Ghost in the Shell

Back in the day, when i had an interest in anime, I was lent this film and upon viewing, was introduced to some more concepts in sci-fi other than LAZORS and robots etc etc. When initially thinking of some of the themes for this narrative, e.g. the A.I. aspect, I remembered this film and picked it up on blu-ray, to fully refresh myself of the themes explored in it.

The story follows Major Kusanagi; part a policing unit called Section 9 who go after cybernetic based crimes with many officers themselves being cyborgs, and her involvement with the hacker entity called the Puppet Master, pursing and wanting to learn more. An empty cyborg body (no human brain) becomes active by itself, and upon capturing, scans reveal it to have similar data to a ‘ghost’, the colloquialism for a soul/individuals conciousness. The Puppet Master then reveals itself to be an computer program, an artificial intelligence that’s grown beyond it’s creators intentions of political espionage and in it’s gathering of information, learned of Kusanagi and has identified similarities between them. It brings into question what is really alive, as by the end it’s own intentions is revealed as itself desires to ‘procreate’.

The actual title ‘Ghost in the Shell‘ refers to the 1967 essay called ‘The Ghost in the Machine‘ by Arthur Koestler, which in fact argues against dualism. Masamune Shirow, creator of Ghost in the Shell heavily borrowed from this yet isn’t as specific as Koestler. The essay addresses that the mind isn’t in fact a separate entity from the brain, something which Dualism goes against. Koestler goes on to use a ‘Holon’ as something to describe his approach to explain how the mind is built from external influences and genetic evolution, as opposed to a ghost/soul inhabiting a body. What is reflected upon with the evolution aspect is how everyone has an almost primal instinct, left over in the brain, from earlier versions of humans. This means it’s these aspects that supersede rational thought and can cause emotional responses such as anger, hate and a variety of negative parts of the human condition.

Dualism is the philosophy that the mind is separate from the actual brain itself, and exists in a non-physical form. As mentioned above, it’s likened to a conciousness inhabiting a body rather then being part of it. This idea has appeared in religious texts since, well, religion, with souls going to heaven etc etc. As researched in the wiki, it’s in 1641, René Descartes presented the idea of it being a conciousness and thus widened the spectrum on dualism. His original outline was to percieve the mind as a ‘thinking thing’, which stemmed out the notion that he can question whether he has a body, but he can’t question that he has a mind. He saw the mind as a substance that doesn’t physically exist but is generated out of having thought.

What I think about Ghost in the Shell though, which probably isn’t what the Masamune Shirow intended, is that is possibly joins up both Koeslter’s theorys and some of Dualism. The intention is to side with Machine philosophy and deny dualism. However, there’s several elements in the film that obviously either mock Dualism or side with that. The main instance being when the Puppet Master transplants itself into an empty cyborg body, and controls it to it’s get to Section 9′s headquarters do it can meet Kusangi. The A.I. itself has been traveling across networks the world over, find places to hide and exist rather than operating from a central point. It’s in a computerised state, existing as binary data. And i personally don’t see data stored as a physical thing. Of course, data on a hard drive is on a disk, read and written on this storage device as 0′s and 1′s. In this form, it supports the this denial of dualism, but to go beyond the binary to what the data actually can be perceived as non existent. To actually see this data, say a picture, it’s sent to a computer monitor though these binary signals, like say, the impulses of electricity on the nerve endings when touching something, making the computer monitor and the hard drive like the body. In it’s transference and action though, it doesn’t so much have a physical state, and this is what the Puppet Master is. Moving it’s data around, copying it’s physical data on whatever memory devices are appropriate, but it’s thinking process existing on a non-physical level, and that’s what Descartes said about the mind, it’s a thinking thing. Of course, i may be missing something that Shirow is communicating, but I feel this is an amazing aspect of these minds created on a machine but growing beyond something physical, and artificial soul.

The other interesting aspect of the Puppet Master is it’s desire to procreate. The physical reproduction process essentially is DNA from one living thing mixes with DNA of the second of same species to create a 3rd, combining parts of both 1 and 2. Traditionally is was in particularly done with Male and Female genetics (sex), but as science has advanced, it’s possible for 2 women or 2 men to share the dna in an human egg to produce a child from same-gender parents. But all genetics is information, stored in a physical way. Something with the Puppet Master identifies and in that trail of logic of information, why can’t the information of a computer be combined with a human mind, to create a 3rd and new thing? It’s a procreation, and like all forms of procreation evolution is inevitable. It’s outlined in there’s an inevitability that humans and machines merge to make cyborgs, and thus computers too, so the Puppet Master forces this, seeking out it’s perfect reproductive partner in Kusanagi, who’s body is in fact all machine bar the human brain. In essence, combining the sentience of one ‘being’ with another to produce this improved but new 3rd sentience, with all the information of the previous 2 but can make it’s own experiences and decisions. An evolution of a state of mind.

Analysing these elements definably helps in exploring parts I’d like to construct my narrative about. The blurb on the Ghost in the Shell dvd case has a quote from James Cameron saying “A stunning work of speculative fiction”. Aiming to keep my own narrative speculative, it shows that you have to have an understanding of already established themes and ideas, something which I’m quite obviously starting to do….

Here’s a comparison between the 1995 original and the 2008 remastered version of the opening sequenc, something which itself visually is amazing…