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Chronic Illness Series: The Emotional Brain at the End of the Endless Flow (3,700 characters)

杉岡廣嗣（チャカ）

2026年1月8日 23:52

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Chronic Illness Series: The Emotional Brain at the End of the Endless Flow

v1.7

[Note] This article is composed based on the author's personal research, reading, and contemplation; the author is not an expert in the fields discussed herein. In creating this content, I have utilized publicly available materials and information gathering, organization, and fact-checking using AI, which has become common in recent years. However, these are merely auxiliary means to aid understanding and do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the information provided. In addition to introducing verifiable information, this article contains metaphorical expressions, hypothetical reasoning, and personal interpretations or re-readings. These are not intended to assert any specific position or conclusion, but rather to provide material for the reader's own thinking.
This article contains major spoilers for the film 'Virus' (Fukkatsu no Hi) and several of Sakyo Komatsu's works. If you have not read or seen them, it is strongly recommended that you experience the original works before reading this.

Introduction: The Beginning of the Chronic Illness, Max Headroom and AE (Artificial Existence)

I remember watching Max Headroom on a rental video for the first time around 1987. The theme was about an imitation character, based on incomplete human information, running wild in an American comic book style. Around the same time, I encountered a shocking idea in Sakyo Komatsu's unfinished long novel, 'The Void Corridor' (Kyomu Kairo).

The story first appeared in the January 1985 issue of the magazine 'SF Adventure'. What was depicted there was an entity called AE (Artificial Existence), into which all the information of the protagonist, Endo, had been transplanted. Coincidentally, 1985 was also the year the British television film that served as the prototype for Max Headroom was first broadcast.

Since then, questions began to swirl within me. Is it really possible to transplant all of a human's information into a machine? No, I feel like there is some kind of deception here. Who, exactly, is deceiving whom? This lingering sense of unease became a chronic mental illness for me thereafter.

1. A Scene in a Film That Cannot Be Overlooked: The Simplistic Reduction of Despair

There is a scene in the film 'Virus' (1980) that I simply cannot accept. It is the scene where the protagonist, played by Masao Kusakari, spits out at a statue of Jesus on the cross in a ruined church, saying, 'You won't do anything for us, will you?'

As far as I have confirmed, this poignant line does not appear in the original novel; it is an original directorial choice by Kinji Fukasaku, and likely one of the director's own interpretations of Sakyo Komatsu. However, I feel a strong sense of discomfort with this scene. This is because I cannot accept the simplistic reduction that converges the reason humans face desperate situations into the single point of 'the absence of God'.

In the Bible, there is a book called the 'Book of Job' that questions the faith of a person in the midst of unreasonable suffering. There, the desperate situation itself, which transcends understanding, becomes the subject of dialogue with God. In other words, despair and the absence of God are never connected by a simple equation. I feel that deliberately depicting it with the structure of 'I despaired because God was not there' is a form of ressentiment.

2. The Essence of Sakyo Komatsu: The Pursuit of Intelligence in a 'Godless Universe'

Sakyo Komatsu is not, in the first place, an author who 'complains to God.' His hard SF consistently depicts the limits of civilization and the helplessness of humanity on a cosmic scale from a scientific perspective, while following the figure of an intelligence that continues to think nonetheless. The despair he depicts is born from the cold, hard facts that science reveals.

Rather, through Luciferian figures appearing in the original 'The Endless Flow' (Hateshinaki Nagare no Hate ni) and 'Crystal Star Cluster' (Kessho Seidan), or the origin-like figures appearing in 'The Long Way to God' (Kami e no Nagai Michi), he has depicted rebellion against mythological order as the evolution of intelligence. For Komatsu, the absence of God is not an event to be lamented, but a major premise for intelligence to become autonomous and step toward the truths of the universe.

In that sense, I cannot help but feel that the church scene in the film dragged Komatsu's magnificent cosmic view down to the level of petty human emotion.

3. Salvation by Human Hands: The Fragility Inherent in the Succession of Intelligence

Of course, the stance that 'humans will manage on their own or with machines' is something that permeates Sakyo Komatsu's philosophy, and that interpretation is correct. The fact that he, in his later years after experiencing the Great Hanshin Earthquake, tried to entrust the exploration of humanity to AE (Artificial Existence) in his final work, 'The Void Corridor,' can be said to be the ultimate expression of that.

However, that is precisely why I cannot help but feel a sense of danger, fragility, or perhaps transience in it. The chronic illness I mentioned at the beginning—'Is the transplantation of all information a deception?'—stems from this point. Can salvation or succession completed solely by human hands truly be complete?

4. The Singularity and the Wall of the 'Emotional Brain'

This question leads directly to the modern debate on the singularity. It is explained in the video "[AI Explains] The Singularity and the Future of AI" released by Takafumi Horie's channel.

According to the video, the singularity refers to the "point at which AI surpasses human intelligence," and the theory that it will occur in 2045 is well-known. While its benefits include increased efficiency in data analysis and advancements in medicine, the greatest disadvantage discussed is the "change in the human role." As AI surpasses humans in many fields, the very role of humans may be called into question, and there is concern that "human uniqueness and creativity will be lost" due to dependence on AI. The video concludes by stating, "It is a very difficult era where we must think about what we can leave behind in the world as humans."

5. Takafumi Horie's remarks as evidence of the "emotional brain"

However, in addition to this general discussion, Takafumi Horie's own deeper insights struck at the core of my chronic ailment. In a separate discussion, he makes a crucial point about how AI is fundamentally different from humans. It is the perspective that AI lacks an autonomic nervous system or "internal organs," and that human emotions and motivation arise not from the brain alone, but from this "embodiment" that includes internal organs.

Just as your heart rate increases when you are nervous, human thoughts and emotions are always accompanied by feedback from the body. AI lacks this body directly linked to survival instincts, that is, signals from the internal organ system. This observation is the essence of what I call the "emotional brain," and it perfectly verbalized the source of the discomfort I have felt for many years. Mr. Horie's remarks became decisive evidence for my hypothesis.

6. Conclusion: The absence of the emotional brain and the "shelving" of evaluation

When I encountered the idea of AI with an "emotional brain," my long-standing chronic ailment reached a temporary conclusion. In other words, the fact that this perspective was decisively missing from Sakyo Komatsu's vision for the AE and how he entrusted his hopes to it was the true source of my greatest discomfort.

Even if we concede that the reality of "The Corridor of Emptiness" might increase once this emotional brain AI is implemented, I realized that I felt a great deal of discomfort with the stance of entrusting everything, including human views on life and death, to the AE while that perspective remained absent.

This is perhaps not so much a criticism of Sakyo Komatsu as an individual, but rather a limitation of the era he lived in, or the limitations of a single person. However, even on a human scale, has this perspective of the "emotional brain" not been discussed far too little?

The simplistic despair of movies and the frivolous optimism for the future are unnecessary now. What is needed is an intelligence that quietly waits for what has not yet come, while it has not yet come, and continues to think. That is why, regarding the world depicted in "The Corridor of Emptiness," I have decided to "shelve" my evaluation until the day an AI equipped with an emotional brain becomes a reality. Because the answer that should be awaited at the end of the endless flow is not yet in our hands.

Epilogue: The overlooked gospel of eternity

However, after "shelving" logical evaluation, I have one unshakable conviction. It is the belief that people can attain eternity without entrusting their hopes to the AE in the first place. It is not that the God of Christianity or Jesus Christ does nothing at all. Perhaps we are merely overlooking the immeasurable grace of how much has already been given to us. I cannot help but think so.

As shown in the popular manga "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End," this may be a wish akin to a prayer that "the destination of those who have lived desperately cannot be nothingness." Alternatively, like a "strange attractor" in chaos theory, one could view the existence of Jesus Christ as the center that draws in countless chaotic events and forms meaningful patterns.

It is easy to dismiss this as merely individual subjectivity. However, was what I have been attempting in this series of articles on note not precisely the work of deriving this hypothesis of hope through abduction? I believe it is a modest, yet certain, gospel of hope for all of humanity.