How Ghost in the Shell ducks the philosophical questions posed by a cyborg future

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Our biological brain – the “ghost” in the “shell” – would interface via neural implants to powerful embedded computers that would give us lightning fast reactions and heightened powers of reasoning, learning and memory. First written as a Manga comic series in 1989 during the early days of the internet, Ghost in the Shell’s creator, Japanese artist Masamune Shirow, foresaw that this brain-computer interface would overcome the fundamental limitation of the human condition: that our minds are trapped inside our heads. Borrowing heavily from Ghost in the Shell’s re-telling by director Mamoru Oshii in his classic 1995 animated film version, the newly arrived Hollywood cinematic interpretation stars Scarlett Johansson as Major, a cyborg working for Section 9, a government-run security organisation charged with fighting corruption and terrorism. open image in gallery Shirow’s Manga comic series claimed the cyborg future could be a path to enlightenment The new film also backs away from another key idea of Shirow’s work, that the human mind – even the human species – is, in essence, information.