‘Yes, but they – Wurst, and Knaust, and Pripasov – will tell you that your consciousness of existence is derived from the conjunction of all your sensations – is, in fact, the result of your sensations. Wurst even goes so far as to say that where sensation ceases to exist there is no consciousness of existence.’
'I would maintain the contrary,’ began Koznyshev.
But here again it seemed to Levin that just as they were reaching the root of the matter they again retreated; and he made up his mind to put a question to the Professor.
'So if my senses are annihilated, if my body dies, no further existence is possible?’ he asked.
– Anna Karenin by Leo Tolstoy
After reading this passage from Tolstoy’s masterpiece, I stopped and pondered for awhile on the entire discourse and its implications. The idea of existence has been broiling in the back burner of my mind for quite some time, and this small portion from Anna Karenin amped me back into full throttle. Likewise, I decided in lieu of Levin’s question – no, if one’s senses are annihilated and one’s body dies, existence is still possible.
The professor in Anna Karenin assumes that sensory experience shapes and defines one existence, which is a fairly reasonable assertion. However, when you consider the assumptions the statement, there are implications rather questionable regarding basic humanity and human conditions: essentially, the professor assumes that existence is directly related to how much we can sense and feel from our immediate environment – assuming, of course, the professor equilibrates all sensations as equal (non-equal considerations of sensations are too subjective to really add or detract from this statement). This linear relationship is really the downfall of the sensory-existence argument for a few reasons:
If this is the case, then those who have lost some amount of sensory function are less of an existing conscious. Take for example an amputee: now that they’ve lost an appendage, compared to their former selves these individuals are less of a conscious existence by virtue of having less surface area of their sensory nerves (while there is the phenomena of “ghost limbs,” strictly anatomically amputees have lost a certain amount of sensory functions). We could also look at paraplegics, who can no longer use their lower limbs – according to the professor’s assertion, these individuals are only half the conscious of a non-handicapped peer. We can easily look at other physical conditions that render individuals into relative handicapped status – blindness, hearing loss, anosmia, burn victims, etc – and see that the professor’s statement, while intriguing, is short-sighted: it essentially states that a existence is solely dependent on the cumulative sensations one is able to acquire and experience; on the latter fold, those who are not a normal physical condition are essentially “lesser” consciousness since their cumulative sensations are comparatively less by virtue of their own physical condition. The professor’s logic equates public figures like Stephen Hawkings and Roger Ebert as “lesser” conscious existences because both rely on artificial means to articulate their thoughts to the world. The implications of his argument extends to cases individual who is in a vegetative state, where their bodies still function biologically but the probability of them ever regaining conscious thought or cognitive function is less than the an elephant suddenly appearing in your living room out of thin air by virtue of metaphysics – according to him, they are greater conscious entities because their bodies can still pick up sensations.
I disagree with the professor’s statement, simply because I define existence slightly but significantly differently: that one’s root existence is the conscious thought, and that this root existence manifests into the physical condition of a body that one’s cognitive function puppeteers and performs with. Additionally, if someone is effectively brain dead without any chance of recovery – then I believe this individual has effectively died, regardless of their body’s physical condition. This distinction between one’s conscious and one’s physical manifestation relates to the prime idea of this article: ghosting.
I’ve watched Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (and 2nd GIG as well) on-and-off for a few years, and this past summer I rewatched some episodes again with my older brother. Each episode is dense, complex, and philosophically intriguing – so much so that if you stop paying attention for a few moments, you’ll likely be lost as to what’s going on and what the character’s are thinking.
GITS: SAC take place in the future, where cyborg technology is sophisticated and commercial. It’s not uncommon to see someone with a cybernetic attribute walking around and living everyday life as per usual (in fact, nearly everyone has cybernetic eyes and chips in their brains, enabling them to receive information without a screen and so forth). This cybernetic society essentially ties everyone together on a metaphysical-like technological net – almost as if you could access the world wide web anytime, anywhere. Likewise, this means capable hackers can cause societal mayhem if unchecked – which is where Public Security Section 9 comes in, led by Major Motoko Kusanagi.
Motoko is a unique character in the GITS: SAC universe because unlike most others, her body is completely cybernetic – she possess no natural biological function. Her condition is a result of a plane crash she was in when only six-years-old: she was in a coma until it became obvious she would die unless she unwent full cyberization. This process forced Motoko to completely separate body and mind to the extreme; unable to feel real sensations as a cyborg, she regards her body more as a shell her true essence resides and acts upon within – her ghost.
Theoretically, in the world of GIST: SAC you could surpass “dying” by uploading your conscious into the collective technological “net”; and while your body would decay, your conscious still exists, and therefore you have not necessarily died (however, in the unfortunate case the server somehow crashed and wiped out all data, you really would cease to exist). More pressingly however is the idea of one’s ghost and shell being separate entities, that the relationship between mind and body is not entirely necessary for one to still exist.
Here’s a thought experiment: say somehow, in some dimension you were able to separate your conscious from your current body and then occupy a different body – are you still the same conscious, the same person?
I believe that if one still acts out certain behavioral traits and personality quirks unique to themselves regardless of what body, what shell they occupy – they are still that same individual. They still exist as a distinct conscious.
In one episode of GITS: SAC, called “Runaway Evidence – Testation,” a rogue tank runs amok the city, hacked into the by recognition code of the tank’s designer, Kago Takeshi, who had died a week earlier. It turns out the “ghost” of this tank is actually that of Kago’s: due to religious reasons, his parents refused to let him undergo cyberization despite his serious medical problems, which invariably led him to physical dying at a early age; however, he manages to transfer his ghost into the tank, and before Motoko short-circuits the tank’s brain she discovers in a brief moment that Kago simply wanted to show his parents his new steel body.
“Runaway Evidence” is an intriguing episode because it really addresses the core argument of whether one’s existence solely depends on the physical medium upon which they act out their conscious functions. While we never know if the tank performed similar personality traits Kago performed while biologically alive, its clear that the tank’s motive derives from Kago’s conscious, his ghost. His action are no different than a hermit crab migrating into a different shell.
This all leads to the final portion of Tolstoy’s passage in Anna Karenin, where Levin asks if one can still exist if their physical being is somehow exterminated – that is, can one still exist without a shell?
I believe yes, for various reasons. If you look around you, their a billions of information and narratives documented into multiple media forms – books, film, painting, photography, everything. Every word, every letter, every frame and every brush stroke that goes into each of these mediums was done by someone, a distinct somebody, and as we gloss over and intake the contents of each medium we invariably soak up the presentation, wording, dilution and creativity of this unique and distinct somebody. In the midst of these actions, we experience the remnant pieces of one’s ghost.
In a less abstract level, you can easily consider the internet as a prime example of separating one’s ghost from their shell, mind from body. As a distinct individual on the net, you define yourself either which way you want, whether it be by writing, subject, ethnicity, age, interests, purpose, and so on; but, unless you know the unique user in real life, there’s no real way of confirming one hundred percent what a user says they are is really who they are in real life. On the net, we are defined solely by how we want to be, independent (not mutually exclusive) of who we are in real life.
For instance, I could easily say that in real life, I look like this:
Or this:
Or even this:
If I were savvy, charming and mischievous enough, I might actually get away with claiming my genetic origin as a Timelord, with a TARDIS and Sonic Screwdriver and all.
More seriously though, is that our existence on the net is defined more or less by how we present ourselves in writing (and perhaps photography or video, inclusively). This is wholly separate from our physical being, our shell – yet we still exist in our the form of our distinct internet avatars, cached and all. We still communicate to one another via the internet medium: from the established email to live tweeting, we are speaking to one another, directly and indirectly so, distinct conscious entities in mental collision – and all of this independent of our bodies in the physical world.
So to finally answer Levin’s question: yes, I believe you can still exist if your body has deteriorated or been destroyed, so long as your ghost remains a distinct entity through whatever natural or artificial means possible. This is the ultimate philosophical implication of ghosting, of one’s ghost of existence.
