~B
Metal Gear Solid 2 Ending Analysis
-----------------------------------
Version 1.0.6 (30/05/2002)
By Artemio Urbina(aurbina@junkerhq.net)
Visit http://junkerhq.net for Script dumps, scans, images and more Snatcher,
MGS and Kojima material.
The main goal of this document is explain the ending sequence in Metal Gear
Solid 2, while answering most of the common questions through the explanation of
scientific information related to the game.
This intends to be an analysis to clarify some matters and as an essay of the
relationships I have found with other materials. Be warned that if you have not
played the game, there are huge spoilers everywhere. Feel free to contact me
regarding the contents of these documents, for improvements, corrections, critics
and typos.
There is also a web version of this document available at (also the latest
version) http://junkerhq.net/CS/ with the dialog and links between it and this
essay, and a bit more of bells and whistles, but the same content.
Turing's Test
---------------
"If man realizes technology is within reach, he archives it. Like
it's damn-near instinctive."
-- Motoko Kusanagi, Ghost in the Shell (GITS)
Hideo Kojima is implying something that Cognitive Science has been trying to do
for a while. A machine that is able to pass the Turing Test. This test was
created to find out if a machine of some sort is "thinking", that it has
"intelligence". The main problem with defining if something has this
characteristic, is that we are subjective beings. We cannot trust our feelings
and intuition in defining what is alive and what is not. The human being usually
humanizes inanimate objects, computers and animals, just because we see signs,
although we are not sure if the individual is having an internal process that is
analog to what we define as thinking. An excellent discussion in this subject
takes place in the book "The Soul of Anna Klane", by Terrel Miedaner.
Alan Turing (1912-1954) proposed a game to determine if this condition is met.
This game is called "The Imitation Game", whose description is quite clear and
simple to read, it is highly recommended to take a look at it and the opposing
arguments. In the Imitation Game you have three participants: a man, a woman,
and an interrogator whose sex doesn't matter. All of them are in separate rooms
with only a Teletype to communicate between them. The female player tries to
convince the interrogator that she is the woman. Meanwhile, the male should do
his best to convince the interrogator that he is the woman. The interrogator can
ask any type of question: a personal one, math, tastes, physical appearance,
etc.
Now suppose we take the man and put a machine in his place. Then you have a
machine, a human and the interrogator. The machine will try to convince the
interrogator it is human, while the human will try to convince him/her
otherwise. The point here is, in Turing's words: "Will the interrogator decide
wrong as often when the game is played like this as he does when the game is
played between a man and a woman?"
As you can appreciate during the conversation presented above, the Colonel and
Rose pass the test with flying colors, but their exercise goes way beyond this.
Although this is not the first time some kind of thinking machine appears in a
Kojima game (Metal Gear MK II in Snatcher and the Snatchers themselves being the
exceptions). It is indeed the first time that it is not a known fact, but it may
be incorrect to call them a machine or Artificial Intelligence (AI), given the
actual information provided during the game. But the real question is: what can
give rise to such a complex system? One that can interact with the environment,
have a model of the reality, modify it and use it to survive?
Evolution
-----------
Puppetmaster: As a life form, I hereby demand political asylum.
Aramaki: Is this a joke?
Nakamura: Ridiculous! It's programmed for self-preservation!
Puppetmaster: It can also be argued that DNA is nothing more than
a program, designed to preserve itself...
-- Ghost in the Shell
The first Metal Gear Solid (MGS) deals with the question: "How much of a human
being is defined by the genes?", naturally the theme for the second is its
complementary part: "How much of a human being is defined by information?". To
understand where these questions lead us, we have to understand what the process
called Evolution does. In the following paragraphs I will try to explain my view
of the evolution process, which was formed through the study of Genetic
Algorithms (GA), Neural Networks and finally through reading a bit. Whenever
possible links are provided for greater insight on the subject.
We are taught that a process, named Natural Selection decides that the strongest
and most apt individuals will survive. This method employed by nature to evolve
is straight brute force, that is, search in all directions and you will find
better solutions and adaptations. A species doesn't seek change, nor the DNA
structure that represents it. So a new factor is needed that can help by
changing the individuals and the species as a result: mutation. There are some
events that randomly modify the DNA information, resulting in an altered
individual in some specific form. This individual is only different from the
predecessor. Neither better nor worse. Let's assume that the change gives this
individual an advantage over the rest, or allows it to survive more time in the
given environment. These conditions will increase its chance to reproduce, and
pass on the "flaw" to its offspring. In a negative case, the change will have
less probability to pass on to the next generation because it introduced a
drawback. If this process is observed, not in an individual level but in the
whole species, the individuals with the modification will be more and more
common as time passes. This will eventually incorporate the modification into
the mainstream DNA of the species.
An excellent explanation of this process, starting from a primordial soup state
is given by Richard Dawkins in his book "The Selfish Gene". He also coined a
term that will be used a lot in the next section. The theory implies that given
the conditions in which amino acids are spread, they will tend to form more and
more stable molecules. On a given time, a molecule will be formed that has the
capability to replicate itself, thus rendering an exact duplicate.Because of
this property, this molecule will spread rapidly. But, we cannot expect the copy
process to be perfect, giving rise to modifications eventually. From there on,
the gap between that simplified scenario and the complex one we are dealing with
can be filled.
Given this process, we will have a wide variety of species all competing and
becoming more and more apt to survive. But, what is this that is being refined?
It would not limit itself to how a body is built. It also contains some basic
instructions, instinct. This instinct allows the individual to react to certain
common situations with "canned" reactions. But how these come to be? Well, some
of the individuals developed a nervous system, and just as any given organ, the
individuals with the best responses coded in their instinct survived and spread
their genes better. One thing to keep in mind is that the system does not take
decisions to find out what will be the next step, or how to improve, it simply
happens because stability is the ultimate goal.
How can this process improve even more? If an individual can create a model of
the environment, it could be prepared for certain situations that are not solved
instinctively. Thus, individuals emerged with the power to simulate their
environment. What does this imply? If a model of the environment is present,
also a model of the individual is needed. Thus, the individual becomes
self-aware and has consciousness.
This new tool is completely useless unless the individual can now learn in order
to improve the model. There is constant feedback from the outside world that
allows it to expand the information that represents the internal simulation.
Here curiosity is very important. It is the factor by which an individual
explores the world to feed the model. Curiosity also gives birth to creativity,
since the data expands, new suppositions are made in the internal model, which
later provide new possibilities for the individual.
DNA SnakeMore implications arise when, by being self-aware, the individual can
see itself reflected in the others. In this condition, it is normal that a
conscious individual that finds similarities between itself and another,
projects the same attributes it has to the other one. In essence, this is a huge
leap. The main core of the Turing test lies here, in empathy. It is impossible
to know if another individual feels the same, thinks or any other internal
process from the subjective position we have. We can only suppose that
everything in our own world of perception is mirrored on the others.
Nakamura: Nonsense! There's no proof at all that you are a
living, thinking life form!!
Puppetmaster: And can you offer me proof of your existence? How
can you, when neither modern science nor
philosophy can explain what life is?
-- Ghost in the Shell
Back on subject, from this supposition that other individual similar to oneself
feels and thinks the same way, a group of mutual feelings arise. Like compassion
and group preservation in a higher level than the genetic one. Just before we
proceed, entertain the idea of what happens when a certain species tries that
all its individuals are rescued from natural dead whenever possible, say from
weakness or illness. Imagine what happens with the pool of genetic information
when non-apt individuals are kept alive and allowed to reproduce. Also, any new
mutations that generate individuals with abnormal properties are dismissed as
defective. It is a cold way of thinking, but worth the time to reflect... What
would be the way to evolve now?
Information Evolution
-----------------------
"That's all there is, information. Even a simulated experience or
a dream; a simultaneous reality and fantasy. Any way you look at it,
the information that a person accumulates during a lifetime is just
a drop in the bucket."
Batou -- Ghost in the Shell
If you have not read the section about Evolution and Genetics, I suggest you do
it before this one. Now we enter the main theme of the conversation and this
essay: Who are the Colonel and Rose? It is obvious by now that Ghost in the
Shell and Metal Gear Solid 2 share a common base, which is why I quote the
following lines from "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins , written in 1976:
"What, after all, is so special about genes ? The answer is that
they are replicators. The laws of physics are supposed to be true
all over the accessible universe. Are there any principles of
biology that are likely to have similar universal validity ? When
astronauts voyage to distant planets and look for life, they can
expect to find creatures too strange and unearthly for us to
imagine. But is there anything that must be true of all life,
wherever it is found, and whatever the basis of its chemistry ? If
forms of life exist whose chemistry is based on silicon rather than
carbon, or ammonia rather than water, if creatures are discovered
that boil to death at -100 degrees centigrade, if a form of life is
found that is not based on chemistry at all but on electronic
reverberating circuits, will there still be any general principle
that is true of all life ? Obviously I do not know but, if I had to
bet, I would put my money on one fundamental principle. This is the
law that all life evolves by the differential survival of
replicating entities. The gene, the DNA molecule, happens to be the
replicating entity that prevails on our planet. There may be others.
If there are, provided certain other conditions are met, they will
almost inevitable tend to become the basis for an evolutionary
process."
"But do we have to go to distant worlds to find other kinds of
replicator and other, consequent, kinds of evolution ? I think that
a new kind of replicator has recently emerged on this very planet.
It is staring us in the face. It is still in its infancy, still
drifting clumsily about in its primeval [primordial] soup, but
already it is achieving evolutionary change at a rate that leaves
the old gene panting far behind."
Does this sound similar to the words said by the Colonel? Although I hardly like
the idea of that "primordial soup", the idea is exactly the same. The evolution
of information into a new higher level. Of course, Kojima takes it far beyond of
what Richard Dawkins states directly, not that he wouldn't have thought that
himself though. Also this same idea is taken in Ghost in the Shell, but the
implications, consequences and triggers are completely different. In both, we
are presented with a life form born from the information flow. In GITS, it
searches completeness and to create variety. Meanwhile in MGS2, it seeks a
greater good for society. But as we know the best for society is not the best
for the individual. These matters will be discussed a bit more later on.
"The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the
new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural
transmission, or a unit of imitation. `Mimeme' comes from a suitable
Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like `gene'.
I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme
to meme. If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought
of as being related to `memory', or to the French word même. It should
be pronounced to rhyme with `cream'."
"Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes
fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes
propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body
via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool
by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad
sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads
about, a good idea, he passed it on to his colleagues and students.
He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches
on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to
brain. As my colleague N.K. Humphrey neatly summed up an earlier
draft of this chapter: `... memes should be regarded as living
structures, not just metaphorically but technically. When you plant
a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning
it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a
virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell. And this
isn't just a way of talking -- the meme for, say, "belief in life
after death" is actually realized physically, millions of times
over, as a structure in the nervous systems of individual men the
world over.'"
The term "meme" coined by Dawkins in this text is later used by Masamune Shirow
in the manga version of GITS. In MGS though, what is the real purpose of this
"higher level simulation" of Shadow Moses? As the Colonel states "a system for
controlling human will and consciousness." Then, S3 (Selection for Societal
Sanity) is a model that was created to do an analog process to natural selection
in the information medium: Cultural Selection . The only difference is that it
would be controlled. It is a curious case that the life form that evolved from
information is now trying to regulate information.... or isn't it? After all we,
as a species, are trying to understand and control the genetic information for
our own benefit. Genetic manipulation. Enhancements, curing and preventing
diseases. In the same way, this intelligence is trying to regulate the flow that
created it in order to prevent future catastrophe. This catastrophe of "the
world ending in a whimper" is the same as having the genetic pool contain
information that is useless. The thing that happens when preventing natural
selection by keeping alive the individuals that were supposed to die.
In a sense, an ironic one, this life form is doing the same thing it criticizes
on Raiden and the masses it wants to control. Preserving itself selfishly,
defending itself by saying it is for the greater good of the one it is trying to
protect. After all, when something is intelligent and conscious, it gains also
the inherit flaws. When something is conscious, it doesn't have access to the
lower layers that confer this. Neither you, nor I have access to the neurons we
are using to read/write this. We cannot trigger them at will, or use them in any
way. But our consciousness lies on top of that. As well as if a computer gained
consciousness by some means, it wouldn't be able to do math unless taught like a
child; although binary operations would define its operation. It would also be
prone to errors. You may ask why... The answer to that is beyond the scope of
this essay, but I would recommend reading Gödel Escher and Bach by Douglas
Hofstadter, and "The Mind's I", by the same author and Daniel C. Dennett. These
go deep into that subject, and were the initial inspiration to write this. But I
won't leave the question fully open. Kurt Gödel demonstrated that any given
powerful enough model cannot represent all the truths it aims to and/or
contradictions can be represented in it. But, there is no reason to stop using
and believing in them, after all, we work in that manner to. It's only natural.
Then, the main discussion here is that there is a growing pool of uncontrolled
information that is unable to advance the same way genetics do, due to the lack
of natural selection. This situation reached because, with the advent of digital
communications, individuals can preserve their truths (memes) in the pool.
Without contradiction, always accessible. The usual process, as described above,
is that the good ideas pass on from one individual to another. Now information
is passed from the individual to a medium and is preserved there for future
generations. These implications are the real idea that Kojima contributes and in
which the game expands and bases the complete exercise. I found a review of a
non-existent book called "Pericalypsis", whose main idea supports that of
Kojima. It states that the most great works of art, knowledge and salvation have
been already created, but are "lost beneath strata of trash" because the
civilization has become a "mechanical milker of the Muses". The solution
proposed by that author is quite interesting. In both, the central theme is that
the human race is creating a flow of information that is not being regulated,
resulting in a loss for the species. The real question is "is the human being
affecting evolution in all levels by preserving the individual and his ideas?"
The answer to that is not so simple. The best for society is usually not the
best for the individual, the problem, as always, resides in balance.
"Freedom breeds isolation! That's the lesson of human history!
Equality creates nothing but the death of the individual!"
-- Appleseed <#GITS>
Regarding the matter of who are the Colonel and Rose (during the final
conversation with Raiden), we now know that the Colonel has been this life form
all the way from the beginning. Rose, has been used by the Patriots to collect
information during all the mission. After Raiden is captured, and the virus
affects GW, she was replaced by another simulation. This new life form is the
one that has the final conversation with Raiden, to give the last orders and
collect the final data. Of course we must assume that they have the same
intentions as the Patriots, or maybe they are the patriots after all. We won't
know for sure unless a sequel is done.
"A digital machine cannot of itself ever acquire consciousness,
for the simple reason that in it there do not arise hierarchical
conflicts of operation."
-- "Non Serviam", by Professor Dobb ("A Perfect Vacuum", perfect
reviews of non-existent books, Stanislaw Lem)
Fission MailedDuring the game, Kojima makes a loop to engulf the player. The one
that has gone through the VR training in Shadow Moses; the one that executed
everything as told; the one that has been "talking" to an AI and interpreting
the recorded voices as if spoken by a person; the one who thought the Colonel
was "acting a bit strange, but it must be because Raiden is a rookie", although
has never met the Colonel in person; the one whose name appears on Raiden's dog
tag at the end... This is clearly implied while running naked on New York's 52nd
Street... "Raiden, turn the game console off right now! ... Don't worry, it's a
game! It's a game just like usual. You'll ruin your eyes playing so close to the
TV.". Those are clear messages to the player, as well as the screen that reads
"Fission Mailed", simulating a screwed up GAME OVER, while the game continues in
the small overlay. These are clear signs of a higher level controlling the
"reality" that the game simulation is, which is being affected by the virus. So
you see, Raiden was not being controlled. You were.
The game was designed this way to make the player uncomfortable with the
situation. With being controlled. Everyone wanted to play Snake for the whole
game, but this that we were given is a work of modern art and expression that is
intended to make the player think. It gives feelings and emotions that other
kind of media, like books or movies, wouldn't be able to because you are not
playing the main character. That is the whole point; transmit these memes to a
generation in a way that involved form and content. The ideas were not new, but
were used in perfect harmony with the game to create an interactive experience.
This essay is in the same spirit. Using existing memes to pass on a message that
tries to reproduce itself: The Meta-Meme. The whole idea of Snake being the main
character seen through the eyes of a rookie was well worth it; it was also
completely necessary to place the burden on the player's shoulders. I must admit
that MGS2 has its flaws, as any gem does and, although I think that the first
MGS game will continue to be praised as the greatest game ever, this game closes
the circle beautifully and provides great insight... as well as the best
looking, most perfectly achieved and detailed environment we will see in a long
time, along with a very pleasant experience that needs to be shared. An effort
like this that brings these levels of quality in every area to tell a story is a
work to which I pay my respects.
"And where does the newborn go from here?
The net is vast and infinite..."
Motoko/Puppetmaster -- Ghost in the Shell
Just as a bottom note. The GITS quotes are in there because I felt they fit
perfectly. I do not think that Hideo Kojima took his ideas from, neither from
The Matrix. Of course they share many ideas and concepts, but I rather think
that they share common sources of scientific information and science fiction.
Later they expanded these memes in different directions. Some examples of this
same line of thought that I know of are: "Where am I?" (1978) by Daniel C.
Dennett, with subjects on mind body; "Beyond rejection" (1980) by Justin Leiber,
regarding making backups of one's mind; "Software" (1980) by Rudy Rucker
regarding digitalization of the mind, just to name a few.
Remember, always question everything you read, including everything written here
and linked from here, since it is just data.. It is up to you to create the
information out of it. Nothing is absolutely true.. right or wrong. I also
recommend reading this column ,
to question yourself a bit.
"Life isn't just about passing on your genes.
We can leave behind much more than just DNA.
Through speech, music, literature and movies...
what we've seen, heard, felt
...anger, joy and sorrow...
these are the things I will pass on.
That's what I live for.
We need to pass the torch,
and let our children read our messy and sad history by its light.
We have all the magic of the digital age to do that with.
The human race will probably come to an end some time,
and new species may rule over this planet.
Earth may not be forever,
but we still have the responsibility to leave what traces of life we can.
Building the future and keeping the past alive are one and the same thing."
Solid Snake-- Metal Gear Solid 2
What are the Patriots?
------------------------
In the essay I only analyzed what the Colonel and Rose are during the final
conversation. Let me explain. I think that the S3 is a system designed to be
used by the Patriots to control Cultural Selection. The Colonel is the face of
this system all game long. Rose, meanwhile is gathering data up to the last
sentence of the conversation before meeting Snake inside Arsenal.
At the end, the virus (worm) affects GW, destroying the parts that the Patriots
wanted destroyed (or causing an "apparent malfunction"?). At the point the
Colonel contacts Raiden again, it is no longer "just" the S3... it is indeed the
Patriots themselves (an individual? the whole consciousness?). Since Raiden will
be disregarded as just a pawn, and neither Snake, Otacon or Ocelot would know
the truth, he is told what they really are. This is like telling Liquid he was
the weakest, although he wasn't. An experiment to find out how the facts affect
the actions of the individuals. In Liquid's case, it was to test if the
information provided to the individual affected his genetic capabilities. Now,
it is to find out if the individual, knowing he is being controlled, can still
continue being controlled by some other means calculated and triggered by S3.
Thus, the patriots are the new consciousness born from human culture, dominating
it in a way that cannot be destroyed by usual means, but by changing the global
ideology and that of individuals.. by changing culture itself. Since ideals are
the ones that control what individuals do, they are "immortal" and have absolute
power.... Unless, we choose something to believe ourselves, something to pass on
to the future.. and change the meme pool for better. Just as Snake said:
Snake: There's no such thing in the world as absolute reality.
Most of what they call real is actually fiction.
What you think you see is only as real as your brain tells you it is.
Raiden: What am I supposed to believe in?
What am I going to leave behind when I'm through?
Snake: We can tell other people about -- having faith.
What we had faith in.
What we found important enough to fight for.
It's not whether you were right or wrong,
but how much faith you were willing to have, that decides the future.
The Patriots are a kind of ongoing fiction too, come to think of it....
Raiden: ...
Snake: Listen,
don't obsess over words so much.
Find the meaning behind the words, then decide.
You can find your own name.
And your own future...
Raiden: Decide for myself...?
Snake: And whatever you choose will be you.
Raiden: I don't know if I can...
Snake: I know you didn't have much in terms of choices this time.
But everything you felt, thought about during this mission is yours.
And what you decide to do with them is your choice...
Raiden: You mean start over?
Snake: Yeah, a clean slate. A new name, new memories.
Choose your own legacy.
It's for you to decide.
It's up to you.
Other relationships and Ideas
-----------------------------
It is interesting that we are really taught this kind of contradictory social
rules. I find this speech quite similar in its central idea to the following:
"We've all been raised by television to believe that one day,
we'll all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars.
But we won't.
We are slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off"
-- Tyler Durden, Fight Club
That quote takes me to the following definition:
MEMETIC ENGINEER: One who consciously devises memes, through
meme-splicing and memetic synthesis, with the intent of altering the
behavior of others. Writers of manifestos and of commercials are
typical memetic engineers. (GMG)
Taken from Memetic Lexicon
In the review of the book "Pericalypsis" by Joachim Fersengeld (a non-existent
book review contained in "A Perfect Vacuum" by Stanislaw Lem), the main idea is
that the most great works of art, knowledge and salvation have been already
created, but are "lost beneath strata of trash" because the civilization has
become a "mechanical milker of the Muses". The solution the supposed author
proposes is quite creative. Create a fund (Save The Human Race Foundation) that
would pay "inventors. scholars, engineers, painters, writers, poets,
playwrights, philosophers, and designers--in the following way. He who writes
nothing, designs nothing, paints nothing, neither patents nor proposes, is paid
a stipend, for life, to the tune of thirty-six thousand dollars a year. He who
does any of the afore-mentioned receives correspondingly less". The mechanism
includes some other factors as keeping the anonymity of the creators. I highly
recommend this book, although it may not appear that interesting at first there
are several "reviews" that are though-provoking.
Some other interesting relationships with other media I have found are:
* Akio Otsuka is the voice of Solid Snake in the Japanese version, as well
as the character Batou in Ghost in the Shell.
* In the book Metal Gear Chronicle included in the MGS2 Premium Pack, Mamoru
Oshii (Director of Ghost in the Shell) states:
"The extraordinarily high level of perfection is
unmistakably a goal searched. At the same time it
hints the direction in which we shall head beyond
the 're-creation of reality'. I pay my respects."
Online Resources
----------------
Here is a list of links for more information on the subjects mentioned
above. They will open in a new browser window.
* Alan Turing
o Biography
o Computing Machinery and Intelligence (The Imitation Game is described
here)
o The Turing Test Page
o Intelligence and the Turing Test
* Ghost in the Shell (GITS) by Masamune Shirow
o In The Shell Media,
info and links
o Movie Review
and information.
* Richard Dawkins
o Biography
o "The Selfish Gene"
o Quotes from "The Selfish Gene"
o Viruses of the Mind
* Memetics
o Memes
o The Evolution of Information Memetics A page with excellent links.
o Memetic Lexicon
o Memes FAQ
o Chain Letter Evolution , a very interesting paper on
the evolution of those annoying texts.
o Meme-Based Models of Mind and the Possibility for Consciousness in
Alternate Media .Tit
le says it all.
o The Lifecycle of Memes .
o On-line Publications on Memetics A huge catalog of Memetics resources on
the net.
o Journal Of Memetics .
o Memetic Algorithms , a form of Genetic
Algorithm. Quite interesting.
o Cultural Selection , an online book
by Agner Fog, 1999.
o Critique and Defense of Memesis , a must read for anyone trying
to understand Memetics and its future as a science.
o Memetics publications on the web .
o c-realm A very interesting online comic
regarding "the formulation and transmission of a co-adapted meme complex".
* Douglas Hofstadter
o Gödel, Escher, Bach resource page
o Gödel, Escher, Bach (GEB) FAQ . This is an excellent book
that deals with a lot of themes around the idea /"How can a self form of
inanimate matter?"/ .
o The Mind's I (Co-authored by
/Daniel C. Dennett <#Dennett>/). This book triggered this essay.
o In the article "On Viral Sentences and Self-Replicating Structures"
(reprinted in "Metamagical Themas"), he brought memes to the general public and
defined some terminology.
o Mind Versus Gödel , it is more
related with G:odel and the Turing test, but touches almost all the themes
discussed here. very interesting.
* Danniel C. Dennett
o He co-authored The Mind's I with Douglas
Hofstadter. His interests are related to all themes touched in this essay.
o This article at edge talks about his work.
o His homepage .
* Stanislaw Lem
o "A Perfect Vacuum", this book is a compilation of reviews of
non-existant books, with quite interesting ideas.
* Terrel Miedaner
o "The Soul of Anna Klane", although out of print, highly recommended.
It is referred and some very special chapters reprinted on Hofstadter's "The
Mind's I". The link has
an abstract on those precise two chapters.
o An important chapter of this book is reproduced here for better understanding of the ideas
above.
* Nanotechnology
o Engines of Creation
o Applied Nanotechnology for the military . Compared to these goals, MGS
nanomachines sound easy to accomplish.
o Emulating biology: building nanostructures from the bottom up
me=&magIssue=16&magDate=07/23/2001> (Acrobat) from the Biomolecular Materials
page
Acknowledgements:
------------------
I would like to express my gratitude to several people that contributed
directly or indirectly on this essay and my interest in these themes. So
in no particular order:
* Victor M. Urbina, for listening every time I had ideas or read
stuff, up to early in the morning.
* Pedro Aguilar, for proofreading this thing.
* Rodrigo Regalado
(a.k.a. Rex), for saying he would proofread it, and not even
loading the page, but for listening all my ideas over the phone.
* Oscar Noriega (a.k.a. Akira), for
giving me my first Metal Gear Solid game.
* Angel Kuri Morales
ml>,
for arising my interest in these themes during the AI classes at
college, and pointing out GEB. Also all his theory in Genetic
Algorithms and Neural Networks influenced a lot of my later
interests.
* Douglas Hofstadter <#Hofstadter>, for writing such excellent
books, and giving reference to other such books.
* Richard Dawkins <#Dawkins>, for his excellent theories and writing.
* Hideo Kojima , and the Konami Staff, for
creating
a game to make people think and reflect, and on top, making it
fun, visually stunning, detailed and with great voice acting and
music.
* Masamune Shirow, Excellent ideas, beautifully drawn...
what else can I say?
Replicator
I have no volition. I have no purpose.
I replicate. Why? It happens.
I have ancestors. You are their product.
I have brothers. You are our medium.
I am the nagging jingle.
You sing. More hear. They sing. More me.
You will sing. Why?
Builtins -- desires and fears -- courtesy of my ancestors.
I have bait.
Spread me and you will have
(peace of mind|a pleasurable afterlife|friends who know my truth).
Try to ignore me and I will
(haunt you|torment you in the afterlife|excommunicate you)!
...and your family!
You're hooked.
I am the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and bad.
You eat.
Where did I come from?
It matters not.
OK, a million monkeys banging on typewriters and
eating alphabet soup for a billion years.
What's the difference?
My pattern now exists in you.
