TS: The light novel and anime series Sword Art Online is a consistent

example that the notion of the self refers to the existence of a nonphysical being the soul, through references and contrasts to the work
of Daniel Dennett, Where am I? and Cartesian dualism.

Sword Art Online is a light novel and anime series, primarily targetting
middle and high school students. 1 Seeking through my memories about the self
and its connotations, I found this fictional series interesting, and rather surprising
when I realized that it has challenging contrasive qualities to the work of Daniel
Dennetts Where am I? Thus, every possible connotation and link that can be tied
to Where am I? is not only intended, but the main motivation of this work as well.
THE SETTING AND THE STORYLINE OF THE SERIES
Sword Art Online (SAO) is a Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online
Role-Playing Game. The game is launched in 2022. The game uses a Nerve Gear,
which is a helmet that interacts with neurons to simulate the five senses of a
person in a virtual world. Using the Nerve Gear, players cannot use their five
senses in real life, and unless they log out, they do not feel the needs of their real
body (hunger, sleep etc.). On 6th November, the first day of the game, some
players realize that they are unable to log out. Then, the administrator of the
system and the producter of the game Akihiko Kabaya appears in a town center,
gathering all the players. Then, he declares that if a player dies in the game, the
Nerve Gear will ensure that the player dies in the real world, too. If someone
physically removes the Nerve Gear will harm the brain of the user as a
microwave, the player ending up dead. Kazuto Kirigaya, one of the a thousand
beta testers of the game, has the experience of the game over the nine thousand
regular players and is a skilled player compared to other beta testers. Hence, he

believes that he can beat the game on his own, and goes on as a solo player with
the nick name Kirito. The players do not feel the physical pain, unless the
administrator sets the pain absorbing level anything other than 100%. However,
they feel a virtual hunger, need to rest, and some other virtual needs resembling
the real life. The game processes for two years, many real deaths take place and
around six thousand players who are still alive are connected to machines in
hospitals to maintain their life. Kirito has a virtual friend Asuna, with whom he
eventually falls in love. In the end of two years, the top player Kirito manages to
destroy the boss and save lives of thousands of gamers. When the game is over,
he tries to find Asuna in real life, in doing which he succeeds. He finds out she is
trapped in the game along with three hundred other players, he enters the
mainframe of the game in which she is trapped, Alfheim Online. He saves his
lover from that game and finally the two reunite in the real world.
CONNECTING THE DOTS
Now that I have given the introductory information about the series, it
should be easier to realize the similarities between the series and Where am I?
Kazuto Kirigaya lies on his bed; his brain does not process anything going on the
physical world. Even if it does Kazuto, himself, is not aware of it. He can conceive
only what he senses through his virtual senses and what he senses from virtual
world. Thus, his real body and his virtual body have different needs and are in
different systems with their own realities. The story keeps its consistence by
stating that the surviving gamers are sustained in hospitals, on devices and liquid
nutrients, on the other hand, for the players mental states, which are aware of
the situation and have the ability to distinguish between two dimensions, the
administrator charges some NPCs (non-player characters) to take care of the
psychological needs of the users in case of depression, manic attack, suicidal
disorders etc. Thereby, it is not so wrong to think about Kirito (virtual body of

Kazugo) as a body without the brain, physically. This virtual body executes what
the real and only brain commands. It is just like Yorick commanding Hamlet,
except for the fact that Yorick remains in a vat in a lab. However, there is one
thing that makes Kirito a more realistic fictional body, if he gets drunk in the
virtual world, the Nerve Gear transmits the brain that the virtual state of the
character is drunk, then the communication of the nerves and the senses
resemble that of the real world, in terms of consistency. The same applies to
hunger, sleep, fatigue and many other real physical needs. On the other side,
there is another similarity between two examples; it is possible for both Yorick
and the brain of Kazuto to change the bodies they command, first one in reality,
the latter virtually. When the game begins, every player has a modified look;
however, when they are declared that the game is a fatal role play, the
administrator makes everyones look exactly the same as their real appearances.
Players do not feel any type of alienation from their own body, they easily
adapted to their real looks in the virtual world, perhaps even easier than Yorick
got used to Fortinbras.
Kazuto believes that what is common in both the real world and the virtual
world is the personality of a person. Some gamers develop personas way
different than their personalities, which, Kazuto states, harm their real
personalities. What we have here is one personality, along with two conceived
reality and two bodies. This personality is aware of the senses trueness, however
even in the virtual world he chooses to rest on a sunny day setting, thinking that
it would be a waste to spend such a beautiful setting to fight demons of the game
on that day. So, he enjoys the pleasure that he gets from virtual senses, as does
he believes that his own personality must remain the same in both dimensions.
Here is the question that comes out by itself: Where does this personality lie
within or outside the body? If it was a completely cognitive system, it would have

gone through a radical change after the change of all that is conceived. However,
to Kazuto, it is more about a change in all mechanisms, therefore a change in the
way that his brain processes, however there is an exceptional thing, personality,
which we would gladly like to call the self. He says that some players exhibit
extreme behaviors, unlike their real-life characters, thinking that they are not
responsible for anything just because they are in a video game; therefore, video
games cause personality disorders in their real-life characters. Even if we
consider only what we see on the news about video games and personality
disorders, Kazuto seems to have a point. In any medium which has its own
systems and reality, developing several characters (not a persona, but a
completely new character) makes the player suffer, mainly because of the
hardness adapt to his roles, wealth, survival capacity in the real life and the
virtual life. Kazuto has a point. Surely, this is why he went after his lover right
after he defeats the game. He was aware that what seemed to him could have
been a program, an NPC, however, as Asuna, his lover, describes, she believes
that she could feel the warmth of his hand, in the virtual world. Which leads us to
think about what is that non-physical commonly functioning thing that makes her
feel a kind of warmth which is not included in the games coded senses. Could
that be what the scientists failed to synchronize between Yorick and Hubert?
Could that be what Descartes calls the thinking, which is inseparable from the
self, above sense perception and bodily needs? 2 Descartes statement about
perception of the real and the perception of the dreams resemble to Kazutos
account of the self (a stable between real and virtual sensing) as well: Senseperception? This surely does not occur without a body, and besides, when asleep
I have appeared to perceive through senses at all. 3 Therefore, we may think
that brain and sense-perception are processing the information for the thinking,
which is yet an unexplained stage. This is where we need to observe each

particular person behaviorally, by reason of the cognitive process results being

unable to be completely traced up to the point where the final stage is
functioning. That last stage where the datum are evaluated personally,
subjectively. That personal space, which makes it possible for us to talk about
subjectivity. That soul, invisible system, non-physical entity, which makes us
individuals. If everything written is not completely faulty, I should be somewhere
close to asking the right questions about the self.
COUP DE GRACE
Let us introduce all the three subjects of this paper to each other, Rene
Descartes, Daniel Dennett and Kazuto Kirigaya Kirito. As the administrator of
this imaginary community, I deactivate death match and duel modes, robbing
Kirito of his advantage. Descartes, basically, defines himself as a thinking thing.
In this thinking, no sensory part functions, as they completed their part
transmitting the codes of what is sensed. Kirito supports a similar way of thinking
as we can understand upon his way of thinking where he believes that even
though the whole sensory system and the variables go through changes, his own
personality, his own way of thinking, is the think that represents the overlap
between two dimensions. Hence, he also believes that what he really is a thing
that things, no matter how deceptive his senses and what he senses are. Dennett
would show up to argue this way of thinking by bringing the first switches
between Yorick and Hubert forward, however, the ending of the storyline stands
as a powerful proof that there is still an unresolved part in the data, which causes
the lack of synchronization between two cognitive processing systems. Therefore,
in my own way of evaluating the proof, between those three arguments,
apparently the first two stand very close to each other, and I am somewhere near
them. In my own fictional territory I will let the conversation continue as no
physical proof seems to be within grasp yet.