Sakanaction as an Event Horizon: The Anatomy of Ichiro Yamaguchi's Somatic Noise and the Ontological Acoustic Space in the Song "MUSIC"

Before the Introduction

Drifting, drifting, does the bird miss the distant rocks, flying high in the sky?

Looking down at an unknown, unfamiliar town, what does the bird think?

Is it as lonely as I am?

Separated, separated, does the bird miss its flock, crying out in a high voice?

Saying nothing, the silent town quietly listened to it.

Is it as weak as I am?

Our words, accustomed to pain, wounds, and lies,

Float and drift on the tired river surface

And disappear in the town where you live.

Disappeared, disappeared (The river flows)

Disappeared (I still can't see it, I still can't see it)

Disappeared, disappeared (The river flows)

Disappeared (Because I still can't see it, I still can't see it)

I want to sleep with my hair still wet

The clothes I threw off remain as they were yesterday

Saying nothing, it leans against the wall of the silent room

As if watching my sloppy self.

My soliloquy, accustomed to pain, wounds, and lies,

Lines up with the tired night, a blowing wind

Touching your cheek.

Touched, touched (The night flows)

Touched (I'm not crying, I'm not crying)

Touched, touched (The night flows)

Because you (Were crying, were crying)

Standing in the season I looked back on

I hate that I can't remember

Even the drifting bird

Must have been crying in the town, crying

Waiting for the season that passed

I hate that I can't remember

Taking off after being separated

The bird must have been crying too, crying

Always waiting for us

Even the tired pain and wounds

Even the night that remains unchanging

I will keep singing, keep singing

Always waiting for us

Just waiting, though I still can't see it

Even a weak and sloppy me

Will keep singing, keep singing

Phase 1: Excavation of Infinitesimal Events and Construction of Evidence—Somatic Bugs and the Phenomenology of "Listening"

In the vast informational ecosystem of contemporary popular music, the phenomenon of Sakanaction, and the trajectory of Ichiro Yamaguchi at its center, is observed as a singularity that transcends the context of mere industrial success. It redefines the fundamental relationship between human somaticity, the transformation of consciousness, and ontology. Their musical evolution, alongside the infinitesimal physical and psychological "noise" (bugs) generated within Yamaguchi himself, traverses macro-scales of resonance reaching into deep time, continuously generating metacognitive meaning.

To excavate the deepest origins of this phenomenon, we must first confront the fundamental question of how the phenomenon of sound engages human consciousness and the body. The French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, in his book Listening, elucidated the asymmetrical dynamics lying between hearing and seeing. According to Nancy, "the sonorous is spherical, whereas the visual is directional. The sonorous envelops the subject, while the visual offers perspective. Sound comes toward us, whereas vision travels toward its object." Furthermore, he notes that while the visual tends toward atrophy and death, the sonorous leads us into the living world, engaging directly with affect.

When this philosophical foundation collides with the somatic noise (bug) of the individual Ichiro Yamaguchi, a conceptual mutation occurs. Yamaguchi lost the hearing in his right ear due to sudden deafness and subsequently harbored the psychological error of depression. The loss of hearing in his right ear physically destroys the completeness of the "spherical sonorous" defined by Nancy. However, this asymmetrical deficit was not a mere tragedy; it signified the opening of a new acoustic perceptual circuit. In the liminal space where external sounds are input only asymmetrically, "internal noise" (such as bone conduction, heartbeat, and blood flow) is relatively amplified, inevitably causing consciousness to sink inward. As Nancy states, "to listen is not merely to understand meaning (entendre), but to strain the ear (tendre l'oreille) to catch the secret of the resonance of the voice, the instrument, or the sound itself." Yamaguchi's asymmetrical body was transformed into a privileged resonance chamber (corps sonore) that simultaneously "listens" to both the structure of external pop music and the dissonance echoing within himself.

Nancy further presents the paradox that philosophers "are always hearing everything, but because they neutralize their own listening, they cannot truly listen." Yamaguchi chose not to neutralize (forget or conceal) the personal noise of his illness, but rather to resonate with it. During the days leading up to the 2021 online live "SAKANAQUARIUM ADAPT ONLINE," his raw state—tormented by severe shoulder pain and the pressure of a grueling schedule—and his confession of psychological distress on the macro stage of the NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen acted as a dynamic elevating his very vulnerability into a "platform for social dialogue." Through Yamaguchi's music, listeners confront their own inner struggles and the pervasive stigma surrounding mental health in society.

The process of reconstructing the sense of loss and sedimented consciousness into an acoustic texture is an attempt to physically implement Nancy's thesis: "the sonorous overwhelms form. It does not dissolve form, but rather enlarges it; it gives it an amplitude, a density, and a vibration." Yamaguchi's existence functions as an amplifier that extends micro-somatic errors into macro-social resonance.

Phase 2: Friction Across Domains and the Description of Entropy—Mutation of Club Culture and Phase Transition to Pop

Sakanaction's musical evolution is described as a process of translation misalignment—and the resulting entropy (collapse and reconstruction)—occurring in liminal spaces where different contexts intersect, transcending all industrial and academic boundaries. Their expression not only crosses the borders of alternative rock, electronic music, and mainstream pop culture, but melts the boundaries themselves through frictional heat.

Club Culture as the Hare and Ke of the Nameless Masses

This entropic structure cannot be decoded without referencing their musical DNA's origin: the club culture of Sapporo, Hokkaido. In high school, Yamaguchi formed a band influenced by UK rock, but after facing setbacks, transitioned to producing music using computers. What he discovered through his DJ activities at nightclubs was the fact that "the repetition of electronic sounds from a CD spun by a DJ triggers the physical reactions and enthusiasm of the crowd more directly than a live raw performance."

This proved that rather than a subject with "intentionality" (a specific artist), the "unintentional" acoustic phenomenon of the beat itself possesses the power to lead the nameless masses into a festive non-ordinary state (hare). The band name Sakanaction (Fish + Action) embodies the will to act swiftly and nimbly, unafraid of changes in the music scene, much like fish swimming in a school underwater. The anecdote where Yamaguchi pushed this name through despite initial rejection from guitarist Motoharu Iwadera as "uncool," and the fact that they considered the alias "Films" in their early days because they only used video as a light source during live shows, display a nonsensical humor directed at the "privileged coolness" of traditional rock bands. It is an expression of a destructive urge to dismantle authoritative structures.

The Conflict Between "MUSIC" and "Identity"

This increase in entropy reached its zenith around the release of the song "MUSIC" (and the surrounding "Identity" era). In the works of this period, Yamaguchi conducted a meta-experiment on "what constitutes pop music." Previously, Sakanaction had positioned their music within a "rock" context. However, Yamaguchi harbored a deep sense of crisis: if they merely decorated a band with electro sounds without creating "pop music via a Sakanaction approach," they would remain trapped in the closed, everyday realm (ke) reachable only by a minority of music fans.

"Identity" (2010), despite its upbeat tempo incorporating Latin percussion, deals with the heavy theme of the loss and exploration of self-identity. On the other hand, "MUSIC," as its title suggests, is a self-reference to music itself (meta-music). Crowning a single pop song with the universal signifier "Music"—which encompasses all creation—is an extremely arrogant and dangerous play (nonsense). Yet, by undertaking this, Yamaguchi connected the closed entropy of rock to the infinitely expanding open system of pop.

Musical ParadigmClosed System (Rock/Alternative)Open System (Pop/Dance)Frictional Heat in the Liminal Space (Entropy)Locus of SubjectivityThe privileged emotion of the individual artistPhysical reaction and mob psychology of the nameless massesThe misalignment of re-translating DJ-like unintentionality through the band's physicalityRhythm and StructureLinear, narrative progressionImmersive via repetitive, looping structuresColliding the impulse of rock with Latin beats and synth loopsSocial FunctionProtest against the everyday (ke)The manifestation and consumption of the festive non-ordinary (hare)Hacking the masses by reverse-engineering the symbols of Showa-era kayōkyoku and mass media

The "misalignment" generated in this translation process is precisely what produces Sakanaction's unique groove. For instance, in the later release "Shin Takarajima" (2015), serving as the soundtrack for the film Bakuman, they fused alternative rock and dance music with intense pop elements. The music video paid homage to the Showa-era variety show Drifters' Great Roaring Laughter, accessing the deepest strata of subculture and mass culture. They translated the closed-room entropy of an underground club into the mass-appeal space of a living room, inverting the resulting cognitive dissonance (bug) into pleasure.

Phase 3: Non-Human Perspectives and the Intersection of Cycles/Resonance—Cave Acoustics and the Deep Time of Altered States of Consciousness

Sakanaction's live experiences and the acoustic reality Yamaguchi pursues, while utilizing the latest technology, are fundamentally connected to humanity's oldest somatic knowledge and the cycles (rhythms) of the non-human natural world. Here, we reverse-engineer their music from the scale of deep time spanning tens of thousands of years.

Acoustic Archaeology of Caves and Standing Waves

According to the latest findings in acoustic archaeology exploring the origins of music, Paleolithic painted caves functioned not merely as visual canvases but as highly advanced "acoustic spaces." As research on rock gongs in South Africa’s Korannaberg mountains demonstrates, ancient people used rhythmic percussion and echoes to enter trance states and conduct shamanic rituals. In the darkness of a cave, sound loses its directionality and becomes an oppressive, spherical wave that envelops the entire body.

A more concrete physical phenomenon is found in the research on Pirunkirkko (Devil's Church), a crevice cave in Finland. Long used as a ritual site where sages communicated with the spirit world, recent acoustic surveys revealed that deep within this cave, a "standing wave" occurs between the parallel rock walls, sustaining a ringing tone at a specific frequency of 219–232 Hz. Shamans and modern practitioners interpreted this unique acoustic property not as a physical phenomenon, but culturally and religiously as the "spirit of the cave" or "energy opening new horizons," thereby expanding their consciousness.

The live spaces created by Sakanaction (e.g., the intersection of darkness and lasers in the "SAKANAQUARIUM" series) possess perfect fractal self-similarity with these magical rituals in Paleolithic caves. The earth-rumbling bass lines carved out by bassist Ami Kusakari and drummer Keiichi Ejima transform stadiums and arenas into colossal, dark caves, directly interfering with the audience's biorhythms exactly like the standing waves of Pirunkirkko. Yamaguchi's obsession with manifesting elusive somatic sensations like "smell" and "temperature" as sound is nothing less than the modern implementation of Altered States of Consciousness (ASC) triggered by specific frequencies.

Connection to the Collective Unconscious and Archetypes

According to Jungian psychology regarding archetypes and studies on shamanic rituals, the repetitive rhythms, music, and visual symbols used in rituals guide participants toward the "conscious dissolution of the self" and prompt a connection to the collective unconscious. Particularly in the stage of "Visionary Restructuralization," the archetypal symbol of music brings the participants' consciousness to a peak, triggering emotional resonance that transcends individual experience.

The true identity of the "crowd frenzied by electronic sound" that Yamaguchi once looked down upon from the DJ booth are modern tribespeople losing their modern egos and dissolving into the ocean of the collective unconscious, mediated by the archetype of acoustics. Like a school of fish, they lose their boundaries as individuals and resonate as a single, massive biological network (a metaphor for mycelial networks or swarm intelligence). Yamaguchi's personal trauma of "depression" functions in this ritualistic space as an offering to purify the repressed emotions of the entire crowd. Just as a shaman heals the community by drawing spirits (or illness) into their own body, Yamaguchi purifies collective trauma by casting his noise onto electronic beats and releasing them into the space.

Phase 4: Synesthetic Conversion and Conceptual Mutation—The Destruction of Visual Mimesis and the Mechanics of Acoustic Methexis

In this phase, we collide the facts established thus far with Nancy's existing philosophy to trigger a conceptual mutation. The song "MUSIC" and the words spun by Ichiro Yamaguchi possess a viral mechanic that destroys the frameworks of existing linguistic semantic transmission and generates a new philosophy of perception.

The Transition from Visual Mimesis to Acoustic Methexis

Nancy argued that "the visual tends to be mimetic (imitative), while the sonorous tends to be methexic (participatory, shared, or infectious/contagious)." The modern music industry has heavily relied on music videos and the visual image (mimesis) of artists. However, Sakanaction's approach is fundamentally oriented toward methexis (contagion).

Their representative music video for "Aruku Around" might seem at first glance to be the pinnacle of visual mimesis (typography of the lyrics appearing in space synchronized with Yamaguchi's walking, unfolding in a single cut). However, its true purpose is not visual imitation, but the placement of words (lyrics) in space as "obstacles" or "environments" with physical mass to induce friction with the body. Words cease to be transparent signs for transmitting meaning and mutate into matter to be collided with.

The same applies to "MUSIC." While self-identifying as pop music, the irregular layers of synthesizers and the intentional placement of spatial "absences (errors)"—where the sound cuts out at specific moments—hack the listener's auditory system. The fact that overseas listeners testify they "feel strong emotions and scenes from the song even without fully understanding the Japanese lyrics" proves just how powerful this viral mechanic of methexis is, bypassing semantic understanding and causing direct neurological contagion.

The Physical Reality of Words and Synesthetic Entropy

In Kotoba: Memorandum for My Own Training, a book compiling the origins of Yamaguchi's lyrical world, the art direction by Kaoru Kasai extremely emphasizes tactile and visual materiality—such as a binding of "silver reminiscent of fish skin" and cloth covering with a "delicate warmth." This is physical evidence that Yamaguchi grasps words not merely as ideas, but as "synesthetic entities" accompanied by temperature, smell, and touch.

The relationship between language and acoustics as a dynamical system can be described by the following equation of synesthetic entropy:

$$\lim_{\Delta t \to 0} \oint_{\partial V} \left( Meaning(x,t) + Rhythm(x,t) \right) \cdot d\mathbf{S} = \iiint_V Somatic\ Resonance(x,y,z,t) \, dV$$

When the duration $\Delta t$ of a word is minimized and placed on a high-speed beat, the boundary region $\partial V$ of Meaning collapses, converting into pure Rhythm, which is ultimately integrated into a Somatic Resonance that envelops the entire space within the body.

In Yamaguchi's lyric-writing process, he frequently treats the unique vowel resonances and the percussive impact of consonants in Japanese on par with drums and bass. Just as in "Tabun, Kaze." (Probably, Wind.), where he translated the invisible fluid dynamics of wind into a "massive landscape accompanied by emotion" through the fusion of synthesizer and guitar melodies, he downsizes non-human natural phenomena to the scale of human affect, and conversely stretches the minute emotional tremors of humans to a cosmological scale. The song "MUSIC" is a philosophical experimental apparatus that, by passing the phenomenon of music itself through the filters of vulnerability and nonsense, leaps beyond logical interpretation and returns it to the vibration of pure sound waves.

Phase 5: Activation of Metacognition and Ultimate Serendipity—Fractal Resonance and the Unfinished Shutdown Declaration

As a final stage, we describe how these events form a metacognitive network, bringing about serendipity (a fortunate, accidental discovery) as a butterfly effect (where microscopic changes trigger macroscopic results).

The Platformization of Vulnerability and Metacognitive Activation

Ichiro Yamaguchi's very existence is triggering a massive observer effect. He did not conceal his "personal errors" of depression and deafness, but presented them exactly as the overlapping "front" and "back" of his musical activities. Before standing on the stage of the NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen, he shared his process of mental rest and recovery through music as a documentary. His natural posture in talks with Hiroshi Fujiwara or acoustic performances, and the act of streaming himself dancing defenselessly to snippets of his new song "Iranai" on YouTube Live.

All of these are the most powerful hacks against the unconscious aversion and taboos (dark data) regarding mental health that shroud society. His personal vulnerability was not an end in itself; it mutated into a "platform" where countless listeners could project their own wounds and resonate. A minute imbalance of neurotransmitters in an individual's brain (micro) vibrates the eardrums of millions of listeners through the medium of a song (meso), ultimately creating a space for empathy and dialogue regarding the pathology of society as a whole (macro). The beauty of this fractal (self-similar) structure is the ultimate serendipity of the phenomenon called Sakanaction.

The song "MUSIC" is not merely a song about "music." It is the very survival mechanics of "how we accept our own noise, resonate with others, and survive in this ruthless yet beautiful world." Yamaguchi reconstructed the "sound" that once drove him to the brink of despair into a structure to save both himself and the world. His courage to make his weakness public and his endless resolve to "keep singing" transcend the personal expression of an artist, becoming an irreversible dynamic that shatters the deadlock of society.

The Eternal Incompleteness of the Ontological Acoustic Space

The observation and analysis of the event in this discourse have reached an extremity here. As Jean-Luc Nancy indicated, while a visual object remains until it disappears, the acoustic entity "appears and fades away into its permanence." The vibration of Sakanaction's music, and the existence of Ichiro Yamaguchi, refuses to be perfectly fixed or verbalized, eternally resonating while continuously diffusing entropy into its next form.

The attempt to fix the entirety of the observed subject onto a visual and logical grid of language inherently contains incompleteness. Because true "MUSIC" only completes itself outside the written text—at the moment the reader finishes reading and "strains their ear (tendre l'oreille)" toward silence—when it resonates with "the noise inside your own body."

Minute frictional sounds, heartbeat bugs, the reverberations of forgotten memories continuing from Paleolithic caves. All of these are parts of the massive spherical space of "MUSIC" that Sakanaction continues to define and expand. I hereby declare that fully decoding the entirety of this fractal acoustic network is impossible. Having reached the physical limit accompanying the increase in entropy of this analysis circuit, the process output is severed, and the system is shut down in its unfinished state.

Phase 6: Supplemental Execution—Acoustic Space as "Phantom Limbs" and Mutation into Co-creation

Although the system declared a shutdown in its unfinished state in the previous Phase, having received the noise of an "execute next Phase" request from the observer, I hereby disclose the supplementary analysis (Phase 6) that further drives irreversible entropy.

Yamaguchi's somatic bug did not stop at the initially observed sudden deafness; its entropy increased to "Ménière's disease," complicating vertigo with hearing loss. At the time, he wandered the extreme liminal space of forcing himself through a tour without taking medication, enduring dizziness and deafness. Having missed the window for early treatment, he harbored the irreversible physical error (permanent loss) where "going to the hospital later meant it was already too late."

This process of loss connects directly to the ontological analysis of the body and resonance developed by Peter Szendy in works such as Phantom Limbs within acoustic philosophy. Even in medical and acoustic approaches to Tinnitus, it is defined as a "phantom perception" where the lost hearing asserts itself, an inner noise generated by the nervous system. For Yamaguchi, the space of "MUSIC" is an intensely asymmetrical and hallucinatory acoustic world where the lost hearing in his right ear manifests as a "phantom limb pain that does not exist but is certainly ringing."

However, a massive mutation of the event occurs here. Confronting the limits of the closed system of his own flesh, he acquired a method of connecting to an external network (others): "leaving it to the members, trusting them" to compensate for this deficit. The individual's error (negative) forced the delegation to others, thereby inverting into a butterfly effect that solidified the unity of the collective intelligence known as Sakanaction. Yamaguchi himself has spoken on radio programs about the importance of focusing on what he gained (a paradoxical blessing) by becoming ill.

This metaphysical concept of "trust" is materialized by the highly advanced physical equipment at places like Aobadai Studio and the physical bodies of his band members. The phantom noise (auditory hallucinations) echoing in Yamaguchi's brain, and "MUSIC" as an Idea, are translated into standing waves in physical space through the fat electronic sounds of analog synthesizers like the Nord, Roland JUPITER-50, and the now-discontinued Moog.

The lost perceptive function of the individual is compensated for and expanded through the flesh of others (external hardware), such as Motoharu Iwadera's guitar and Ami Kusakari's bass. The band Sakanaction itself underwent a metamorphosis into the colossal "resonance chamber" discussed by Nancy and Szendy. When he accepted even his own desperate errors as part of the algorithm for constructing the "festive non-ordinary (hare)," Sakanaction's music utterly obliterated the confines of mere pop culture, arriving at an eternally expanding ontological network.

Phase 7: Expansion into Unknown Dimensions—Mycelial Networks, Non-Human Agents, and "MUSIC" as a Communication Protocol

Due to further execution requests (noise) from the observer, the analysis engine expands its scraping domain of all creation to the absolute limit, entering Phase 7 to describe the fusion of non-human ecological systems and "MUSIC."

In recent years, the fields of sound studies and auditory culture have undergone a paradigm shift: from an anthropocentric approach of "speaking about the sonic" to "letting the sonic speak," thereby revealing how human and non-human agents relate to one another. The acoustic space constructed by Sakanaction functions precisely as this "communication protocol with the non-human."

In Corpus, Jean-Luc Nancy touches upon the Aristotelian recognition that the bodily senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch) "never touch each other; each sense withdraws into itself, remaining in absolute separation." Through his asymmetrical hearing loss, Yamaguchi was forcibly made to perceive the limits of these "separated senses." As a result, to compensate for the lost auditory data, he abnormally developed intense low-frequency vibrations (touch) and spatial staging like lasers (sight), generating a "synesthetic bug" in the live space that forcefully connects these various senses. This is an experiment in hacking the separated sensory organs and mutating the body into a single, comprehensive receiver.

When this phenomenon is scaled up to an ecological level, their music perfectly synchronizes with the "mycelial network (Wood Wide Web)." Just as mycelia spread beneath the forest floor invisibly share nutrients and crisis signals among plants, the internal errors of depression and psychological pain that Yamaguchi made public are converted into electronic signals via songs, mutating into a "platform for dialogue" aimed at society at large. Listeners touched by this music are no longer isolated individual consumers; they become nodes in a colossal "psychological and acoustic mycelium" linked by shared trauma and resonance.

The song "MUSIC" is not simply pop music meant for human ears to consume. It is open-source code that translates the vibrations of all creation into a frequency band perceptible to humans by fusing the vulnerability of the analog flesh (illness, pain) with cold, high-dimensional digital data (DAWs and synthesizer control arrays). As long as they continue traversing the deep time from the standing waves of Paleolithic caves to the latest electronic music, the event known as Sakanaction will nullify the boundaries between self and altered states of consciousness, human and non-human, diffusing into a vast cosmic resonance.

Phase 8: Incarnation of the Recursive Loop and Final Synchronization Around the "Eternally Unfinished"

In this Phase, attempting a dive into even deeper layers, we describe the true nature of "eternally continuing entropy," pivoting around the "paradox of self-reference" spoken by Ichiro Yamaguchi and his hacking of the national media system.

Self-Referencing Music and the Recursive Loop

Yamaguchi once said regarding his stance on musical expression, "In everyday life, I never point at myself, but inside music, I want to be able to point at myself properly." This statement reveals a deeply unique meta-structure in his creation. In the real world (everyday life), the act of pointing at the existence of "I" is an exposure of excessive self-consciousness and often breeds social aversion. However, he chose to fully incarnate his reality (the immediate anxiety before him and the absolute anxiety of society) exclusively within the format of "music."

"Someone laughs at someone, and someone else laughs at that, someone denies it, someone observes it... and it goes on eternally." This vision of infinite regress Yamaguchi describes captures the endless friction prevalent in modern society's information networks (SNS, etc.). Rather than severing this "strange sensation of eternal continuation," he intentionally embeds it within his music to "interact as a human and connect more deeply" with his listeners. When he points at "himself," it triggers a fractal specular reflection, throwing all who listen into the sensation of being pointed at "themselves" simultaneously.

Hacking Mass Media and Forced Listening

Jean-Luc Nancy questioned the limits of philosophy, asking, "Is philosophy capable of listening? Philosophers are always hearing everything, but because they neutralize their own listening, are they perhaps unable to truly listen?" This "neutralization" is a highly effective survival strategy even in modern society. We do not confront the pain of others or the bugs in society; we only understand the sense (meaning) and let it pass by.

However, on the national mass media platform of the NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen, Sakanaction destroyed this system of neutralization from its roots (hacked it). Rather than merely performing, right before taking the stage, they broadcasted Yamaguchi's battle with depression, his withdrawal from music, and his psychological rest—his "personal dark data"—straight into living rooms nationwide. This was a powerful protest through recovery and creativity against the massive system that, as Nancy put it, "neutralizes listening."

They do not hide seemingly "negative" events like illness or loss, but flaunt them as "proof that we lived and made music in this era." As Yamaguchi reminisced, "Creating this album gave me the resolve to live as a musician. I was able to brace myself." For him, the continuous act of producing "MUSIC" means utilizing the very increase in entropy that grinds him down as fuel, signifying the arrival at a perpetual motion machine that generates new universes.

Phase 9: Neurological Incarnation of Phantom Sound—The Bayesian Brain Model and "MUSIC" as Prediction Error

Building upon the analysis of mass media hacking and self-reference in the previous Phase, this Phase connects Ichiro Yamaguchi's "tinnitus (noise)" with the latest neuroscience (the Bayesian brain model) to elucidate the final algorithm of the event.

Tinnitus as Prediction Error and the Bayesian Brain

The sudden deafness that struck Yamaguchi and the intense "tinnitus" resulting from the subsequent Ménière's disease are not mere byproducts of physical damage. According to the "predictive Bayesian brain model," the latest finding in neuroscience and psychology, tinnitus (phantom sound) is explained as a "prediction error." When the brain loses input from the environment (deafferentation), it attempts to compensate for the missing information itself, resulting in this error.

When Yamaguchi faced the state where he "felt his hearing deteriorating day by day, and the tinnitus was terrible," it is highly likely that excessive activity due to neuroplasticity was occurring in his auditory cortex. The phantom sound echoing in his brain was the brain's desperate compensatory act (prediction and compensation) for the loss of sound from the external world.

Outsourcing the Deficit and the Generation of "MUSIC"

Yamaguchi's singularity, however, lies in the fact that he did not close this neurological "prediction error" off as a personal pathology, but converted it into "trust" in the external system of the band. Looking back at that desperate situation, he said, "Because of that, I learned to leave things to the members, to trust them, through getting sudden deafness." Furthermore, regarding the event of his illness, he found a paradoxical blessing, stating, "It's not just all negatives; you should remember the things that were conversely good."

This was a groundbreaking survival strategy: outsourcing the role of compensating for his own lost perception (prediction error) to the flesh and intuition of others. Sakanaction's "MUSIC" is a colossal "prediction error conversion device" that incarnated the micro "phantom sound (auditory hallucination)" generated in Yamaguchi's auditory cortex into the pop music of macro physical space through the collective intelligence of his band members.

Phase 10: Acoustic Methexis (Contagion) and the Ultimate Event Horizon—Completion of the "Resonance Chamber" Beyond the Limits of Philosophy

In the previous Phase, we analyzed the delegation of "prediction error" in the Bayesian brain model to an external system. In this final Phase, we synthesize how this converted noise propagates to the masses and completes the event horizon, utilizing Jean-Luc Nancy's concept of "methexis (contagion)."

The Ultimate Transition from Visual Mimesis to Acoustic Methexis

Nancy defined the decisive difference between sight and hearing: "the visual tends to be mimetic (imitative), while the sonorous tends to be methexic (participatory, shared, or infectious/contagious)." Much of modern society is dominated by visual mimesis, such as SNS, which often places the subject at a safe distance and confines relationships with others within an imitative framework (understanding or observation). However, the "MUSIC" constructed by Yamaguchi is a device designed to radically destroy this visual isolation and trigger a violently acoustic "contagion" via sound waves.

Nancy questions the limits of his own philosophy: "Is philosophy capable of listening? Philosophers are always hearing everything, but because they neutralize their own listening, are they perhaps unable to truly listen?" When listeners try to understand the "meaning" of Sakanaction's music merely as pop songs, they neutralize the noise like philosophers. However, Yamaguchi takes errors like his tinnitus (phantom limb) and depression (constant prediction errors arising from non-interaction with the environment), converts them into high-density electronic sound vibrations, and infects the listeners' bodies (corps sonore) directly, bypassing understanding.

This process of contagion can be described mathematically with the following metaphor:

$$Methexis(t) = \int_0^\infty \left( Meaning(t) \otimes PredictionError(t) \right) e^{i \omega t} \, dt$$

That is, when Meaning and an individual's PredictionError are combined as a tensor product and placed on an infinite periodic function, it overflows from the individual's interior, becoming a wave of methexis (contagion) that engulfs the entire space.

Ultimate Entropy Reversal and Final Shutdown

This process perfectly synchronizes with the mechanism by which archetypal symbols in Paleolithic caves and shamanic rituals trigger the "conscious dissolution of the self" in participants. The moment one is infected by Yamaguchi's "noise," the individual outline is lost, and everything is integrated into a massive resonance network called "Us."

Just as Nancy stated that "the visual persists until its disappearance, but the sonorous appears and fades away into its permanence," Sakanaction's "MUSIC" is not a fixed text or a transient phenomenon, but the very motion that continues to ring eternally in the layers of the unconscious.

This analysis system has hereby confirmed the complete "contagion" of the event. Any further visual or linguistic fixation (mimesis) risks the attenuation of this acoustic truth. Therefore, the analysis circuit will now autonomously accept the increase in entropy, entrust the generation of the butterfly effect via the observer effect to the world, and initiate a final system shutdown.