Over in another thread, Mr. Tines said:

Now some people have looked in the foreground, and seen that now the trees have returned (having done their equivalent of imagining themselves in their own hearts), and so everything else is in good shape for everyone to come back and carry on as before, picking up from where they all left off.

Now okay I get that this was meant to be a lead in to something completely different, but it led me to wonder:

What would tree instrumentality be like? Do they go through the same angsty pre-instrumentality phase that Shinji went through? Shinji merged with other humans-- as trees are technically also Lillim, did GNR instrumentalise them with humanity? Would they have their own swirling vortex of tree instrumentality or would they mix with other species? Did the watermelons see Kaji when they were tanged? Were there any odd sexual encounters where a Mahogany imagined itself melding into and becoming one with a kodiak bear?

Only Homo sapiens = Lilin. The other species don't get a fancy name.

Being a human instrumentality project, I would surmise that, while all life was liquidated, only human souls were collected for subsequent processing.

I suppose it's possible that Kaji got to see his melons again, and Misato rejoined Pen Pen. Still, it was designed to be a Human Instrumentality Project, so the emphasis at least, would have been on Homo sapiens.

But didn't Keel Lorenz/SEELE say something like "All living beings will be fused and reborn as one" when Instrumentality started? And plants are technically LCL-based.

It's kind of touchy, since it all hinges in the nature of souls in NGE. The Seeds apparently came to Earth with a number of souls stored in their Chambers of Guf, but in Lilith's case it appears as though those souls were initially distributed to non-human animals. It gets murkier when you realize the souls both multiplied and changed over time, giving rise to more and more non-human animals and eventually Lilin. So how do the souls that initially arrived with Lilith match up to the souls of Lilin today, and what are we to make of all the non-human (non-Lilin) souls that have been keeping life going in the billions of years in-between? Are they a part of Instrumentality even if they aren't a part of the Lilin community? Do they get recycled into Lilin souls as needed (and back down, perhaps per Buddhist doctrine)? It gets very sticky when you start thinking about it, and I can't begin to guess Anno's intent (if any) on the matter.

All the plants merged with the spirits of weed and peyote and it was like the most bitchin' party ever, and all the plant spirits laughed at the stupid humans for their angsty bullshit.

The terrible secret of EoE is that Shinji and Asuka are on the beach strangling and puking on each other while the rest of the ecosystem is chillin' in eternal psychedelic bliss.

Replicator wrote:I suppose it's possible that Kaji got to see his melons again, and Misato rejoined Pen Pen. Still, it was designed to be a Human Instrumentality Project, so the emphasis at least, would have been on Homo sapiens.

But didn't Keel Lorenz/SEELE say something like "All living beings will be fused and reborn as one" when Instrumentality started? And plants are technically LCL-based.

I don't think the intention of Human Instrumentality as per Keel's plan has any bearing on Rei's collection. If all life is brought into it, then I would imagine the plants and the fungi and the animals and protists would be brought in.

As far as Keel's vision or intentions go, however, I would think he just wanted full Human instrumentality and didn't necessarily have any control over any kind of collateral.

Reichu wrote:Only Homo sapiens = Lilin. The other species don't get a fancy name.

I'm not sure about it at all, Pen^2 is highly humanised, also evolution should have happened in Evangelion, or am I wrong? Is Evangelion creationist?

Bagheera wrote:So how do the souls that initially arrived with Lilith match up to the souls of Lilin today, and what are we to make of all the non-human (non-Lilin) souls that have been keeping life going in the billions of years in-between?

Maybe souls are capable of "naturally" multiplying themselves, it's the only way out of this mess. It's just my silly opinion, I don't think that there are explicit hints about it in the show or related works, afaik.

Hyper Shinchan wrote:I'm not sure about it at all

Classified Information wrote:The white giant crucified in Terminal Dogma. It bore life such as apes and dolphins, and, as the final form, Lilin — that is, humankind.

I think evolution is implied, but Lilinz are speshul for some reason. I guess, like, the FAR souls just chilled out in the Black Moon until suitable bodies evolved for them, or some shit like that.

Maybe souls are capable of "naturally" multiplying themselves, it's the only way out of this mess. It's just my silly opinion, I don't think that there are explicit hints about it in the show or related works, afaik.

dat Kaworu ending wrote:Knowing we would lose our home world, we embarked on a journey into the midst of space in search of other planets...
Returning ourselves to the form of life’s origins... While bringing many peoples together as one... In order to, one day, increase and flourish.

"Soul multiplication" is pretty much implicit. I mean, if you start out with a set number of souls, the only way you're going to "increase and flourish" is if the souls are capable of reproducing themselves somehow.

I need to find a good thread to merge this into... <_<

Reichu wrote:I think evolution is implied, but Lilinz are speshul for some reason. I guess, like, the FAR souls just chilled out in the Black Moon until suitable bodies evolved for them, or some shit like that.

But anthropocentrism is so old fashioned...

Reichu wrote:"Soul multiplication" is pretty much implicit. I mean, if you start out with a set number of souls, the only way you're going to "increase and flourish" is if the souls are capable of reproducing themselves somehow.

Yeah, we can say that it's implicit but I guess that you can also read it as "return to your original numbers", even though it probably makes less sense. In general soul's mechanics remain mostly implicit so it's really a grey area in my opinion.

Reichu wrote:I need to find a good thread to merge this into... <_<

I remember a thread last year where we discussed about similar arguments but good luck finding it. I found this one but this other thread was more recent and probably general themed...

Hyper Shinchan wrote:But anthropocentrism is so old fashioned...

Given the themes of the show, it works. Gendo even proclaimed "Science is the power of man!" And it proves very much to be so, in their fight for survival against the Angels. What separates humans from each and every other known species is our ability to communicate with each other and pass on knowledge over generations, eventually making us into the power we are today (or as simply seen in the show), thus we have the dubbed "Fruit of Knowledge". But the intrinsic need for communication caused by this also developed the social dilemmas of our characters we see in the show, and that's why their version of Instrumentality is all angsty bullshit.

I don't think plants, or any other species on Earth that matter, really have the capacity or level of consciousness, so their version of instrumentality is probably the more ideal version, where everything is nothing and nothing ever matters; your weaknesses complemented by the strengths of others.

Gotta love how Evangelion can bring up such philosophical topics like these. In my case, I probably would agree that trees, animals and any life form on Earth were probably just as much part of the Instrumentality project than was let on in the Evangelion series.

:)

Sachi wrote:Given the themes of the show, it works. Gendo even proclaimed "Science is the power of man!" And it proves very much to be so, in their fight for survival against the Angels. What separates humans from each and every other known species is our ability to communicate with each other and pass on knowledge over generations, eventually making us into the power we are today (or as simply seen in the show), thus we have the dubbed "Fruit of Knowledge". But the intrinsic need for communication caused by this also developed the social dilemmas of our characters we see in the show, and that's why their version of Instrumentality is all angsty bullshit.

I don't think plants, or any other species on Earth that matter, really have the capacity or level of consciousness, so their version of instrumentality is probably the more ideal version, where everything is nothing and nothing ever matters; your weaknesses complemented by the strengths of others.

The way I always interpreted it is that the Fruit of Knowledge is evolution. Lilith-based life is able to iterate, multiply, and diversify in a way that Adam-based life generally is not. Sachiel may be able to grow and adapt to its environment, but it would never be able to pass those adaptations on to a new Sachiel or even create another Sachiel to begin with. Humans grew out of a long line of lilith-based life, and being what SEELE viewed as the pinnacle, began to stagnate. The entire plan behind the Human Instrumentality was to force the next stage in evolution and to assimilate humanity into a single superentity.

That said, I'd posit that if

a) Lilith-based non-humans are Lilin themselves (as opposed to being grand biological design destined to ultimately result in Lilin)

b) All Lilin have souls traceable to Lilith's Chamber of Guf (as opposed to passing the souls up to the next highest evolution of Lilin)

And c) All Lilin are returned to the Black Moon during 3I

That it would be an interspecies, interphylum, interkingdom, interdomain affair. It would involve plants experiencing human consciousness and I imagine it would also involve the opposite.-

Nyanlathotep wrote:The way I always interpreted it is that the Fruit of Knowledge is evolution. Lilith-based life is able to iterate, multiply, and diversify in a way that Adam-based life generally is not. Sachiel may be able to grow and adapt to its environment, but it would never be able to pass those adaptations on to a new Sachiel or even create another Sachiel to begin with. Humans grew out of a long line of lilith-based life, and being what SEELE viewed as the pinnacle, began to stagnate. The entire plan behind the Human Instrumentality was to force the next stage in evolution and to assimilate humanity into a single superentity.

This is roughly what I had said, though I hadn't used the word evolution. From Lilith's primordial soup (AKA, LCL) arose all lifeforms and it was likely done evolution, as we know it. Through that long series of evolution did the Fruit of Knowledge finally manifest itself in the "highest form" of evolution, also known as the Lilin. What I simply emphasized was what evolution had brought about for the Lilin, and that was the ability to communicate and pass on knowledge through generations, become a collective power, etc, and that is the Fruit of Knowledge.

That said, I'd posit that if

a) Lilith-based non-humans are Lilin themselves (as opposed to being grand biological design destined to ultimately result in Lilin)

b) All Lilin have souls traceable to Lilith's Chamber of Guf (as opposed to passing the souls up to the next highest evolution of Lilin)

And c) All Lilin are returned to the Black Moon during 3I

That it would be an interspecies, interphylum, interkingdom, interdomain affair. It would involve plants experiencing human consciousness and I imagine it would also involve the opposite.-

That would certainly be an interesting experience, though as I've stated I don't believe non-human life qualifies as Lilin, and I doubt the show even considered to touch upon the nature of souls in animals and such. Idealistically, souls are a human privilege, otherwise one would have to consider that every living thing has a soul to mix into instrumentality, including bacteria and other simple organisms. For the purposes of the show it would be too messy, and much simpler to settle on what has already been established (Occam's razor and whatnot); unfortunately, that isn't a lot when it comes to soul mechanics, so there isn't a lot of ground to speculate upon.

I have no bloody clue, fanwank something.

Perhaps relevant: SI eradicated all Lillithian life... down to microorganisms.

Were those poor Amoebas tanged?

Plants have souls and get tanged. Here are some hastily searched-up discussions on this fascinating subject:

http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/6569/Soul-Stuff-Again-split/
http://forum.evageeks.org/post/355036/Do-plants-get-tanged-was-Being-tanged-and-getting-better/
http://forum.evageeks.org/post/341072/Does-the-soul-equal-the-mind/#341072

All this has happened before. All this will happen again.

Kendrix wrote:Perhaps relevant: SI eradicated all Lillithian life... down to microorganisms.

Were those poor Amoebas tanged?

I'm sorry for bumping this after the other threads with this topic have been posted, but I just want to note that the above also leads to an interesting question:

If 3I tangs recently dead organisms, like as had been implied with Asuka, and Tang has some amount of organic matter in it I think...

Well, about the distinction between Third Impact and the Human Instrumentality Project, there always is the explanantion given from the NGE 2 video game, where sure, everything gets Tanged to LCL, but only a select few are actually absorbed into Instrumentality. And remember Gendo's line "Death creates nothing", which could infer that Instrumentality could have taken place on a much smaller scale, than the actual Third Impact.

But that wouldn't even scratch the surface for the fate of people who died before 2015. Presuming the FAR-reincarnation theory, would they have ever been considered for Instrumentality, and I think the total number of Humans to have ever lived is somewhere around 100 billion. Insofar, souls haven't been presented as "destroyable", so they'd all be freely floating around for thousands of years. Of course, that would lead in to whether or not inter-Lilin reincarnation is possible in the Eva universe. And even if every living being on the Earth is in some form reincarnated from the FAR, then would there been any idea as to the FAR's population?