Instrumentality and the Problem of Other Minds
(Evangelion Week, Day 2)
Shinji doesn’t know if anyone really sees him.
This isn’t paranoia. It’s phenomenology.
At the core of Evangelion is a question that makes philosophy shiver: If I can never experience your consciousness directly, how do I know it’s real?
Recognition and Its Discontents
Instrumentality—the merging of all human consciousness into one collective soup—is pitched as a solution. No more loneliness. No more barriers. No more misunderstanding. But it’s also a horror show. Because without boundaries, there’s no self. And without a self, who’s doing the knowing?
Wittgenstein said we don’t “solve” the problem of other minds—we live it. We navigate it through shared language, gesture, pain. We trust that when someone says “I’m hurting,” they mean something close to what we mean. It’s not certainty—it’s form of life.
But Shinji doesn’t have that. He doesn’t trust anyone’s signals. He can’t tell if people care, or if they’re just playing roles. Instrumentality promises direct access. But once you lose the distance between self and other, there’s no one left to love you—just a blur of impressions shaped like connection.
Being Perceived vs. Being Known
The tragedy of Shinji isn’t just that he’s isolated. It’s that even when people are near him, he feels invisible. Seen, maybe—but not known. Misrecognized. Misread.
And haven’t we all felt that?
That gap between how you feel and how you’re understood.
That ache to be witnessed accurately, not just interpreted.
Instrumentality doesn’t erase that gap. It dissolves the self trying to cross it. And in doing so, it kills the only thing that could ever make being known matter: the I.
Recommended Readings (Please Confirm Receipt of Self)
[1] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
Where language stops being a tool and starts being a haunted house. On meaning, expression, and why you’ll never quite know if someone else is really in pain.
[2] Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness
Consciousness is always consciousness of something—but the Other’s gaze turns you into an object. Sounds familiar, right Shinji?
[3] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception
Bodies, vision, and the space between. “The other is not a problem; I am the other.” Thanks, Maurice. Now I’m scared again.
[4] Thomas Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”
You’ll never know. That’s the point. Empathy doesn’t bridge the gap—it just gestures at it with sonar.
[5] David Foster Wallace, Good Old Neon
A short story, but a brutal one. On being seen, being fake, and the desperate hope that someone, somewhere, gets it.
Shinji doesn’t know if anyone really sees him.
This isn’t paranoia. It’s phenomenology.
At the core of Evangelion is a question that makes philosophy shiver: If I can never experience your consciousness directly, how do I know it’s real?
Recognition and Its Discontents
Instrumentality—the merging of all human consciousness into one collective soup—is pitched as a solution. No more loneliness. No more barriers. No more misunderstanding. But it’s also a horror show. Because without boundaries, there’s no self. And without a self, who’s doing the knowing?
Wittgenstein said we don’t “solve” the problem of other minds—we live it. We navigate it through shared language, gesture, pain. We trust that when someone says “I’m hurting,” they mean something close to what we mean. It’s not certainty—it’s form of life.
But Shinji doesn’t have that. He doesn’t trust anyone’s signals. He can’t tell if people care, or if they’re just playing roles. Instrumentality promises direct access. But once you lose the distance between self and other, there’s no one left to love you—just a blur of impressions shaped like connection.
Being Perceived vs. Being Known
The tragedy of Shinji isn’t just that he’s isolated. It’s that even when people are near him, he feels invisible. Seen, maybe—but not known. Misrecognized. Misread.
And haven’t we all felt that?
That gap between how you feel and how you’re understood.
That ache to be witnessed accurately, not just interpreted.
Instrumentality doesn’t erase that gap. It dissolves the self trying to cross it. And in doing so, it kills the only thing that could ever make being known matter: the I.
Recommended Readings (Please Confirm Receipt of Self)
[1] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
Where language stops being a tool and starts being a haunted house. On meaning, expression, and why you’ll never quite know if someone else is really in pain.
[2] Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness
Consciousness is always consciousness of something—but the Other’s gaze turns you into an object. Sounds familiar, right Shinji?
[3] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception
Bodies, vision, and the space between. “The other is not a problem; I am the other.” Thanks, Maurice. Now I’m scared again.
[4] Thomas Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”
You’ll never know. That’s the point. Empathy doesn’t bridge the gap—it just gestures at it with sonar.
[5] David Foster Wallace, Good Old Neon
A short story, but a brutal one. On being seen, being fake, and the desperate hope that someone, somewhere, gets it.
Comments
Post a Comment