Do you need a body? Posthumanism in Serial Experiments Lain

Is existentialism and posthumanism wrong? Is there a secret in having a body? Serial Experiments Lain is a cult cyberpunk classic from 1998 which explores these issues. The first episode begins with a high school girl committing suicide, claiming that she does not need a body. In a sense, death is a liberation from the mortal coil which restrains us. Later in the first episode, we discover that same girl continues to exist in the Wired (the internet in the show) and has emailed all her classmates to tell them that she has simply shed her body for a new existence.

The main character of the series is Lain, an introverted schoolgirl with no experience with computers. As the series progresses, Lain becomes more involved with computers until her room becomes crowded with cables, liquid carbon cooling systems, and monitors. One of the mysteries that drives Lain in the series is various people claiming to have seen an extrovert version of her in both the real world and in the Wired. We learn that this other Lain is not a copy or a fake but another real Lain despite the personality difference.

This is possible because Lain was never actually had a real body to begin with. She is actually made up of artificial ribosomes according to the series. The different Lains in the show are just a product of being both in the real world and in the Wired.

The God of the Wired is another character in SEL. He originally was a human who designed the protocol that unites devices of the world, thus creating the Wired. By inserting himself into the Wired with control of this protocol, he gains a kind of omnipotence.

Near the end, Lain and her friend Alice, the last human not to be connected to Lain through the Wired, confront this so-called God. The discussion of the need for a body is supposed to be an answer to the girl who commits suicide in the beginning. The God defends a posthumanism, while the girls advocate for a uniqueness of the body.