#the limitations of human understanding and consciousness - concepts unreachable because of limits to language and brain capacity

[macabre-hound]

I think it was an intervention from fate to not give me a knot. I would use that shit for evil. And by evil I mean you have to listen to me ramble about my most recent interest for the next hour until the knot deflates.

[carlsaganlunatic]

La Déesse Dedans/The Goddess Within: Anime and Ego

       In the biblical story of the “Tower of Babel”, humanity attempts to build their way to heaven. God, in order to inhibit the prideful undertaking of the humans, casts a magic spell to diversify the spoken languages of those audacious people, effectively enabling them from being able to converse and communicate (The Bible). The attempt to become gods is a foolish one. In theology and philosophy, sentience is a necessary hierarchy that separates gods from men. Through self-contemplation and existential crises, the vast majority of humans are guilty of muling over their purpose in life. Reminiscent of the “Tower of Babel”, this search for truth in the uniquely “human” paradigm is a fruitless endeavor grounded in egotism.

       We like to believe we’re special. Ptolemy and Aristotle believe that Earth was the center of the universe in which bodies in the solar system revolve. Furthermore, the absence of evidence for alien intelligent life helps drive the fantasy of humans being the sole observers of the Universe. An innate bias programmed into our worldview filters down into our actions, inflating our egos to unreachable heights. Conflict plays a major role in the cyberpunk anime Ergo Proxy as the characters struggle to find meaning in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. In this dismal world of demons and gods, humans create robots resembling humans called Autorievs programmed to perform tasks in society with precision and automation (Ergo Proxy, 1). Chaos breaks loose as the Autorievs begin to fall victim to the Cogito Virus, a programming malfunction that forces the robots to become self-aware. Humans fear the evolution of their sentient creations as it challenges their own superiority complex of intelligence and awareness, clearly reflecting the god complex of many humans that challenges the ultimate divinity of n’importe religion. Pattern denounces breaking the natural hierarchy of the world through any attempt to evolve a being’s set level of sentience.

       Suffering is an inevitable condition of the human experience. Suffering ensues from our inherent curiosity about the ways of the world and the ultimate reality of existence. Ultimate truth implies the possession of omnipotence- a capability beyond the likes of mortals. Certitude renders the search for meaning a futile effort. Nihilism argues that, because there is no essence or implied meaning to reality, life is meaningless and reality is not even real. The plot of Ergo Proxy creatively depicts this meaningless search for meaning as its main characters struggle to reconcile their existential anguish. For example, Re-I, grand-daughter of an elite government official in their dystopian society Romdeau, sets off on her own journey for truth after coming face-to-face with a Proxy (Ergo Proxy, 1). Proxies, like Autorievs, are a creation of the technologically-advanced humans, previously intended to act as rulers of the domes or societies of the Earth-based humans in hopes of reinstating order to the ruin that Earth fell into. Proxies, though, possess powers that threaten the authority of human-beings as they are more advanced in their consciousness. After coming into contact with one of these evolved beings, Re-I becomes impassioned to seek for an explanation to the awe inspired by this glimpse of divinity. Her curiosity quickly becomes the bain of her existence as she suffers endlessly to piece together the meaning of her place in this world of gods and women. Re-I’s egotism is a commonality shared by all human beings. Anthropomorphic views blind our rationality, leading us to reach beyond the limits of our knowledge and almost always ending in tragedy.

       Hubris or excessive pride misleads humans to their tragic downfall as they overestimate their mortal capabilities and emulate the qualities of gods and goddesses. In the myth of Icarus, our tragic hero flying too close to the sun, reached too far beyond his limits and was incinerated in the process. Ergo Proxy explores this concept seen in the Greek mythological story of Icarus referred to as hubris. Vincent Law, the male protagonist of Ergo Proxy, suffers similarly to Re-I in his journey to self-realization. Being both human and Proxy, Vincent cannot understand his place in the world and tortures himself by trying to reconcile the meaning of his existence. From a nihilistic point of view, Vincent’s efforts are meaningless as he cannot possibly know what significance he has in the Universe as no essence is prescribed to his existence. Interconnecting nihilist philosophy with the idea of anthropomorphism as a bias in perspective of reality necessitates a new term. I would like to introduce the term “tumidism” as the belief that humans’ egocentric search for a truth beyond their own level of sentience is the effect of a meaningless existence. Our selfishness leads us to assume some meaning beyond the evidence seen before us. We invent gods and demons to fill the gaps of our understanding of the Universe as, we as mere mortals, cannot possibly comprehend the vast nature of the Universe. In Ergo Proxy, Autorievs infected with the Cogito virus drop to their knees and pray as they develop an overwhelming sense of awareness that materialized from a void. Following a sequence of references to the mythology of Icarus, the final episode of Ergo Proxy famously shows one of the Proxies retreating to the heavens in an array of light rays, reminiscent of Icarus’ flight towards the sun (Ergo Proxy, 23). The Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud claims that humans have a tendency to explain away phenomena unknown to them through religion. Coined the “God of the Gaps” theory by Friedrich Nietzshe, famous German nihilist philosopher, this pattern emerges from religious beings assigning gaps in their understanding of the Universe to be direct evidence of God's existence. Nietzshe recognized the egocentric nature of humans in believing themselves capable of making sense of the mysteries of the world. Ergo Proxy’s Autorievs reaching towards human sentience, humans reaching towards god-like omniscience, and Icarus reaching towards the sun, we all form a rung on the ladder of hubris, destined to fall.

       Without evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence, humans remain in possession of the highest level of sentience among beings. This supposed uniqueness of humanity inevitably leads to a sense of pride in our intelligence. A pattern repeated throughout history, the hubris of Icarus from ancient Greek mythology heeds warning to reaching beyond one's limits. This quality, derived from human’s anthropocentric and ecocentric worldview, defies the natural order of intelligence as it is a forced evolution by humans to become gods. The post-apocalyptic anime series Ergo Proxy shows the progression of suffering that results from searching for an ultimate truth beyond one’s capabilities of comprehension. Art mirrors life as the characters of Ergo Proxy realize the inferiority of humanity on the Universal time scale.

       Nietzsche’s nihilistic philosophy combined with the anthropomorphic tendencies of humanity brings to light the catch-all term- “tumidism”- describing the downfall of humanity as placing their own selfish meaning to a reality otherwise meaningless as far as human-sentience is concerned. With latin root “tumid” meaning goddess, god, or divinity, tumidism effectively unifies egotism and heroic tragedy. Vying for equality as no single person is above or beyond another, tumidism thereby grants universal equality to all breathing beings. Whether the respiration source is oxygen or methane is of unimportance. In a world accelerating towards climate catastrophe, it is clear that the selfishness of humanity does indeed yield a price to pay. All that exists was birthed from the same cosmic origin. Whether or not some divine being set off this creation is not the most essential question. The significance is within the fact that all beings, humans included, are kin in the cosmos.

       Assigning unique importance to any one species of being is plain ignorance. I, for one, am awaiting the day where humanity realizes the cosmic commonality shared between all creatures and can set aside our egos to simply admire the beauty of the world. “Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” (Adams). Messiahs aside, we are all one in the spirit.

Works Cited

Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Pan Books. 1979.

Ergo Proxy. Shuko Murase. 2006.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 1891.

The English Standard Version Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments with Apocrypha, Oxford UP, 2009.