I wasn't trying to redeem this fruitless article.

It's just that I wanted to avoid another kind of debacle too.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with thought experiments, and even with spherical cows (to the extent that the approximation is still usable).

The problem comes up when you try to focus monolithically on just a single facet of a topic (like this article), forgetting not just the common grounds and results of a discipline.. but even omitting the most basic common sense that even a random joe would have.

Damn, there's so much going on I don't even know where to start...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#The_iterated_prisoner's_dilemma

And be that as it may deontology has to be opposed to consequentialism (they aren't really, if you don't conveniently cherry-pick particular frames of reference or time spans) how does that say a iota about lying? You can even be a saint, but if nazis were to knock at your door, you wouldn't reveal the people hidden in the basement.

No shit ethics and morality are completely different from whatever real rational expectations you'd have of them, if you somehow introduce "ontologically indissoluble and unavoidable" pacts/contracts/bindings that can assure you of a certain behavior no matter what.

> It's not that deep.

Did we even read the same article?

I do know it's not deep at all. Yet there really is this aura of not just "philosophical curiosity" but even "academical relevance".

> Like most shows do.

Most shows have lots of inspirations and references, yes. But that's it then. Fans may then write whatever they want, and perhaps a few of them reach really thoughtful levels.

Yet it's always only NGE that you hear. Like, I get it's also the most popular (for as much as this is kinda a circular explanation) but this is totally despite its shallowness. And wrongness (because jesus H. christ anything that mentions freud should have a disclaimer)

It's almost as if people were working backwards from some kind of need to validate/romanticize/elevate the characters (as opposed to them only being the eventual object of the analysis) if everything and the kitchen sink is good enough to throw at the wall just because they have been named once.

> The Christianity stuff was done for stylistic reasons

I mean, that's seemed to be the topic you were focusing this comments tree on.

Uhm? Of course the show has a meaning for him. Just like anybody that has even heard about it will have attached some judgement.

But that's not what we were talking about?

If some element was added just exclusively for the purpose of impressing the viewer (as in: without any connection whatsoever with the plot or even just the worldbuilding) then it's meaningless.

I suppose even then it's not physically impossible to discuss how "by chance" a certain theme could still nevertheless be identified... but you can't avoid the elephant in the room that what is being depicted was completely posing.

Meanwhile people in this thread are not only doing that, but they are even starting from the presumption that something must be there, and then from that they work backwards into how it would be configured.

> the real question is whether Anno is being dishonest or excessively modest about his background knowledge

I don't think so. Even putting aside that I see no reason or way for somebody to be "modest by lying" the real question first and foremost is how whatever we are talking about fits in the context of the broader story. Of course.

But since most of it really gives you no fucking clue about the symbolism (excuse my french, but there's just so many loose threads, including main plot devices like the spear of longinus) you must eventually grasp at some straw behind the fourth wall.

Like, most people don't even seem to be aware that a lot of the tone shift mid-way throughout the series was due to extraordinary measures taken after budget and production constraints.

> or if some other contributor to the work impacted the meaning.

He has been pretty open about the fact its absolutely biggest inspiration has been previous animes like gundam tbh.

Then it's not like you have to have studied psychology to talk or portray depression (for as much as he really goes down hard trying to push certain BS concepts) but you wouldn't argue that you can have good takes on plato or hegel without even having read anything from them.

> If a text can be effectively used to advance an idea, even one the author didn’t intend, people are liable to do so.

Yes. But as I said in another comment, it's one thing to "accidentally" come up with some new wholesome character or world dynamic.. Like, anything can happen in a fictional reality.

It's very much another to "accidentally" come up with some profound meaning/reflection (let alone if then you want to pretend that it's a direct inspiration or a clear example of a certain famous thinker) about something real and factual of academical interest.

Maybe if you lower the bar to "just something more trivial" it's not really impossible, but good god... Even in this entire post I couldn't read once somebody arguing for the material merit of the christian symbolism in context. It's just automagically assumed to have to be meaningful, like in the infamous "student of philosophy" example by Reichenbach, and then everything else is just trying to defend the "possibility" that it could be valid.

> There’s plenty of value outside of authorial intent that we throw away if we narrow acceptable interpretations down to ones the author plausibly or likely intended.

Yes, but we are trying to do philosophy here, not (for the lack of a better word) gossip or HR.

Unless you want to claim that despite X intentions of the writer, then Y came to happen in-world anyway, then they very much matter. Here people want to have it both ways: anno is simultaneously some kind of genius for having created this work, yet anything and everything can never be ascribed to his will.

> because it would be more interesting to a Japanese audience

And that's a statement about "appeal", not meaning. Or about form as opposed to substance, if you will.

Yeah, except you would never find it in that case.

So appealing to shakespeare's authority as a quick determiner of "good work" wouldn't fly.

Art can't make an example about an arbitrary human construct by accident.

It's totally possible to send some big "special vibe" even without having meant it (just think to MLP). Just like good intentions could end up capsized even just by the wrong lighting or whatnot (boy haven't I heard hot takes on the movie passengers).

But you can't write about some specific aspect of reality (be it physics or psychology) completely out of your ass, it would be akin to the famous monkey writing a poem by blindly typing on a keyboard.

This is only seldom a problem for fiction, since most of times you are writing about something completely made up happening to somebody completely made up (you just have to clear the bar of understanding basic human interactions) but if you shift the focus from the story itself to how it could relate to an irl topic, the lens is dramatically different.

In this case we know the author's understanding of christianity to be basically nonexistent (to the point that if it had happened the other way around, we'd be calling for that to be insensitive and trivializing). The symbolism was literally there just as a sort of clickbait. You can argue the cross that was originally drawn with no particular meaning suddenly has one given the context of the scene, but... uh, what's even the meaning of that meaning then? How much are you actually still analyzing the medium itself, as opposed to just your own experience?

Postmodernism isn't "philosophy", in the same sense that you wouldn't really say "the enlightenment" to be that either.

But semantic riddles aside, are you even still following what the point is?

I didn't say that "debates over authorial intent" can't be philosophy. Or that a work of fiction couldn't develop meanings that hadn't been foreseen.

But then that's not something you can use as a reference for any kind of serious objective question? You have examples because they are "starkly obvious" and help dispel ambiguities. If they are themselves an abyss of contention, what the hell are you even doing?

p.s. the ship of theseus is probably the more famous example you wanted to bring up

Mhh, that's a good aesthetics/psychology question I guess. But regardless, then the topic that you were covering isn't "philosophy" anymore.

It's something even worse than the "telephone game", where not only you trying to get other people to understand your every own intuition is very likely to fail.. but even your yesterday self with your current one could disagree.

Ngl even sword art fucking online had my ass in gear (ok perhaps that was more like about sociology than philosophy, but still).

But I suppose that even 10 implicitly thoughtful conundrums are nothing compared to a cross shining in the sky after a bomb or something...

I mean, I still have respect for the man I guess. Nothing wrong with baiting "history channel" people, and at least he's being honest about it.

Mhh look, even the first line of the article is already wrong. Yes, the manga was released almost a full year before the anime, but that was just due to "production hitches". NGE was always first and foremost meant to be a TV series.

Also, honestly... Maybe 5% of the discussions I have ever heard is about robots, fighting and whatnot (the usual mecha stuff). Almost the entirety of the fandom is neckdeep into exactly these things.

As for the content itself: the characters are a parody of real human beings. Psychoanalysis is fraud. Anno said laughing that he never read Kierkegaard. And I guess a question about consciousness isn't half bad.. but the one quoted is a platitude, which I don't think the series really explores.

What else? Of course when the responsibilities you are running away from are literally "doomsday", there isn't exactly much of a choice. But in the real world, escaping to south america or siberia is usually a pretty effective way to dump all your problems. The other definition of freedom seems instead a botched attempt of explaining negative and positive liberty.

p.s. the great majority of animes can pass the bechdel test.. but even if a harem could challenge certain prudish stereotypes, I wouldn't exactly imply them to be progressive

I wished ghost in the shell had half the fame.

I guess that's better than 3 generations of depressed kids who.. do other more ill-advised activities, though yes.

It's crazy how damn hard apophenia can stick.

It's even worse than "surface level" actually.

The author literally admitted to just throw in everything and the kitchen sink he could come up with, just because it sounded/looked cool or mystic.

No it can't. It's just reading tea leaves after a certain point.

Then of course you can argue that it helped with your mental health and whatever else you want, but it's not the same of a cogent explicit argument.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_of_translation

Aside of that, saying that "words always fail to capture aspects of an idea" (outside of some perfectionist sophistry) seems more telling of the author lacking of vocabulary/creativity skills.

It's not experimental and then there is legit questioning and "just asking questions".

It's almost like one party was just fine with antitrust and representation laws, while another was about maximum deregulation except when minorities also get to enjoy any benefit.

Aren't there states without mandatory laws for helmet and seatbelts?

I could swear I had read a very insightful comment/article in this regard, but I cannot find it anymore...

Anyhow, I see where you are coming from. But then you aren't talking about thought experiments "per se" anymore (this dude even lowkey criticizes Gettier somehow!) but just warning not to talk out of one's ass like in any other kind of argument.

Like, those atrocious "should the car kill the elderly or the baby" are either more of an engineering problem than truly philosophy, or they are ethics from somebody that thinks either too sanctimoniously about people or too stupidly about computers.

> First, often people respond to them differently across demographic groups, particularly different cultures,

No shit, as with anything and everything? Even semantic memory is still inevitably sprung from a life of experiences.

> and second; small, irrelevant changes in how thought experiments are worded can change entirely how we respond to them.

And that's a plus, not a negative thing?

Just like in normal "physical" experiments, figuring this out allows you to notice nuances and variables that you had never thought mattered or even just existed.

You can't criticize people with the hindsight of their future self having discovered them to be non-trivially wrong. Ironically this is the kind of insight that the Gettier problem eventually leads you to.

> and their assessment of free will and responsibility differ from the one found in other parts of the world. Women have different intuitions about moral dilemmas such as the Trolley cases from men.

Literally the observational point of the entire experiment-making. In fact, thanks god you had such simplified thought experiments to begin with, because no way anything more convoluted would have given you a better time.

Beyond the most obvious "you should always be careful with X" platitude, this article is absolute trash.

> Of particular interest is the recent emphasis on conceptual engineering, i.e. on attempts to reform philosophically significant concepts.

That's known as ordinary language philosophy and it's like a hundred years old by now.