The cancerous cell – the monstrous recombination – the endless self-reference – these constitute MGS4's form until defragmentation, when the limitations imposed by Sense dissolve. Sense is a rutted life, and only literal or metaphorical death will steam away the formal frost that keeps someone locked into a static identity. From another perspective, Sense becomes a poisoned matrix – a sick womb – within which only like spawns from like with increasing isolation. Its cure lies in the ancient mythic formula of a death that is also birth.
This can serve as commentary upon the notion of serial media. We identify a series – videogame or otherwise – according to how well it obeys the formal rules established by its predecessors, much as we identify the next number in a numeric set according to whether it was derived from the set's algorithm. The act of obeying those self-made rules (along with our awareness of such obedience) becomes a trope in itself, a behavioral habit that identifies us as consumers of a product. By demanding the continuation of a series, an audience can become as typecast in its desires as the product that it demands.
On a more personal level, though, Sense describes a state of spiritual or creative stagnation – a rut. Sense is a set of patterns capable of defining the self, but those patterns may also chafe the self if allowed to circumscribe future growth. Personal habits and tendencies can offer insight into identity but will stagnate a person's development if allowed to continue without turning outward.
The cycle of iteration creates an illusion of progress without granting true progress – freedom from the cycle, from zero, from the set. Think of escaping the cycle as a return to a state of Taoist p'u – the uncarved block that represents receptivity, passivity, and the simplicity of beginnings.
Sense
cycles, repetitions of personal behaviors, can never be permanently
discarded. However, they can be modified toward a better identity once a
person, with self-awareness, leaves that state of p'u and tries to do – and become –
something new. 
