1995’s film adaptation of Ghost in the Shell portrays the process by which you should come to understand yourself in the world and where to go from there, particularly in opposition to Nihilism. All prior human thinking is automatically based within the default frame of reference of individualism, the concept of the self: the ego, the you, I, me, him—the notion that people can be defined as individuals. This way of thinking causes problems when the implication of death becomes apparent, because yourself, the ego which you attach your sentience to will one day die. The consciousness with which you associate will fall asleep and never wake up with your memories; and just as nihilistic drunken French poets love to exclaim—you will be forgotten like tears in rain because you are just a speck within the grand scheme of the universe. This is something a lot of people will tell you—the notion that death is coming, life is meaningless and that you make no impact as of the whole thing in general. It’s a way of thinking which the individualist mind gravitates towards when it gets depressed. To have clinical depression is to lack an ability to feel happiness, so instead of searching for happiness, people look for meaning in compensation. When that pursuit leads into a bottomless pit and life has no meaning, they tell themselves that’s the reason they're sad—because life is meaningless and death approaches. But what does this language refer to; what actually dies and what is insignificant in regards to the universe?—The ego, the individual and the self—however the concept of the self is vague and delicate; i’ll give an example of what I mean from the film.
Ghost in the Shell's protagonist is Major Kusanagi—a cyborg who lost her real body in a plane crash as a kid, having had it replaced by a cybernetic shell, with the only human parts of her being her brain and bits of her spine. Throughout the film, the Major wonders who or what she really is given she's a human with a cyborg body—a ghost with a robotic shell. This blurs the line between humans [who supposedly have souls] and artificial intelligence—the soul being what defines individuals from one another even in death. If sentience can arise from artificial intelligence, this tests the feasibility of individuals having their own essences in the prospect of the soul.
At the moment I’m writing, there are around five different iterations of Ghost in the Shell's Major from separate adaptations—all part of their own universes. The Major in the original manga is goofier and a little more sexualised; the one in the 1995 version is more stoic and philosophical; the stand alone complex version is a mix between the last two; the one from Arise is her as a younger woman and the live action version is portrayed by Scarlet Johansen. Despite their differences, each iteration is still perceived to be the same character in sharing the same name and similar appearances. How much can we alter the Major from the original manga before she can be considered someone else? All which remains is a name and an appearance. Instead of seeing different renditions of a single character, it makes more sense to perceive elements of lightheartedness in the manga and Stand Alone Complex renditions, stoicism in the 1995 version and 2017 live action adaptation, along with any other potential attributes transcending the Major's individual ego. There exists no individual essence within human beings, only attributes spread across various hosts.
Consider four sets of marbles; if each set were a living individual, it would consider itself separate from those beside it—by extension potentially having an individual soul or essence; but since these sets are not living beings—all I see are four green marbles, four red marbles and four blue marbles scattered across a white backdrop.
This understanding does not see 1 2 3 and 4, and it doesn't see individual people either; it sees individual spirits or ghosts—single ghosts stretched across different people with minds isolated from one another.
In the Ghost in the Shell franchise we see different spirits manifesting in different characters all named Motoko Kusanagi—because as is said in the movie in regards to the self: “there isn’t one”. Still she wonders what the essence of her individuality is. The key component of this speculation is the word her—she—they—me—I—the individual. In Ghost in the Shell, the concept of the individual is put to the test.
There is a minor character in the film credited simply as the garbage man, a character who has had his brain wiped and implemented with false memories of a wife and children in order to make him more useful as a criminal. In the interrogation scene, the authorities reveal this to him—the fact that everything he thought he had been over the years was a false memory, and that he’s actually been living alone in an apartment his whole life. He is left displaced since the foundations by which he understood himself have been eliminated; dropped into the present with no frame of reference as to who he is. Memory is a key feature which helps make up the individual ego; the concept of removing and changing the comprising elements which make up your personality is interesting because if we take the garbage man's memories and replace them with something false, while at the same time replacing his brain chemistry and preferences, is it still the same person or have we killed him? Really, there was never anything to kill in the first place; we have only erased an ego comprising of a particular brain within a particular country at a particular point in history. At the same time, if we take someone on the other side of the planet 100 years later in the future and remove their memories, but replace them with the brain chemistry and preferences of the Garbage Man, is that not now the Garbage Man from 100 years ago? You can gradually replace the attributes which make up the Garbage Man with someone else’s and what comes out will not be considered the same person; what remain whole even through this deconstruction are values or attributes. Whatever attributes the garbage man manifested will exist beyond him in others throughout history, just under different circumstances and without his memories. You see how delicate the concept of the individual is when you consider not a person, but the spiritual, psychological and physical components which make up a person and their presence across other: spirits and their physical hosts, ghosts and shells. What was known as the garbage man will die, but what he was will manifest within different shells. The spirit, or the ghost is what manifests in collective groups consisting of individual shells. You are not just an atomised individual; whether you like it or not you are an individual aspect of a broader spirit manifesting in the physical realm, one which moves forwards through the children of its units; and as for fear of death, well what's the difference between reincarnation and just falling asleep to wake up 100 years in another country with different memories? For death to exist, there needs to be an individual, but individuals don’t exist—only immortal components; there isn’t anything to die in the first place. The concept of yourself as an individual is one of the only psychological grounds from which Nihilism can develop; under Nihilism's understanding, man is a mortal ego, and not an agent consisting of different immortal components and spirits.
You can look at other Sci-Fi anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion or Cowboy Bebop and see how incredibly melancholy and depressively they flex their narrative in being based upon themes of existential Nihilism. You can watch videos of people giving deep analysis's evaluating their philosophy and intellect, but it's all fluff because every point is developed via the foundations of a false and abstract understanding of humanity along with a pathetic self centred angst.
It aims to come off as deep—but all you have to do is think a little and realise how groundless of an understanding it is; if I saw the world through the same lens I’d be pretty depressed too; but this overarching, supposedly uncomfortable truth which these franchises treat with such reverence is rendered completely facile and a bit silly once you have the right perspective. Neon Genesis is like the anti GITS—wherein Ghost in the Shell's protagonist overcomes her own atomisation through philosophical savvy, in Evangelion its characters die with it.
For people born in the 21st century, individualist thinking has been their default frame of reference from birth, so it can’t be defined in contrast to any other understanding of the world—therefore they cannot recognise its presence and place as the route of existentialist thought. People trying to battle Nihilism under this frame of reference are like blind explorers searching left and right when all they need to do is consider that they live in a three dimensional plane. You can't recognise the moon against a white sky; you can see it, it's there staring you in the face but you can't recognise it until there's something to define it from what it isn’t. If your only frame of reference doesn't go beyond yourself as a mortal individual, it's hard to discover something other to what you weren’t really aware of in the first place—which is why the saturating mentality of Nihilism's underlying preface is so hard to shake off, but it is entirely possible.
There’s this scene where the Major free dives in the ocean; it’s implied that this is something she does quite often. She says that when she floats back to the top she feels as if she is becoming someone else. This might be because being in dark water for long enough in a meditative state removes you from all the complexities of the world above: your life, your identity and the construct that is the self—like taking off a mask; you are reverted to your most basic self if any—a consciousness interacting with the physical world—the same state you are born into before developing labels to signify your personal ego; you are mentally free and able to go forth into the world within a state of being. This is why she says she feels as if she’s being reborn when reemerging.
Ghost in the Shell's score [composed by Kenji Kawai] mirrors this meditation—its music is monotone and emotionally indifferent, representing the cold objective movement of the physical world. This pairs up nicely with the story's themes and visuals—existing regardless of emotional constructs, exclusively representing the cold elements and basic foundations of an environment which consciousness finds itself in at birth before moulding to life's complexities. In opposition to the synthetic emotion found in songs like Evangelion’s Komm Susser Todd, listening to Ghost in the Shell's soundtrack reverts its listener back to their default consciousness, unclouded by Nihilism—allowing space to truly be. Music like Lofi imposes its synthetic emotion upon those who listen to it, but the concentrated tones of GITS' OST are as tangible as cold air on hot skin. If you need something to study to, don’t listen to Lofi; try Ghost in the Shell's soundtrack for god's sake.
The film wraps up involving a being known as the Puppet Master—an entity trapped within a broken robotic shell; unable to move, it ends up in the hands of Section 9—the department which the Major presides as an agent of. After running an analysis on the body's brain, there is found to be no trace of an original ghost; what this means is that the Major's suspicions throughout the film have been confirmed, sentience has developed outside of biological life. The entity escapes from section 9's facilities with the help of an accomplice—retreating into an abandoned museum full of old fossils representing different lifeforms. After exchanging bullets, the Major and the Puppet Master end up lying next to each other missing from the waste down. The Puppet Master explains that it originated as an AI which over time had developed a consciousness; they explain to the Major that he, or it is connected to a vast network beyond human reach, with an interest to continue this awareness, and that despite being a sentient life form they lack the ability to reproduce and die. Reproduction is an important aspect in continuing what the Puppet Master manifest—because remaining the same would make it prone to even a single virus—rendering it unable to develop further as biological species do. Unlike AI, mankind consists of individual shells which die—continuing the genes of their collective. To continue its connection to the net, the Puppet Master wishes to merge with the Major—creating a new being with the memories and preferences of both her and itself.
They explain that they had chosen the Major because of her psychologically similarities—since whereas most would see a separate individual, the Puppet Master sees a spirit spanning across two shells, separated by perspective—one in the same, only isolated. The Major explains that if she merges with the Puppet Master, she wants to guarantee that she'll still be herself. To this the Puppet Master replies: “there isn't one, why would you wish to? All things change in a dynamic environment. Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you". The Major folds, and after merging, as they break through the borders of their individual egos, the silhouette of an angel is visualised—symbolising ascension to a higher plane of understanding. Their former bodies are destroyed by snipers—with the Major's new consciousness salvaged and implemented into a shell resembling a child—symbolising rebirth.
Themes of oneness found in Buddhist teachings echo of Ghost in the Shell's pondering, however to an altering attitude. Whereas to Buddhists, all consciousness is one, and universalism between human beings by characterisations of a we are the world scenario is romanticised—Ghost in the Shell rejects the ego, however considers oneness not between individuals and their souls, but by value, and from value to value within individuals; what's more, unlike Buddhists, GITS ignores the notion of reincarnation and the individual soul in preference of broader spanning values; such value may be exclusive to itself, but to their bearer is tangible in a way which a purely utilitarian vision of complete and quintessential human unity isn't. In the face of the ego's collapse, Ghost in the Shell's spirit chooses to maintain itself over folding to universalism; you can see it in the Major's face—there isn't to be any end once surpassing mortality after the death of the ego: no ending to the cycle of an individual soul, no enlightenment, and no Nibbana—but an ensuing interest of the mind with eyes laid upon an ending shot panning upwards a city overview.
The individual ego is like a mask which you perceive as the signifier of a person as it develops over what people are born with; when the concept of the individual is shattered, what's felt is a renewal to a purer being—what humans start off with at birth. The newborn is liberated from the borders of the self—free, truly free to roam the world. "Where does the newborn go from here?"—asks the Major. Once reborn you should feel flowing through you your own consciousness; then before you, the world within an infinite universe. What purpose or interest can a being of man preceded by not ego but immortal value pursue? As closes Ghost in the shell: "The net is vast and infinite".
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