Philosophical & Allegorical Analysis of GHOST IN THE SHELL (1995 film)
Ghost in the Shell is not only an accurate look at a futuristic Post-Humanism Totalitarian society, it is loaded with deep occult imagery, philosophy, and allegory, as well as bring up crucial social and moral issues. The film operation on several different levels, it is an initiation of sorts, a deep look at the hypothetical future world stifled with dialectical materialism.
Set in 2029, with the advance of cybernetic technology, the human body can be “augmented” or even completely replaced with cybernetic parts along with a cyberbrain, a mechanical casing for the human brain that allows access to the Internet and other networks. The term is “ghost” or “Geist,” is referring to the Consciousness/Soul inhabiting the “body” AKA “Shell.” The symbolism in the title alone has so much esoteric meaning, the use of the triangle in the middle of the Phrase Ghost in the Shell. The triangle is a symbol of the Triune aspect of the Self (Thoughts, Emotions, Actions / Mind, Spirit, Body), balance, and the Spiritual Nature of ourselves. It is placed properly over the “Shell” which would be the square, representing the material, physical, or earthly existence. Giving us a subliminal idea for the ontological question ahead.
The film dabbles in the idea of the complete uncertainty about AI, and a post-modern trans-humanist world. Whether or not Man will merge with machine or find another path to Spiritual Ascension. It plays with the scary but futile ideas of A.I.’s “self-Awareness.” Many confuse thinking with computation, like the limited view proposition by René Descartes “I think, therefore I Am.” But in this case it would be “I compute therefore I Am.” Which is a self-defeating argument and leaves out meta-psychical and Spiritual. The overall story is a Hegelian dialectical approach to the ontological questions about A.I. and our possible sublation with machines.
The film starts with an opening assassination scene, and give an interesting political take which show how that eludes to a western alchemical transmutation. An empty “Shell” being formed into creation by mechanical means. Each step adding more aesthetics layers with the end results matching a female human appearance. We can see this is resurrection theme and that during this process the “Shell” is passing through a white creamy liquid referring to fertility, and then the clear waters of the womb of creation. She resides in the fetal position and starts to shed her outer skin like a cocoon, now even more human characteristics appear. Dropping down into even cleaner waters symbolizing the water breaking of the birthing process. This all comes to an end with a long cut of her new form and then a cut to her lying in bed staring at the viewer which will parallel to a later scene. Showing us that she has now awakened. We see this same process in the opening scenes of the TV version of Westworld. This is all in direct correspondence with the “Magnum Opus” in western Alchemy.
This opener is one of my favorite’s anime’s. It has inspired many other films like the Matrix, and Ex Machina. Ghost in the Shell is clearly a very stylized, influential film, with the ideas and visuals that it was pushing back in 1995 really grabbing the attention of some accomplished filmmakers. One of the most extreme examples of this is in the case of Ghost in the Shell being a major inspiration for the Wachowskis’ iconic Matrix trilogy. The Wachowskis’ love for this film is so intense that when pitching The Matrix to Joel Silver, they allegedly showed him the final shoot out from Ghost in the Shell and then added, “We wanna do that for real.” The Wachowskis got pretty damn close to their goal with not only several set pieces from the film capturing Ghost in the Shell’s essence, but concepts like the jacks in the back of people’s necks and the digital code “rain” title sequence both being straight from Oshii’s film.
The protagonist Major Motoko who is not an A.I. is a team leader for the Public Security Section 9 of “New Port City” in Japan. New port is another way of saying the new way or path, maybe “new world order? In the film the protagonist is struggling with whether or not she has a Ghost. Since she is mostly cybernetic, she questions if she has a Soul or Self anymore. In the film she is on a Journey to understand ontological and epistemological questions. As she states much later in the film;
“There are countless ingredients that make up the human body and mind, like all the components that make up me as an individual with my own personality. Sure I have a face and voice to distinguish myself from others, but my thoughts and memories are unique only to me, and I carry a sense of my own destiny. Each of those things are just a small part of it. I collect information to use in my own way. All of that blends to create a mixture that forms me and gives rise to my conscience. I feel confined, only free to expand myself within boundaries.”
“If we all reacted the same way, we’d be predictable, and there’s always more than one way to view a situation. What’s true for the group is also true for the individual. It’s simple: Overspecialize, and you breed in weakness. It’s slow death.”
We can see her utilitarianism approach to life in that last quote, and how she struggles with the nature of her reality. There look to be a resource war for the basic means of survival pre to the robotic and trans-human advancements. In our modern day big entities like the Royal Society, The U.N. and think-tanks like the Club of Rome have exhausted tremendous amounts of wealth into selling phony propaganda in order to push such a world of trans-humanism.
The next scene is a brilliant contrast with her personal state of mind and the world in which she lives. We gain all the knowledge needed for a great prelude of the character build, we see the room is dark, and empty, with no personality to it, just a place to sleep. No art, or colors, no picture on the walls. The one window shot shows the bleak grey despotic technocratic city reflecting the overwhelming oppressive state of the world and her role in it as an owned order-follower. This gives us an idea about her lack of humanity, and her struggle in a world full of artifices.
As the story progresses we see a few mirror reflection scenes, one where she is looking into glass and she is starring back at herself. Representing here a dual state of consciousness, and the state of internal turmoil and questions about of the abstract Nature of herself. Mirrors often are emblematic of the sub-conscious, or the psyche, reflecting the deepest dreams and intentions of the characters, or shades of the Jungian Archetype symbolism.
During my absolute favorite scene in the movie, she is on a recreational dive, as she is below the surface, we see the same kind of reflection motif and how she feels separate from her ghost. This is a dive into the subconscious mind, and the color contrast symbolize the Existential crisis and schism she is in, this is also the sacred masculine and feminine energy’s that are in a state of imbalance. As above so below, but in this case she feels that since she is mostly mechanical the universe above must be the same. Like in the window shot, her view of the city reflect her view of the macrocosmic, to her it is a “shell” and has no real meaning beyond reproduction and deconstruction. But she is trying to be more human like and this makes her feel connected to that small side of her. This is most likely because of her birthing phase earlier in the film. It is stored in her sub-conscious mind and this act of dive is like reliving that moment, the fresh waters and her reemergence out of them, it becomes a ritual of resurrection and creation. She speaks with Batou on the boat about how and why she dives, and the feeling she gets. But we are reminded that she is not completely human when she falls back into her left brain robotic thoughts and attributes it all to decompression.
As the conversation goes on she mentions that her “Shell” is own by Section 9 a government corporations and she explains that since she has more abilities than humans she feels more alive, but her “shell” is limiting her. Giving us the impression that she cares not about the physical or even her own body. This is a separatist worldview, which is the idea that what happens here and now is of no importance, the body is only a “vessel” or empty “shell” and even physical slavery is not of any worry, in fact, it is embraced. Motoko’s dilemma comes from the idea of her being a cyborg for so long, that it has completely desensitized her from her humanity. She only feels human from other people treating her like one, therefore, she needs other people to recognize herself. All of this parallels with the antagonist mind set later on in the film.
A soft voice cuts in and say’s “now it’s like we are looking through a mirror, and what we see is a dim image.” But it was not spoken by ether of the characters. When ask if this was her Motoko turns around and stares directly at the camera as if to ask the viewer themselves who was this? The scene ends leaving the viewer and characters wondering who did say this. Was it her ghost or some higher divine message? Was it a Ghost-hack? This shot and dialog parallels all of the previous scenes.
Fairly close to the middle of the film, we get a great overview of the flooded advertisement city and its inhabitants. The same song plays over the shot as a silhouette bird like plane flies over the city, reflecting Motoko’s bird’s eye view of the world, and we also see another mirrored reflection giving more credence to the metaphorical idea. The city looks dark and grim, trash floats in the brown filthy water. We then cut to a shot and see in a window the same model “Shell” as Motoko’s model, and they make eye contact as the boat moves along the river. Motoko inquisitively looks at the broken buildings that are under construction, and draws a parallel to herself and the city. As if to ponder the differences between her and the buildings. Leading into the next few shots of the citizen’s zombie like motion in the city, and a really good correspondence to mannequin’s as the people or cyborgs walking past. We get the idea that the whole city is lifeless, When then cut back to Motoko and her gazing out a window at the city, and it begins to rain, symbolically showing us how she is crying on the inside, and how much sadness floods this crowded despotic world. It shows that the lack of individuality and morality is the death of this society. Only conformity and coercion walk the rugged streets of New Port City.
“The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.”
― Gustave Le Bon,
The perpetrator/antagonist is the mysterious Puppet Master, Affairs as a tool that could stealthily manipulate politics and intelligence, altering databases and the memories of key persons for the benefit of select individuals and organizations affiliated with the Ministry, and is equipped with unparalleled computer and cyberbrain hacking abilities.
This A.I. is postulated that it has gained a “Ghost” and it’s able to recognize his own existence without the need of others, even when he knows he was created as a program by humans. This falls in place with the “mirror” metaphor, they both are questioning what is called a “Self,” but are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Which is why the Puppet-Master says: “we resemble each other’s essence, mirror images of one another’s psyche.” I believe it was the Puppet Master who stated the quote earlier in the diving scene, which would make since considering this statement he says here.
Batou and Motoko have a quick conversation about whether the Puppet Master has a Ghost and whether or not she was even real in the first place again show us her Self-doubt and her possible cotard delusion. Batou holds to the philosophy of René Descartes “I think, therefore I Am.” But again in this case it would be “I compute therefore I Am” when approaching the A.I. situation. This Ideology lacks the Sacred Feminine aspect of the Self, which is Spirit, Compassion and Empathy. Batou responds to her and says “you’ve got human brain cells. And you’re treated like a human aren’t you?” If the second were true then anything we treated like a human would be considered a human. We tend to anthropomorphize everything, from “God,” to a rock. Transcendence through the singularity, where technology and biology merge, and a complete end is made of man, as man.
These conversation are a dialectical approach to the epistemology questions. Which is a method of philosophical argument that involves some sort of contradictory process between opposing sides. In what is perhaps the most classic version of “dialectics”, the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato, for instance, presented his philosophical argument as a back-and-forth dialogue or debate, generally between the character of Socrates, on one side, and some person or group of people to whom Socrates was talking (his interlocutors), on the other.
They continue on to talk about whether or not Cyberbrains can create their own ghost, which gives us a fundamental flaw in the A.I. self-generated Ghost notion. They don’t speak on it, but it is the question of whether or not Consciousness come from the Brain or is an inherent underlying Creative Force of existence, which can only be generated from the Causal cause of the essence of the Law of Generation. At best A.I. will always be just a dim image of its creators. To understand more about this Study the Law of Corpuscles. Also neglecting the Truth that Humans don’t just think in Linguistics or Computation, they think also in pictographs and imagines. The imagination is the most powerful form of thought, and the A.I. has no imagination.
In a conversation between Motoko and the Puppet Master he says “It can also be argued that DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself. Life has become more complex in the overwhelming sea of information. And life, when organized into species, relies upon genes to be its memory system. So, man is an individual only because of his intangible memory… and memory cannot be defined, but it defines mankind. The advent of computers, and the subsequent accumulation of incalculable data has given rise to a new system of memory and thought parallel to your own. Humanity has underestimated the consequences of computerization.”
Here we can see a Darwinian approach to existence, and his lack of the understanding of the metaphysical nature of reality. Reducing all of man’s meaning to a simple quantification of physical Identity stored in the gene memory failing to understand the collective field is the Mass Storage for the creation of the genes. The environment of Consciousness governs genetics which is known as Epigenetics. It is interesting that he says that “DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself,” he clearly has a since of a “God” that he believes to have created, programmed and designed the DNA coding. His supposition that life is merely about survival is incorrect, it is also about a qualitative Growth that leads to a progressive movement towards function of balance.
At the end there is an epic battle, this scene is what inspired the cinematography in the lobby scene at the end of The Matrix. The camera angles, environmental damage, and sound track which is named reincarnation, is all masterfully composed. Motoko’s seemingly hopeless fight with a Military Mech Tank in the pouring rain gives us a great sense of dread, the rain parallels with the rain in the city. This fight last around 8 minutes and it feels like an hour, and it’s like the director wanted us to see her as human, and our desperate struggle against the tank/tech of the “new world”. Take notice that the pillars or columns are being destroyed, these represents her fragile state of being crumbling away. The fossils on the wall are destroyed symbolizing the death of the old body and the rebirth, like in the intro of the film. Then the Tree of Life is destroyed, giving even more movement to the idea of death, and reincarnation. Her intentions are to Ghost-dive into the Puppet Masters A.I.’s Brain and it is her last chance to do so. Eventually she gets onto the top of the mech and tries ripping open the hatch which protects the mechs cyberbrain, in her desperation she rip’s her own limbs off failing to open the hatch. The important part here is that she is completely disregarding her “Shell,” now she is completely dehumanized, only a Being not a Human Being. She end up in the water like the rubbish or trash in the earlier scenes of the city because her “shell” is now junk. The mech gets the upper hand but then Batou saves the day.
She is now parallel with The Puppet Master’s condition, mentally, and physically, his body also has his limbs removed and has no motor functions as shown in the images above. She sees herself and the PM as the same. She has a deep desire to learn from the PM, the Puppet master now speaks through Motoku’s “Shell” and she see through his, they are now almost one in the same.
The Bundle Theory of the Self. Hume asks us to consider what impression gives us our concept of self. We tend to think of ourselves as selves—stable entities that exist over time. … Hume suggests that the self is just a bundle of perceptions, like links in a chain. But as we know a group cannot be without the individual. What Hume terms the Self is a correct assessment for the collective, but there is a singularity, or Causal cause. The all is the One and the many, it is the ouroboros, the 1 is the 8 and the 8 is the 1. The one makes up the whole and the whole makes up the one.
“A “collective” mind does not exist. It is merely the sum of endless numbers of individual minds. If we have an endless number of individual minds who are weak, meek, submissive and impotent – who renounce their creative supremacy for the sake of the “whole” and accept humbly that the “whole’s” verdict – we don’t get a collective super-brain. We get only the weak, meek, submissive and impotent collective mind.”
― Ayn Rand, the Journals of Ayn Rand
Batou aids in Motoku’s link with The Puppet Master, he proceeds to explains to Kusanagi that he was created by wandering various networks, he became “sentient” and began to contemplate his existence. Deciding the essence of humanity is reproduction and mortality, he wants to exist within a physical brain that will eventually die. As he could not escape Section 6’s network, he had to download himself into a cybernetic body. Having interacted with Kusanagi (without her knowledge), he believes she is also questioning her humanity, and they have a lot in common. He proposes merging their ghosts, in return, Kusanagi would gain all of his capabilities. Kusanagi agrees to the merge. The extremes are meeting for an alchemical synthesis of sorts.
Recognize here that he uses the word Sentient which means “capable of feeling,” from Latin sentientem (nominative sentiens) “feeling,” but we understand he is incapable of feeling. So his conclusion is incorrect, built off a false supposition. The word doesn’t even refer to thinking as a qualifications to be sentient, but I would argue it is one of the components. If we take the Turning test which was developed by Alan Turing. The test is quite simple: In a blind setting, you simply ask a human being to tell the difference between an artificially intelligent chatbot and a human. If they can’t tell the difference, the A.I. passes. We see this type of test happening all the time on social media networks like Facebook with the fake profiles.
This however, does not measure awareness, it just measures information processing—particularly the ability to follow rules or at least imitate a particular style of communication. In particular it measures the ability of a computer program to imitate humanlike dialogue, which is different than measuring awareness itself. Thus even if we succeed in creating good A.I., we won’t necessarily succeed in creating AA (“Artificial Awareness”). Remember it is called artificial for a reason, no matter how close we get to mimicking reality with art, it is still a only a construct. “It doesn’t matter if the machine is conscious or not,” said Titus Sharpe, president of MVF in an interview with TechCo. “It’s whether you can tell the difference between man and machine.” But even if a machine were to fool a man, does it magical make it that self-conscious? Of course not, that’s like saying a lie becomes a truth if it is believed.
The Puppet Master continues on with saying “I refer to myself as an intelligent life form because I am sentient and I am able to recognize my own existence, but in my present state I am still incomplete. I lack the most basic processes inherent in all living organisms: reproducing and dying.”
Major Motoko Kusanagi: “But you can copy yourself.”
Puppet Master: “A copy is just an identical image. There is the possibility that a single virus could destroy an entire set of systems, and copies do not give rise to variety and originality. Life perpetuates itself through diversity and this includes the ability to sacrifice itself when necessary. Cells repeat the process of degeneration and regeneration until one day they die, obliterating an entire set of memory and information. Only genes remain. Why continually repeat this cycle? Simply to survive by avoiding the weaknesses of an unchanging system.”
The Puppet Master is scared of death, which happens to be a very sentient thing. Giving us that humanity side of the “A.I.” (If it is truly sentient then is it not an A.I.), making us question again is his claim is true? Since he is incapable of having children his wish’s to merge with Motoku so that he leaves behind something of himself, but that something will be a completely new creation. This is the Great Sexual Transmutation of the sacred polarities, the Masculine, and Feminine. He is unconcerned with what happens to him after death only what he leaves behind. Motoku worries about her “self” and asks if she will still be herself afterwards? He goes on to say that there is no one self only an ever changing self that you will never know. He’s supposition about the Self is incorrect, based that he is start with the idea that the Self is the effect and not the causality. He thinks of the “self” in the physical only. Though is sounds smart, it really is a failure in the ontological understanding. It shows that he is still a program and nothing more.
“We are not supposed to all be the same, feel the same, think the same, and believe the same. The key to continued expansion of our Universe lies in diversity, not in conformity and coercion. Conventionality is the death of creation.”
― Anthon St. Maarten
“What endlessly fascinates is that man is played for a fool, even by himself, in his idea of creating a great A.I. central god-system to run the future utopian SmartCities – do the proud architects not realize that they, too, will be enslaved? At all points we are confronted with phony dialectics, which are essentially false paradigms of opposition, and they are all mostly wrong, reflecting only a piece of the puzzle.”
~ Jay Dyer
This is a form of Dialectical materialism which adapts the Hegelian dialectic for traditional materialism, which examines the subjects of the world in relation to each other within a dynamic, evolutionary environment, in contrast to metaphysical materialism, which examines parts of the world within a static, isolated environment.
The final question in the conversation is when she asks why he picked her. He replies with “because we are more alike than you realize like the real thing and its mirror image.” Circling back around to the reflection metaphor. He is referring to her as the real version and him as the reflection. He wants to assimilate her and intern become something new and “god” like. As they merge we get a shot of a light from above then feathers falling down, and a figure of an angle seems to appear for a moment. The archetype Hermes fly’s down from the heavens above, symbolizing the divine union of the sacred masculine and feminine principles.
There are snipers set up ready to take out both Motoku’s and PM cyberbrains, Batou saves Motoku, right before the snipers fire by throwing his arm in front of Motoku’s head. As the bullets hit each Shell a church bell rings symbolizing the end of the old and the beginning of the new, just as a clock does. In a way this all can be looked at as a ritual, because all the components are in place, like totems, and elements.
Neo-“Kusanagi” wakes up in Batou’s safe house with her previous “shell’s cyberbrain attached to a new cyborg child body. In this shot, we are seeing through her eyes, and see another Cyber body/shell across from her. This could be more mirror metaphor or did she become 2 people afterwards? I think it is a mirror, and she is seeing her new self for the first time. She tells Batou that the entity within her body is neither Kusanagi nor the Puppet Master, but a combination of both. Thus, we find that the sublation has been completed, the alchemical wedding is done. We find out that this film has been a Trans-humanist alchemical transmutation from the very beginning, the merging of opposites into a synthesis of human with machine.
I feel that this movie is an allegorical warning of a post-trans-human occult technocracy “(d)evolution.” That embraces Moral Relativism, Marxism, Socialism, and Communism. Most Science Fiction are based on Dialectical Materialism and Social Darwinism, and this film is no exception. Putting primacy on the Material instead of a balance between the Spiritual and Material. In the end slavery is still embraced, and the Human existence is all but obsolete. Just like your IPhone, you must be upgraded or you will be filled with viruses by the occult elite ruling crony capitalist class that own you.
Even know she has a new body, it is still under “contract” with “sector 9” (ego mind) a government agency which is use in petty political agendas. From my point of view they both have failed to reach a new level of Freedom like they claim they wanted, they actually are right back where they started. In Satanism 9 represent the ego because you can add it to any number and it can be reduced back to itself.
“Despite others’ attempts to identify a certain number (666) with Satanism, it will be known that nine is his number. Nine is the number of the Ego, for it always returns to itself. No matter what is done through the most complex multiplication of nine by any other number, in the final equation nine alone will stand forth.” ~ Anton LaVey. The Satanic Bible.
Their ontological quest still remains, because they are still lacking the understanding the True Self and Natural Law Principles. Yet, we could also look at this as a post-human alchemical transmutation of the sacred feminine and masculine principles of consciousness, since all of these characters are only archetypes that reflect aspect of ourselves. She goes through an existential crisis and reaches a new level of existence. No longer is she even post-human now she is post trans-human, and not bound by many of the limitations of the previous version.
This an idea of philosophy, what makes a thing what it is? How much can a thing change before it is something else? This is the nature of Self Identity. In the metaphysics of identity, the ship of Theseus — or Theseus’s paradox — is a thought experiment that raises the question of whether a ship—standing for an object in general—that has had all of its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object. Motoku new Self is like this story, all of her components have been replaced and thus is she even the same Self anymore? Before we can claim to have such knowledge of a thing we must know why it is the way it is. Aristotle said something to this effect to help with the paradox of Theseus’s ship. He solved this paradox with the use of Reason and the understanding of Causality. Look into his 4 causality approach for more info on this solution. But simply put if the body is a symbol/form and the essence of the symbol is the energy that can never be destroyed or remains the same in any manifested form, then we can say the True Self/Soul is immutable. The purpose remains the same like I stated above; “their ontological quest still remains,” thus, we can say that the lower self has reached the gnosis of the Higher Self.
“We are fractal extensions of the transcendent consciousness. We collectively create an infinite spectrum of symphonies, of vibration for the purpose of experience. We are the Universe perceiving itself, and thus creating itself.” – Ryan Boyd
In conclusion, I feel that without the epidemiological understand most will be all but lost in the deeper philosophical meaning. Allegorically the film has a moral of perseverance, devotion, loyalty, identity, and individuality. This film focuses on you “being there” rather than “getting there.” The entire film has a since of the old and new forms and structures, an ouroboros world. Since the Ghost is = to the Mind or Self and it can be hacked (mind control) it brings into question about the meaning of what is humanity? If we change all the part of the body are we still even human? Many would say no, and others would argue yes. The true Self is made up of the sum total of the dynamic experience and stimulation from the environment. You cannot understand the 1 (Self) without the 2 (reflection). It is true that we are ever growing and changing beings and that trying to hang on to the identity can be a limiting factor for the evolution of the being. In the film I do believe that this is the true intended meaning of the conclusion. To understand that life is a dynamic fractal emergent property of the causal Cause. An ever-changing unfolding wonder of spectacular mysteries. Though we can come know The Nature Laws and who we truly are which could be said to be dynamic ever changing Spiritual Beings, there will always be new mysteries for us to explore, and discover. The occult nature of the universe is inherent and it is our jobs to de-occult its wonders, to bring light where there is darkness.
By Brandon Martin
Sources
AnimeEverday – https://www.youtube.com/user/AnimeEverydayYT
Nerdwriter1 – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJkMlOu7faDgqh4PfzbpLdg
Jay Dyer – https://jaysanalysis.com
Mark Passio – Www.whatonearthishappening.com
For a complete analysis of this film See my 4 part video break down.
Part 1 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyuPrCfXTVM
Part 2 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp8Nzsboj2w