Column: Shelling ghosts  Geekly Weekly  “Ghost in the Shell:
Stand Alone Complex,” or “GitS: SAC” for short, is an animated
television show that gives an unparalleled attention of detail
to human consciousness on a medium that is not made up of gray
matter.  Whereas conscious machines — machines that think like
humans — have been a topic of interest in many works of science
fiction such as The Terminator and The Matrix, it is the way in
which “GitS” is true to contemporary cognitive science’s notion
of synchronous intermodal matching that really sets it apart.
Cognitive science defines synchronous intermodal matching as the
process by which the human mind contextualizes itself in a
spatial environment (kinesthetically) and within a specific
human body (haptically). For an example of this process being
manipulated in a fun, intriguing manner, look on YouTube for
“The Rubber Hand Illusion.”  Several academic disciplines
currently studying human consciousness would seem to be
converging upon the notion that con