Brief setting and story:
The world of Ghost in the Shell is one in which the future has advanced towards the point of cyberization. It is wholly commonplace for individuals to have cyberbrains within them, allowing them to directly access computer software with their mind. This likewise gives them the capacity to transmit signals from brain to brain wirelessly. There are A.I. robots, invisible cloaking, whole prosthetic bodies, and the ominous "ghost" hacking in which people themselves are hacked and controlled by an individual.
Episode 1:
we are introduced to the daily lives of the members of Japan's Public Security Section 9, a specialized cybercrime task force. The group's leader Chief Aramaki acts as the standard good-guy supervisor with all the cards up his sleeve. The true characters in which we see some development are the commander, Major Motoko Kusanagi, her combat-specialist Batou, and the non-cyborg Togusa (though he still has a cyberbrain).
Items of interest in the episode include...
- a criminal without a prosthetic body saying to the Major, "You people are cops? There's no hope for justice in our system now." The Major responds, "Straighten up your own act before whining about the world. Or if that's too much, wear a blindfold, zip your mouth, and live in a cave. Or the alternative..." [threatens to shoot the man in the head]
- the "kidnapping" of a government official by replacing the brain inside with an alternate and storing the original within a brain-case.
- the fact that the government official in question made a habit of switching bodies with robotic geishas during sexual encounters as a means of entertainment
- Major Kusanagi advising Togusa to get a robot body if he is so concerned about his aim getting worse (she spots him at the shooting range).
Episode 2:
The second episode traces the events of a machine of war gone haywire, concluding with a seemingly deceased weapons engineer with a weak body seeking revenge on the family of religious people who imposed their anti-cyberization morals on him, therefore leading to his early, bodily death. Transferring himself to a cyberbrain and implanting it into his latest tank-design, he seeks out his family, ready to reveal to them his new steel body, neither with pride nor vengeance, but instead simply to make the statement that it can be done, that it is acceptable to have such a thing.
Episode 3:
The episode follows an attempt by a socially awkward ambassador's son to try and create a meaningful relationship with an android. The android, having an outdated design, is only capable of recording and replaying existing input and it is discovered that her various conversations and comments about love are all from a particular movie, all except one line: "I am sorry. I truly did love you," she says as she restrains him for the police. The question is then posed as to whether this android really did carry some sort of "ghost", a spirit that existed beyond the mere technology.
With these three episodes together (no more, since it is already a lot of content) we should fixate on a few things. The existence of a consciousness existing separate from its physical body is a matter of continual occurrence in these episodes, what with being kidnapped by switching bodies, or even switching bodies to experience sexual pleasure differently. These instances are all only possible because of this disassociation, but what is Ghost in the Shell meaning to say about the basic concept? Both the Major's retort to the criminal referenced earlier and the engineer from the second episode exemplify the answer: The world has moved on from such antiquated "purity" sentiments. Either you can accept the fact that the world is now willing to have a wholly malleable sense of personal identity through one's body, or you can't and should either pretend it isn't real or get out.
I would say this particular subject gives us more than enough material to cover for an opening discussion. Firstly, we will need to recognize that one of the central issues at hand is the exchange of a human body or human characteristics in preference for a technologically enhanced version of the same. Therefore, in order to come to a clear analysis on the biblical ramifications of such a concept, we must first investigate the meaning of the phrase "made in the image of God" (Gen 1:26) as the logical argument against it would be that the human body should not be modified due to its divine quality inherent in its being made in God's image. Barring any kind of counterpoint concerning our natural desecration of other "God-created images" in nature for our purposes or the fact that we as humans have no problem replacing human anatomy with prosthetics when it is for healing, prevention of future damage, or reinforcement of a naturally-occurring weakness in the body, it would do us good to prove that the physical appearance of the human body is not the significant aspect here.
Well, judging from the fact that God himself is Spirit (John 4:24), it would make sense that it is the immaterial essence of humans that make us like Him. What does God do? 1) He reasons: It is only possible for God to devise a solution to a complex and abstract spiritual conundrum such as curing humanity's sin if He has the capacity to reason out the solution. 2) He makes decisions: In order for Him to "always do good" he must always be presented with or be aware of the capacity for evil, therefore, any action on His part is an act in which he decides upon a course of action based on an infinite possible number of variations. 3) He creates: Obviously he created us, the universe, and his legion of angels. He embraces the spirit of creation and "discovering" the new and innovated. 4) He seeks out relationship: Our creation was for the sole purpose of God developing a personal relationship with His creation, something that can only be done when we are likewise given the capacity to forge relationships. Why would we have that capacity? Oh right! Because we are made in the image of God. If we looked like centipedes, would this change anything? No, not so long as our consciousness was akin to the present. Therefore, it is our consciousness and mental and emotional faculties that separate us from the rest of creation, or in other words, that make us like God.
The concept that the image of God is somehow embedded in the physical form of man is only significant in so far as creation is an example of God's physical wonders - they share the fact that they focus on the appearance and tangible nature of their objects. Because God's essence is spirit (and we have already defined that God's image is embedded in the "spirit" of human relationship), then we can say that to claim that man's physical qualities matter would likewise imply that the physical state of man is either significant in the same way that the world is significant OR that the physical state somehow has an impact on our cognitive state ergo spiritual state. For now, we'll look at the first of these: first of all, God gave us dominion over all of the animals of the Earth. In a sense, he gave us the reins in directing the Earth. We manipulate every aspect of the Earth to our own ends: the animals, the rocks, the soil, the water, harnessing the power of nature's energy. Everything that has been physically crafted by God has been ours to wield and control as we see fit, to suit our own purposes - and so long as those purposes remain in alignment with God's purposes, such control should be permissible.
Harnessing that which God has provided for us as a means of advancing and developing ourselves seems like a natural extension of that, from cybernetic enhancement to genetic modification. God encoded our bodies in a way He knew we would eventually be able to understand. He would've had to have known that we would eventually decipher it to some degree and begin manipulating our basic components for our own R&D. Same goes for everything we've learned about how our body works. If we can find a way to enhance or functionally improve the experience we have as humans, doesn't that simply mean that we have found a method of building upon the tools that God has gifted to us and are using them to take things farther than what he initially provided for us? Would we say it is wrong to enhance our vision using a microscope? I think not... One might say that God wouldn't have wanted us to make such changes to the bodies he crafted personally, but it's more accurate to recognize that he personally crafted EVERYTHING and that the universe was designed to be our play pen, even from the Christian perspective. God wants us to grow, explore, innovate, create, transform, experiment, discover, and ultimately experience life, and if he is fine with us moving passed what he has "initially given us" in terms of technology, then he most certainly has no problem with us manipulating other physical aspects of ourselves.
Given that, we need to identify/evaluate whether any physical processes in our bodies can affect our consciousness and, if so, search for biblical grounds for understanding the unique predicament of physical-mental connections, i.e. certain hormones make us more/less male/female. Is the manipulation of THOSE physical properties permitted by God since they have an effect on how we experience the world, i.e. how we define ourselves as female or male? This is particularly relevant to our discussion because the ability to switch from one body into another, the complete segregation between body and consciousness, makes the role of the body's characteristics in consciousness-development (a spiritually-defined sense of development) fall into confusion: If my spirituality is defined by the state of my consciousness, then why does it matter what my body looks like in terms of God's divine will? Is there any way a manipulation of that body-consciousness relationship could be considered sinful, i.e. negatively affect my consciousness development?
A discussion for next time...
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