Our cyborg season ends with possibly the most influential cyberpunk manga. One that would inspire the creators of the Matrix movies with its mix of action and Cartesian philosophy. Known by its native title, Koukaku Kidoutai, "Mobile Armored Riot Police" it lives up to both names! Skip summary @ 13:06
076: Ghost in the Shell
By Masamune Shirow
English translation by Frederic L Schodt , Toren Smith and Stephen Paul
With Lettering by Scott O. Brown
Set in the year 2029, the world has advanced in terms of cybernetics, computerization and robotics. This is a possible future where flesh and blood bodies are replaceable and interchangeable, brains can be hacked into, altering memories and nurses are super sexy automatonic dolls, yet in this cyber-punk world exists a government task force known as section 9. A ragtag bunch of military trained agents who fight cyber-terrorism with the help of their spider like tanks, the Fuchikomas and their cyborg Major. Mamoru Oshii would direct the seminal animated movie adaptation. This would be inspired by many chapters more so than others, including the chapters 'Junk Jungle', 'Bye Bye Clay' and 'Ghost Coast'. Where Major Motoko Kusanagi encounters the Puppet master, a hacker that claims to have no corporeal body and is in fact a new conscious life form born from the net. A sequel, Ghost in the Shell: Innocence would base the story on Robot Rondo, where young girls have their consciousness digitally copied and enslaved in the body of robots. Masamune Shiro would continue to write more Ghost in the Shell stories in the tomes 'Man Machine Interface' and 'Human Error Processor'. Soon after publication, Ghost in the Shell would become a successful multimedia franchise.
The Problem with Remakes and the Evil Demon of Images:
On the podcast James' problem with the 2017 film is how it remakes the 1995 Mamoru Oshii classic. He equates his gripe to the same sort of gripe that Jean Baudrillard does with simulacrum, simulacrum itself isn't just delegated to the issues of Hollywood remakes but everything that encompasses the internet and virtual-reality. It creates a feedback loop with technology and the virtual becoming "more real than real" where people learn about sex not from the real world but from what they see in porn, a glamorous simulation of the real. A digestible if not regurgitated form of that which was once real, original, or authentic. Think of the movie Flash Gordon (1980) How many people have experienced that movie through the lens of another? Ted (2012) specifically? And how many people know that the 80's movie itself was based on a 1930's serial? The result is that we have others relaying their experiences to us and the risk is that it can easily become watered down and devoid of its original meaning if not given a new resonating meaning. Especially when taken outside of its original context or poorly recontextualised. For more you can listen to the Chobits episode where James first speaks of Baudrillard or better yet, read the words of Baudrillard himself.
"Motoko's Choice" - Transhumanism and the Philosophy of Dualism:
Renee Decartes Dualism implies that thoughts not only inhabit their own space but can also exist outside from the brain, the "res extensa" as he called it, through Dualism there is the implication that the Puppet Master's Network is multi-dimensional. Currently a digitized earth would not be enough, because the limit of virtual space is real universal space. Shiro doesn't explain that quantum computing exists in this story, neither does aliens or space travel exists (except for travel on the virtual confines of earth's internet), therefore Motoko's net is limited to earth, the res extensa of dualist philosophy. As of 2021, a capitalist world of doge coin, disinformation and non-fungible tokens, Motoko may have a poor deal. Yet an exception to this is that Decartes' "res cogitans" is as large as all living beings present and future.
Motoko could choose to live her life in the dreams and memories of others, she could live as a bat or a cat, especially if said memories and experiences are digitized/quantized or synthesized to future transhumanist ideals, expanding her consciousness, the net and her world, certainly Motoko/Puppeteers children could live like this. Motoko's choice to fuse with the puppeteer could be meaningless as future humans move away from carbon-based life, but one thing for sure is that Motoko will give it meaning. And she will live a meaningful life. Be it within a micro-verse of the res cogitans or macro-verse of the res extensa.
"Digitizing yourself isn't growing, it's not a macro way of exploring the universe, it's a micro way. You can't make any more lemonade if you don't have enough lemons for it."
This doesn't mean that Motoko is right or wrong in her choice, especially if she's preparing for an unknown future, in fact this may be a naturally human response when granted such new powers and opportunities.
Further Topics discussed:
- The pacing of the manga, in terms of action and Shiro's propensity to use annotations (we do and the author recommend you do not read them on your first time).
- Why is Major Motoko so hard to relate to?
- The humour of Ghost in the Shell
- Stand Alone Complex, the anime series.
- Lorn's 'Anvil' music (an example of transhumanism and the future of social networks)
- James Cameron's 'Terminator' franchise and how that also depicts the rise of a formidable and fully conscious Artificial Intelligence.
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