To be or not to be [thoughts on NieR: Automata]

“Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped in a never-ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle... and wonder if we'll ever get the chance to kill him” I played a scifi game recently, NieR: Automata, which opens with this dialogue. A game which masks itself in a simple plot of androids vs machines. I found it exploring several philosophical themes related to existentialism and human behavior, and I just wanted to put down my own thoughts about some of these themes and what it made me feel. To summarize the basis for the game: in the distant future, aliens invaded Earth by creating “machines”, forcing humans to flee to the moon. The humans, in response, set up their own base on the moon and created an army of androids, modeled after their own image, and sent these androids periodically to kill machines roaming around the surface of Earth. Sounds nonsensical yes, but bear with me. These machines are shown to be thoughtless and soulless, and are described by the androids as “incapable of showing emotion”. Androids themselves on the other hand, are shown to be only slightly more complex- showing brief moments of levity and care for one another, although discouraged to do so, being a little more self aware of the fact they are not human. Progressing through the game, I found out that the aliens were in fact dead- killed by the machines they themselves had created. Machines had evolved to such a state, that their own creators felt primitive to them. Time and time again, we are reminded that these machines are, well, just machines after all- primitive, aggressive and willing to kill anyone weaker than them. Perhaps they are closer to humans that I thought. They try and mimic human behavior from whatever records they have of them, and we see frequent examples scattered throughout the game of machines wanting to love and hate, wanting to have a family, wanting to reproduce, fearing their own death. What then, makes them not human? Why are they “just” machines? What would it take for them to be considered alive? One thing that I noticed was perhaps the lack of purpose for the machines. Androids knew they were created to help the humans take back the Earth. Machines on the other hand, having killed their creators, now do not have said purpose. Simply mimicking behavior does not guarantee self consciousness. Or perhaps I don’t give the machines enough benefit of doubt. The game mentions a resistance group on the surface of the Earth, and their camp doubles up as a safe house of sorts. Initially I was a little confused, because the game had mentioned that all humans had fled to the moon, yet here they were, or at least a few of them. The camp felt warm and safe, the people there were friendly and we could trade supplies and chips. However, as I talked with different resistance members around the camp, I slowly realized that even though they looked human, all of them were androids, just like my character. The android army (YoRHa) had a very distinguishable fashion style and I found it interesting that as soon as I saw an android in human clothes (the resistance members), I just assumed them to be humans- even though the game had clearly mentioned all humans fleeing to the moon. These machines and androids show hints of similar behavior, however just the sight of something humanoid was enough to make me feel at ease. I suppose this is somewhat visible today as well- would you treat a Roomba vacuum with the same care as you would perhaps a humanoid looking robot whose job is to also clean your floors? We associate the idea of self consciousness with the similarity of physical features and appearance, which I suppose is an humanly egotistical quality to have. The comfort of familiarity. One fundamental way the machines were different to others was because they were all connected through the same network, functioning not as a single organism, but having the same aim in a sense- to kill androids. Some machines were able to “disconnect” from this network. One of them, Pascal, set up a pacifist village filled with machines who, like Pascal, did not want to fight the androids. Now, even though the village machines exhibited advanced human behavior, like the existence of a brother sister relationship, “child” machines dragging Pascal along to play with them, a son machine running away from home because of a fight with his parents, even having someone dabble in and try to understand philosophy- this was, in the end, still very human. Although, I believe this to be different from the machines in the network simply because Pascal and the others exhibited a sense of will when they chose to disconnect from the network. This realization of them wanting something more than being a part of a giant killing network- perhaps this counts as self consciousness even though underneath the layers it results in humanlike behavior. Why do we believe human behavior to be the pinnacle of self consciousness? And is existence then just having your own will? To will is to exist. Or is it the other way around? Questions questions. Pascal’s village had a peculiar machine named Jean-Paul, a philosopher, based on the real life philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (feel like this game sometimes hits it too on the nose). His philosophy revolves around the idea that existence precedes essence, meaning that we are all a blank slate and we create our own purpose and identity, i.e., our essence, the intangibles. That is our choice, our will- to find our own path. Essence precedes existence for something like a pencil, it is created for someone to use it to write. For the pencil, its purpose is predefined and it is created with that purpose in mind. Hence, it is not human. It is not simply the copying of human behavior, it is the discovery and usage of their own will, which makes the machines seem, well, alive. Losing their pre-defined purpose after killing their own creators, does not make their life lose meaning entirely. What is more important, is to create their own purpose. There are many examples of machines struggling to find their purpose, like so many of us. Another group of machines, disconnected from the network, similar to Pascal’s village, turned themselves towards finding God, creating their own religion. For us, we know that their creators were long extinct aliens, however that was not relevant to them. Finding and following God was their purpose. Another example is Adam, an advanced machine and a boss in the game, wanting to experience death. For him, achieving a mortal’s final experience would mean getting closer to understanding humanity itself. He does fulfill his wish, however ironically I feel like him just wanting to achieve that goal, something he wanted out of his own free will and curiosity, made him as human as anyone. I found this argument for essence very interesting. Even the androids have to go through this dilemma. As I approached the final third of the game, my android character finds out that humans have been dead for a long time, their presence on the moon was a lie and the androids have been fighting for nothing. Ironically, now it is the androids who have lost their purpose, their meaning, the reason for existence. I was shown the androids having more complex and advanced emotions than the machines in the beginning of the game. And now, they are the ones struggling to justify their own existence. A fascinating concept. I felt like one of the most telling moments of the game was the revelation that the “black box” which powered androids was modeled after cores of the machines. The very same machines which the androids thought so less of, labelling them as without emotion, shared the same…soul? What then makes the two different? Bringing us back to the philosophy of Jean-Paul. The difference between them is now not physical, but existential, and ironically now the androids are the ones trying to add essence to their existence, as the machines earlier were. Life always comes full circle. In the end, neither the androids nor the machines ever became human- something which they and we all think to be the peak of self consciousness. Instead, we see humanity to be something above just biology. Purpose is something to be chosen rather than given, and existence belongs to anyone who has the will to choose. “We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one” ~ Confucius