I thought this clip was really interesting, considering some of the class discussions we've had recently. It is an English-dubbed scene from the Japanese animated series Neon Genesis Evangelion, which hints at themes of epistemology, ontology, and metaphysics. The context for this clip is something called the "Instrumentality" project in the show, a futuristic concept of merging everyone's souls into a single entity. This would presumably solve a lot of the world's problems. So in this clip the main character explores what would happen if he was the only person in existence.
The director (Hideaki Anno) seems to have rooted this show in Eastern philosophy. No clear answer is presented, but the questions posed are meant to rope you into personally exploring the nature of existence. Whether the exploration of these questions brings you closer to "enlightenment" is anyone's guess, but the end goal seems to be more of a brain tease to expand your mind than a means to drive home a certain specific thought. This seems like a contrast compared with certain movements in Western philosophical thought, e.g. Bacon's imperative to "vex" reality into directly giving up its secrets. However, the questions being posed are very similar. Bacon's Idols, for example, could be considered a direct explanation to clip's idea of defining knowledge of self/surroundings through personal worldly interactions. However, based on this scene I think Anno might not even consider the idols a flaw in defining knowledge - he might consider them a necessity.
Overall, the scene raises some interesting questions for me, some of which hit really heavily on existentialism.
- Are we uncomfortable with too much freedom, or true free will?
- To what extent is existence defined and biased by our personal experiences/interactions with the world? (in light of the recent Bacon discussions, probably quite a bit)
- If you never interacted with anything, how would you define your "self"?
Love this clip. It reminds me of Flatland in its concept. There is so much in this clip--astonishing its attempt to catch so much poignant philosophical content in such a compressed form.
ReplyDeleteThis clip is great for teaching us about perception and some kind of interface between "us" in a very raw, non material form and and the material world.
Descartes believed that the mind was primary, more real than the senses (which can and do trick us). But Descartes could not make the connection between mind and the corporeal world which included the body. (his final answer? = the pineal gland).
Locke believed that we come into this world as a blank slate and our sense impressions record the word as it is. Kant thought of the world as raw data that we understand in the framework of two a priori categories. In other words, we come into this world with two preformed and common "apps"--namely, the world is temporal and the world is spatial. We perceive the world within this framework--it may be much more or very different from other conceptual lens.
In the clip, our essence, or being, seems to presuppose our experience of the world--definitely not a nihilistic or existential view.
What interested me at the end was the idea that once our egos are formed, we lose freedom but gain reference points. Once we establish ourselves as self referential beings, we do not want to go back to the formlessness and vastness that preceded our formation of personal identity.
I associate this clip with the story of the sea of Brahman. In the churning of the sea, a drop flies up and suddenly is seemingly separate. The drop looks down and gains a perspective that it did not know existed. Once the drop becomes aware of itself as an individual, it does not seem like a good idea to go back to the undivided source.
Thanks for this clip, Vinnie.