in the shell

I just saw episode 12 of the first gig. How did the movie director transfer his ghost into the cyberbrain? And how did he get people to enter the world he created?

I'm wondering about the philosophical issues raised by this episode. What do you think the main ones are?

I got a serious Matrix-ish vibe from the whole movie experience what with people not wanting to leave the movie and return to the problems they face in the real world. Is a false reality and ignorance that leaves you happy really worse than a reality that causes you to suffer? What value can truth hold if it only brings you pain? The major said that our dreams only have meaning if they are held in the context of the trials we go through in the real world, but why is this so, and why should we care whether they have "meaning" to begin with?

In the purest sense, it can't be said that the viewers of that movie were forced to watch it, so how ethical is it to take it away from them and force them to live in harsh reality?[/list]

Honestly,
I thought it was cruel of the major to force the director and viewers from the "movie". Just like I thought it was cruel to erase the tachicoma's memory of thier creator etc...

That is why I often have problems w/ her. I find her over controling aspect disturbing.

While it may be right that we temper our personalities with suffering, I personally believe it is up to individual choice if one is to chose to leave reality in order to enjoy peace, however artificial it may be. Of course as long as it does not harm the public good.As the econmic reality of obtaining current intoxicants creates crime, and as we do not have a way to seperate ghost from body,laws are more necessary for public good and health.

In a class recently we talked about the idea that the only true human experiance that is shared by everyone is suffering.

We could think of examples of people who never experiance happiness, or fear, or hunger or joy, but even the most well to do, most well carred for person suffers sometime, from age, or loss, or even something as basic as birth.

Perhaps there is something else common to us all, but that was what we came up with.

Well i kinda thought about it like this...

Consider a group of people with sufficient funds to be on hallucinogenic drugs all the time sitting in a room. Eventually the narq squad catches wind of this and bust up this group of people trapped in some experience. The Major would be a memeber of the narq squad. She saw it as going against the natural order of things: a group of people letting their bodies wither away while they go live on some experience of the mind.

The weird thing is that she tried out some of the drugs, as it were. She sat down, watch the movie and cried. But she knew that it was against the natural way of things, and put and end to it all even after seeing it. That doesn't mean she didn't think the experience was without merit.

And think about it, all these people with real bodies wasting away in the real world to go live in some movie theatre, while she probably just wants to experience life in a real body, good and bad. They just don't realize what they already have.

But the issue Tonks Kittygoth raises is that it should be their choice, whether others agree with it or not, whether it really was a good decision for them to shut themselves off from reality like that. You also make the faulty assumption that the real life of these people and whatever problems they have can't be worse than living in the dream state, when you don't even know what their real life is like. In any case, I agree that it should be their decision as everyone has the sacred right of self-determination over their own life.

I think the only real problem here is that the movie is like a drug addiction... they can't really choose to leave it for their normal lives. [/b]

Yeah i see what your saying. Perhaps i got to caught up in the anlogy and forgot what the point was. Anyways.

I should have emphasized that the Major is part of the goverment, and the government does not allow people to do this sort of thing. If they allowed it, quickly things would fall apart and end. Its kind of like that ethics test (Kant?).. if you can't will it a universal law, then you shouldn't will it. ie. you can't will that everyone do this cause it would be the end of the universe (as far as humans are concerned), so you shouldn't will it.

So you can't really fault Major for doing it, so it wasn't cruel or controlling, it was her job.

I personally wouldnt' fault her if she did it and wasn't even assosciated with public saftey. She's rational, she'd see that it was dangerous for everyone for even some of us to do this.

So no, i don't believe it's their choice to do this sort of thing as its too dangerous for society, just as its not your choice wether stealing or murder is an ok thing to do.

And I was assuming that their true live were much worse. However, they chose to do this and leave their real lives. The point i was making is that the major would chose a worse real life over this to have a human body. They just don't know what they have, even if it is easier to live in the movie theatre. My idea is faulty because they could by mostly cyborg like kusanagi, and that she may even not want a real body (i kinda interpreted the song Be Human to be about a person like her, and i just like to see her in that way)

I don't see what the "ethics test" has to do with anything, or why it should apply to this situation or any other.

And by no stretch of the imagination can forever living in a virtual world and ignoring the real one be compared to theft or murder. No one is being harmed here, so long as the participants are there of their own free will.

Once again, you jump to the conclusion that the real life must somehow be better than the virtual world, even though you know absolutely nothing about what their real lives are really like. "They don't know what they have?" Clearly, it is you who doesn't know what they have.

And there is no reason why the major experiencing the virtual world herself and deciding to turn it down somehow gives her the right to make the decision for everyone else as well. The same goes for deciding whether to go cyborg or stop living in your organic body, as the theater goers have done. To say that the major is entitled to make such crucial, permanently life altering decisions for other people simply because she believes her way is the best way is equivalent to me telling you who to marry (or even if to marry), what job you should have, where to live, how to raise your kids...so on, just because I think I know what's "good for you" and you don't.

This reeks of tyranny and paternalism, and goes against the crucial and basic rights of self-determination every person has as part of a free society.

Once again, I feel the real issue is whether they are de facto forced to remain there, like a drug addict is forced to keep doing whatever it takes to get his fix.

Well, what about people who have lost their bodies, and exist simply as a ghost with a cyber brain, or people who have cyberbrain sclerosis, if there is an option to continue to live in another realm, I think its good.

As far as dangerous, how?

Im sorry, I dont remember if you can leave the movie if you want, but I believe you can from what I remember so Im going on that supositon.

Assumeing you can leave if you want to, the only person they would hurt is themselves. Actually only their physical shell, or body would be harmed by neglect, not their soul or ghost. It not like heroin, as I said before, where you have to get money to buy more, which leads to stealing, prostitution, murder,..

(The point about stealing and murder if you think about it doenst compare to this situation, as stealing and murder forces a situation of harm or loss upon someone else, without consent. These movie goers have not harmed anyone, nor created undesireable situations upon any other sentient. They just want to escape.)

I suppose that if the person still had a human body, then it could be dangerous to that meat machine one uses as a body, but they could do like the Jamson ceo and sell/ or donate thier body for transplants if they chose to remain in the movie.

You cant indite someone for not prizing what they have. You do not know why they chose to leave their bodies.

The Major may wish to have a human body again, but im sure there are plenty of people who wish to have a cyborg one. Im sure now there are plenty of people with aids, Multiple Sclerosis etc that would severly dig being able to get a cyborg body.

Heck, I have asthma, and would find a nice pair of backup cyborg lungs waiting for me quite a releiving idea.

Im sure that in 203? there are plenty of people who are miserable, in pain, alone etc. still. What about those who cannot afford cyborg bodies, maybe they get a state funded jameson. Who Hoo, Im a box/spider thing! Or those who were kept alive, but lost everyone. Human suffering lies often in congnition, not situation.

The military thing, I suppose could be an arguement, but as I said before and Ill say again, Im not millitary for a reason. I think many laws when enforced without consideration of the situation are cruel, and often stupid.
Therefore I disagree with a lot of the things the major does.

I see your point in that she follows the law. However, she only follows the law when she feels like it. She has done plenty of illeagal things if it suits her. So as she has made herself often autonomus from the law, I think judging her actions/choices is fine.

Perhaps she would tell me, "I don't mind you speaking that way to me." like she tells Batou when he gets on her case. or kick my skull in... hard to say...

Or maybe if people pointed out things like this to her more often, she would become a more compasionate, well rounded human.

Douyang
we must have been writing at the same time, I didnt see your post at first, so I repeated a lot of your ideas in my last post.

This reeks of tyranny and paternalism, and goes against the crucial and basic rights of self-determination every person has as part of a free society.

This sort of controling behavior is exactly what makes me angry with many institutions.
I dont know if it has to do with your background or maybe your exposure to or empathy with, people who have been denied agency, but if one is living in what is supposed to be a free society, Douyang has the correct words in "Crucial and Basic".

You cannot suppose that just because you have a good life, everyone does.

I want very much to go off on some current issues that pertain but I'll behave.

Until you loose the ability and right to control your actions, body, opinion, it is hard to understand how important and basic those rights are. They are the reason people give up thier lives in revolutions, suffer misserable poverty in immagrating to other countries, and fight lifelong battles, sometimes violent, sometimes not, to obtain.

Oh and "doing ones job", reaks very much of "just following orders" which if your not familair with is an excuse used often to explain soldiers part in attrocities.
Orders do not preclude humane treatment. I hope the major turned over those ghosts including the director to the justice system, and did not mearly imprison them, as I belive was implied.

Tonks_kittygoth wrote: I see your point in that she follows the law. However, she only follows the law when she feels like it. She has done plenty of illeagal things if it suits her. So as she has made herself often autonomus from the law, I think judging her actions/choices is fine.

I've been waiting for someone else to notice this. You know how people in the U.S military say that they're there to defend democracy, not practice it?

Section 9: We're here to enforce the law, not obey it.

Seriously, these people have unrestricted police power that John Ashcroft has wet dreams about. One must wonder just how far they can go before it comes back to bite them in the ass... ghost hacking and killing members of their own nation's military... let's not forget that lawyer from episode 10 of 2nd GIG. Kidnapping Serano from 1st GIG, which got them in trouble. Hacking into government/corporate supercomputers, etc.

I understand that the reason they are so successful in what they do is because they have so little regard for the laws that get in the way of what's needed, but this setup can only work in the Gits world where section 9 are always the "good guys". I don't want to imagine a real life government agency that can whack people at will.

I'm not saying murder is on the same level, it was just an example what fails that test. Suicide also fails the test, and is probably a lot closer to what this is. With suicide, the only person your hurting is yourself. It still is bad for society, and not natrual. I used the test merely to show that "movie theatre" went against the natural order of things. It can't be made a universal truth, thus humans should ultimately pass on this "dangerous" thing.

You metioned the Matrix in the first post and i think this does have a lot of similarities to that. First there was Neo who was living in an experience similar to this movie theatre until he was woken up. The humans flying around on that ship see it as their duty to eventually wake up all of humanity from this false existance.

Their lives in the matrix are a hell of alot better than what waits for them outside, however it isn't real. You can see this in the bald guy who was on the ship but chooses to go back in the matrix. He liked it there, he wants his steak, life was better. He isn't a villan just because he sold out his crew, he's obviously weak and unwilling to commit to whats neccessary to save humanity. The movie theatre cyberbrain is a better existance. If given the choice, most people would choose it. The Major is similar to people on the ship, she see's that this isn't natural, and puts an end to it.

You may see the people on the ship as meddling or controlling for forcing society out of the matrix, but i personally see them as doing what is right. I made a claim that is also the role of government in society. They work to protect society from itself. Whether you think drugs should be illegal or not is your call. However, its easy to see why the government thinks they shoudl be illegal.

Yes it does go against free will and self-determination. The difference between a good and bad government is where the line is drawn. No the government shoudln't decide who you marry or what your job is. Thats what a bad government does. But a good government would draw the line at drugs and this movie theatre. Why? Its cause its that sort of stuff that causes societies to implode. A government that lets society implode would be a bad one too, right? Moreover, the government doesn't see drugs as bad because they lead to theaft, murder, and shared disease. If drugs were legalized these all could be put to rest. Drugs are made illegal to protect society from itself.

Again, i wasn't assuming their lives were better. Just like in the Matrix nobody thought that the people inside would have a happier existance outside. They knew they wouldn't, but i still think they are right for trying to release everyone from the spell. You may not see that as the case. Or you may not see it as applying to drugs or the movie theatre. You are perfectly allowed to, and its questioning that keeps governments from getting out of control. I was never trying to convince you otherwise, i was just trying to show you why i didn't see the Major as cruel or wrong for acting in that way.

Suicide also fails the test, and is probably a lot closer to what this is. With suicide, the only person your hurting is yourself.

Well... Not quite true necessarily; I'd say the people you hurt the most are the ones that care about you and need you, if you have those people in your life (and many people might have such people even without realising it)... But anyway...

I'm glad I'm not the only person who finds Motoko hard to like as a character (at least the manga and SAC versions). Thought I was on my own there.

cowboyfunk22 wrote:I'm not saying murder is on the same level, it was just an example what fails that test. Suicide also fails the test, and is probably a lot closer to what this is. With suicide, the only person your hurting is yourself. It still is bad for society, and not natural. I used the test merely to show that "movie theatre" went against the natural order of things. It can't be made a universal truth, thus humans should ultimately pass on this "dangerous" thing.

And why should I care about "the test" to begin with? If you can't will that everyone does something, then you shouldn't will that anyone do it? What does what anyone else wills have to do with their right to do what they want with their own lives? This makes no sense. It's like saying nobody should be allowed to quit their job because if everyone quit their job the world would grind to a halt, regardless of an individual's personal situation or occupation.

You seem to place too much emphasis on what's bad for "society". But society is made up of individuals, and only exists to serve the needs of individuals, not the other way around. If the needs and desires of individuals are satisfied by everyone permanently moving to the theatre or say, killing themselves, then what does it matter if that would mean an end to society?

Even if everyone in the world were to transfer their consciousness to the theatre permanently and thus end civilization and the existence of the human species in the real world, that would still be their choice which only they have a right to make for themselves. And we all might actually be better off for it, depending on your point of view.

The "natural order of things" has nothing to do with ethics or what restrictions should be placed on human behavior. Lots of things that are unethical, such as rape, infanticide, murder, enslavement and oppression of the weak by the strong, and so forth are all part of the "natural order".

You metioned the Matrix in the first post and i think this does have a lot of similarities to that. First there was Neo who was living in an experience similar to this movie theatre until he was woken up. The humans flying around on that ship see it as their duty to eventually wake up all of humanity from this false existance.

Their lives in the matrix are a hell of alot better than what waits for them outside, however it isn't real. You can see this in the bald guy who was on the ship but chooses to go back in the matrix. He liked it there, he wants his steak, life was better. He isn't a villan just because he sold out his crew, he's obviously weak and unwilling to commit to whats neccessary to save humanity. The movie theatre cyberbrain is a better existance. If given the choice, most people would choose it. The Major is similar to people on the ship, she see's that this isn't natural, and puts an end to it.

You may see the people on the ship as meddling or controlling for forcing society out of the matrix, but i personally see them as doing what is right. I made a claim that is also the role of government in society. They work to protect society from itself. Whether you think drugs should be illegal or not is your call. However, its easy to see why the government thinks they shoudl be illegal.

Your analogy does not apply here since people are given a choice as to whether to leave the Matrix or not... blue pill or red pill. Sure, they don't really know what it is they are choosing to accept or reject until they pick one, but that's understandable considering no one would believe the truth if you simply told them. More importantly, morpheus convincing people of their own free will (and not forcing them) to leave the matrix is liberating them from the machines that keep them enslaved and exploit them without their knowledge or consent. Consent is the key word here. It wouldn't be slavery or unethical at all if people choose to be inserted there and could leave if they wanted to. Therefore I see no connection between the Matrix situation and the movie theatre.

Yes it does go against free will and self-determination. The difference between a good and bad government is where the line is drawn. No the government shoudln't decide who you marry or what your job is. Thats what a bad government does. But a good government would draw the line at drugs and this movie theatre. Why? Its cause its that sort of stuff that causes societies to implode. A government that lets society implode would be a bad one too, right? Moreover, the government doesn't see drugs as bad because they lead to theaft, murder, and shared disease. If drugs were legalized these all could be put to rest. Drugs are made illegal to protect society from itself.

Again, i wasn't assuming their lives were better. Just like in the Matrix nobody thought that the people inside would have a happier existance outside. They knew they wouldn't, but i still think they are right for trying to release everyone from the spell. You may not see that as the case. Or you may not see it as applying to drugs or the movie theatre. You are perfectly allowed to, and its questioning that keeps governments from getting out of control. I was never trying to convince you otherwise, i was just trying to show you why i didn't see the Major as cruel or wrong for acting in that way.

I'm not trying to debate you on whether drugs should be legalized, but if you say drugs are not illegal because they cause things like theft, murder, prostitution, the spread of disease, etc, then what does society need to be "protected" against?

And I fail to see why society would implode in on itself if you let people enjoy that theatre, anymore than if you let them drink alcohol. Again, the only real issue I see here, is whether people can voluntarily leave the thing if they choose, and I haven't seen anyone address that.

I actually like motoko, despite this incident, since I think she honestly believes that people aren't given a choice as to leave the theatre or not, so that she is in fact liberating them. Besides, she's hot, eerily competent at her job, and has an impressive demeanor of calm.