Gunnm is a science fiction comic about future world. It first published in the end of 20th century and is still serialize until now. In the comic Gunnm, who the main character Gally really is is a very interesting point. Gally was a soldier with machine body before. She losed her memory in an accident and started a new life with a new family. As the time pass, she found out she has a fighter’s soul and took part in some dangerous missions. While she did that, she met eight robots who have copies of her memory, she thought they are counterfeit. However, a few years after that fight, she was told that she is a robot too, her brain got exchanged just after that fight. She choiced to believe she is still herself.
My research focused on if some of them are or one of them is Gally and how self awareness affect their or her judge. If her brain got exchanged, that means there is another Gally with the real brain exist, how can she say she is the real Gally? Besides, if she is the real one, that means the other eight robots who shared her memory are her too, which is contradictory with her logic. In doing so, I will summarize cores of self awareness, who is the real Gally, and how they connect to our horror in real life.
Annotated Bibliography
1. “Basic Self-Awareness”
This article focuses on how experience affects on self awareness:“According to the empiricist theories, I am basically selfaware through some kind of experience. On what is probably the simplest model, (i) this experience is an inner, introspective, experience, (ii) and it directly acquaints me with myself. James ([ 36] , 286) endorsed such a theory. He distinguished various selves, including a social self and a material self.” That is another evidence of the connection between memories and self awareness, which gives chip Gally a strong support that she is the real Gally at this time period.
2. “Collective Attitudes and the Sense of Us: Feeling of Commitment and Limits of Plural Self-Awareness”
This article focuses on how the relationship between an individual and people around he or she affects self awareness:“there seems to be a basic way in which collective attitudes are transparent as ours; members of a group are aware of the “sharedness” of their collective attitude. Moreover, plural self‐awareness is supposed to give rise to a shared perspective. Owners of such a perspective are aware of attitudes as theirs, which means that they are aware of the particular way they collectively look at things compared to other possible ways of looking at things; shared attitudes are shaped by an integrated perspective and this seems to be determinate of who is part of the group and who or what is not. Furthermore, plural self‐awareness is supposed to give rise to a normative feature of group intentions, namely to joint commitment of the group in question. According to Schmid, this commitment displays in the “natural” tendency of groups to avoid dissent and disagreement; plural self‐awareness drives towards consistency and a unified perspective of group attitudes.” So that means people around Gally are the same as before or different as before can be a factor too.
3. “Developing pre-requisites for empathy: increasing awareness of self, the body and the perspectives of others.”
This article talks about self awareness is not a stable thing, it keeps changing and improving as we learn in life:“Self-awareness of cognition, affect and beliefs was demonstrated. 'The readings I did everyday were always very encouraging, gave me peace of mind, a lot of courage and ... helped me complete most of my final assignments with confidence' (Gemma). Participants' descriptions of thinking, feeling and action suggest that cognitive and affective or personal and professional self-awareness are not experienced separately. Rather, the emotional, motivational and cognitive aspects of self-awareness are more often experienced simultaneously, as they are in perspective-taking and empathy (Decety and Cowell [12]). This suggests that integrated growth of self-awareness can occur given the right learning contexts and self-assessment tools.” This part tells that both Gally are real if they think they are, but the one with more experiences has better awareness on herself.
4. “If a fish can pass the mark test, what are the implications for consciousness and self-awareness testing in animals?”
This article focuses on non human creatures self awareness: “Our conclusion is therefore that cleaner wrasse show behavioural responses that fulfil the criteria of the mark test as laid out for other animals, but that this result does not mean they are self-aware. This position raises a number of difficult questions. Can passing the mark test be taken as evidence of self-awareness in one taxon but not another? We argue not, because a position that holds the same results in a standardised test can be interpreted different ways depending on the taxon from which they are gathered is both logically untenable and taxonomically chauvinistic [[58]]. Are we instead mistaken in our conclusion that these behaviours even fulfil the criteria of the test? If so, this ambiguity suggests the mark test needs urgent re-evaluation in the context of comparative cognition studies. Finally, while we make no claims that our study proves fish are self-aware, we do hope our results ignite further discussion of fish as cognisant, intelligent animals.
If a fish is judged by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.—paraphrased from a quote misattributed to Albert Einstein.” That means self awareness can be variable and the way to test it could be different too.
5.“Plural Pre‐Reflective Self‐Awareness and the Problem of the Body”
This article focuses on what self-awareness is based on. It points out that surrounding is one of the major factors of self-awareness: “The very idea of a perceivable, objective, spatial world brings with it the idea of the subject as being in the world, with the course of his perceptions due to his changing position in the world and to the more or less stable way the world is. The idea that there is an objective world and the idea that the subject is somewhere cannot be separated, and where he is is given by what he can perceive. (Evans [ 8] , 111–12)[ 6]” That means self awareness is connected to the environment, which most based on our memories, which gives chip Gally an advantage on being the real Gally.
6. “Self-consciousness: beyond the looking-glass and what dogs found there.”
This article focuses on the bias that can happen in self awareness testing:“However, the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror is an exceedingly rare capacity in the animal kingdom (Bekoff & Sherman [ 5]). Up to now, only great apes (including, of course, humans) have shown extremely convincing evidence of mirror self-recognition (Povinelli et al. [25]). Moreover, the mirror test can yield false negatives because if an individual fails the test it does not necessarily mean that the species is not self-conscious (Bekoff & Sherman [ 5]).” That points out another view, what if the way we verify self awareness is not accurate? In that situation, the question itself become meaningless,
Works cited
1.Billon, Alexandre. “Basic Self-Awareness.” European Journal of Philosophy, no. 3, 2017, p. 732. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/ejop.12168.
6.Cazzolla Gatti, Roberto. “Self-Consciousness: Beyond the Looking-Glass and What Dogs Found There.” Ethology Ecology & Evolution, vol. 28, no. 2, Apr. 2016, pp. 232–240. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/03949370.2015.1102777.
4.Kohda, Masanori, et al. “If a Fish Can Pass the Mark Test, What Are the Implications for Consciousness and Self-Awareness Testing in Animals?” PLoS Biology, vol. 17, no. 2, Feb. 2019, p. 1. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,uid&db=edb&AN=134568557&site=eds-live.
3.McNaughton, Susan Maree. “Developing Pre-Requisites for Empathy: Increasing Awareness of Self, the Body and the Perspectives of Others.” Teaching in Higher Education, vol. 21, no. 5, July 2016, pp. 501–515. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/13562517.2016.1160218.
2.Schmid, Hans Bernhard, et al. “Collective Attitudes and the Sense of Us: Feeling of Commitment and Limits of Plural Self-Awareness.” Journal of Social Philosophy, no. 1, 2018, p. 76. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/josp.12225.
5.Schmid, Hans Bernhard, et al. “Plural Pre-Reflective Self-Awareness and the Problem of the Body.” Journal of Social Philosophy, no. 1, 2018, p. 204. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/josp.12224.
My research focused on if some of them are or one of them is Gally and how self awareness affect their or her judge. If her brain got exchanged, that means there is another Gally with the real brain exist, how can she say she is the real Gally? Besides, if she is the real one, that means the other eight robots who shared her memory are her too, which is contradictory with her logic. In doing so, I will summarize cores of self awareness, who is the real Gally, and how they connect to our horror in real life.
Annotated Bibliography
1. “Basic Self-Awareness”
This article focuses on how experience affects on self awareness:“According to the empiricist theories, I am basically selfaware through some kind of experience. On what is probably the simplest model, (i) this experience is an inner, introspective, experience, (ii) and it directly acquaints me with myself. James ([ 36] , 286) endorsed such a theory. He distinguished various selves, including a social self and a material self.” That is another evidence of the connection between memories and self awareness, which gives chip Gally a strong support that she is the real Gally at this time period.
2. “Collective Attitudes and the Sense of Us: Feeling of Commitment and Limits of Plural Self-Awareness”
This article focuses on how the relationship between an individual and people around he or she affects self awareness:“there seems to be a basic way in which collective attitudes are transparent as ours; members of a group are aware of the “sharedness” of their collective attitude. Moreover, plural self‐awareness is supposed to give rise to a shared perspective. Owners of such a perspective are aware of attitudes as theirs, which means that they are aware of the particular way they collectively look at things compared to other possible ways of looking at things; shared attitudes are shaped by an integrated perspective and this seems to be determinate of who is part of the group and who or what is not. Furthermore, plural self‐awareness is supposed to give rise to a normative feature of group intentions, namely to joint commitment of the group in question. According to Schmid, this commitment displays in the “natural” tendency of groups to avoid dissent and disagreement; plural self‐awareness drives towards consistency and a unified perspective of group attitudes.” So that means people around Gally are the same as before or different as before can be a factor too.
3. “Developing pre-requisites for empathy: increasing awareness of self, the body and the perspectives of others.”
This article talks about self awareness is not a stable thing, it keeps changing and improving as we learn in life:“Self-awareness of cognition, affect and beliefs was demonstrated. 'The readings I did everyday were always very encouraging, gave me peace of mind, a lot of courage and ... helped me complete most of my final assignments with confidence' (Gemma). Participants' descriptions of thinking, feeling and action suggest that cognitive and affective or personal and professional self-awareness are not experienced separately. Rather, the emotional, motivational and cognitive aspects of self-awareness are more often experienced simultaneously, as they are in perspective-taking and empathy (Decety and Cowell [12]). This suggests that integrated growth of self-awareness can occur given the right learning contexts and self-assessment tools.” This part tells that both Gally are real if they think they are, but the one with more experiences has better awareness on herself.
4. “If a fish can pass the mark test, what are the implications for consciousness and self-awareness testing in animals?”
This article focuses on non human creatures self awareness: “Our conclusion is therefore that cleaner wrasse show behavioural responses that fulfil the criteria of the mark test as laid out for other animals, but that this result does not mean they are self-aware. This position raises a number of difficult questions. Can passing the mark test be taken as evidence of self-awareness in one taxon but not another? We argue not, because a position that holds the same results in a standardised test can be interpreted different ways depending on the taxon from which they are gathered is both logically untenable and taxonomically chauvinistic [[58]]. Are we instead mistaken in our conclusion that these behaviours even fulfil the criteria of the test? If so, this ambiguity suggests the mark test needs urgent re-evaluation in the context of comparative cognition studies. Finally, while we make no claims that our study proves fish are self-aware, we do hope our results ignite further discussion of fish as cognisant, intelligent animals.
If a fish is judged by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.—paraphrased from a quote misattributed to Albert Einstein.” That means self awareness can be variable and the way to test it could be different too.
5.“Plural Pre‐Reflective Self‐Awareness and the Problem of the Body”
This article focuses on what self-awareness is based on. It points out that surrounding is one of the major factors of self-awareness: “The very idea of a perceivable, objective, spatial world brings with it the idea of the subject as being in the world, with the course of his perceptions due to his changing position in the world and to the more or less stable way the world is. The idea that there is an objective world and the idea that the subject is somewhere cannot be separated, and where he is is given by what he can perceive. (Evans [ 8] , 111–12)[ 6]” That means self awareness is connected to the environment, which most based on our memories, which gives chip Gally an advantage on being the real Gally.
6. “Self-consciousness: beyond the looking-glass and what dogs found there.”
This article focuses on the bias that can happen in self awareness testing:“However, the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror is an exceedingly rare capacity in the animal kingdom (Bekoff & Sherman [ 5]). Up to now, only great apes (including, of course, humans) have shown extremely convincing evidence of mirror self-recognition (Povinelli et al. [25]). Moreover, the mirror test can yield false negatives because if an individual fails the test it does not necessarily mean that the species is not self-conscious (Bekoff & Sherman [ 5]).” That points out another view, what if the way we verify self awareness is not accurate? In that situation, the question itself become meaningless,
Works cited
1.Billon, Alexandre. “Basic Self-Awareness.” European Journal of Philosophy, no. 3, 2017, p. 732. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/ejop.12168.
6.Cazzolla Gatti, Roberto. “Self-Consciousness: Beyond the Looking-Glass and What Dogs Found There.” Ethology Ecology & Evolution, vol. 28, no. 2, Apr. 2016, pp. 232–240. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/03949370.2015.1102777.
4.Kohda, Masanori, et al. “If a Fish Can Pass the Mark Test, What Are the Implications for Consciousness and Self-Awareness Testing in Animals?” PLoS Biology, vol. 17, no. 2, Feb. 2019, p. 1. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,uid&db=edb&AN=134568557&site=eds-live.
3.McNaughton, Susan Maree. “Developing Pre-Requisites for Empathy: Increasing Awareness of Self, the Body and the Perspectives of Others.” Teaching in Higher Education, vol. 21, no. 5, July 2016, pp. 501–515. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/13562517.2016.1160218.
2.Schmid, Hans Bernhard, et al. “Collective Attitudes and the Sense of Us: Feeling of Commitment and Limits of Plural Self-Awareness.” Journal of Social Philosophy, no. 1, 2018, p. 76. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/josp.12225.
5.Schmid, Hans Bernhard, et al. “Plural Pre-Reflective Self-Awareness and the Problem of the Body.” Journal of Social Philosophy, no. 1, 2018, p. 204. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/josp.12224.