The catalyst for Professor Arahata's interest in philosophy was a sense of discomfort regarding the "world" that he had felt since he was a young child. Questions like why these people were his parents or why this was the world he lived in never left his mind.

"Even as a high school student, while outwardly acting like everyone else around me, I couldn't find a reason why I, specifically, had to do so."

The "world" Professor Arahata describes here is the very core of his subsequent research, but it differs in meaning from the world we generally imagine in conversation or in our minds.

When we hear the word "world," many people likely think of an "objective place," such as Japan, the United States, or far-off Brazil or Greenland. If someone said, "You don't know anything about the world," most people would probably take it as a point that they lack knowledge about things outside their own country or region.

However, the "world" Professor Arahata speaks of is not such objective data or geographical locations, but rather the place where one subjectively wants to live, the place where one feels it is okay to be. For example, animals know where they should live even if they don't know about Brazil or Greenland. That is the "world" for an animal, and Professor Arahata says, "There should really be such a 'world' for us as well."

"I think some people intuitively feel a sense of rejection when they are told that everything, including the ends of the earth unrelated to them, is called the world and that they must live there. But that is not an emotion like disliking Japan or not wanting to live in America. It is an abstract sensation of having some kind of discomfort with the environment or structure in which one lives."

This was the same feeling the young Arahata had as a child. While thinking about how to resolve this "discomfort," he chose the Department of Political Science in the Faculty of Law for university. This was because he thought political science was what designed the systems of the "world" in which people live. But he realized something was different.

Even if one creates a better nation or society, it does not necessarily become a comfortable "world" for oneself. It was the philosophy books he had been reading since middle school, trying to act older than he was, that taught him how to think about the "world."

Philosophers such as Heidegger and Wittgenstein, whom Professor Arahata researches, also continued to explore the "world" they subjectively wanted to live in. Professor Arahata particularly resonated with the words of the 18th-century German Romantic poet Novalis, often quoted by Heidegger: "Philosophy is really homesickness."

In German, homesickness is called "Heimweh," which means "longing while away from home."

"Novalis defines philosophy as 'the urge to be at home everywhere.' Since I myself felt discomfort in the 'world,' I thought it would be wonderful to be able to feel at ease as if I were at home no matter where I was."

Furthermore, like the young Wittgenstein, he found salvation in the idea that "if the real world is difficult to live in, one can simply construct a 'world' worth living in inside one's head." He says, "I gradually began to think that I like philosophy because it allows me to destroy the world in my head while sitting at my desk and create a 'world' that is easy for me to live in."

A characteristic of Professor Arahata's discourse is that he finds commonalities between two fields that seem unrelated at first glance: modern philosophy and manga/anime works known as "Sekai-kei."

Sekai-kei works refer to a genre of stories where personal troubles and relationship issues within a very narrow relationship between the protagonist ("I") and the heroine ("you") are directly linked to abstract or catastrophic crises like the "fate of the world."

This genre became popular in subcultures (manga, anime, light novels, etc.) from the late 1990s to the 2000s. Representative examples include "Neon Genesis Evangelion," which caused a social phenomenon on TV and in movies, as well as "Saikano: The Ultimate Weapon," "Voices of a Distant Star," and "Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu." A feature of these early Sekai-kei works is that the protagonist "I" is initially nothing more than a helpless bystander to the heroine "you," who is being hurt at the center of a battle for the survival of the world.

"Neon Genesis Evangelion" is a story about a 14-year-old boy, Shinji Ikari, who becomes the pilot of the giant humanoid weapon Evangelion (EVA) Unit-01 and fights mysterious enemies called "Angels." As he fights alongside other young female pilots, the story eventually depicts the mental world of Shinji as he falls into despair and anguish. Gradually, the protagonist's monologues unfold, which resonated with the audience.

In these Sekai-kei works, intermediate factors such as society or the state do not appear, and the focus is on the relationship between the protagonist "I" and a "closely connected someone" addressed as "you." This is a major point of difference from previous popular works, such as "Mobile Suit Gundam" or "Ghost in the Shell," where the protagonist fights against human-made systems like the state or society.

Sekai-kei became a major movement that jumped beyond so-called otaku culture and was discussed in the fields of contemporary thought and sociology. However, in the late 2000s, it also came to be criticized as being "immature self-consciousness" or "escapist."

However, Professor Arahata argues that there are certain commonalities between the structure of Sekai-kei and the mental structure of modern philosophy.

"In post-modern philosophy, it is thought that there is someone closely connected to oneself ('I') ('you'), and that person acts as an anchor to stabilize the 'world,' allowing oneself to live there. For a child, that someone might be their mother. It looks like an immature mental structure, but there are quite a few people who cannot escape it. In this way, I realized that modern philosophy, which considers how the place one should live ought to be, and Sekai-kei works share a common foundation."

Furthermore, regarding the criticism of the lack of intermediate factors in Sekai-kei works, Professor Arahata shows understanding that there are various opinions on the content expressed in artistic works depending on the era, but says, "Should we really discard Sekai-kei works, which have parts that touch upon modern philosophy, as 'something that is over' in the history of art and anime?"

Modern youth are placed in an environment where they are constantly required to find "correct answers" and "efficiency." On the other hand, the fun of philosophy may lie in being able to think deeply about questions without a correct answer, such as "What kind of 'world' do I want to live in?" So, what kind of answers does philosophy lead to for the various questions of an increasingly complex real society?

One field that is currently attracting a lot of attention and generating difficult questions one after another is AI (Artificial Intelligence). Is it possible to "know the world" through AI?

Professor Arahata asserts that no matter how sophisticated the information processing AI performs regarding the world, it cannot "know" the world in the same sense as humans. The reason is that AI does not have a "body."

Some people may have had the simple question as a child, "Why am I me?" Professor Arahata says that this question is actually fundamentally connected to modern philosophy, which explores the subjective "world."

"The question 'Why am I me?' rather than someone else, in the case of us humans, actually becomes a question that involves the nature of the entire 'world.' The 'world' only exists in the form that it always appears to 'me.' That is the core of modern philosophy. And I believe that AI cannot ask this question in the same sense as we humans do. This is because AI has no body."

Then, what if we put AI into a mechanical "body," cut it off from the network, and let it run autonomously...?

Professor Arahata shakes his head.

"That is a completely different story from humans having a body. For example, even if an AI put into a body called 'Chappie No. 1' wonders 'Why am I me?', it doesn't create the strange twist that occurs when we humans ask the same question. This is because the question asked by the AI is a straightforward one, and one could answer, for example, 'Because it's Dr. XX's favorite body,' or 'No particular reason. If you don't like it, shall we put you in this Chappie No. 2?' However, humans know that they cannot leave this body and that they would not be themselves if they didn't have this body, yet they still want to ask, 'Why am I me?' This sensation cannot be born unless there is first a body, and then a spirit develops and consciousness sprouts within it. And this sensation is the driving force of philosophy—that is, the 'urge to be at home everywhere.'"

In modern society, where one often feels it is hard to live, can we get closer to our ideal "world"?

Professor Arahata presents the message that if you feel "discomfort," it is "okay to run away from your current place."

The ideal "world" in philosophy is not about objective data or geographical locations. The place where you truly want to live, the place where you feel it is okay to be, is the "world." Therefore, Professor Arahata preaches that if you are forced into a given environment and told "this is your world," and you feel a sense of discomfort there, you should run away from it and find your own world.

Professor Arahata says that the discomfort he felt toward the "world" in his childhood has not changed even now. However, he says that once he realized the existence of a discipline where he could research the fact that he felt discomfort, and as he touched upon the "worlds" that many philosophers wanted to live in, the feeling of suffering disappeared. He also stated that what is important in finding an ideal "world" is "not being at the beck and call of others."

"If you feel discomfort in the place you are now, that is probably not your 'world.' A 'world' is not something given to you by someone else. I think it's better to run away from the 'pseudo-world' you are currently given and properly find your 'world.'"

Composition: Toru Tamakawa, Editor-in-Chief, Asahi Shimbun GLOBE+

Interview/Text: Kaori Sawaki

Photography: Hiromi Shinada