How do cyborgs die in the Ghost in the Shell universe?

douyang · Post by **douyang** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 3:50 pm

I was wondering how a full cyborg with a full prosthestic body (or extremely close to full prosthetic body) like the major can die of natural causes. I've learned from Gits lore on wikipedia and so forth that cyborgs like the major have completely artificial bodies with the exception of a few fragments of original brain and spinal cord tissue, so why wouldn't a process of perpetually switching to a new body whenever the old one wears out grant practical immortality? We see that this is what the major and other cyborgs do anyway whenever their existing shells get too busted up or malfunction somehow.

I suppose that eventually the existing brain would wear out, but it is implied that in making cyborgs they can create an entire new brain from scratch that is an exact copy of the old one and contains all the elements of the self: personality, memories, and so forth, just like they can create good substitutes of the heart, lungs, etc.

Did anyone catch how the body switching process worked in that episode when Kusanagi was switching bodies and was targeted by an assassin posing as the doctor for the operation? I didn't see an actual transplantation of her brain casing, and I still don't understand how the laughing man was able to transfer her consciousness into the new body so she could defend herself.

With that in mind, is the Kusanagi we see in SAC the original, "real" Kusanagi, or just a mental clone?

And how long can cyborgs be expected to live, anyway?

Gillsing · Post by **Gillsing** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 6:00 pm

Nobody knows. The technology is so new that no human has ever lived that long. Though I wonder if real old (and rich) people haven't had their bodies exchanged for cybernetic ones, but that's not been revealed yet. I don't think that they create new brains. I think that they fill the existing brains with a lot of signal stuff that attaches itself to the brain and then hooks it up to the net and the rest of the body. Or something like that. They describe it in some detail in the manga. Considering that even the blood vessels around the brain are replaced with cybernetics I guess that only brain diseases and violence can end the life of a full body cyborg. No telling how often that would happen if given enough time due to a replaceable body.

Míxtil · Post by **Míxtil** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 9:37 am

Don't forget Curzokawa. She was around 80 really, but had the physical form of a early to mid 20 year old. So I presume life can be extended, but maybe not be infinate.

douyang · Post by **douyang** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 10:39 am

Who's Kurzokawa and what happened? Are you talking about the girl Eva Tokura who was kidnapped by the human liberation front in episode 13 of season 1?

Lightice · Post by **Lightice** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 11:41 am

douyang wrote:Who's Kurzokawa and what happened? Are you talking about the girl Eva Tokura who was kidnapped by the human liberation front in episode 13 of season 1?

No. Curzokawa is a Russian mobster who appears later in the first season. One eye blode lady.

Míxtil · Post by **Míxtil** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 1:09 pm

With knives and rockets in her arms.

Spica · Post by **Spica** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 9:06 pm

A full body cyborg's lifespan is limited only by the lifespan of the brain. Since no one knows how long a human brain can live barring the death of the body, it is unknown how long the natural lifespan of a full body cyborg could be.

It should be noted that in the episode that you are mentioning, Motoko never actually went through with getting her brain put in a new body, which is why you never saw it happen (she instead got her old body repaired). When the new body comes to life and attacks the fake docter Motoko is controlling the body vial remote, just as if she were ghost hacking an individual with a cyber brain.

douyang · Post by **douyang** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 9:41 pm

I thought the Gits mythos stated that a full cyborg has his or her original brain almost completely or completely replaced by prosthetics as well. If this is possible, than why wouldn't having a new copies of your brain made, along with every other part of your body, grant virtual immortality, making it impossible to die from "natural" causes? (What are "natural causes" anyway?)

Then again, if the new brain doesn't contain the original mind of the individual, but contains an exact copy of that mind, memories and all, how can it be said to be the same person? I've asked this question before somewhere. Is the Motoko we see in the show the same Motoko who almost died in that plane crash all those years ago? Or just a clone?

Lightice · Post by **Lightice** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 2:22 am

douyang wrote:I thought the Gits mythos stated that a full cyborg has his or her original brain almost completely or completely replaced by prosthetics as well.

While something like this is implied in the intro of Innocence, nothing like this is seen in the rest of the canon. While the brain is enchanced with computers and parts of it may be replaced, the cognitive functions - that is, thinking - are still taking place in the organic brain, as far as most of GitS stories are concerned.

(What are "natural causes" anyway?)

Natural causes are typically defined as normal degregation of the body's functions. That is, wear and tear. The human body's ability to regenerate slows with aging, until one of the systems gives up. This applies to the brain, as well, so unless the growth of new neurons is managed to be kept steady, or else replaced with nanites that mimic the neural functions, even a full-body cyborg will eventually die of "natural causes". It doesn't seem, that this kind of discoveries have yet been made, or at least taken into widespread use in the GitS universe, as people still seem to age and die more or less normally.

Then again, if the new brain doesn't contain the original mind of the individual, but contains an exact copy of that mind, memories and all, how can it be said to be the same person?

How do you define the "original mind"? The mind is ultimately a collection of information and information is not a substance. The same information can exist in an infinite amount of places at the same time without changing. An exact copy of the mind is just the same as the original mind and can claim the same amount of originality to itself. If everything is the same, then how could anything be different?
If only the mind defines a person, then the same person can momentarily exist in countless places, at the same time. However, as soon as the copies are separated, they are influenced by different experiences and soon loose their identical nature, becoming separate individuals with the same personality and memories up to a certain point. Trying to ask, which one is the "original" is pointless, however.

Is the Motoko we see in the show the same Motoko who almost died in that plane crash all those years ago? Or just a clone?

It's the same brain, the same mind and the same memories. As such, it is the same person. In the Stand Alone Complex continuum Motoko has not generated multiply copies of her self, so it's the one and only Motoko Kusanagi - or whatever name she had, back then.

Spica · Post by **Spica** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 2:06 pm

douyang wrote:I thought the Gits mythos stated that a full cyborg has his or her original brain almost completely or completely replaced by prosthetics as well. If this is possible, than why wouldn't having a new copies of your brain made, along with every other part of your body, grant virtual immortality, making it impossible to die from "natural" causes? (What are "natural causes" anyway?)

Then again, if the new brain doesn't contain the original mind of the individual, but contains an exact copy of that mind, memories and all, how can it be said to be the same person? I've asked this question before somewhere. Is the Motoko we see in the show the same Motoko who almost died in that plane crash all those years ago? Or just a clone?

What you're refering to is ghost dubbing, which is talked about in parts of the original manga as well as an episode of SAC. In both continuities it is illegal.

Gillsing · Post by **Gillsing** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 6:50 am

And ghost dubbing isn't a way to achieve immortality, it's just flawed copying which eventually kills the original. And no, a perfect copy isn't the same person, so even if no one knows that it's a copy and treats it as the original, the original isn't any closer to being immortal. Unless you think of the copy as an organ bank.

Lightice · Post by **Lightice** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 11:26 am

Gillsing wrote:And ghost dubbing isn't a way to achieve immortality, it's just flawed copying which eventually kills the original. And no, a perfect copy isn't the same person, so even if no one knows that it's a copy and treats it as the original, the original isn't any closer to being immortal.

That is a matter of debate, but the copies done by ghost dubbing are far from perfect, so they are no avail.

Maltese Kentaiba · Post by **Maltese Kentaiba** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 5:18 pm

Evenin
Well, I don't think anything is capable of just going on. I would imagine there could be programming issues, an old cyber brain not accepting a newer model body. Eventually technology busts down in the face of a new model. It would take some massive adapting after a while. Or 2 programs disagreeing, like running an old computer game on a computer some years older.

Tachi-Fu-Uchikoma · Post by **Tachi-Fu-Uchikoma** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:40 pm

aight.
skimming over this, I see that copying of the mind and memories is, in fact, possible, right?
So if it is possible to copy all of this information and put all of this on a newer cyberbrain, then you could start all over in a new body, new braincase, and with old memories that you just continue to use until your brain gets full or some crap like that.

Anyways, what I'm trying to get at is that it is possible to live forever (full brain?!?) because you are keeping memories, and beggining with a new, dandy set of organs and such.

Maltese Kentaiba · Post by **Maltese Kentaiba** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 1:24 pm

That could still be refered to as opinion, I for one don't believe copying and reattaching make's it the same person. Just a copy, a figment of once was. However, saying that something is merely a clone because it's copied doesn't nessasarily make it one. It's merely a point of view issue on whether or not you believe something is dieing or dead, alive, etc.