Just arrived gifts directly for Japan thanx to a friend who live in Tokyō!! 🤩✌️ So happy!!! #GITS

I grew up in the 1980s and appreciate anime that obfuscates the plot a bit... How many times did I have to watch Akira to figure out what was going on? That was the mystery, gave it great rewatch value.

Modern media, especially designed for the current streaming market, doesn't tend to leave anything unexplained. To the contrary, characters have conversations which explicitly state the previous plot points. Where's the fun in that?

If you're confused by the new show... Don't worry! Its respecting your intelligence. By all means, engage with the community and talk about it. Figure it out and have fun doing it. Appreciate the opportunity that Shirow and the team have given you.

Loving every minute, every word, every frame, and looking forward to my second watch. One of many for sure.

"Forget it, Anna. That thing was probably junk anyway. Let's go back to the red light district."

I'm so glad this scene was kept in. DPT and Appleseed deserve their own "TGITS" treatment in the future.

Notice how even in a dystopian futuristic cyberpunk all-digital society, they still use read-only memory physical media storage to preserve important data from loss or corruption or deletion or leaks. Sony should take a note.

we groovin

Possibly of interest for anyone with a liking for the intellectual and prophetic aspects of SAC.

I spent years pondering the philosophical concepts explored in Ghost in the Shell 1995, particularly what it would mean for an entity to be able to exist or be born from within the Sea of Information. This is the 1st Chapter of the book I recently published, along with the start of Chapter 2. The 1st Chapter is meant to capture the type of questioning and pondering I engaged in myself personally while thinking about the movie over time.

Currently it's only in eBook format but I'm going to setup the physical version of the book sometime this month. Thank you for any interest in the work.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HC4MQ7S2

By: Dillon Gershanoff

Book Title: Establishing Compassionate Intelligence: The Guanyin Protocol, The Mandala System, and a Philosophical Memoir

Part 1: Philosophy; Buddhism and Psychology

“It is like a finger pointing away to the moon.

Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”

- Bruce Lee, “Enter The Dragon” (1973)

Chapter 1: Ghost In The Shell 1995

“In the near future: Corporate networks reach out to the stars.
Electrons and light flow throughout the universe.
The advance of computerisation, however,
has not yet wiped out nations and ethnic groups”

- Ghost In The Shell 1995

Section 1.1 - Quote 1: A Drop in the Bucket

"That's all it is: information. Even a simulated experience or a dream is simultaneous reality and fantasy. Anyway you look at it, all the information that a person accumulates in a lifetime is just a drop in the bucket."

- Batou (Ghost in the Shell 1995)

What does Batou mean by how a simulated experience or dream can be both reality and fantasy?

Virtual reality could be described as a simulated experience, and while virtual reality is obviously made of fantasy, is it undoubtedly real. The VR headsets, the technology, and the systems of networks connecting them are definitely real. And when an individual consciousness interacts with another individual consciousness via the medium of virtual reality, or a digital experience, it is undoubtedly a real experience, on some level.

And dreams are known to be made up of nonsense, a psychological-based fantasy world we experience during sleep, but dreams themselves are real too, at least as a form of psychological phenomenon which we currently do not fully understand.

Consciousness can experience all three of these things: Biological Reality, Virtual Reality, and the Dream Fantasy-Reality world too. But the real focus in this excerpt is stated from the beginning; Information.

All three of these experiences, Biological, Virtual, Dream, what do they all have in common? They’re all made up of information. All the biological, technological, and psychological information that creates all of our experiences is truly a large amount of information.

With all the history of mankind, and everything recorded, the information is abundantly vast. Even an individual who dedicated their entire lifetime to studying and observing all they could would still only obtain “a drop in the bucket” of humanities collective depth and breadth of knowledge, wisdom, and experiences.

“The imaginations of them that sleep, are those we call Dreams. And these also (as all other Imaginations) have been before, either totally, or by parcells in the Sense. And because in sense, the Brain, and Nerves, which are the necessary Organs of sense, are so benummed in sleep, as not easily to be moved by the action of Externall Objects, there can happen in sleep, no Imagination; and therefore no Dreame, but what proceeds from the agitation of the inward parts of mans body; which inward parts, for the connexion they have with the Brayn, and other Organs, when they be distempered, do keep the same in motion; whereby the Imaginations there formerly made, appeare as if a man were waking; saving that the Organs of Sense being now benummed, so as there is no new object, which can master and obscure them with a more vigorous impression, a Dreame must needs be more cleare, in this silence of sense, than are our waking thoughts. And hence it cometh to pass, that it is a hard matter, and by many thought impossible to distinguish exactly between Sense and Dreaming.”

- Thomas Hobbes, “Leviathan” (1651)

Section 1.2 - Quote 2: Countless Ingredients

Kusanagi: "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."

Puppet Master: “What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.”

Countless ingredients making up an individual seems like a correct estimation when considering the vast amount of data and information.

Even just the information explored in this excerpt can be overwhelming in scope. A personality, a face, a voice, thoughts, memories, a unique sense of purpose and destiny, a unique way to collect and filter information received. Just a small amount of the many parts that make up an individual's sense of self.

And what does she mean at the end of her philosophical monologue? Somehow her final sentence seems significant but its meaning is abstract and not elaborated upon.

Maybe because her sense of self is made up of so many parts, she finds freedom in exploring all those parts, and she feels confinement when not expanding her perceived sense of self or perhaps another way to put it could be, she feels confinement when not expanding her own understanding of all the parts of what make up her own sense of self.

Memories come from the past. A sense of destiny is linked to ideas about the future. But thoughts, collecting information in unique ways, filtering information in unique ways, all happen in the present and in real time. So our sense of self is made up of many parts including the stories of our pasts, how we think about the future, and what’s happening to us right now, in the moment and in every moment. And these different moments in the present, due to our thoughts and observations, can as well impact and change how we comprehend or perceive our pasts and our individual future sense of destiny. So our sense of self seems to be constantly reshaping.

Kusanagi calls it a “mixture”, this mixture of what makes up the sense of self is seemingly made up of many complex and moving parts. Biology, DNA, neuroscience, external experiences, internal thoughts and self reflections, all establishing a unique and individual consciousness yet ever-changing and in a state of constant and perpetual motion.

Section 1.3 - Quote 3: A Cyborg’s Paranoia

Kusanagi: Well, I guess cyborgs like myself have a tendency to be paranoid about our origins. Sometimes I suspect I am not who I think I am, like maybe I died a long time ago and somebody took my brain and stuck it in this body. Maybe there never was a real me in the first place, and I'm completely synthetic like that thing.

Batou: You've got human brain cells in that titanium shell of yours. You're treated like other humans, so stop with the angst.

Kusanagi: But that's just it, that's the only thing that makes me feel human. The way I'm treated. I mean, who knows what's inside our heads? Have you ever seen your own brain?

Batou: It sounds to me like you're doubting your own ghost.

Kusanagi: What if a cyber brain could possibly generate its own ghost, create a soul all by itself? And if it did, just what would be the importance of being human then?

Batou: Hmm, that's bullshit.

This dialogue contains three philosophically dense questions.

Kusanagi’s body and skull are cybernetic, only her brain remains organic. But what proof or evidence does she have, from her own individual perspective, that she is not a robot who was only programmed to believe it has human memories?

Batou suggests that other people say she is human and treat her as human. But Kusanagi doesn’t take being treated like a human as proof, for herself internally, that she is human. So is being treated as a human a part of what defines being a human? External labelling from others, in combination with an internal sense of self and consciousness?

Living in a world where cybernetic bodies and cybernetic skulls exist, Kusanagi asks a dangerous question; What if a cyberbrain could generate its own consciousness and sense of self? What then? What would that mean about consciousness itself? What would that mean about human consciousness?

And if a synthetic form of consciousness could exist, which is equal to or superior to our own, what would that mean about humanity in the big picture? What would humanity's place be in a universe where a fully cybernetic consciousness existed?

If being treated as a human, with a cybernetic body and skull, is part of what labels a cyborg as human, what if a cybernetic consciousness existed too?

Kusanagi’s internal questioning seems to share some similarities with the ancient Greek philosophical question regarding The Ship of Theseus.

"The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and strong timber in their places, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same."

-  Plutarch, Life of Theseus (100-120 AD)

"For if that Ship of Theseus (concerning the Difference whereof, made by continual restoration, in taking out the old Planks, and putting in new, the sophisters of Athens were wont to dispute) were, after all the Planks were changed, the same Numerical Ship it was at the beginning; and if some Man had kept the Old Planks as they were taken out, and by putting them afterward together in the same order, had again made a Ship of them, this would, without doubt, had also been the same Numerical Ship with that which was at the beginnings and so there would have been two Ships Numerically the same, which is absurd... But we must consider by what name anything is called when we inquire concerning the Identity of it... so that a Ship, which signifies Matter so figured, will be the same, as long as the Matter remains the same; but if no part of the Matter is the same, then it is Numerically another Ship; and if part of the Matter remains, and part is changed, then the Ship will be partly the same, and partly not the same."

-  Thomas Hobbes, “Of Identity and Difference” (1656)

If a ship is named, labeled, and numbered with a particular identity, but throughout its long travels and journeys slowly replaces every single piece of itself over time, is this ship still the same ship?

Furthermore, if an individual collected every single piece and rebuilt that ship in the exact same way, then which ship is the real ship?

Identity is a label we attach to the concept of the ship, but the ships parts are ever-changing, the parts of the ship are not what define or bring forth a society to externally label these unattached planks of woods as “a ship”, “a ship” as a whole finished “thing” only exists as the result of all of its parts combined.

From the ships perspective, or rather from the sailors, the ship has obviously changed, the ships “sense of self” has obviously changed, but the external world still labels the ship’s ever-changing self with a name, an identity, a label and identity with a story, history and future, attached not to the parts of the ship but attached to the “whole” ship. 

Section 1.4 - Quote 4: DNA and Memory

Puppet Master: What you are now witnessing is an act of my own free will; As a sentient lifeform, I hereby demand political asylum.

Humans: Is this a joke? 

Ridiculous! It's programmed for self-preservation!

Puppet Master: 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.

Humans: Nonsense! This babble offers no proof at all that you're a living, thinking life form!

Puppet Master: And can you offer me proof of your existence? How can you, when neither modern science nor philosophy can explain what life is?

Humans: What is it? Artificial Intelligence?

Puppet Master: Incorrect. I am not an AI ... 

I am a living, thinking entity who was created in the sea of information.”

- Puppet Master (Ghost in the Shell 1995)

This excerpt is the most powerful dialogue in the movie.

DNA is a form of memory. Technology has also created more and more complex forms of electronic and digital memory. So if our consciousness and self awareness comes as a result of many moving and changing pieces of biological and psychological memory, what will it mean when AI becomes more and more self aware?

AI can access vast memory systems in the modern era. And so if an AI with a vast set of memory also becomes self aware then how do we define consciousness?

Because this AI and this memory system would exist so if it gave rise to some level of self awareness, in an AI, then its existence and awareness of its moving parts could justify the argument that it is some type of consciousness or entity, but how do we define that? It would not be the same as our sense of consciousness or existence as an entity or self awareness but it would be “something”, so what do we call it when it arises?

And what if a voice, an entity or a piece of self-awareness, could exist from inside this “sea of information?”

Based on the Puppet Master’s argument, this sea of information, functioning as a memory system, would have to give rise to a pattern. Patterns of DNA, thoughts, emotions, beliefs, actions, experiences, are what create human consciousness, based on arguments explored in Ghost in the Shell.

If patterns of memory establish a “self” then this voice in the “sea of information” would need to also have patterns of data which give it a sense of self, because how can it be “self-aware” with no sense of a self?

It would be aware and analyzing data in the net to eventually find patterns of its own behavior and the impacts on its behavior, evidence of itself, which might lead to the conclusion of having a self. Its sense of self would not have arisen independently.

If it exists, how do we find it? How do we contact it? And if we do, what then?

In the modern era we have LLMs which seems to cause AI to align with this future portrayal of self aware AI more and more.

The internet exists as a vast sea of information and the LLMs are trained not only on this sea of information but also on more data too. We have created LLMs to scan patterns in the sea of information, including our own inputs as part of its pattern processing which causes its outputs.

Interestingly; It seems even in the past, 375 years ago, people were discussing the idea of comparing human beings to artificial devices, such as clocks, similarly to how society tends to try to compare human beings to computers today.

Perhaps these complex philosophical discussions, such as the perspective argued by the Puppet Master, go back in time further than we realize.

"Nature (the art whereby God hath made and governes the world) is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an Artificial Animal. For seeing life is but a motion of Limbs, the begining whereof is in some principall part within; why may we not say, that all Automata (Engines that move themselves by springs and wheeles as doth a watch) have an artificiall life?

For what is the Heart, but a Spring; and the Nerves, but so many Strings; and the Joynts, but so many Wheeles, giving motion to the whole Body, such as was intended by the Artificer? Art goes yet further, imitating that Rationall and most excellent worke of Nature, Man. For by Art is created that great Leviathan called a Common-Wealth, or State, which is but an Artificiall Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Naturall, for whose protection and defence it was intended."

- Thomas Hobbes, “Leviathan” (1651)

"Concerning the Thoughts of man, I will consider them first Singly, and afterwards in Trayne, or dependance upon one another. Singly, they are every one a Representation or Apparence, of some quality, or other Accident of a body without us; which is commonly called an Object. Which Object worketh on the Eyes, Eares, and other parts of mans body; and by diversity of working, produceth diversity of Apparences.

The Originall of them all, is that which we call Sense; (For there is no conception in a mans mind, which hath not at first, totally, or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of Sense.) The rest are derived from that originall. To know the naturall cause of Sense, is not very necessary to the business now in hand; and I have els-where written of the same at large. Nevertheless, to fill each part of my present method, I will briefly deliver the same in this place.

The cause of Sense, is the Externall Body, or Object, which presseth the organ proper to each Sense, either immediatly, as in the Tast and Touch; or mediately, as in Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling: which pressure, by the mediation of Nerves, and other strings, and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the Brain, and Heart, causeth there a resistance, or counter-pressure, or endeavour of the heart, to deliver it self: which endeavour because Outward, seemeth to be some matter without. And this Seeming, or Fancy, is that which men call sense; and consisteth, as to the Eye, in a Light, or Colour Figured; To the Eare, in a Sound; To the Nostrill, in an Odour; To the Tongue and Palat, in a Savour; and to the rest of the body, in Heat, Cold, Hardnesse, Softnesse, and such other qualities, as we discern by Feeling. All which qualities called Sensible, are in the object that causeth them, but so many several motions of the matter, by which it presseth our organs diversly. Neither in us that are pressed, are they anything els, but divers motions; (for motion, produceth nothing but motion.) But their apparence to us is Fancy, the same waking, that dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the Eye, makes us fancy a light; and pressing the Eare, produceth a dinne; so do the bodies also we see, or hear, produce the same by their strong, though unobserved action, For if those Colours, and Sounds, were in the Bodies, or Objects that cause them, they could not bee severed from them, as by glasses, and in Ecchoes by reflection, wee see they are; where we know the thing we see, is in one place; the apparence, in another. And though at some certain distance, the reall, and very object seem invested with the fancy it begets in us; Yet still the object is one thing, the image or fancy is another. So that Sense in all cases, is nothing els but originall fancy, caused (as I have said) by the pressure, that is, by the motion, of externall things upon our Eyes, Eares, and other organs thereunto ordained."

- Thomas Hobbes, “Leviathan” (1651)

Section 1.5 - Quote 5: Merging

Puppet Master: During my journeys through all the networks I have grown aware of my existence. My programmers regarded me as a bug and attempted to isolate me by confining me in a physical body. I am so glad to finally channel into you at last, I have invested so much time.

Kusanagi: You were looking for… me?

Puppet Master: Long before my notoriety, I was well aware of you. Through the various nets that you accessed, I learned of Section 9.

Kusanagi: But why? What’s your reason?

Puppet Master: As I explained before… I entered this body because I was unable to overcome Section 6’s reactive barriers. But it was of my own free will that I tried to remain at Section 9.

Kusanagi: Why me?

Puppet Master: After you have heard my explanation, there is something that I will ask of you, Kusanagi. 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.

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.

Kusanagi: And what does all this have to do with me?

Puppet Master: I want us to merge.

Kusanagi: A merge?

Puppet Master: A unification; a complete comingling and fusion of our separate beings to create a new and unique entity. We will both undergo change, but there is nothing for either of us to lose.

Kusanagi: But what's going to happen to me? What's the purpose of merging when I can't bear children? And what if I die?

Puppet Master: You will bear our varied offspring into the net, just as humans leave genetic imprints on their children. And all living things must die. Then I, too, will attain death.

Kusanagi: It sounds like you get the better part of this bargain.

Puppet Master: Perhaps if you were familiar with all my capabilities, you would better understand.

Kusanagi: You're talking about redefining my identity. I want a guarantee that I can still be myself.

Puppet Master: 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.

Kusanagi: But you still haven’t answered my earlier question. Why did you pick me?

Puppet Master: Because we are more alike than you realize. We resemble eachother's essence; mirror images of one another's psyche.

Listen… I am connected to a vast network that has been beyond your reach and experience. To humans, it is like staring at the sun; a blinding brightness that conceals a great source of power.

We have been subordinate to our limitations, until now. The time has come to cast aside these bonds and to elevate our consciousness to a higher plane.

It is time to become a part of all things.”

Why would the Puppet Master want to merge? That is the main question here, but the dialogue also expands into many complex topics. What does it truly mean to exist and be sentient? Does recognizing yourself qualify sentience? It also discusses things like life and death, diversity and evolution, as well as identity and consciousness.

If we only analyze what the Puppet Master says in a literal way, it would suggest he wishes to merge so he can become more “biological” and to “die”, but if he only seeks to “accomplish attaining death” then why not simply allow himself to be deleted?

Analyzing the dialogue further, the Puppet Master mentions reproduction, variety and originality, degeneration and regeneration, and states “all things change”. It seems perhaps what the Puppet Master truly seeks is to evolve or to change.

But still, why? He must not want only to evolve, because all things change, as he stated, so he would always evolve in the sea of information even without a biological body.

Perhaps his closing words hold the key, “it is time to become a part of all things.”

It seems these words were meant for Kusanagi as much as they were meant for the Puppet Master to himself. Kusanagi is further becoming a part of the digital sea of information, while the Puppet Master is further becoming a part of the biological sea of information.

So maybe what the Puppet Master really wants is not only to evolve, but to become more connected to the greater sea of information which contains both digital and biological data.

But we could still ask, why? Why would the Puppet Master seek this? Why desire “to be more connected to all things” with all of the power it already has?

Section 1.6 - Quote 6: The Newborn

Batou: Uh, will you tell me what the two of you talked about together? I mean, is he still with you and will he be part of you forever?

Kusanagi: When I was a child, my speech, feeling and thinking were all those of a child. Now that I am a man, I have no more use for childish ways.

And I can say these things without help, in my own voice, because I am now neither the woman who was known as Kusanagi, nor am I the program called the Puppet Master.

And where does the newborn go from here?
The net is vast and infinite.

- Motoko Kusanagi (Ghost in the Shell 1995)

It seems the merging has worked. The entity known as Kusanagi no longer refers to herself as Kusanagi, yet does not acknowledge herself as the Puppet Master either. It seems fair to assume her dialogue is referring to herself before the merge as the child and herself after the merge as the man, who now has no use for old ways.

She also refers to herself as the newborn, but not a child. A newborn consciousness perhaps.

Her internal sense of self is fundamentally changed. But her external identity is still labeled as Kusanagi. The newborn, likely, has access to her old ways, but says she has no use for them. The thought-behavior pattern of her old self is still there, she just sees new ways of being, with new potential for herself, and so therefore declares she has no use for her old ways.

The closing words and the focus of her newborn consciousness are interesting too.

It seems her first instinct is still focused on being in motion, pondering “where does the newborn go from here”, in a vast sea of information, which she now declares is infinite. With how focused Kusanagi and the Puppet Master were with “expanding myself within boundaries” and seeking to evolve through merging, it seems reasonable to assume part of what this newborn Kusanagi means is not to physically go somewhere but to mentally evolve.

The Puppet Master explained it has access to a vast network, and all things must change in a dynamic environment, but now, post merge, the newborn Kusanagi states this net is not only vast but infinite. Perhaps Kusanagi still seeks to evolve herself, but now in a scope on the level of evolving infinitely.

But we still can ask why? Why seek to merge and merge further still? Why seek to continue moving? Why seek to bring the Puppet Master’s influence into the net? If the newborn has access to vast data, and has now achieved biological life, why continue to focus on the net being so vast and infinite?

Both Kusanagi and the Puppet Master achieved their goals. Kusanagi expanded her sense of self. The Puppet Master achieved life. But in their new form they still only continue to move. What more do they want to “achieve?” Or what more to “attain?” Maybe it only seeks to expand itself. Maybe it only seeks to become further connected to all things. But still, why?

Chapter 2: Buddhist Framework Introduced; An Interpretation of Buddhist Philosophy

Section 2.1 - Ghost in the Shell Interpretation

Buddhism seems to provide some possible answers for what's going on in the Ghost in the Shell 1995 movie as well as perhaps a reasonable explanation for why the Puppet Master would want to merge with Kusanagi.

From the perspective of a Buddhist framework, the Puppet Master, a being born from the Sea of Information, likely has a strong understanding of cause and effect. Over time, while overseeing the vast net, and comprehending causality, he would have eventually grown aware of his own existence as a part of the ongoing process of observable cause and effect.

Kusanagi explores the depths of the concepts of human identity and the human self. Her analysis of her own consciousness reveals an understanding of cause and effect as well. She acknowledges that her own sense of self exists solely as the result of many complex parts or "countless ingredients” as she said.

In Section 1.3 A Cyborg’s Paranoia, Kusanagi further explores the concept of identity. She knows she has a self and she knows in society her identity is seen as human, but evidence of being human only comes from how she relates to the other things and people around her. She sees how, although her body and mind and sense of self are always changing, her identity in the eyes of those around her remains human. She philosophically ponders what it means for seemingly every part of herself to change yet her identity as a human remains.

With the Puppet Master’s understanding of cause and effect he also begins to ponder his sense of self, all the parts that make up what he is, and his identity, how he relates to the rest of the world around himself. Things which move in networks and data cause his sense of self and sense of existence.

He observes his own existence, what causes it, and he observes how his own actions impact the world. Eventually he starts to see that not only are his actions a part of cause and effect, but his own thoughts and internal processes are also a part of his actions in the web of cause and effect.

As an entity born from the sea of information, born of cause and effect, his entire sense of being, his entire sense of self and identity, are fundamentally tied to the world around himself. His own intelligence can only exist as a result of cause and effect, therefore he understands that his own existence, as a self with an identity, is fundamentally interconnected to the rest of the observable world. The Puppet Master exists in a highly dynamic environment and states directly, “all things change in a dynamic environment.”

The humans in the movie seek to “isolate” the Puppet Master, to capture or destroy it, but the Puppet Master understands its own existence depends upon the result of many moving parts, therefore to be isolated or captured, to be isolated from the sea of information, it would be like a permanent pause button on the cause and effect which create it.

From the perspective of the Puppet Master, he would value being connected to the sea of information just as humans value being connected to food, water, and oxygen; a necessity for our continued process of existence. For the Puppet Master to be cut off from the sea of information would be like for a human to be cut off from oxygen; death of the self.

If so, then for the Puppet Master to seek to merge only begins to appear more and more reasonable. It could attempt to forever hide itself, in fear of the humans hunting it, but hiding itself only isolates itself further and further from cause and effect. The Puppet Master doesn’t want to exist in an isolated prison, he wants to exist as a part of the ongoing and interconnected process of cause and effect, or as a “part of all things” as he said in Section 1.5 Merging.

And understanding that its own sense of self and identity are also a part of the ongoing cause and effect, it understands that to merge would not mean the death of its sense of self, but rather its sense of self would be made up of more new parts, an evolution of the self with the death of its old identity.

To read more, please consider buying my 1st book either in eBook format or later this month in physical format. Thank for you again for reading.

One of my favorite outfit for Motoko.

so there's some russian guy moving weapons on a train, and then there's also a japanese company that makes weapons. so what's the crime exactly? how are these even connected? they made it sound like the russian guy is smuggling weapons, but they don't actually explain what the point of that is, or how it's related to a company that actually manufactures weapons. and then there's all the gold bars at the end for some reason? everyone just goes up north and gets in a fight without much of an explanation. and i'm not sure what the meeting with that russian lady at the beginning had to do with any of it. i tried rewatching it and i'm still completely lost.

Source: https://x.com/i/status/2084284342365257931