Story of Ghost in The Shell (1995): A Movie Analysis from a Cognitive Science Perspective (original) (raw)

Often referred to as one of the best anime movies ever made, Ghost in the Shell is a science fiction movie which deals with the themes of self-identity, consciousness, mind-body problem and artificial intelligence. The film's plot is largely centered around the public-security agency Section 9's chase for a hacker called as Puppet Master. The Puppet Master, in fact, is an artificial intelligence program created by another section of the same public-security agency. Equipped with the ability of implanting false memories into other's minds (i.e., this ability is also called as " hacking ") and of travelling through endless information networks, the Puppet Master managed to gain self-consciousness and to disobey its manufacturer's orders. Motoko Kusanagi, who is a cyborg woman (i.e., cyborg is an abbreviation for cybernetic organism: a humane-machine mixture composed of both organic and mechatronic body parts) and the head commander of Section 9, tracked down and found the Puppet Master. When they encountered, the Puppet Master explained her that he will be destroyed by its programmers since he became sentient and gained self-awareness. At the end of the movie, the Puppet Master and Kusanagi decided to merge their ghosts (i.e., a ghost is a metaphor for consciousness used in the movie) and all the skills of the Puppet Master transferred to Kusanagi. In this paper, I will interpret the content of the movie from a cognitive science perspective. The key theoretical issues which I will discuss includes artificial intelligence, mind-body problem and consciousness. I would like to start by introducing the advanced state of artificial intelligence depicted in the movie and its effect on humanity. In the movie, the capacity of intelligence exhibited by the machines is often equal and in some cases (such as cyber-brains) superior to human intelligence. Indeed, the mental capacities of the computer programs are elevated to a level that these programs can solve any kind of problem humans faced. The current aims of artificial intelligence are accomplished as the machines can think and act rationally...