Ghost in the Shell: Meditating on the Soul-as-Software

I'm in the midst of teaching William Gibson's Neuromancer in my novel class. And so, I'm kind of on a "cyberpunk kick." Thus, suffering from some insomnia, I decided to re-watch a great anime cyberpunk from 1995, Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell.

I like anime a lot. I think the animation of many Japanese animators is startlingly beautiful. And yet, I don't go to an anime film (at least primarily) because of the medium. In other words, I generally am attracted to anime films and shows not because of the art but because of the narrative. That's not to say, of course, that often I "come" for the narrative and stay for the "art." As I watch Ghost in the Shell, it's difficult to even separate these two sources of pleasure: (1) the cyberpunk alternative future and scenarios being related and (2) the beautiful artwork and cinematography that brings it alive.

With that said, I don't have much to say about the style of the film, other than that I think, stylistically speaking, the film is gorgeous. I do want to share some thoughts, some meandering associations, that emerged as I considered what I think are some of the themes of the film. 

A major technology in the narrative is the ability for computer hackers to "hack" brains, to erase memories from human brains, and to introduce new memories into them. In this framework the brain becomes a kind of computer hardware and, accordingly, all of our experiences and personality and memories (our ghost, if you will) becomes a kind of software. 

I find this concept of the soul-as-software very intriguing. Some of what I've read has inclined me to be suspicious of this concept of soul-as-software. And yet, I find the idea intriguing nevertheless. Why so? Hmm...

In this framework of soul-as-software, who you are has become figured as a "quantity" of data. What does that mean? It means that the singularity that is you or I is something that is simply pointed to through a complicated chain of "in not this, then this," or binary logic. We become so many 1's and 0's. It's strange to think about a soul like that, as if it is so many "bits" of information. I struggle with this idea because I'm inclined to believe we're constantly changing, ever-evolving. This idea of the soul-as-software suggests, it seems, that at any given time we can be "carbon copied" or isolated as existing in a stable state. We all know that old adage that goes something like this: "we live and die every second." In other words, we're constantly in a state of creation and recreation. The film seems to suggest this isn't the case. Let me explain.

In the film there's a trash guy who gets hacked and his memories are erased; accordingly, he gets an entire new "software" installed on his brain. He comes to believe he has a wife and a daughter when in fact he's a bachelor. When he finds out all of these memories were artificial--when he finds out his entire personality was illusion--he cries. I find this one of the most interesting moments in the film. But it gives me pause. It makes me raise a series of questions: 

(1) If all of our memories are erased and nothing in left in their place, what does that leave us as? A instinct-driven animal? A zombie? 

(2) If our soul is a kind of software that may or may not be downloaded onto computers (let's imagine the technology exists), on what basis can we claim that it has authenticity over, say, an artificial and synthesized set of memories? In other words, when souls become software, on what basis can we claim that this soul as authentic and that soul as artificial?

The Status of Nature in Williams Gibson's *Neuromancer*

I'm teaching a "History of the Novel" class this semester. And I decided to end the class with William Gibson's Neuromancer. We began with Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and now we're ending with a cyberpunk. "What a strange juxtaposition!" you might say. Indeed. Why did I decide on this?

Well, here's my thought succinctly: I'm intrigued by the "status of nature" in both of the novels; more specifically, I'm interested in how the "status of nature" has changed from Robinson Crusoe to Neuromancer.

In Robinson Crusoe nature is something that the protagonist stands off from. Robinson finds himself thrown into nature after a shipwreck. He's trapped in a context that the novel figures as being outside of civilization.The island is a natural space untouched by man, a kind of primal/edenic space unsullied by any sort of cultivation. When we focus on the "status of nature," the narrative of Robinson Crusoe comes to resemble the story of a man-engineer-artist domesticating, changing, organizing, cultivating nature. Not only does Robinson adapt to his island, he makes the island adapt to him through the art of agriculture, engineering projects, the organization of social orders (e.g. his relationship to his "savage" servant Friday).

In Neuromancer nature has a completely different status. It's almost "choked out" by the industrial civilization of Gibson's imagined dystopic future. Nature has somehow disappeared and the mechanized system of human society has been completely swallowed up by it. The world has become a technological system that folks navigate like a macro-computer as users rather than, say, as in Robinson Crusoe, a space of unknown limits pervaded by mysterious unexplored regions. Consider how Case, Molly, and Armitage get around: they shoot from one continent to another on sub-orbital jets; they "tube" from one side of the sprawl to another; the leave the "gravity well" behind and linger in a totally artificial satellite-resort. Indeed, "nature" in Neuromancer has been reduced to a kind of non-entity, completely submerged in the industrial civilization.

Or has it?

I'm questioning this framework now. Why? I'm thinking of Freeside, the satellite resort where the Villa Straylight is and where the "climax" of the action takes place. On Freeside, if you remember, they have grass and gnarled trees; the food they serve in the restaurants here is not cheap "synth" material but actually real (I'm thinking of the passage where Molly criticizes a hung over Case for not eating his "real and expensive" steak). Hmm... It's interesting. To an extent Freeside is the most artificial of spaces in Neuromancer: a satellite created by humanity. It's fully artificial, an arcology, i.e. an artificial ecology. And yet! It's on Freeside where Case actually encounters nature. He smells fresh cut grass for the first time; he sees trees; he eats real steak. Hmm...on Freeside is where this hacker has a visceral confrontation with nature as such.

Could it be that the transformation of the "status of nature" we glimpse in these two novels represents something like the traditional problem of mimesis? When does artistic representation become so accurate, so fully realized, that the philosophical/metaphysical distinction between imitation and original stops making sense? Stops being useful. 

Has authentic nature in Neuromancer become just as artificial as the computer intelligence that structures and conditions the narrative? Perhaps.

More Human than Human: The Replicants of Ridley Scott's *Blade Runner*

Last night my wife and I watched the 2007 Director's Cut of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982). This is in my top 5 favorite science fiction films. And the 2007 director's cut is so beautiful and a great improvement on previous versions. I highly recommend it.

In the summer of 2011, I taught a class, titled, "Visions of Delight, Visions of Horror: Technology and the Cultural Imagination of the 20th Century," and Blade Runner was a major text of that class (by the way, I've blogged about that class. Here's a link to the first post, if you're interested: Post 1). In this post, I'd like to pay homage to this film and perhaps speculate on some of its important themes that were brought up last summer.

First, let me say something about the cinematography: in terms of imagery, this film is beautiful. I'm always struck by how colorful and "busy" the shots are, by the vast amount of stuff that is forced into the "mis-en-scene": empty coffee cups, ash trays, banzai trees, photographs, flashing neon signs, garbage, chopsticks, musical scores -- it's as if the camera is trying to show you everything. Really: there are moments where I just glory in the sensitive eye of Ridley Scott. For example, there's a shot where Deckard--having received a beating--takes a sip of alcohol from a clear shot glass, and as he pulls the shot glass away from his mouth, the crystal clear liquor has become clouded with a crimson swirl of blood. So beautiful. This sort of attention to fine detail--the very surface texture of the imaginary world--is a characteristic of Scott's style that attracts me to his films.

O.k.. Enough about the style. Let's move on to theme.

Generally speaking, this film engages with a theme that recurs throughout science fiction, namely, our ambivalent relationship to technology.

More specially, however, this film engages with another recurrent theme running through science fiction texts that incorporate technology: the idea that technology, as it advances, becomes more and more human: in the form of robots, anthropromorphic A.I.s, androids, cyborgs. 

Very often this technology-become-human is misanthropic, as in the case of The Terminator, The Matrix, and Battlestar Galactica. Alternatively, in other texts, as technology approaches becoming human, it becomes benevolent and helpful to humanity: consider Lieutenant Commander Data in Star Trek: TNG, Terminator 2, Bicentennial Man, the character of David in Spielberg's A.I. (2001).

What makes Blade Runner so interesting a text in consideration of this theme is how the Replicants not only become human, they become more than human. Technology not only approaches becoming human; it surpasses humanity in every category that counts: mortality, emotion, hubris.

Let's think about what makes the Replicants more human than human.

They are more mortal than humans. They only live four years. Thus, their lives are lived at breakneck speeds and they experience everything more intensely because of this. There's a theme in literature that suggests, with immortality, everything "becomes as dust" (consider the bored Vampire characters that pervade Anne Rice's vampire novels). The inverse of this idea is true: with more mortality, everything becomes even more intense and exciting. This is what the Replicants experience.

They experience strong emotions; they aren't objective, unemotional robots. Even though they are technological by nature (they are machines and they are "retired" rather than killed), they are driven by sentimentality, fear, anger, and love. Consider Roy Batty's lamenting of Priss at the end of the film; consider his rage when he finds out he cannot live and murders his maker, Dr. Eldon Tyrell. In spite of the fact that they struggle with human emotions--they are emotionally under-experienced--there's a way to suggest the Replicants are over-emotional.

Here's the big one: hubris. The Replicants manifest a very human kind of arrogance. They try to live forever. And, unlike us, they are able to confront their maker and question him. Indeed, Roy Batty, in approaching Dr. Tyrell and interrogating him, is like a great poet who laments to god and the universe how horrible mortality it.

With the Replicants the traditional theme of technology-becoming-human is intensified to the extent that technology in this film surpasses humanity, becomes humanity with the volume turned up.

Flash Fiction: The Digital Devil and Daniel Shebat

I've been participating in an online writing community called, Flash Fiction Friday. They're really great! Lots of good writers. They give a prompt and we have a week to write a flash in response to it. This week the prompt, Cycle 69, was to write a story about "a deal with the devil." I decided to write a "cyberpunk" version of the "deal with the devil" story. Why? Well my wife recently wrote a cyberpunk flash titled "Black Glass" for a flash fiction magazine we started called Flashes of Wonder! and I was really impressed and inspired by it. Also, I love cyberpunk, but have never really written in it. This was an opportunity to do it casually. Additionally, William Gibson's Neuromancer is perhaps my favorite science fiction novel. I imagine this flash is kind of an homage to it. Anyhow, here it is!

***

The Digital Devil and Daniel Shebat (857 words)

Shebat penetrated the server, poured himself another espresso, lit a cigarette, and mashed play on his antique cassette player. A muffled, Please allow me! To introduce! Myself! thudded out of the antique stereo speakers.

He exhaled smoke when the data stream filled his field of vision.

Nestled within the sausage-like coils of his brain, nano-processors purred. Computer and mind were one. Ram, video card, neurons, brainslime; moot distinctions. He smiled revealing metal teeth.

The Redstar Server Hub was quiet tonight. With the speed of thought he glided through the data. Deposits. Memorandums. Schematics. Data. To him, it was all the same. It was cash.

He subvocalized and executed his subroutine, watched as it interfaced: a million particles of data sparkling on the black expanse of the global net field. His decrypting virus appeared on the surface of his visualization as a cloud of branchy veins.

Too much GUI made his eyes burn. He blinked it off. His field of vision was normal again.

He sipped on his espresso, felt the subtle pleasure of the caffeine quickening his pulse. He inhaled a steroid from an inhaler. Crunched down two pink pills, for concentration. Popped in a piece of spearmint.

He yawned. He stretched. He rubbed his chin. He needed a shave.

He blinked on his visualization, shrunk it down with a thought. He then looked beyond it, focused on his ancient television screen, where Space Invaders flickered. He took up his joystick, satisfied that the decryption was working just fine.

I was 'round when Jesus Christ!

Had his moments of doubt and pain!

Made damn sure that Pilate!

Washed his hands and sealed his fate!

For a brief moment, against his will, a thought came. Was it the song? An association?

He'd been warned about penetrating Redstar. Rumour was that Redstar was dabbling in A.I., what cyber cowboys called devils. In spite of the global legal machine that forbade it.

Redstar's corporate offices were air conditioned satellite stations with elevators where corp suits drank coffee and flirted with interns and cheated on their wives. He'd seen the reality shows. He couldn't imagine them making consciousnesses, summoning digital demons from the depths of the human imagination. The last A.I. humanity wrote killed millions.

Rumours. That was all. Suits weren't that stupid.

Pleased to meet you!

Hope you guess my name, oh yeah!

But what's puzzling you!

Is the nature of my game!

Shabat cursed when the invaders won. He threw down his joystick, unshrank his GUI with an eyeflick, and was satisfied when he saw the decryption working just fine.

He went into the kitchen, microwaved himself some ramen, intensified it with a few grams of adrenaline from a dropper, and, using chopsticks, dragged it into his mouth.

When he came back into the living room, he saw it standing there.

A shimmering figure. Vaguely humanoid. A kind of digital shadow burned on his retina.

"Hello," the figure said, its synthetic voice stirring Shebat's superstitious dread.

His reeling mind started justifying things: feedback problem. Comp-virus in my brain. Faulty implants.

Shabat blinked. Looked at his GUI. Decryption was doing fine.

He thought up a diagnostic and he had a report in seconds: everything was fine.

And yet. What was that thing?

Ignoring the apparition, he subvocalized, brought up his firewall, and executed four or five programs to disconnect from the server. He felt his pulse quicken when it seemed to hold on to him.

"It won't work," the figure said. "I'm not a program you can exit that easy."

"Fuck you!" Shabat said. "I'll log off. I'll turn off."

"Don't shutdown too quickly. You'll kill yourself, cowboy. Your cognitive processes are inextricably linked with so many subroutines. We both know you'd die. You’ve overclocked your brain."

Shabat spit. He threw aside a stack of porn magazines. He pulled out his pistol, held it to his head.

"Very adult," the apparition said.

"I'll do it," Shabat said.

The apparition made a noise. It could've been laughter. They stared at eachother for a second. Eventually, Shebat took the gun away.

"Thought so," the apparaition said.

Shabat was stunned. He blinked off his GUI. Looked at his apartment. His vision was normal. The apparition was still there.

"F-u-u-u-ck!" he said. He threw aside his gun. "Get out of my head." There was desperation in his voice.

He poured himself another cup of espresso, sank into his couch. He buried his face in his hands.

I guess he was wrong. Seems like the Redstar suits had been that stupid.

Pleased to meet you!

Hope you guess my name, oh yeah!

What's puzzling you!

Is the nature of my game, oh yeah!

The apparition was next to him when he looked up. Shimmering.

"Mind if I sit?" the apparition said. It smelled like ozone. Shebat looked at the gun. He could still do it.

"Don't care," he responded.

The apparition sat. The air around it seemed charged with electricity. A frequency rang in Shebat's ear.

"Now," said the apparition, leaning in close. "Tell me, Daniel Shebat. What do you desire above all other things?"

Shebat lit another cigarette. Inhaled. He gazed at the gun.

Bar Review: Ground Kontrol, Portland, Oregon

A few nights ago, I paid a visit to a classic arcade/bar in downtown Portland, Oregon called "Ground Kontrol". It was such a great experience. I review it here because I get the sense the readers of this blog will get a kick out of it. And the concept of an "arcade/bar" is a cool, unique concept I haven't come across before. If you spent time pouring quarters into arcade games as a kid (as I did), then I think this place is for you.

Here's their webpage: Ground Kontrol

Some details about the place: the games span the early 80s to the late 90s. They have the famous X-Men arcade game as well as many of the more famous machines, i.e. Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Double Dragon. And they have a great pinball machine collection. I was particularly enthused by the Star Trek: the Next Generation machine which was signed by Wil Wheaton.

One drawback: the place is kind of crowded. They have limited space for tables, having so many large arcade systems hanging around.

Strangely enough, however, the crowdedness of the place added to the "Cyberpunk vibe" they have going. There are tablestops of fully illuminated plastic, loud techno music, and a plethora of abstract art hanging from the ceiling. And, of course, the place attracts patrons that fit their aesthetic perfectly. I glimpsed some kids who looked like they had just left a Ramones concert or strolled in off the set of Clockwork Orange.
It was a great time, having a brew while playing Mortal Kombat and Tron.