The Ghost in the Shell

The Ship of Theseus is a widely-known thought experiment that ponders whether a ship remains the same ship when you gradually replace all of its parts. The Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow explores the same question, but with relation to human-machine interaction.

Taking place in 2029, the book is largely episodic, consisting of short stories dealing with political intrigue, corruption, assassinations and action packed firefights. The main protagonist, Major Motoko Kusanagi, is an almost fully mechanized cyborg except for her mind or soul, which is referred to as a ghost. Her enhanced robotic prosthetics and brain-machine interface are both part of what she calls her shell. Kusanagi works for Public Security Section 9, a government intelligence agency in Japan. The book ends shortly after her solving her biggest case.

I'll focus this one on the three things that I found to be most profound: the concept of cyber-brainwashing, prescient social commentary on computerization and Buddhist/Taoist themes used throughout the story.

Cyber brainwashing was a topic covered that stood out to me as unique from many science fiction books I've read before. There are two major instances of cyber brainwashing throughout the story. One is the covert conditioning of children at an orphanage to work for a factory creating water filters. The second is a garbage truck driver who gets his brain implanted with an artificial memory. This memory tells him that his wife is being unfaithful and he is later convinced to commit crimes. At the end of the chapter it is revealed that he had been brainwashed, and in reality he lived alone with no family members.

Throughout Ghost in the Shell, the characters share dialogue critiquing humanity's desire for computerization of daily tasks. The story contains minor side plots of AI tanks revolting (this chapter was a lot more light-hearted and playful than you may expect), or sex robots killing their owners (about as horrifying as you would expect).In one of the last chapters, The Puppetmaster, a vastly complicated artificial intelligence system trained to manipulate stock markets gains sentience and declares political asylum.

Throughout the story, The Major constantly questions how much of her is machine and how much is human. This question recieves a cathartic answer when she finally merges with the Puppetmaster, transcends her humanity and becomes globally connected with all things. This strikes me as a sort of enlightenment through the use of machinery or the internet. During the last few chapters, she seems detatched from traditional ideas of the ego and views herself as one with everything. Her last words in the book reflect Taoist and Buddhist scriptures:

""Ah, the net is vast...""

Overall, Ghost in the Shell was an entertaining and (at least for me) philosophically dense mind-bender. I'll likely reread it at some point.