed to be prequels) different plots as alternatives, but you will pick one alternative as the best possible one, so that it makes sense. I am talking here about the way of thinking and not really about movies in themselves. In the case of literature, for example, the book “Raise high the Roofbeam Carpenters and Seymour: an Introduction” by Salinger was written after Nine Stories, but it explains things that happened before.

-In the legend of Buddha, when the Buddha is born, at the same time his wife, his horse, his carriage driver and the tree, under which he will reach enlightenment, are born or appear in reality. This means that while the child is growing in the palace, the tree is growing too (in advance so to speak). This means that in the legend of the buddha all those elements are sort of rooted in the same thing, or belong to the same structure. But, in this framework (one can treat any system of beliefs as a framework) that structure has to have its root somewhere but not in the world of the senses. Or... the world of the senses has to have another layer or a variety of layers. There is something about all this idea that could be confusing at the beginning. All this has to some extent the form of teleology, because the tree is going to be there to serve for the place where he will reach nirvana. At first sight a naive reader, would think that all that purposiveness must have been produced by a God. But Buddhism does not really support the idea of a God. It is the buddha himself who produces that part of the reality before being born (he has chosen the place and people he is going to be born with). So somehow nature responds to his desire and there is some sort of teleology but without the need of any God. For buddhists, God or the idea of God is something superfluous.

sigo invicto