Most will know of Ghost in the Shell either from the controversial 2017 live-action adaptation, or from the 1995 Mamoru Oshii animated classic – the one that made all of us question our existence while the Major leapt off rooftops in the nude and tore her arms off prising open a tank hatch. While it’s true the live-action film is pretty and has plenty of visual throwbacks to the franchise, one of its worse feats was that it lacked any of the existentially thematic depth Oshii’s animation is renowned for. After all, is it even Ghost in the Shell if it doesn’t make you feel listlessly overwhelmed by existential melancholy?
“I feel confined, only free to expand myself within boundaries”
Major Motoko Kusanagi
Ghost in the Shell started in 1989 as a sci-fi manga written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow (Appleseed), known in Japan as Kōkaku Kidōtai – or the super-catchy Mobile Armoured Riot Police. Doesn’t quite have the same ominous allure as “Ghost in the Shell.” The title we know now was adapted by Masamune Shirow from the 1967 Arthur Koestler book The Ghost in the Machine, a phrase coined by Gilbert Ryle in The Concept of Mind (1949) as a description of René Descartes’ mind-body dualism: “I think, therefore I am.” Set in the fictional New Port City during the mid-21st century after World War III, it followed a special-operations task-force known as Public Security Section 9, typically working as a counter-terrorism operation, though the team would frequently clash with cyber-criminals and the odd corrupt official.
Despite the title’s reference to Ryle’s Concept Of Mind, Ghost in the Shell’s exploration of consciousness is more akin to the work of Daniel Dennett who, in his 1991 Consciousness Explained, compares consciousness to multi-layered computer programs, in which the brain is hardware while sensory information and biological functions grow infinitely more complex over time. The dualist certainty that “I think, therefore I am” is debunked – consciousness is much more complex than that.
Ghost in the Shell takes place in a future where hackers can access people’s brains and tamper with them (called “ghost hacking”) and create false memories: no wonder, then, that the Major questions the existence of her consciousness and whether her own memories are real given that most of her body is made up of cybernetic prosthetics, including her cybernetically encased brain. But where Daniel Dennett compares the brain to computer hardware, in Ghost in the Shell the brain is integrated with technology, allowing the ease of communication, uploading and downloading vital data via an auxiliary link system to a wider accessible network somewhat akin to a USB at the base of your neck. Throughout Ghost in the Shell, Section 9 are following the trail left by the elusive hacker known as the Puppet Master. However, rather than attack the team directly, he hacks people’s “ghosts” to implant false memories and make them do his bidding. Of course, the “ghost” referenced is the consciousness residing within the body – or “shell” – that can be transferred from one body to another. But consciousness that is transitory and can be controlled externally must surely make you question whether consciousness is really ours at all
In the Major’s case, her real, organic body was damaged as a child leading her to undergo a cyberisation operation, with her brain placed in a metallic, cybernetic casing called a cyberbrain. This leads her to speculate about whether she really is human, or ever was, and therefore whether her own memories and consciousness are real or programmed – the Major becomes a study of existential angst.
Towards the finale, Major Kusanagi singlehandedly engages a giant spider tank, rendering her crippled as she is laid next to the elusive Puppet Master. Interestingly, the true climax comes in the form of a somewhat trippy monologue sequence in which the Puppet Master – a sentient computer programme inhabiting a cybernetic body – explains how it gained self-awareness. Yet despite all the knowledge it has access to, it laments not being able to have those very human life experiences, including death and reproduction. This leads it to propose a merging with Major Kusanagi, creating a new life-form (part Major, part Puppet Master) which is in some ways a form of transcendence, comparable to Dennett’s emergence of the Self.
Ultimately, the Major questions the Puppet Master, with a degree of skepticism and unease: “You talk about redefining my identity. I want a guarantee that I can still be myself,” to which the Puppet Master responds: “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 merging of the Puppet Master with Motoko Kusanagi mutually fulfils their wishes. The Puppet Master seeks to transcend its boundaries as a computer programme (where “reproduction” is reduced to making copies, rather than diverse individuals) by becoming biological, while the Major struggles with her humanity, wishing to confirm that her consciousness and thoughts are her own. Paradoxically, perhaps, this requires her to merge with something that is decidedly not human, but presents a more certain sense if self-awareness, a human trait. Their rebirth as a new, singular being is one that transcends the boundaries imposed on them, one with a physical body that is freely connected to the Net yet no longer limited by its organic physiology, evolving the idea of human evolution through a union with technology.
“And where does the newborn go from here? The net is vast and infinite”
Major Kusanagi/ Puppet Master
The “ghost” in Ghost in the Shell is used by Mamoru Oshii to explore themes of consciousness, what it means to be human, and how these questions might be affected in a future where conscious thought and experiences can be almost indistinguishable from digital information and simulated experiences. He reflects the power and influence of computers in modern society in a theoretical future where our own bodies can become predominantly cybernetic. A future where cybernetic augmentation doesn’t seem too farfetched, though there is something innately disturbing about the future presented in Ghost in the Shell for this reason.
25 years after Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell brought the franchise wider popularity outside of Japan, with its Matrix-esque action sequences, profound Blade Runner ambiance, and giant robot-spider-tanks, director Kenji Kamiyama returns to the Stand Alone Complex sub-continuity with the Netflix 3DCG Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045. While the SAC continuity tends to focus more on action and political themes, Oshii’s animated classic poignantly explores what it means to be human in a world where conscious thought and memories can be digitised, making it as memorable today even 25 years after its release.
