the nature of humanity

[*Jess♥]

Also, Jerry: Humanity´s purpose in the Guyver is emphatically not to choose its own destiny. In Guyver, its purpose is to be bio-weapons for the Advents and obey Archanfel.

I mean, you can´t really argue with that. It´s literally the reason mankind exists in the first place.

philosophically, you most certainly can argue with that.

the uranus did shape and guide the development of life on earth. but to what degree?

some aspects of humanity are certainly meeting the requirements of the creators goals, but there are many facets to the nature of humanity.

not all of them are completely about what the creators wanted.

for a race of beings that were supposed to be weapons, humans are surely capable of an awful lot of compassion.

also, consider that guyver is meant to express the traits of the host and expand them.

what happens with a human host? the host is freed from the control of the creators.

is this a hint towards humans true purpose. that in fact humans are supposed to be free.

maybe this is truly what the guyver does for a human host.

it gives it freedom and teh ability to be completely indipendant.

if humans were truly meant to be just controllable weapons, then the guyver would increse the host tendency to obey the creators.

[Salkafar]

With a Guyver, a human is freed from the control of the Advents, that is all. His basic nature does not change. Namely, to fight for what he deems worthwhile with complete dedication. I think we can safely say both Sho and Agito prove this. They both kill without hesitation to defend their goal.

I don´t think it is possible for a human to be anything else than the Advents created him to be. Only what he fights for can change.

Of course you could argue that the Advents were pretty crappy engineers. It took them over half a billion years* to get what they wanted... and it turned out even that was not what they wanted.

Hehehehe... wouldn´t it be cool if it turned out the whole "Advents created us" story was all lies? All we have to go on are Archanfel´s memories. How reliable are those?

* Anomalocaris, an organism fairly consistently shown in the history illustrations of the Advents´ experiments, lived about 550 million years ago.

[*Jess♥]

With a Guyver, a human is freed from the control of the Advents, that is all. His basic nature does not change. Namely, to fight for what he deems worthwhile with complete dedication. I think we can safely say both Sho and Agito prove this. They both kill without hesitation to defend their goal.

I'm not sure how you feel you can say that with such confidence.

to say sho fights with complete dedication... and without hesitation??

it has taken sho ~25 volumes to come to a mindset of determination.

throughout the entire manga up to this point, sho has been flailing about like a fish out of water.

he has found it very tough to fight purely because of his compassion for innocent life.

in fact, cronos' methodology has relied upon that tendency most of the time.

[*Jess♥]

Also, Jerry: Humanity´s purpose in the Guyver is emphatically not to choose its own destiny. In Guyver, its purpose is to be bio-weapons for the Advents and obey Archanfel.

I mean, you can´t really argue with that. It´s literally the reason mankind exists in the first place.

With a Guyver, a human is freed from the control of the Advents, that is all. His basic nature does not change. Namely, to fight for what he deems worthwhile with complete dedication.

I multiquoted you here just to make sure we know where we are. because i feel like there has been a bit of confusion.

you said that the humans purpose is not to choose it's own destiny.

I suggested that the humans purpose is indeed to choose it's own destiny and the guyver's behaviour supports that.

then you said that the humans nature doesn't change when equipping the guyver.

if you were saying that the humans purpose (and in extension it's nature) is to not choose, then the guyver giving them freedom to choose would be changing the nature of the human.

changing obedience to full autonomy.

[jerrygoodman]

I'm with Ryuki on all points.

Besides, there's another point to consider. If human beings were made just to be weapons, then why were we given the ability to think? How does independent thought factor into all of this? These are some burning questions that need some serious consideration.

[*Obsidian Ice]

Besides, there's another point to consider. If human beings were made just to be weapons, then why were we given the ability to think? How does independent thought factor into all of this? These are some burning questions that need some serious consideration.

If you can't think, you're not adaptable, and if you're not adapatable, you're not much use as an ultimate bioweapon. If that's what you want, so much more efficient to built yourself a robot, and simply program it to 'crush, kill, destroy'. Also, if you can't reason, you're just going to kill everything in your path, enemies, allies, innocents.

[Toku Warrior]

In a way, that's how the Guyver unit acts. It kills all opponents. Enemies, allies, innocents, without hesitation, mercy or remorse.....well, when in Self Defense Mode. It's the urge to protect both itself and its host from any and all harm in its own self preservation instinct to survive.

In some aspects, all life is like that. Many creatures that are commonly docile to the bone will fight for their own survival.

But you're right, no thought, no adaptaton. If you can't adapt to any situation or your environment then you won't survive. If you don't fight then you wonj't survive (look, I just quoted Kamen Rider Ryuki with that one). Sho has finally learned that if he's gonna survive and protect his loved ones then he needs to fight. He may not want to and he may not like it but he now realizes he doesn't really have much of choice in the matter.

When someone guns after you with a powerful weapon you do one of two things. 1) you cowar like a little punker and get yourself killed becuase you either are to afraid to fight back or you just don't want to hurt anyone or 2) you pick up and even greater weapon and fight back. You might not win but you definetly won't if you don't do a damn thing to stay alive.

Now for the part of complete obediance. Human were created to follow orders and to be the perfect bio-weapon. With a brain to help them solve problems that may be dangerous and the ability to adapt to those problems the Creators got what they wished for. Even Alky was human at one point until he was optimized into a Supreme Zoalord. the only problem with the Creators new toy was that it was too perfect. It evolved to the point to where it was able to think for itself.

Yeah, it still had to obey them as every human was either created or born with a gene that made them totally loyal to the Creators whether they wanted to be or not. But if the human could evolve further, become stronger, adapt to the current problem then they could eventually overcome that control. The Guyver unit took this and gave its host a jump start on being totally free and independant. You can't stop evolution unless you make the entire species as a whole go extinct.

The Creators realized that and tried to do just that because they feared that a Bio-Boosted human was too much for them and feared what would happen if a Zoanoid and/or Zoalord got a hold of a dormant unit.

And Archanfel proves the point that evolution keeps going and creature evolve and adapt to their environment and their current situation. the Creators injured him when he confronted them but he pushed passed it, gaining his own complete freedom and stopped the extinction of his kind. He paid a great price for such a forced adaptation but he knows he can overcome this newer problem with his sleeping sickness.

He just wants a Guyver unit to kickstart that process into high gear.

[Salkafar]

No, Ryuki, I do not agree with you.

The Advents intended humanity to be killing machines and their servants.

The Guyver only negated the `servants´ part. But their basic motivation - to fight - does not change.

Sho may have seemed to be hesitant and have difficulty choosing, but in practice, he has killed Zoanoids without hesitation from the very beginning. Hesitation only becomes a factor when he believes innocents are in danger, particularly his friends and his father. But those he perceives as his enemies, he targets without difficulty.

Where would any other motivation come from? The Advents have manipulated life on Earth since the Cambrian at least. They have steered our evolution since before we were vertebrates. Are you suggesting high ideals and humane ethics are already present in protochordates? Lampreys have no philosophy. They kill when they have to. And if someone who wanted us to be killing machines has been manipulating us since before we were hagfish, I think we can safely assume that that is our true nature.

But all things considered, the Guyver creation story does not jibe. It simply makes no sense. What kind of war could have use for warriors it takes five hundred million years to deliver?

[*Jess♥]

to talk about manipulation and how it effects somethings nature. you can create dams, you can reroute rivers, but eventually all water flows to hte sea.

it is the nature of water on land to flow to the sea. no amount of manipulation will change that.

the advents may define their requirements for what they needed humans to be, but they cannot define the very nature of the lifeform.

I had no intent to debate this, I simply responded to what you said to jerry.

i was making it clear that you can argue with what you said.

it seemed rather overbearing.

if you wish to make a discussion out of it, by all means we can have a discussion in a separate thread.

[*Jess♥]

good suggetion to split the topic toku warior.

salkafar, I don't feel that you are actually disagreeing with me at all.

it seems you are talking about other things when showing how you disagree with me.

I never mentioned humanities will to fight in relation to the nature of humans.

what i actually did was to refute your statement that both guyver show proof that humans will fight without hesitation.

I also refuted your statement that humans basic nature is to be subservient.

I did say that humans most certainly fit the requirements of living weapons.

what i was saying is that human nature is to be free. and whilst humans fight, that much is true, humans mmostly fight to be free.

look at world war 2 (specifically in europe) for your prime example.

a beings nature, it's purpose is what it aims for. it's destiny. its goal. what it WANTS to do or be.

to say that humans purpose is to be obediant to the creators, is like saying that black slaves were meant to be dominated in the 19th century.

a slave by any other name is still a slave. and humanity is not meant to be dominated.

humanity are meant to be free.

and the guyvers reaction to human is very strong evidence to support that.

[jerrygoodman]

Reading this, it got me thinking of this, starting at 1:14:

...and ending somewhere around 1:42.

Here's my line of thought...to Chronos, humanity's nothing but a machine, made to serve it's own twisted purpose. Emotions, imagination, independent thought...they seem to view these are as random factors in an otherwise fixed equation. And through their machinations, they're trying to wipe out what makes human beings unique from each other.

Human beings are more than just tools...MUCH more. They're not something you can just program and expect to do what someone else wants. They live, they think, they hurt...they FEEL. And that's what humanity's all about.

[Salkafar]

But, Ryuki, if the Advents really have been manipulating the evolution of humanity since our ancestors were simple chordates like Pikaia, I don´t see how you could argue there is anything more to us than they put in. I mean, yes, it makes sense for humans to be sociable - to be kind to each other - simply because soldiers who are in the same army should support one another.

I have yet to see any spiritual bent in Guyver. That particular aspect of manga, which is otherwise so common, is noticeably absent. Sho fights for mankind´s freedom, not for an abstract idea of ´good´; when he calls on his father, you really don´t get the idea he really thinks his father will actually help him. (Well, I don´t get that idea. Your mileage may vary.) There is no Zoalord with the ability to conjure the spirits of the dead, nor have we seen any miraculous resurrections (again, a staple of manga).

It´s part of why Guyver is so refreshing, I guess. No frills.

"Human beings are more than just tools...MUCH more. They're not something you can just program and expect to do what someone else wants. They live, they think, they hurt...they FEEL. And that's what humanity's all about."

This is not even true in the real world.

I mean, it is wonderful to have such an elevated idea of mankind, but really - most of us, most of the time, function at a level of awareness and behavior not exceeding that of the average herd of cows. 99% of what we do is indeed programmed, most of which we are not even aware of, and I am not even talking about involuntary bodily functions! Also, I strongly take issue with the expression "That´s what humanity is all about". There is nothing that can possibly precede that sentence without producing something extremely preposterous. Humanity is not `about´ any single thing, if it is `about´ anything at all.

Edited September 24, 2009 by Salkafar

[*Jess♥]

But, Ryuki, if the Advents really have been manipulating the evolution of humanity since our ancestors were simple chordates like Pikaia, I don´t see how you could argue there is anything more to us than they put in. I mean, yes, it makes sense for humans to be sociable - to be kind to each other - simply because soldiers who are in the same army should support one another.

this gives me the impression that you are suggesting they controlled every single aspect of teh evolution. this suggests that they were godlike. but we know full well that they were not godlike. i fact they were frikkin' idiots. they 'manipulated' life for sure, by making mass changes to hte ecosystem and causing mass extinctions etc. sure they guided the evolution to get a species that was highly aggressive and adaptible. but they did not genetically engineer humans. humans came about in response to the environment.

3. “Life breaks free. Life expands to new territories. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But life finds a way” (p. 160).

Malcolm speaking to Gennaro. Jurassic Park.

assuming guyver is based on the real earth, then we can't ignore the behaviour of earth life.

we have seen that humans can be manipulated and essentially controlled into fighting a war. but we have also seen that this does not last long. because humans do not want to be controlled. eventually the system of control will break down. because life breaks free.

i can't change your view if you view humanity as cattle.

I see a lot more in people than that. i see a light in each individual. but that is my view, you have yours.

[*Jess♥]

additional:

if you throw 5 dice on a table and you require 1 six, then you can throw the dice many times and after time you will arrive at what you desire.

you can get 1 six but the other 4 dice could be any configuration.

if you take the dice and place them on the table, you can quite specifically place them with 1 six and 4 ones.

which method do you think is more similar to how the advents likely came up with humanity?

[Salkafar]

this gives me the impression that you are suggesting they controlled every single aspect of the evolution. this suggests that they were godlike. but we know full well that they were not godlike. i fact they were frikkin' idiots. they 'manipulated' life for sure, by making mass changes to the ecosystem and causing mass extinctions etc. sure they guided the evolution to get a species that was highly aggressive and adaptible. but they did not genetically engineer humans. humans came about in response to the environment.

i can't change your view if you view humanity as cattle.

I see a lot more in people than that. but that is my view, you have yours.

Ah! But that is another matter. If you believe humans were allowed to evolve freely, with the Advents interfering only slightly, yes, then I can agree with you. But holy crap, no wonder they left. I think Archanfel may have a good chance of completely kicking their asses if he ever catches up with them.

i see a light in each individual.

I have no idea what you mean by that.

[Guest Darklighter137]

When Sho interfaces with the Relic at the bottom of Relic's Point, the images he is shown indicate that the Creators really did artificially control the development of life on Earth in order to produce humans. This fact proves that Archanphel's story about the creation of mankind is correct. If the Advents had merely found humans, made small modifications to them, and then pretended to be gods, Sho wouldn't have seen what he did in the Relic's database. It would be a compelling twist if the Advents didn't create us, but I don't think that theory can hold any weight given the current evidence that exists.

There has been quite a bit of discussion about the nature of living beings, evolution, etc. within this topic. One thing we need to bear in mind is that we are discussing evolution and the nature of life based on the only form of life we know anything about: life that evolved on Earth. We don't at this point (please correct me if I'm wrong about this) know how the Advents manipulated life on Earth. Never the less, it is fair to say that everything on this planet was either directly intended to be a weapon of some sort or a stepping stone to the evolution of something that could be used as weapon. We can come to this conclusion because the stated purpose of the Advent's research was to create a highly adaptable bio-weapon.

So, there really isn't any way for us to know what kinds of things completely natural evolution produces. The fact that the Advents took such a laborious route to creating their ultimate weapon is a point worthy of consideration. Given the adaptable nature of the Guyver, we can be almost completely certain that the Advents were a collection of very different alien species. If that weren't the case, one would expect there to either be a few different types of units (if there were only a few different forms of life that were part of their coalition), or just one unit that was intended for the Advents species only.

The fact that the Advents are a collection of a wide assortment of species, combined with the fact that most of their technology is biological in nature means that they would have a significant amount of data regarding a wide range of ecosystems, cellular structures, evolutionary paths, etc. The fact that they spent such an incredibly large amount of time on Earth suggests that the forms of life with which they were experimenting were very different from any they had encountered before. Perhaps some forms of life on Earth share certain traits with naturally occuring life elsewhere in the universe. But there can't be too many shared traits.

Why can't there be many shared traits? If the Advents had encountered forms of life in the universe that bore any resemblance at all to weapons, wouldn't they have used those as the basis for their experiments? Instead, we see from the images in the Relic's computer that they started from scratch/nearly from scratch and tried all kinds of different things in order to produce a weapon. The sheer diversity of life on Earth would suggest they had no idea what the end result should look like. We know they had criteria in mind, but it really looks like that's all they had to go on.

[*Jess♥]

thanks for prompting me to look at he book again. it's always nice to look at my guyver books

sho's words in the chuangyi version are "evolution management program"

i find this very interesting.

I think we can all agree that life on earth is very tailored to what the uranus wanted.

humans do have an aggressive nature and are very adaptable.

in many ways we are the equivalent of a pitt bull terrier.

but we must not forget that at the very basic level, a pitt bull terrier is still a dog.

I am pretty certain that if you leave a colony of pitt bull terriers in the wild and allow them to go free, eventually you will have something more like a grey wolf. it may take a long time but it will happen.

one example of animals returning to their wild form is the goat. these animals return to their wild form very quickly.

for life on earth.. since the creators manipulated life for so long, it is not easy for the life to evolve back to what it would have originally been. i would imagine it is like an ongoing conflict. an imbalance between peace and war?

many humans if not most humans strive for peace and freedom in my experience.

even in terms of natural selection... the agressive will die through constant fighting. the peaceful, the smart and the strong will survive.

[*YoungGuyver]

In terms of natural selection Ryuki? With all do respect, if that is all it takes to attain peace, we would have ended war a long time ago. Instead, all of human history is limited to maybe ten or a hundred years where the Earth is war free (decimal place?). For all our trying to attain peace, we sure make it easy to find an excuse to go to war. When the time comes, we somehow find an excuse to ignore those that ask for peace.

I can agree with Guyver, that even in the real world we are relatively adaptive, and aggressive. What can you accomplish in this world without exhibiting some form of aggressiveness? Agresive being the mood to support the motivation. We feed off of conflict so much that we REQUIRE it in some form or another in our recreational media. Man vrs Man, man vrs nature, etcetera. Look at comedy. Comedy itself-the funniest stuff requires someone to experience some form of pain (even if that someone isn't real).

And about freedom? How free are we right now? We must balance our freedom within our responsibilities. Do you want to eat and have a roof over your head? Then you must work a minimum eight hours a day, obeying most every whim of your boss. And even your land lord, you must comply with his demands for no smoking, no pets, and no modification of the paint or screwing shelves into the walls. We do have many restrictions on our freedom within society. Our true freedom is what we do within the context of our rules and commandments. How much freedom is left?

From another perspective on freedom, behavioral sciences and analysis wouldn't work if our decisions weren't based on the mental programing of our types. If an individual is predictable, then freewill may as well be a mute point in philosophical terms.

[*Jess♥]

so tell me, how many people actually follow the rules most of the time?

rules and regulations are just wishful thinking. freedom is far more important in the human equation.

it is balance that is the challenge. one persons freedom when in conflict with rules can generally impact on another's freedom. so this is where conflict arises. rules are created to strive for peace, to strive for balance, of course it is never easy. but it doesn't change the view that peace is the eventual goal. peace and freedom.

also how many behavioural sciences are you aware of that are actually 100% foolproof.

all you have is a rough guideline of how people think. that is why there are so many people who go into and out of therapy and most of them will still have problems.

this rough guideline can be compared to the human face.

each person has 2 eyes, a nose and a mouth. 2 eyebrows. sure you can give a general description of a face, and on the flipside, thought processes... but people are not that predictable as you appear to suggest.

and of course as soon as you try and predict somebody, they will turn around and prove you wrong.

the only reason hypnotists and similar can do what they do is because people agree to go along with them on some level.

it is fun to cooperate in freedom, but when danger presents itself, you may find that any of these types of skills will never work. you can never hypnotise somebody to self harm.

if you really think people are that predictable, then I would like to know why there are people on death row instead of them being fixed. and why there are still people free who then go on killing spree?

[Astramentous]

In terms of natural selection Ryuki? With all do respect, if that is all it takes to attain peace, we would have ended war a long time ago. Instead, all of human history is limited to maybe ten or a hundred years where the Earth is war free (decimal place?). For all our trying to attain peace, we sure make it easy to find an excuse to go to war. When the time comes, we somehow find an excuse to ignore those that ask for peace.

I can agree with Guyver, that even in the real world we are relatively adaptive, and aggressive. What can you accomplish in this world without exhibiting some form of aggressiveness? Agresive being the mood to support the motivation. We feed off of conflict so much that we REQUIRE it in some form or another in our recreational media. Man vrs Man, man vrs nature, etcetera. Look at comedy. Comedy itself-the funniest stuff requires someone to experience some form of pain (even if that someone isn't real).

And about freedom? How free are we right now? We must balance our freedom within our responsibilities. Do you want to eat and have a roof over your head? Then you must work a minimum eight hours a day, obeying most every whim of your boss. And even your land lord, you must comply with his demands for no smoking, no pets, and no modification of the paint or screwing shelves into the walls. We do have many restrictions on our freedom within society. Our true freedom is what we do within the context of our rules and commandments. How much freedom is left?

From another perspective on freedom, behavioral sciences and analysis wouldn't work if our decisions weren't based on the mental programing of our types. If an individual is predictable, then freewill may as well be a mute point in philosophical terms.

I don't know about you, but I have a lot of freedom. I write professionally - I've made enough money at that I can sit around and do nothing for the next twenty years, and still be fine. Even while working, I set my own hours and work for whoever I want - I own my own house, and quite a bit of land to boot. I also live in the US, which helps. So no, I don't agree with you - there are people who are free. Plenty of them - they've just worked harder and longer than most to get that freedom.

Oh yes, and behavioral science has thus far failed to have anything like consistent results, so good luck with that argument.

Now, on to something that matters more than complaining about the real world - the Creators story doesn't work. They had incredibly advanced technology - there's no way they'd need millions of years to create a weapon. A new, intelligent race, maybe. But a weapon? Not buying it. There's also the matter of the guyver's connecting to the navigational spheres - the images they're immediately shown are the same from one ship to the next. Why is that, then? It suggests the ships were left there with a specific message for humanity, and more importantly, the Guyvers. And why would they leave behind a functional ship with three Units on-board? That's awful sloppy for a super-intelligent race.

[*Jess♥]

that's pretty intresting...

would this be some means of suggesting that it is a ruse?

that the story that has been given to us was fabricated by the uranus in order to convince alchanfel to fulfil the role that he is currently fulfilling?

that this is a great manipulation to create cronos to create a race that willingly wants to become a weapon and fight but without the work of actually creating it.

[Super Existence]

Damn, I never see these debates until they're more or less over.

The only thing I have to add is there seems to be an unclear line between intelligence and instincts.

The advents steered evolution in the same way as selective breeding to enhance certain characteristics.

In terms of war, warmongering by human beings is all based on fear and aggression. If those instinctive qualities were enhanced by the advents then surely they would still be there as (as far as we know) all human beings where steered into this evolutional path thus we had no untampered human beings to mate with to dilute the advents breeding programs (although the zoanoids mated with mankind there is no reason to belive that the creators turned every human they had developed into a zoanoid).

I suppose one thing that we have never had any clear definition of in the creators plans is the intelligence of man, did they intend to train us or leave us as is for Alcanphel to direct as automatons.

if the latter is true then they never intended for us to develop a higher intelligence which would give us reason and the capacity to step beyond our violent instincts.

As for that last possibility about the advents plans, why would they concoct the Guyver threat, surely they would have just left with the plan to return when Alcapnhel had developed the planet, also he very nearly failed to deflect the moon which was thrown at earth and it still created devestation on earth.

If this was their plan it very nearly failed due the incredible high risk.

[*Jess♥]

i think that was just thrown out there, highly elaborated by myself and perhaps not the original intention.

personally, I don't believe the uranus were so amazingly advanced. the guyver systems may not have been made by them. this could be something similar to mass effect in that the creators found the technology and utilised it in the same way barcas found and utilised it.

who knows.

we don't have a clear picture of the uranus anyway. it's always been kept purposely mysterious.

[Astramentous]

i think that was just thrown out there, highly elaborated by myself and perhaps not the original intention.

personally, I don't believe the uranus were so amazingly advanced. the guyver systems may not have been made by them. this could be something similar to mass effect in that the creators found the technology and utilised it in the same way barcas found and utilised it.

who knows.

we don't have a clear picture of the uranus anyway. it's always been kept purposely mysterious.

I'm not sure if they took the technology or what, but they claimed they modified the humans into zoanoids, suggesting at least competence with that technology - but if it took the creators millions of years to develop that stuff, how did Balcus manage to learn and improve on it in only a few hundred years? That'd suggest that humans are many times as intelligent as the creators, or at least much more creative.

As for the guyver, assuming all the images shown are lies and the guyvers were left there intentionally, then there's a number of possibilities. The guyvers were left there to provide an opponent for the zoanoids, to force them to increase their power. The guyvers were left there to find out if humanity with only three guyvers was still mightier than all of the zoalords and zoanoids combined. Or perhaps the creators were already doomed, and knew it - and wanted to leave a race to succeed them. With the guyver units and a functional ship, humans might have been able to make more, and become the new Uranus.

Just a few suggestions on how you could run with that idea.

Edited September 15, 2010 by Astramentous

[Super Existence]

Balcus may have figured out some of the creator tech but he absolutely hasn't improved in it in anyway neither the zoanoid tech nor Artificial control medal seem to be as good as what the creators could produce. The creators made Alcanphel which is more powerful than anything Balcus made, Alcanphel also cannot cure his own sleeping sickness caused by the uranus.