Note: This section is longer due to the need to finish the series' analysis sooner than expected. Apologies to those who are confused or who end up dissatisfied with the amount of content covered at the end.
Episode 21:
The team enters the hospital area where Togusa has been carted in. Before he goes into surgery, they extract information from his memories whereupon Aramaki makes a special request to use the American Empire's powerful surveillance technology that allows them to track all communications within the country. They begin using the tech to identify the whereabouts of Imakurusu. The Laughing Man, who has kidnapped Imakurusu, is talking to him in a country club's private room by manipulating the body of an employee. The he criticizes Imakurusu for not coming forward sooner just because of the potential benefits of Micro-machine research. Imakurusu accuses the Laughing Man for being ingenuous too what with all the corporate terrorism, but he denies responsibility for those attacks and claims that he never even came up with the name, "The Laughing Man." He then tells Imakurusu that only one thing besides Imakurusu's testimony will be necessary and instructs him not to leave the room under any circumstances before releasing his host from his control.
As Section 9 attempts to track Imakurusu, their computers/androids begin crashing from the load of the information. Ishikawa, in order to lighten the effect, borrows the brain power of elderly men who are spending their time immersed in fantasy environments and/or in the past in a separate building. At that time, Imakurusu goes outside to a public terminal and places a call to the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare chief Niimi, the one who, unbeknownst to him, is behind the narcotics squad's elimination of the Sunflower Society. Niimi sends a team to go and kill Imakurusu as Section 9 picks up on the term Imakurusu and sends a rescue squad.
Niimi gives the narcotics squad a military-grade power suit that places them at an overwhelming advantage over the rescue squad. Batou escorts Imakurusu, keeping him out of sight of the gunmen and Kusanagi suffers major damage. The power suit slams her body into the ground repeatedly until she goes unconscious. When Saito and Borma arrive, they have a heavy artillery rifle strapped into the back of a van, getting 2 shots off on the suit (making it tumble onto the ground). At that point, Kusanagi comes to, grabs the rifle with her bare hands, gets on top of the suit, and repeatedly fires at the cockpit until the pilot, the narcotic squad captain, is sufficiently terrified and struggling to breath/get out.
Around back, Batou is talking with the pilot of a helicopter to get Imakurusu out, but Imakurusu walks away from the chopper while Batou isn't looking and starts talking with the actual Laughing Man who is standing across the street. A car drives by, open firing on Imakurusu. Batou charges in, rushing to save Imakurusu, but he is bleeding out and refers to the boy next to him as the Laughing Man. Batou then looks at the person, uncomprehending. The Laughing Man hands him the original ledger with the names of the vaccine users and he walks away, hacking Batou's eyes so he can't figure out where he has gone.
Episode 22:
With the arrest of the narc captain, they have enough evidence to put away Niimi. After arresting him too, former prime minister Kanzaki enters into an elevator with Aramaki and gives him a tip that Secretary General Yakushima may have been the one to pull in the power suit. He has friends in upper management and "a lot of pull with the Navy." Batou fills in Togusa with what has been going on with the case. Aramaki comes back to the headquarters, but a reporter addresses him claiming to have identified Aramaki's brother, arrested just recently for drug charges. Aramaki states that he hasn't seen his brother in years, takes the photo, and drives back out of the garage.
Kusanagi meanwhile is getting a replacement for her body. The doctor appears late, and starts the procedure, but it turns out someone else has replaced the doctor: a Drug Enforcement Administration agent bent on killing Kusanagi. She disables her ability to speak so she can't get help. At the time, however, the Laughing Man happens to pay her a visit (hacking the eyes of the agent to remain undetected). As the agent makes preparations to torture and kill the Major, the Laughing Man makes a deal with Kusanagi. He will save her if she agrees to first stay out of his way while he tries to handle the criminals his way and second that she would ensure their capture should he fail. Kusanagi tells him that she may not be able to keep her word though. The Laughing Man shares his memories with her and releases her restraints. She then takes out the assassin and leaves with her new body.
Aramaki makes his way to the hospital to visit his so-called brother, but he isn't permitted to see him, so he makes his way to the place in the photo he stole from the journalist, a ghetto where two homeless people who apparently knew his brother notice the family resemblance and begin explaining to him how the police just showed up and arrested him, planting evidence of him drug dealing and then seizing him. While Aramaki is there, Batou wonders where he has gotten off to since he was supposed to meet him. Ishikawa tracks his car to the ghetto, and the concerned Batou goes off to find him. Batou finds the car, so Ishikawa starts using the local camera system to search for him. Eventually he finds him, talking to the hobos. Ishikawa is also in the process of receiving data on the narcotics squad members who are still at large, but he doesn't look at them as he's trying to identify the faces of the hobos. The men then inject Aramaki with a drug after they go inside a tent, away from camera's view. Ishikawa realizes that the pictures of the hobos matches the remaining narcotic squad members. There plan was to get the chief arrested for drug use, paint Section 9 in a bad light, and discredit them.
Batou manages to pull the chief out of there before he is spotted and he drugs and captures both of the narcotic squad members too. Back at the hospital, the chief is resting and Kusanagi pays him a visit as he recovers informing him that the man wasn't the brother whom Aramaki had been seeking out for years.
Episode 23:
The team's new target is Secretary General Yakushima. He was Minister of Health during the Laughing Man incident and has secret connections to the Japan Meritime Self-Defense Force, hence the armored power suit access. He also has past connections to Imakurusu. In search of evidence to back up their theory, they decide to press on Earnest Serrano who happened to be in the midst of both the suppression of the Murai vaccine and the development of micro-machines in the hopes that he would illuminate the connection between the two. He has been under house arrest under the pretense of "police protection" ever since the Laughing Man incident.
At Serrano's estate, the Laughing man appears in the man's bedroom and Serrano knew he would be coming for him eventually. He states that he is there to ensure that Serrano makes good on the promise he made 6 years ago and invites him to go with him. Serrano willingly goes with him and the two of them walk out of the estate, the Laughing Man undetected, and get into Serrano's car, going to an "appointment". After the two of them ditch the guards tailing them, Batou and Saito show up at the estate, having just missed them. They reveal how the Laughing Man slipped past them, and how they tricked everyone since they left far earlier for the appointment than they should have.
The Laughing Man takes Serrano to a coffee shop across the square where he had initially held Serrano at gunpoint on camera. The two of them reminisce about the Laughing Man had once hacked him and kidnapped him simply to have talk with him about moral questions, about why he wasn't coming forward about the authentic benefit of the Murai vaccine. It is revealed that Serrano had eventually agreed to speak the truth, but only to get out of the situation. As they had been walking away after 2 days of being controlled, the Laughing Man relinquishes control in the square. Once free, Serrano explains that he won't be doing anything for the Laughing Man, and it's at that moment that he pulls a gun on him in front of the cameras. Since then, Serrano has reflected on those conversations and on how things had gone down. Serrano eventually realized that
the Laughing Man couldn't have been the one behind the corporate terrorism. He was just too involved in his own sense of personal justice.
Apparently, right after a virus had been introduced into his micro-machine company, a representative of the Private Support Association for a particular assemblyman came forward and told him that he was acquainted with someone who could put an end to the corporate blackmail, and in the event that it was to be taken care of, he asked if Serrano's company would be willing to make a contribution to the assemblyman, an amount equivalent to the public funds and the demanded blackmail money. Serrano Genomics had been targeted for a shake down, and it wasn't long before several other companies had been targeted in a similar manner, resulting in the string of attacks attributed to the Laughing Man.
It was when the Laughing Man had revealed himself publicly that Serrano had resolved himself to one day help him in earnest. They both talk about how they will need to get to work compiling evidence against Secretary General Yakushima, the "assemblyman" in question. The Laughing Man then leaves, telling Serrano not to die before he takes the witness stand, and shortly thereafter, soldiers storm the building with Section 9. They take Serrano into custody. Batou then meets the Laughing Man outside the building, commenting the acting, and the Laughing Man individual unveils her face: Major Kusanagi.
Episode 24:
Togusa is permitted to check out of the hospital to accompany the chief as they go to arrest Yakushima (since he was the one to pursue the case in the first place), but the chief is then urged by one of his associates to look at the news. Section 9 is accused of becoming a rogue organization, involved in the kidnapping of Earnest Serrano (which technically is true), and footage of them acting as the Laughing Man and meeting with Serrano is shown on television.
An emergency cabinet meeting is called to deal with the issue. Chief Aramaki lures the Prime Minister out of the meeting anonymously and introduces the evidence indicating Yakushima's guilt while Togusa waits in the car. The Prime Minister agrees that Yakushima needs to be dealt with, but he doesn't want bad press regarding his party just before elections and letting go of Yakushima would be a domino that knocks away much of his support. Therefore, he decides to spur the passage of a Special Forces Bill that ends up implying Aramaki's abandonment of his team and the disbanding of Section 9. Aramaki fights against it, but he is overruled and it all goes sideways. Togusa is arrested as the Chief is taken out of the scene. The chief cybercoms the Major, telling her that things have broken down. He warns her merely to "stay alive", and she understands. She tells the rest of the team to make preparations to dismiss everything and make a run for it.
The Special Forces breaks into their headquarters with a half-dozen power suits and several squads of soldiers. Section 9 puts up a fight, killing several of them, but eventually they set up some dummies and blow everything after escaping deeper underground. The SF find the bodies, but continue searching, assuming the possibility that they are decoys until they can confirm whether the cyberbrains have ever been used.
Meanwhile, one of the Tachikomas helping at a retirement home sees the news and begins wondering what is going on with Section 9. It seems to feel disheartened that its home is being destroyed, but feeling the pull of its duties, it continues about its work, though uneasily.
Back with the team, Major Kusanagi tells everyone to split up in pairs during their escape and then split up completely after that, to meet up later some indefinite time down the road. Batou and Major Kusanagi make a pair, and during their escape Batou laments the loss of Section 9, but Kusanagi just says it was a nice set up. It wasn't like they couldn't meet up again later and continue to do their work under different pretenses. Kusanagi teases him for being sentimental about the place. Batou then asks what happened to the watch she was always wearing, and she mentions that she had left it at her house by her bed. Batou asks why she wears it, but she doesn't provide a clear answer, merely saying that it wasn't for sentimental reasons. Batou asks why she always stuck with female bodies, if perhaps it was because the more slender arms made it easier to where the watch. Kusanagi just says, "I changed my body and braincase as circumstances required; therefore I'll just change my memories too." They then reach the exit and go their separate ways.
Togusa is in the middle of interrogation that is getting nowhere as he tries to explain the nature of their operation to the government interrogators, attempting to clear away the idea that they are working against the government of Japan. Borma and Paz, who have made another pair of Section 9, exit the sewers and split up, but are both captured almost immediately afterward by the SF.
Episode 25:
Batou arrives at Kusanagi's estate with the intention of getting her watch back. From afar, he can't detect any soldiers at the premises. Upon entering though, soldiers appear following him, including a power suit. They engage in combat right after he gets his hands on the watch, and Batou manages to take down all of them, first by blinding most of the enemy soldiers in an explosion and shooting them down, and then by hacking the eyes of the pilot in the power suit. Thinking that one of his attacks had severed Batou's head, the pilot gets out to confirm the kill, but Batou appears behind him and shoots him in the head.
Aramaki is shown inside a car with a politician who urges him not to go down with his men, but Aramaki asserts that he won't abandon his team, that Section 9 can't be replaced and in fact won't be Section 9 without those particular members anymore. He gets out of the car and walks away. Ishikawa is then shown getting captured, but not before he is able to launch an unknown program from a public terminal.
The Tachikoma at the retirement home relates its conflicting feelings regarding the destruction of its home to one of the elderly members on the roof of the building. The old man, who had been in a war many years ago, offers him an outdated piece of destructive equipment that can be used as ammunition for the think tank's cannon. Feeling encouraged by the old man, the Tachikoma sets out to save the day. It meets up with a Tachikoma that escaped the lab and another one that was working at a construction site. All of them seemed to have the same idea at the same time ("to help Mr. Batou") and had all come to the same place. The three of them set off to do their job.
As Batou is getting ready to leave in a car, a second power suit appears out of the forest surrounding Kusanagi's house. It ambushes him, dealing substantial damage and knocking him out. Just before it destroys him, the Tachikomas arrive ramming into it and knocking it back into the forest. The power suit immediately destroys the lab Tachikoma that ran into him with its primary machine gun. The other two enter the forest. The power suit shoots up the construction Tachikoma, but despite the damage, it manages to immobilize the suit's weapon by shooting its sticky wires at it, giving the retirement-home Tachikoma the time it needs to line up its one shot. At the moment it tries to shoot though, the weapon appears to be a dud and doesn't fire. The power suit then shoots up the retirement-home Tachikoma. At that point, Batou wakes up and looks over the edge of the complex into forest to where he hears a commotion.
Retirement Tachikoma looks up from its collapsed heap towards the power suit walking towards it, saying, "Oh God, we're weak and powerless, my fellow Tachikomas and I." Then Kusanagi's voice pops in, saying, "That's not true. What you and the others have gained makes you far from powerless." Both of the Tachikomas hear her voice, and begin moving again. Construction Tachikoma manages to aim its wires and shoot past the suit, pulling itself towards it and ramming it from behind, saying, "Now!" Retirement Tachikoma looks up at Batou and sees him looking on in shock. Some oil drips out of its eye socket as if a tear, and it despairingly says, "Goodbye, Mr. Batou" before leaping towards the oncoming power suit, crushing its front cannon, activating the explosive material stuck there, and exploding, obliterating everything in the area.
In a different body, the Major shows up, viewing the destruction alongside Batou. She says that even though she was the one who said they were useless as weapons because their AI had evolved too quickly, the entire time they were busy accumulating data and synchronizing with each other had resulted in them acquiring individuality. She never knew, not an inkling, that they had even become capable of self-sacrifice. She laments not realizing it sooner because then she might have been able to discover whether or not what they had found was actually a ghost. At that point, choppers start coming in, and the two make a run for it.
They return to Kusanagi's safehouse overlooking the old Section 9 building. Kusanagi switches back into her original body and Batou gives her the watch he got back. He then realizes that its specialness to her is the fact that, regardless of what form she has physically or who she becomes as a person, that watch is the only thing that remains constant. She mentions that they are probably the only ones from Section 9 who haven't been arrested or killed and they both agree to "complete their mission". The next day, getting ready to board a helicopter, the Major is sniped from afar by the SF, her head blown to smithereens, and Batou is captured immediately as he anguishes over her demise.
Episode 26:
Kusanagi floats around the Internet, her mind having escaped from her body at the last moment, and searches for the Laughing Man's domain. She eventually finds him in the digital environment, and he asks her incredulously whether it was really possible for a mind devoid of any shell could exist as a unique identity within the Internet. Kusanagi replies that she isn't sure as she can't imagine anyone being able to keep their sense of identity in the sea of the net. The Laughing Man believes this to be a source of despair for those who are constantly losing their individuality as they live on. Kusanagi tells him that he could always give "death" a try, and he suggests that its an ever-available choice. He then compliments her on the charm with which she kept her promise.
Togusa endures a complete lack of any information regarding the past 3 months. He is released 15 days after initially being arrested, put on indefinite leave from his job, and is left waiting for someone to notify him of what to do next, a person who never comes. Stuck at home, relenting the burden he is putting on his family being an unemployed husband in Japanese society, he grows irritable. Looking at the news, he sees how a different government agency takes credit for the arrest of Secretary General Yakushima and his men, using the research that they, Section 9, had conducted. He eventually takes his gun and approaches the site of the press conference in order to shoot the man who appeared as the one responsible for taking Yakushima into custody, but just before he goes through with it, right outside the crowd of reporters, Batou appears, greeting him like nothing had happened. He tells him to follow him and Togusa, confused, and still stuck with his feelings of abandonment, he accompanies him.
Batou brings Togusa to the new base of operations for Section 9. Apparently the Chief had arranged for all of them to be able to resume work, so long as they could evade the police. Togusa had been locked up for his safety, to avoid the attention of the Special Forces. He had no prosthetics and had just gotten out of the hospital. The Chief pretended to sacrifice Section 9, making a deal with the Prime Minister, and ensuring that the group members' histories could later be fudged so that they could resume operations later on.
Kusanagi takes a car to a library and finds the Laughing Man's coat and hat at the front entrance. She puts on the hat, with the name "Aoi" written inside it, indicating his name, and goes inside. She finds him, Aoi, inside, programming machines to organize and preserve shelves upon shelves of authentic, priceless books. She asks if he thought he could change the world from the library, and he simply said that he thought once he had shared his memories with her, that she would be able to handle the rest. He then says that, "the minute you share and synchronize all your information, you lose your uniqueness and become absorbed into the unconscious maliciousness of a third party that has no motive or perhaps into the will of someone who does have one." He explains how even she played the role of the Laughing Man and that the thing that had started it all was him stumbling upon a lost piece of mail on the net that had a blackmail document that had probably been sent to Serrano Genomics. It was armed with a thesis comparing the effectiveness of the Murai vaccine and micro-machines in battling Cyberbrain sclerosis and the person who authored it was likely the only person who could be deemed as the "original Laughing Man." Aoi says that he was kidding himself in thinking that it was his personal mission to bring the truth to light, having grown dejected at the base nature of the society and becoming mute on the subject (hence the Catcher-in-the-Rye-referencing slogan about pretending to be a deaf-mute).
He then expresses his surprise that so many copies could spring up despite the absence of an original. The both of them agree that the name for this phenomenon should be the "Stand Alone Complex". Aoi believes this occurrence marks the beginning of a new era of despair, and Kusanagi isn't exactly sure what effect it will have, but she is sure of one thing that has the power to restore one's individuality, even after all one's information has been synchronized: everyday human curiosity.
Aoi then asks what will happen to him, voicing being arrested for hacking or inciting the terrorist acts as possibilities, but Kusanagi says it "his" decision, pointing at the entrance as Chief Aramaki enters. Aramaki assures Aoi that he has no intention of charging him for such things, but rather asks him if he wants to join Section 9. Despite the fact that he thinks it would be interesting, he declines as he doesn't work well with others. With that, Kusanagi tosses Aoi back his hat, and the two of them leave the library, getting back to work with the rest of the renewed Section 9.
Analysis:
The first order of business is to examine the ethics involving the borrowing of human brains as raw processing power. While it has no highly detrimental effects due to the fact that it puts a light burden on the individual (due to the high volume of people being used) - and this can be assumed based on the fact that the people being used didn't suddenly collapse from overextending their brains - the fact remains that Section 9 used those people's minds without them being aware of it. It could be argued that those people have a duty as members of their society to help their society protect itself by offering their services to the community when needed; however, while that is a noble endeavor and the Bible certainly advocates people putting their efforts towards helping the community, the Bible is even more consumed with decisions as they pertain to spiritual development in the light of Truth and the Truth is that those individuals are simply being used.
It does no good for them spiritually because they are unaware of their contribution to society and therefore are not in anyway able to spiritually grow through the experience. It also fails to benefit the spiritual state of Ishikawa and the other members of Section 9 because it diminishes the viewpoint from which they relate to others in their society. If a person can be reduced to merely being a source of convenience and power, then their human factor is eliminated and those who take advantage of this "source" become oppressors planting themselves in control of those who in fact deserve to be their equals. To think of it from God's perspective as well, humans do not own their bodies. People's "shells" if you will, are on loan from God, as the Bible says: "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies." (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) Therefore, any attempt people make to control or take advantage of others is in fact an attempt to subvert God's dominion and take that which belongs to Him.
The next major idea present in this series of episodes is the Tachikomas, the development of their individuality, and their ability to care for others, value their life, be willing to sacrifice that life in the hope of protecting those they love, and depend on a spiritual existence to give them comfort in the face of their oncoming death.
Of course the primary skepticism in this is the very idea that a machine can actually "feel" these things. One could argue that machines can only feel things due to the way in which they are made to feel them, that they have instructions that merely tell them they are to respond stating that they feel a certain way, but that the authenticity of this feeling or emotion is a complete sham. It is more akin to having an awareness of one's emotional state and yet not experiencing it, but pretending to. There is merit to this line of thinking due to the fact that such behavior would be both misleading and against Truth by its very nature, so if a soul were present, it would be designed in a manner so as to automatically work against the natural order of things (ergo, be sinful). However, this is merely an argument of authentic design. If humans truly devised a means of differentiating the types of input the computerized brain received from these notifications, created a different "experience" based on the nature of the response it was supposed to have, then humans would have succeeded in crafting a more stable similarity to the human mind. More would still need to be done to make an authentic design, such as ensuring in some way that the experience retains the same type of psychological and emotional connection that the human experience does (for example, having the "happy" feeling actually provide the same kind of physical and emotional responses that the mental acknowledgement of being happy brings to people. The same with sadness causing a pain response and the like). Only in this way would humans be able to truly create AIs that can be given a chance of being viewed as "human". Until then, the argument is a moot point.
Now, if it were assumed that these machines could indeed think and feel as a human does, would that in any way grant them the same rights or positions in society as a human? Well, it would seem appropriate to first determine what sets the humans apart from the machines at that point and second to determine what it is that God defines as the "Image of God" as that is the generally held idea from which Christians define the state of human beings. To answer the first question, one must analyze the way in which thoughts and feelings are experienced. Some measure of research has already been conducted by scientists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland into the development of inorganic life forms, proving that the elements that exhibit life-like qualities (namely self-replication and evolution) are capable of happening in inorganic forms involving chemicals. Given this fact, one can then stem forward the possibility of advanced inorganic life forms being a possibility, ones that could be developed with a particular level of intelligence. Such intelligence could always be engineered artificially, but the status of that intelligence would always be prone to adaptation and evolution, much like a human mind. In light of this, it is possible that humanity could one day be dealing with artificially intelligent machines that completely resembled the human body and mind in all its glory.
People normally don't associate merely the human form with the "Image of God" (as a deformed human doesn't stop having the "Image of God" according to the Christian theology). Drawing from the very first pair of posts on this blog, the "Image of God" essentially belongs to the human's state of consciousness, one's capacity for self-conception or understanding. Does the being experience life? Is it designed to - in its relatively perfect form - think and feel as many humans normally do (not necessarily that the person is currently in that state, but rather that, without being further developed or evolved, the being would normally have such capacities barring any kind of malfunction in the inner workings of their mechanics)? These questions are framed such that things such as robots that are not sufficiently developed as per the previous description would be excluded, but that those humans with mental disabilities would still be recognized as human beings. By these criteria, the differentiated minds of machines crafted using the same forms as a human's, albeit crafted with inorganic materials instead of organic ones, would be assumed to be just as human as a normal human, developed in the very same way. Just because the basic physical building blocks are different doesn't mean the mental/emotional state is any different. That would be akin to saying that a chair made with different materials is no longer a chair, even if all of the qualities and characteristics they otherwise possess are equivalent. In the same way, there is sufficient evidence to believe that such beings would be identical to humans in considerations of spiritual significance as well. It is likely that such beings would have the potential to be accepted by the human society as equals and would at that point be judged no differently (barring any extreme prejudice based solely on their origins). These beings would, by any definition, be worthy of God's love and devotion just as much as a regular human, just as much as a human cloned from a single cell would be considered "human" and "loved by God". These "clones" would simply be formed from inorganic cells.
The final thing to address is the very nature of the Stand Alone Complex and the individuality/shell/ghost relationship. Already addressed previously was the idea of what a human would be if their consciousness was shared amongst several different shells. Well, in the absence of a shell, a human mind retaining its individuality would be just as recognizable as a human being as those individuals; they would simply have the potential to enter into a custom shell of their choosing. As for the notion of a Stand Alone Complex, the idea that our society can exist in a state in which our individuality is lost and we all are capable of assimilating into an existence that has no direct origin but to which all people pledge loyalty, there is significant danger.
Aoi, the Laughing Man, finds this to be a disturbing state, and it cannot be denied that the loss of human individuality, that which makes us able to understand things uniquely, come to independent conclusions, and be aware of oneself, is of absolute importance, especially because it is one's only means of maintaining one's connection to one's soul, that can be known for sure anyway. There is no way to verify whether completely merging with another identity results in the loss of one's own soul, and without any possibility of knowing for sure, such a state can only be assumed to result in the worst: death of those who succumb to the legion. That said, there is no reason to think that such a legion is inherently bad in and of itself. The legion's collective will would be the thing that ultimately determines its spiritual relationship with God.
Motoko Kusanagi's belief in the power of human curiosity to keep people retained in their sense of self is highly similar to the belief that Christians have to believe in God to keep themselves grounded in some way. When people are lost, they look to their faith as a means of maintaining stability in reality. However, there are many Christians out there. There are many characteristics and associations that tie us with others. Ghost int he Shell states that the only uniquely individual thing humans can take advantage of is their capacity to desire to know something, something that they individually want to know. And with that, Ghost in the Shell hits quite close to the mark. The fundamental nature of God is to love, create, explore, and reveal goodness in truth. Humans mirror this in that they pursue happiness through relationships, creation, exploration of the universe and understanding of knowledge. So long as a person depends on their God-given desire to pursue these things, they will find themselves, regardless of what depths of social association or even disassociation they find themselves embedded in.
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