Originally published on the website U-ACG

Link: http://www.u-acg.com/archives/22978

Dreams are connected to reality, and reality is a continuation of dreams

Generally speaking, people always think of Steins;Gate as a sci-fi animation that explores "time travel". However, to the author, the more attractive part of Steins;Gate is that instead of talking about the so-called time and space, it is more about the theme of dreams. And from this topic discuss memory and human nature.

Technology - aka time machines, is a very important topic in this anime. But he's not important simply because it's a technology that allows people to travel through the past. But because this time machine changes the past, making the future experienced by people like a dream. As if he himself could be understood as a symbol of sleep and dreaming. Interestingly, the contemporary French philosopher of technology in the 21st century - Bernard. Stigler wrote in Technology and Time:

"Although animals also dream, only humans externalize their dreams... In fact, dreams generate technology, and technology itself generates dreams, and dreams and technology cannot be separated."

A time machine is a technology that can externalize "dream". But what does it mean to externalize "dream" in this anime? Personally, I think, just as Freud thought in "The Interpretation of Dreams": a dream is the fulfillment of a wish. In Steins;Gate, a dream means a desire to change the past.

We can reflect on ourselves without thinking. Is there a reason why people dream because they want to change the past? But we all know that it is impossible to change the past. After dreaming, we forget about it. Continue your daily life and move towards a peaceful future.

In "Stone Gate", Okabe invented a telephone microwave oven that can send mobile text messages (named: D-Mail) to the past self and others. As long as the past self receives a message from the future self, there will be Maybe because of the above information, you can change your original past behavior, and thus change your future appearance. This kind of invention makes the characters around Okabe run over one by one, wanting to send a text message to the past self, change the behavior of the past self, and get a future that is different from the present.

Interestingly, after each D-Mail is sent, the world has changed, and it came to a different world from the original (the term in the anime is: the original world line has changed, and it has come to another world line). But except for Okabe Rintaro, all the characters have lost the memory of the original world, and directly have the memory of the changed world (but they forgot how the "change" happened, only that they did receive a strange text message) . On the other hand, Okabe, on the other hand, still remembers the original appearance of the world, but he is completely unfamiliar with the changed world. Every time his consciousness suddenly "awakes" in another world, he has to ask the assistant next to him: How did he come to this place? "Originally" to do what? Because he has no memory of the original "him" in the new world. It was as if others had forgotten the past, but Okabe had forgotten the future, because he was the only one who stayed in the past that didn't exist long ago.

In other words, when it is said that Okabe is shuttled from one world line to another world line, such a description is actually not accurate. Because it is not Okabe who travels to another world line, but Okabe, who exists in this world line, transmits his own memory of this world line to Okabe's brain in another world line through a time machine. In the process of transmission, in fact, the memories of all people in this world line will also be transmitted to "self" in another world line. But the memory transfer of other people is not complete. When the memory that occurs in this world line is transferred to the "self" in that world line, it does not become a memory, but becomes a dream of a fragment that the self in another world line will do at night. . And only Okabe's memory transfer was completely successful. That's why he remembered what he had experienced in other worlds. However, such transmission is strictly speaking not pure transmission, but a further substitution. Because when Okabe in another world line receives the transmitted memory, he will forget his own memory in the original world line, and become like Okabe who came from another world line completely, so he must ask his friends. His past in this world line, because after receiving his own memory of playing another world line, he forgot his memory in this world line.

In other words, all characters forget when the world line changes. But what most people forget is the memory of another world line, while Okabe has no memory of a new world line. You can only observe how the new world line has changed with the memory of the old world line. And the characters other than Okabe have not completely forgotten the memory of the original world line. As long as Okabe gives more hints and descriptions, and brings these characters back to the original familiar scenes in the past, these characters may suddenly remember what happened in another world line, or the pictures he saw in the original other world line, One-sided memories of words heard, etc. In more cases, Okabe noticed that although the people next to him had forgotten what happened on the other world line, they often dreamed of what happened on the original world line in their dreams, but they thought it was just a dream.

In other words, the old world line memory has not disappeared, but has become a sense of sight and a dream.

In Steins;Gate, John from the future. Tito tells Okabe in a different world line that in the near future, the world is about to face a disaster. The SERN neutral institution, which was originally purely scientific research, began to totalitarian rule the world because of the discovery and occupation of the time machine invented by Okabe and the heroine Kurisu. Because as long as who has the ability to change the past, then whoever has the ability to rule and threaten the world. The world has been plunged into great suffering, with billions of lives being monitored and even brutally murdered. The only one who can save this situation is Rintaro Okabe.

"The average person only dreams at night and forgets it during the day. But an artist is a person who dreams even during the day." - Stigler, "Technology and Time"

As we mentioned earlier, only Okabe is still stuck in a past that "has long since existed." But the use of "existence" here is a little weird. Because the past "long gone" once existed, only changed. Does he even exist? It's as if we were asking, have dreams ever existed? Or is it really just a "dream"?

Rather than saying that only Okabe is still stuck in a past that "has not existed for a long time," it is better to say that only Okabe is still stuck in a dream-like past. And if each world line is a journey formed by carrying a dream in a character's heart, then the reason why only Rentaro Okabe can be the savior who saves the world is that only Okabe has not forgotten what happened in each "dream" and the things they carry.

Technology: Domination and Continuation

Carrying and continuation can be regarded as a very important concept in Steins;Gate. In the subsequent world lines, the world in each world line will inevitably become the totalitarian rule of SERN, and Okabe's childhood sweetheart, Mayuri, will inevitably suffer death. Before she died, she would suddenly find that the pocket watch in her hand was broken and she would no longer walk. On the other hand, Okabe will notice that the hourglass and clock of the laboratory also stop at this moment, as if time is no longer passing, it is directly terminated and stopped.

Time is stopped, and the first meaning is not that there will be no more time passing, but that there will be no new possibilities in the future. Everything became like Okabe kept repeating the time jump but failed to change the predetermined result of Mayuri's death, and fell into an endless cycle of pain. And man can no longer find new meaning in time. Second, considering that Mayuri's pocket watch is a relic left by her grandmother when she died, time stops, which means the end of memory. Memories of the past can no longer be inherited and continued over time, but, like death itself, are frozen and stay in the distant past that no longer continues. Or face something more serious than death: to be forgotten.

"Remember me from another world line!"

This sentence is what Kurisu and Rukako told Okabe in the play when they knew that Okabe was going to change the world line. The short ones are probably the most meaningful words in the whole play. He pointed out that in order to keep the things that people entrusted in different world lines to continue: Phyllis wants to reunite with his father, Suhua likes Okabe, Moe wants friends, etc., then the most important thing is: remember. Let everything experienced by each world line become an important part of the experience. Even if this world line eventually has to change in order to avoid the catastrophe that will come sooner or later, it will lead to a great deal of oblivion.

But if forgetting is doomed, how can the memory of what happened in each world line be sustained?

The point is, there are actually many ways to "remember". If you want to reach the world line of the happy ending, you must give up other world lines. So the only thing Okabe can do is not to let everyone have the memory of the previous world line, but to make everyone's experience in the world line into a deep dream. With a vague but eternal impression, it will always remain in the heart of each character. Just like in the play, Okabe and Kurisu, in order to always remember that they were lovers in another world, they finally confessed to each other and kissed affectionately. No matter which world they are in, Kurisu will always be there. I dreamed that I had kissed Okabe and had vague memories.

"Never is infinite...a second of yours will become my eternity."

Memories, may make people remember certain things forever. However, there is a kind of "forever". He is not a memory, but through a fleeting moment, in a single moment, it exhausts all the unspeakable emotions in a person's heart. This "forever" beyond memory is a dream.

Stigler, the author of "Technology and Time", believes that the invention of technology is closely related to people's imagination. He makes people dream, and makes people try to externalize and approach the "dream" that people can imagine through technology. However, technology has a fatal effect:

"Technology is memory loss."

This is a disadvantage as well as an advantage, after all, many technologies are invented to make people convenient. In terms of the invention of writing, it means that people don't have to memorize so many things, and they can go back and look at what is written on the paper when they need it. But when technology is reduced to pure operation and completely automated management, it will produce what Marx calls "human alienation." Even lead to the loss of human sense of time.

"Technology constructs time rather than technology in time."

Stigler criticized the increasingly serious trend of the specialization of modern technology, and believed that once people are ignorant of the technology of the technical objects around them, they can only operate, but have no ability to understand and explore them. Then human life will begin to experience a great deal of collective forgetting. People may become more convenient and better able to predict outcomes and plan for the future, but at the cost of having to forget the past or even pretend that the past never existed in order to predict the future. Forget how society was organized through different technologies in the past, and how you acquired things and knowledge through technology. And from then on completely dominated by those who create technology, because of the composition of all social structures that technology controls. Once a person loses the knowledge of technology, he can only succumb to the domination of the technological system and can no longer interact and create with it.

Stigler calls this phenomenon "the proletarianization of knowledge", and the "bottom" in the future will not be the so-called "proletariat", but a new "knowledge proletariat." They are not without assets, but people who have no intellectual reflective ability and are completely manipulated by information. Because they are in a state of ignorance about the objects around them and the technical principles behind the source of their knowledge.

"The birth of human beings is rather the invention of human beings. ... The end of human beings is rather the end of technology and invention."

The end of technology does not mean that the world will no longer have technology, but it means that technology no longer makes people dream, no longer makes people imagine, and no longer has the possibility of interacting and creative with people. In other words, the end of technology means that technology is dominated by complete specialization and management, and no longer belongs to the field that everyone can touch. In such a society, even if technology is highly developed, people cannot find their place and lose the meaning of life. Because in such a society, it seems that society does not need people, but only needs to operate step-by-step technology and technology, and people can no longer rely on themselves, and must rely on technology to manage themselves in everything they do.

Stigler's "dominance of technology" is the first to remind people of the world view of another anime "PSYCHO-PASS". But here, he also reminds us of the future in which SERN occupies the time machine and dominates the world in Steins;Gate. But more importantly, he highlights the philosophical contradiction behind Okabe's attempt to use a time machine to get rid of the time machine's domination. The time machine is not only a technology that allows people to reverse domination, but at the same time it is also a technology that allows SERN to control and dominate the world.

How to make a technology to flip technology? This conflict happened repeatedly in Okabe's heart. After failing to save Mayuri several times, he collapsed and wanted to destroy the time machine invented by himself and Kurisu, because he wanted to believe that as long as the time machine was not invented, disaster future will not happen. But in fact, it is impossible to escape the curse of fate without relying on a time machine. People are destined to need technology.

So what is the antidote to domination? How to escape the fate of time and technology being dominated? Kurisu told Okabe the method is very similar to that of Stigler, that is: repetition and recall.

The Antidote to Domination: Memories

If the domination of technology is to make people forget, stop caring about the past. Now, then, to restore the deep meaning of technology to people. The only way is for technology to help people re-explore their own past and previous history, and in the process of exploration, people can "recall" the possibility of the future.

This kind of recollection and recall is called "recalling repetition" by Stigler, which means recalling the past, repeating the understanding and interpretation, and making new possible imaginations for the future. From a certain angle, people think of issues like transitional justice and so on. But in Steins;Gate, repetition is complete re-experience. In order to reverse the fate of SERN's domination, Okabe, according to Kurisu's inference, returned to the world line that the characters passed through before the first D-Mail was sent through the D-Mail that sent the opposite messages of the previous characters one by one. Finally, go back to the beta world line where the original time machine has not yet been invented, and invent the time machine to save Kurisu, who will die in this time line, and arrive at the world line where all characters are safe in the end: Steins Gate.

But Okabe didn't immediately return to the laboratory to send the opposite text message to change the world line after knowing the content of the messages sent by the characters before. On the contrary, go back to each world line, in addition to knowing what the D-Mail messages sent by the characters are, and most importantly, re-understand the past and heart of the characters in each world line they have experienced. world, and help them remember what they were like in another world. Why do you want to change the past? What has changed? Then take these new understandings back to the earlier world line that did not understand each other before.

It is the return of the past, but also the rebirth of the relationship. To continue the relationship with each other, in addition to repetition at first, it is an act of trying to rewrite and reconstruct the relationship through repetition. This is exactly how Okabe uses the time machine to change and even create space and time in Steins;Gate.

"Difference must actively and actively produce, in constant repetition, a separation, a distance, that is, a spatial difference. . The form of life (technology) emerges." - "Technology and Time"

"Break the domination structure of the world and move towards a future where the universe is full of chaos! This is the dream of a mad scientist!" —— Rentaro Okabe, "Stone Gate"

The chaotic future and the differentiated presentation of various lives and relationships are the dreams that technology and scientists should try to create for the world in the two works.

The essence of man: the shaping of memory

"The paradox of life is this: he must determine his life form by means of inanimate forms (or the traces he leaves in inanimate things)."

Humans are not like ordinary animals from birth, they are in completely natural nature, but completely in an environment full of various artificial and technological objects. These technological substances accompany the growth of all human beings. When the brain is still developing, they affect our thinking and cognition of the environment and interpersonal relationships. And more importantly: the perception of speed and time. Finally, it affects the shaping of memory.

Stigler goes one step further and asks us a rather provocative question: Do people invent technology? Or technology - the invention of "people"?

"The process of division of the cerebral cortex is consistent with the process of the long evolution and evolution of stone tools with the technology of stone tools... 'Man' was gradually invented in this evolution... Does this indicate that life evolved along ways other than life Continue? And the history of technology is also the history of mankind?”

How did Okabe observe which world line he was on? It is through the changes of environmental objects and "traces" around different world lines that it is confirmed. However, with the drastic changes in the surrounding environment and objects, Okabe gradually finds it difficult to understand his own existence. What are the things that he has experienced repeatedly that he really happened before the time jump or on another world line? Instead of the nightmare of repeated dreams? And the fetters between you and your companions in different time and space can no longer be confirmed and remembered at the moment of change, so is the memory of your own existence true or false? You can only rely on deep feelings to silently archive in your heart, watch and recall on your own in the time and space (in your own dreams) that you do not share with others at the moment...

But more importantly, Okabe is not just changing the future through a time machine, but also, as Stigler said in "Technology and Time", when re-changing the future, Okabe is also observing himself, even Changed and reinvented "self". The most direct manifestation of this "self" in the end is: the rebirth of the identity of the second middle school - "Phoenix Court".

The Phoenix Academy is fierce, and the identity of this middle 2 is the same as that of a "mad scientist", which is Okabe's "setting" for himself. But this "setting" is not only a kind of fantasy of middle school, but it reflects more of a kind of loneliness. Want to forget or buffer the anxiety of the real world by falling into a fantasy world. In a way, the so-called "Chuan II" is a newly invented defense mechanism for modern people, but at the end of the plot, when technology and time machines can help the protagonists find and continue their relationship with each other, it can be noticed that, The second is from a defense mechanism to an ability to dream into the future.

Here, Steins;Gate is not only about the science-fiction philosophy of time and space technology, but also about rethinking the nature of human beings through the protagonist's drifting in different world lines. And his answer has a similar resonance with Technology and Time.

"Humans are missing creatures, without their own essence, and therefore become technological beings."

Man organizes his memory through technology and invents himself through memory. And man has no essence, because the only essence of man is what another philosopher Heidegger said: time, and what Hong Lixi said in the play: that fragile memory. And precisely because memory is fragile, talent needs to be perpetuated and consolidated through others and technology. And become "the life of technology".

The "life of technology" is not a "life of domination", but a "life of dreams" at all times. If there are various world lines in the world, it is because of the invention of technology. Then, as a technology of dreams, what we need to do is to make the world lines that are parallel to each other at first glance as much as possible, and open a new, potential, dream-like space between them, so that the worlds of each other can become a parallel line at first glance. , but in fact the continuation of the world line.

(The article is simultaneously published on the following blog)

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