[EVA] Concurrency tangent (WAS: Alternate Rei on DVD cover)

[Carl Horn]

On Feb 5, 2010, at 9:42 AM, Gwern Branwen wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 12:53 AM, Peter Svensson  
> <sun1jack at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>  If we don't know immortal souls, we must proceed as if there
>>> are no immortal souls. Burden of proof, neh?
>>
>> But given the existence of souls, and that immortality is an  
>> attribute that is by default associated with them, it is in fact  
>> you who have the burden of proof that Evangelion is a setting that  
>> has souls, but ones that don't survive the death of the body,  
>> which given that's rather the entire point of a soul...
>
> We know 'souls' exist in NGE in the same way 'Angels' exist. We can no
> more infer that NGE 'souls' are immortal than we can infer that Angels
> are the good guys, acting under orders from an omnipotent bearded
> dude. Souls are traditionally considered to be unmixable and eternally
> separate, too. Christianity isn't the only religion name-checked in
> NGE; Buddhism's 108 sins and the shell corporations, anyone? One of
> the most significant doctrines early Buddhism used to differentiate
> itself from Jainism & Hinduism & the various philosophical darsanas
> was the doctrine of anatman - *no eternal soul. No need to point out
> which religion Japanese would be more familiar with and believe more.

It is true the number 108 entered Asian folklore through Buddhism; it  
is also true that in Eva, it is used not in reference to Buddhism,  
but to the many front companies of Marduk, which is mentioned several  
times in the Bible ("Marduk is broken in pieces"—Jeremiah 50:2). If I  
may say so, I don't believe it is necessary to establish that Angels  
are "the good guys," or that they they are acting "under orders from  
an omnipotent bearded dude," or to definitively establish the nature  
of the soul, in order to see that powers beyond human exist in  
Evangelion, and that, even as this power encounters and enters into  
conflict with humans who utilize the most advanced science and  
technology, it is constantly described and associated by those humans  
not only with the scientific language one would expect, but via Judeo- 
Christian religious symbology and terms which, as scientists and  
technicians, they have no particular reason to be using...except, of  
course, that for some reason, they are choosing to use them in this  
story.

I don't mean to caricature your arguments, but mention of "Angels are  
the good guys" and "omnipotent bearded dude" perhaps get at why you  
seem to be reluctant to credit these Judeo-Christian ideas as having  
any internal relevance to the story's characters (I make a continuing  
distinction between what the characters think and what Gainax thinks  
about these elements, just as Gainax presumably doesn't believe  
giant, manlike beings are real and run about and fight, yet it  
doesn't follow that any appearance of the same in their fictional  
story, Evangelion, should be dismissed as irrelevant). You are  
describing what might be called an everyday, mainstream view of Judeo- 
Christianity. I don't like to use philosophical terms ("Philosopher X  
said this in his self-consistent system >  your personal experience,  
knowledge, and the evidence of your senses") but I believe this is a  
straw man.

Evangelion's religious elements are not conventional (broadly  
speaking, the show suggests--and by "suggests," I mean, "throws it  
into the opening credits and onto the floor and up on the ceiling and  
into the sky"--a Kabbalistic framework, in which, by one  
interpretation, God, Man, and Angels are really different points on  
the same continuum, and in order for Man to approach God, he must  
confront the Angels along the path)--which does not make them unable  
to carry meaning for their characters. Even the most mainstream  
denomination only does what all religions do--manipulate words and  
symbols to present a certain mood or meaning. Furthermore, even  
mainstream denominations are not consistent in these systems they  
construct--that's why there are denominations, and people aren't  
simply generically "Christian," or "Jewish." If the history of  
religion shows anything, it is that one person's crazy belief is  
another person's devout belief, and that one person's heresy is  
another person's dogma. If one then throws up one's hands to say,  
"But then you can just spit out whatever gobbledygook you want to  
describe whatever you want, and as long as you seem to take it  
seriously, it counts as religious belief!" I would reply, "Well,  
yes...that's how religions work in the real world."

What trips us up is that, whereas very few people believe in 80-foot  
tall anthropoids, very many people believe in religion. It doesn't  
occur to us to equate lack of personal belief in giants to mean that  
anime shows can't employ giants fighting as a fictional element with  
internal relevance to the story, because they are seen as a properly  
fictional element anyway. But many, and perhaps a majority of people  
in the world, do not regard religion as a properly fictional element,  
but actually do believe in a religion. Therefore if people such as  
Gainax say they have no belief in such religion (as they have), it is  
more natural to assume it therefore can have no meaning as a  
fictional element. In other words, that if they do not actually  
believe in this religion, then it cannot be valid for their fiction  
to use elements of this religion mythologically. That, I think, does  
not follow.

--C.