This is a complete text dump of a crucial part in MGS2 last scenes. All of this
text was dumped from the actual game, and is copyright by Konami. This intends
to be an analysis to clarify some matters and as an essay of the relationships I
have found with other materials. Be warned that if you have not played the game,
there are huge spoilers everywhere. Feel free to contact me regarding the
contents of these documents, for improvements, corrections, critics and typos.

There is also a web version of this document available at (also the latest
version) http://junkerhq.net/CS/ with the dialogue and links between it and this
essay, and a bit more of bells and whistles, but the same content.

Turing's Test
--------------

"If man realizes technology is within reach, he archives it.
Like it's damn-near instinctive."
-- Motoko Kusanagi, Ghost in the Shell (GITS)

Here Hideo Kojima is implying something that Cognitive Science has been trying
to do for a while. A machine that is able to pass the Turing Test. This test was
created to find out if a machine of some sort is "thinking", that it has
"intelligence". The main problem with defining if something has this
characteristic is that we are subjective beings. We cannot trust our feelings
and intuition in defining what is alive and what is not. The human being usually
humanizes inanimate objects, computers and animals, just because we see signs,
although we are not sure if the individual is having an internal process that is
analog to what we define as thinking. An excellent discussion in this subject
takes place in the book "The Soul of Anna Klane", by Terrel Miedaner.

Alan Turing (1912-1954) proposed a game to determine if this condition is met.
This game is called "The Imitation Game", which description is quite clear and
simple to read, it is highly recommended to take a look at it and the opposing
arguments. In the Imitation Game you have three participants. First a man and a
woman, and the third one is an interrogator whose sex doesn't matter. All of
them are in separate rooms with only a Teletype to communicate between them. The
female player tries to convince the interrogator she is the woman, meanwhile the
male should do his best to convince the interrogator that he is the woman. The
interrogator can ask any type of question. A personal one, math, tastes,
physical appearance, etc.

Now suppose we take the man and put a machine in his place. Then you have a
machine, a human and the interrogator. The machine will try to convince the
interrogator it is human, while the human will try to convince him/her
otherwise. The point here is, in Turing's words: "Will the interrogator decide
wrong as often when the game is played like this as he does when the game is
played between a man and a woman?"

As you can see, the Colonel and Rose pass the test with flying colors, but their
exercise goes way beyond this. Although this is not the first time some kind of
thinking machine appears in a Kojima game (Metal Gear MKII in Snatcher and the
Snatchers themselves being the exceptions). It is indeed the first time that it
is not a known fact, but they are not a machine. Besides, the part of GW that is
creating two individuals with different personalities that interact with the
world, control it and communicate between them. But the real question is what
can give rise to such a complex system?

Evolution
--------------
Puppetmaster: As a life form, I hereby demand political asylum.
Aramaki: Is this a joke?
Nakamura: Ridiculous! It's programmed for self-preservation!
Puppetmaster: It can also be argued that DNA is nothing more than a program,
designed to preserve itself...
-- Ghost in the Shell

The first Metal Gear Solid (MGS) deals with the question: "How much of a human
being is defined by the genes?", naturally the theme for the second is its
complementary part: "How much of a human being is defined by information?". To
understand where this questions lead us, we have to acquire a special view of
Evolution. In the following paragraphs I will try to explain my view of the
evolution process, which was formed through the study of Genetic Algorithms
(GA), Neural Networks and finally through reading a bit. Whenever possible links
are provided for greater insight on the subject.

We are taught that a process, named Natural Selection decides that the strongest
and most apt individuals will survive. This method employed by nature to evolve
is straight brute force, that is, search in all directions and you will
eventually find the solution. A species doesn't seek change, nor the DNA
structure that represents it. Enter mutation. There are some events that
randomly modify the DNA information, resulting in an altered individual in some
specific form. This individual is only different from the predecessor. Neither
better nor worse. Now let's assume that the change gives this individual an
advantage over the rest, or allows it to survive more time in the given
environment. These conditions will increase its chance to reproduce, and pass on
the "flaw" to its offspring. In a negative case, the change will have less
probability to pass on to the next generation. If this process is observed, not
in an individual level but in the species, the individuals with the modification
will be more and more common as time passes. This will eventually incorporate
the modification into the mainstream DNA of the species.

An excellent explanation of this process, starting from a primordial soup state
is given by Richard Dawkins. He also coined a term that will be used a lot in
the next section. Also his book "The Selfish Gene" improved the next few ideas.
The theory implies that given the conditions in which amino acids are spread,
they will tend to form more and more stable molecules. On a give time, a
molecule will be formed that has the capability to replicate itself, thus
rendering an exact duplicate. Because of this property, this molecule will
spread rapidly. But, we cannot expect the copy process to be perfect, giving
rise to modifications eventually. From there on, the gap between that simplified
scenario and the complex one we are dealing with can be filled.

Given this process, we will have a wide variety of species all competing and
becoming more and more apt to survive. But, what is this that is being refined?
It would not limit itself to how a body is built. It also contains some basic
instructions, instinct. This instinct allows the individual to react to certain
common situations with "canned" reactions. But how these come to be? Well, some
of the individuals developed a nervous system, and just as any given organ, the
individuals with the best responses coded in their instinct survived and spread
their genes better. One thing to keep in mind is that the system does not take
decisions to find out what will be the next step, or how to improve, it simply
happens because stability is the ultimate goal.

How can this process improve even more? If an individual can create a model of
the environment, it could be prepared for certain situations that are not solved
instinctively. Thus, individuals emerged with the power to simulate their
environment. What does this imply? If a model of the environment is present,
also a model of the individual is needed. Thus, the individual becomes
self-aware and has consciousness.

This new tool is completely useless unless the individual can now learn in order
to improve the model. There is constant feedback from the outside world that
allows it to expand the information that represents the internal simulation.
Here curiosity is very important. It is the factor by which an individual
explores the world to feed the model. Curiosity also gives birth to creativity,
since the data expands, new suppositions are made in the internal model, which
later provide new possibilities for the individual.

More implications arise when, by being self-aware, the individual can see itself
reflected in the others. In this condition, it is normal that a conscious
individual that finds similarities between itself and another, projects the same
attributes it has to the other one. In essence, this is a huge leap. The main
core of the Turing test lies here, in empathy. It is impossible to know if
another individual feels the same, thinks or any other internal process from the
subjective position we have. We can only suppose that everything in our own
world of perception is mirrored on the others.

Nakamura: Nonsense! There's no proof at all that you are a living, thinking
life form!!
Puppetmaster: And can you offer me proof of your existence? How can you, when
neither modern science nor philosophy can explain what life is?
-- Ghost in the Shell

Back on subject, from this supposition that other individual similar to oneself
feels and thinks the same way, a group of mutual feelings arise. Like compassion
and group preservation in a higher level than the genetic one. Just before we
proceed, entertain the idea of what happens when a certain species tries that
all its individuals are rescued from natural dead whenever possible, say from
weakness or illness. Imagine what happens with the pool of genetic information
when non-apt individuals are kept alive and allowed to reproduce. Also, any new
mutations that generate individuals with abnormal properties are dismissed as
defective. It is a cold way of thinking, but worth the time to reflect... What
would be the way to evolve now?

Information Evolution
--------------
"That's all there is, information. Even a simulated experience or a dream; a
simultaneous reality and fantasy. Any way you look at it, the information that
a person accumulates during a lifetime is just a drop in the bucket."
Batou -- Ghost in the Shell

If you have not read the section about Evolution and Genetics, I suggest you do
it before this one. Now we enter the main theme of the conversation and this
essay: Who are the Colonel and Rose? It is obvious by now that Ghost in the
Shell and Metal Gear Solid 2 share a common base, which is quoted from "The
Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins, written in 1976:

"What, after all, is so special about genes ? The answer is that they are
replicators. The laws of physics are supposed to be true all over the accessible
universe. Are there any principles of biology that are likely to have similar
universal validity ? When astronauts voyage to distant planets and look for
life, they can expect to find creatures too strange and unearthly for us to
imagine. But is there anything that must be true of all life, wherever it is
found, and whatever the basis of its chemistry ? If forms of life exist whose
chemistry is based on silicon rather than carbon, or ammonia rather than water,
if creatures are discovered that boil to death at -100 degrees centigrade, if a
form of life is found that is not based on chemistry at all but on electronic
reverberating circuits, will there still be any general principle that is true
of all life ? Obviously I do not know but, if I had to bet, I would put my money
on one fundamental principle. This is the law that all life evolves by the
differential survival of replicating entities. The gene, the DNA molecule,
happens to be the replicating entity that prevails on our planet. There may be
others. If there are, provided certain other conditions are met, they will
almost inevitable tend to become the basis for an evolutionary process."

"But do we have to go to distant worlds to find other kinds of replicator and
other, consequent, kinds of evolution ? I think that a new kind of replicator
has recently emerged on this very planet. It is staring us in the face. It is
still in its infancy, still drifting clumsily about in its primeval [primordial]
soup, but already it is achieving evolutionary change at a rate that leaves the
old gene panting far behind."

Does this sound similar to the words said by the Colonel? Although I hardly like
the idea of that "primordial soup", the idea is exactly the same. The evolution
of information into a new higher level. Of course, Kojima takes it way far
beyond of what Richard Dawkins states literal, not that he wouldn't have thought
that himself though. Also this same idea is taken in Ghost in the Shell, but the
implications, consequences and triggers are completely different. In both, we
are presented with a life form born from the information flow. In GITS, it
searches completeness and create variety. Meanwhile in MGS2, it seeks a greater
good for society. But as we know the best for society is not the best for the
individual. These matters will be discussed a bit more later on.

"The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new
replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission,
or a unit of imitation. `Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want
a monosyllable that sounds a bit like `gene'. I hope my classicist friends
will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme. If it is any consolation, it
could alternatively be thought of as being related to `memory', or to the
French word même. It should be pronounced to rhyme with `cream'."

"Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of
making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the
gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate
themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which,
in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads
about, a good idea, he passed it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions
it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to
propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain. As my colleague N.K. Humphrey
neatly summed up an earlier draft of this chapter: `... memes should be regarded
as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically. When you plant a
fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a
vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize
the genetic mechanism of a host cell. And this isn't just a way of talking --
the meme for, say, "belief in life after death" is actually realized physically,
millions of times over, as a structure in the nervous systems of individual men
the world over.'"

The term "meme" coined by Dawkins in this text is later used by Masamune Shirow
in GITS. In MGS though, what is the real purpose of this "higher level
simulation" of Shadow Moses? As the Colonel states "a system for controlling
human will and consciousness." Then, S3 (Selection for Societal Sanity) is a
model that does an analog process to natural selection in the information
medium: Cultural Selection. The only difference is that it would be controlled.
It is a curious case that the life form that evolved from information is now
trying to regulate information.... or isn't it? After all we, as a species, are
trying to understand and control the genetic information for our own benefit.
Genetic manipulation. Enhancements, curing and preventing diseases. In the same
way, this intelligence is trying to regulate the flow that created it in order
to prevent future catastrophe. This catastrophe of "the world ending in a
whimper" is the same as having the genetic pool contain information that is
useless. The thing that happens when preventing natural selection by keeping
alive the individuals that were supposed to die.

Regarding the matter of who are the Colonel and Rose (during the final
conversation with Raiden), we now know that the Colonel has been this life form
all the way from the beginning. Rose, has been used by the Patriots to collect
information during all the mission. After Raiden is captured, and the virus
affects GW, she was replaced by another simulation. This new life form is the
one that has the final conversation with Raiden, to give the last orders and
collect the final data. Of course we must assume that they have the same
intentions as the patriots, or maybe they are the patriots after all. We won't
know for sure unless a sequel is done.

In a sense, an ironic one, this life form is doing the same thing it criticizes
on Raiden and the masses it wants to control. Preserving itself selfishly,
defending itself by saying it is for the greater good of the one it is trying to
protect. After all, when something is intelligent and conscious, it gains also
the inherit flaws. When something is conscious, it doesn't have access to the
lower layers that confer this. Neither you, nor I have access to the neurons we
are using to read/write this. We cannot trigger them at will, or use them in any
way. But our consciousness lies on top of that. As well as if a machine gained
consciousness, it wouldn't be able to do math unless taught like a child. It
would also be prone to errors. You may ask why... The answer to that is beyond
the scope of this essay, but I would recommend reading Gödel Escher and Bach by
Douglas Hofstadter, and "The Mind's I", by the same author and Daniel C. Dennet.
These go deep into that subject, and were the initial inspiration to write this.
But I won't leave the question fully open. Kurt Gödel demonstrated that any
given powerful enough model cannot represent all the truths it aims to and/or
contradictions can be represented in it. But, there is no reason to stop using
and believing in them, after all, we work in that manner to. It's only natural.
Then, the main discussion here is that there is a growing pool of uncontrolled
information that is unable to advance the same way genetics do due to the lack
of natural selection. This situation reached because, with the advent of digital
communications, individuals can preserve their truths (memes) in the pool.
Without contradiction, always accessible. The usual process, as described above,
is that the good ideas pass on from one individual to another. Now information
is passed from the individual to a medium and is preserved there for future
generations. These implications are the real idea that Kojima contributes and in
which the game expands and bases the complete exercise. The real question is "is
the human being affecting evolution in all levels by preserving the individual
and his ideas?" The answer to that is not so simple. It is a known fact that the
best for society is usually not the best for the individual. The problem, as
always, resides in balance.

"Freedom breeds isolation! That's the lesson of human history! Equality
creates nothing but the death of the individual!"
-- Appleseed

During the game, Kojima makes a loop to engulf the player. The one that has gone
through the VR training in Shadow Moses; the one that executed everything as
told; the one that has been "talking" to an AI and interpreting the recorded
voices as if spoken by a person; the one who thought the Colonel was "acting a
bit strange, but it must be because Raiden is a rookie", although has never met
the Colonel in person; the one whose name appears on Raiden's dog tag at the
end... This is clearly implied while running naked on New York's 52nd Street...
"Raiden, turn the game console off right now! ... Don't worry, it's a game! It's
a game just like usual. You'll ruin your eyes playing so close to the TV.".
Those are clear messages to the player, as well as the screen that reads
"Fission Mailed", simulating a screwed up GAME OVER, while the game continues in
the small overlay. These are clear signs of a higher level controlling the
"reality" that the game simulation is, which is being affected by the virus. So
you see, Raiden was not being controlled. You were.

The game was designed this way to make the player uncomfortable with the
situation. With being controlled. Everyone wanted to play Snake for the whole
game, but this that we were given is a work of modern art and expression that is
intended to make the player think. It gives feelings and emotions that other
kind of media, like books or movies, wouldn't be able to because you are not
playing the main character. That is the whole point; transmit these memes to a
generation in a way that involved form and content. The ideas were not new, but
were used in perfect harmony with the game to create an interactive experience.

This essay is in the same spirit. Using existing memes to pass on a message that
tries to reproduce itself: The Meta-Meme. The whole idea of Snake being the main
character seen through the eyes of a rookie was well worth it; it was also
completely necessary to place the burden on the player's shoulders. I must admit
that MGS2 has its flaws, as any gem does and, although I think that the first
MGS game will continue to be praised as the greatest game ever, this game closes
the circle beautifully and provides great insight... as well as the best
looking, most perfectly achieved and detailed environment we will see in a long
time, along with a very pleasant experience that needs to be shared. An effort
like this that brings these levels of quality in every area to tell a story is a
work to which I pay my respects.

"And where does the newborn go from here?
The net is vast and infinite..."
Motoko/Puppetmaster -- Ghost in the Shell

Just as a bottom note. The GITS quotes are in there because I felt they fit
perfectly. I do not think that Hideo Kojima took his ideas from GITS, neither
from The Matrix. Of course they share many ideas and concepts, but I rather
think that they share a common source of scientific information, and expanded
these memes in different directions. I do think, however, that GITS was an
inspiration for Matrix and both influenced in some way Kojima, since the MGS2
plot was already written by 1998, and the Matrix was released in 1999.

What are the Patriots?
-----------------------

In the essay I only analyzed what the Colonel and Rose are during the final
conversation. Let me explain. I think that the S3 is a system designed to be
used by the Patriots to control Cultural Selection. The Colonel is the face of
this system all game long. Rose, meanwhile is gathering data up to the last
sentence of the conversation before meeting Snake inside Arsenal. At the end,
the virus (worm) affects GW, destroying the parts that the Patriots wanted
destroyed (or causing an "apparent malfunction"?). At the point the Colonel
contacts Raiden again, it is no longer "just" the S3... it is indeed the
Patriots themselves (an individual? the whole consciousness?). Since Raiden will
be disregarded as just a pawn, and neither Snake, Otacon or Ocelot will know the
truth, he is told what they really are. This is like telling Liquid he was the
weakest, although he wasn't. An experiment to find out how the facts affect the
actions of the individuals. In Liquid's case, it was to test if the information
provided to the individual affected his genetic capabilities. Now, it is to find
out if the individual, knowing he is being controlled, can still continue being
controlled by some other means calculated and triggered by S3. Thus, the
patriots are the new consciousness born from human culture, dominating it in a
way that cannot be destroyed by usual means, but by changing the global ideology
and that of individuals.. by changing culture itself. Since ideals are the ones
that control what individuals do, they are "immortal" and have absolute
power.... Unless, we chose something to believe ourselves, something to pass on
to the future.. and change the meme pool for better.

Other relationships and Ideas
-----------------------------

It is interesting that we are really taught this kind of contradictory social
rules. I find this speech quite similar in its central idea to the following:

"We've all been raised by television to believe that one day,
we'll all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars.
But we won't.
We are slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off"
-- Tyler Durden, Fight Club

"I am Jack's recursive game"

That quote takes me to the following definition:

MEMETIC ENGINEER: One who consciously devises memes, through meme-splicing and
memetic synthesis, with the intent of altering the behavior of others. Writers
of manifestos and of commercials are typical memetic engineers. (GMG) Taken
from Memetic Lexicon

Some other interesting relationships with other media I have found are:

-Akio Otsuka is the voice of Solid Snake in the Japanese version, as well as
the character Batou in Ghost in the Shell.
-In the book Metal Gear Chronicle included in the MGS2 Premium Pack, Mamoru
Oshii (Director of Ghost in the Shell) states:

"The extraordinarily high level of perfection is unmistakably a goal
searched. At the same time it hints the direction in which we shall
head beyond the 're-creation of reality'.
I pay my respects."

Online Resources
-----------------
Here is a list of links for more information on the subjects mentioned above.
For an updated version visit: http://junkerhq.net/CS/

-Alan Turing
Biography:
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Turing.html
Computing Machinery and Intelligence (The Imitation Game is described here):
http://www.abelard.org/turpap/turpap.htm
Intelligence and the Turing Test:
http://www.abelard.org/turing/tur-hi.htm
-Ghost in the Shell (GITS) by Masamune Shirow
In The Shell Media, info and links:
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Island/3102/ghost.htm
-Richard Dawkins
"The Selfish Gene":
http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/Dawkins/Work/Books/selfish.htm
Quotes from "The Selfish Gene":
http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/Dawkins/Work/Books/selfpage.htm
Memes The Evolution of Information:
http://www.rubinghscience.org/memetics/dawkinsmemes.html
-Douglas Hofstadter
Gödel, Escher, Bach (GEB) FAQ:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/books/hofstadter-GEB-FAQ/

Acknowledgements:
-----------------

I would like to express my gratitude to several people that contributed directly
or indirectly on this essay and my interest in these themes. So in no particular
order:

-Victor M. Urbina, for listening every time I had ideas or read stuff, up to
early in the morning.
-Pedro Aguilar, for proofreading this thing.
-Rodrigo Regalado (a.k.a. Rex), for saying he would proofread it, and not even
loading the page, but for listening all my ideas over the phone.
-Oscar Noriega (a.k.a. Akira), for giving me my first Metal Gear Solid game.
-Angel Kuri Morales, for arising my interest in these themes during the AI
classes at college, and pointing out GEB. Also all his theory in Genetic
Algorithms and Neural Networks influenced a lot of my later interests.
-Douglas Hofstadter, for writing such excellent books, and giving reference to
other such books.
-Richard Dawkins, for his excellent theories and writing.
-Hideo Kojima, and the Konami Staff, for creating a game to make people think
and reflect, and on top, making it fun, visually stunning, detailed and with
great voice acting and music.
-Masamune Shirow, Excellent ideas, beautifully drawn... what else can I say?

Thanks for reading.

Legal:
--------

Snatcher. Policenauts and Metal Gear Solid are registered trademark of Konami
Co. LTD. Konami is a registered trademark of Konami Co. LTD. All work presented
here is but mere fan work.
Ghost in the Shell is copyright by Masamune Shirow/Kodansha/Mange Entertainment
"The Selfish Gene" was written by Richard Dawkins, I highly recommend getting
this book.
Document written and compiled by Artemio Urbina, © 2002.

______________________
Used with permission.
Orignal Article: here