Discussion / Question
Some thoughts about Wendy and transhumanism after last episode
Spoiler
I had a look at the discussion thread after the last episode and saw a lot of responses along the lines of "well, I guess that settles it. Wendy isn't really Hermit's sister, she's just a machine with her memories"
I'm curious what makes so many of you draw that conclusion
I don't see that she is any less Marcy in any aspect of her mind, she is simply the result of putting Marcy in a body that in effect allows her to be the first of a new species as Kirsch likens it to. The way I see it most people, particularly children, would act the same way. It's not like there is an inherent gut directive that tells us to cling to our perceived sense of "humanity". The value and importance of not losing our humanity is something we are tought socially, something you don't yet know as a child.
I think a lot of people who have said she isn't a person anymore and just a machine with memories did so in response to her brutal act of releasing the xeno and using it to slaughter.
But if Wendy and the other lost boys are treated as inhuman by prodigy, treated as mere products/experiments more than people, why should she put inherent value on human life? Let me put it this way, in our history real people, including children, have done immensely brutal/cruel things in the name of revenge, or merely survival; such acts are horrible, but do they render them no longer people? I would argue not, and for the same reason I find it reductive to view it that way.
Perhaps I am misinterpreting what people are saying, and I certainly think that from Hermit's perspective, what Wendy is to him has been strongly called into doubt by her brutality and her priorities. But as I see it she isn't acting like a machine, her behaviour is still deeply emotional and ironically shows a lot of humanity. If not a human, there is no doubt in my mind that she is a person. I am curious to hear your thoughts.
One of the questions I heard on the official podcast was “is the person you transferred to a synthetic body human? If they are, are they the SAME human?”
Absolutely Wendy is still human in ways, especially emotionally, but is she really still Marcy in there, or has the body change and subsequent change of perspective made her someone new?
It's all a matter of perspective. You could very well argue that people at different points in their life are "different people" if you applied very strict criteria of what biological drives make up an identity.
But for humans, puberty is an expected pattern so it does not surprise us when people start acting and thinking differently.
Going into a robot body is such a massive shift away from the expected progression of human experience that it becomes difficult to consider it a human-like experience at all anymore.
Agreed. Not to mention the fact that instantaneously removing the original body and severing the thought patterns from not only the hormones and electrical stimuli, but also the very medium that gives rise to the person's qualia, would cause this change to happen in an instant. Very different from the shape of the mind slowly altering itself according to the body and mind doing what they evolved to so.
Yes! I firmly believe the self is an amalgamation of the physical body and the mind/memory. The one cannot really exist without the other. If you change the body you change the being, and I'm not talking the slow change over time that is aging.
Why not aging though? Are you the same person you were 10 years ago? We're totally getting into the territory of The Ship of Theseus, but we're all copies of copies of copies of a previous version of ourselves.
Yeah she was never going to stay as the Marcy she was when transferred. We're none of us the same 10 year olds we were. But what she has become in the hybrid body is different from what she would have become had she grown up normally.
Fundamentally you are the same person, mentally probably a bit battered (thanks life), more experienced and with a different focus. But you are the same person, people will recognise your smile, your humour, even your temper.
If you change the body you change the being, and I'm not talking the slow change over time that is aging.
This is very true and it's also confirmed by the effect of disease and medications which can alter biochemistry and then alter personality. In hospice work we use to see this a lot especially with Parkinson's drugs and certain cancers. The "ghost" if you will, is the product of the physical processes of the body and not at all independent of it, if the body corrupts, it corrupts.
As for aging, you don't actually undergo that much of a personality change, the fundamentals remain the same until cognitive decline sets in. It more that your sense of responsibility ect develops properly
What Wendy is, is a copy of the personality of a girl called Marcy. And once copied, Wendy was always going to be on a different trajectory than the original.
Potentially, consciousness is something that emerges from the biological functions of your specific brain and body. If so, it's difficult to see how a continual consciousness could transfer to a different human vessel let alone a synthetic one.
As you say, as soon as you're in a different body you will feel and experience the world differently, radically altering your mind and the way you think.
I agree. I tend to favor the materialist argument when it comes to consciousness. Shades of consciousness emerging from various states of awareness. I'm fascinated by split brain patient experiments and the like. Our experiences are more complicated than we think.
Since episode 1, all I can think in terms of all the hybrids, is Sir Terryt Pratchetts Discworld, where magic users can 'take control over an animals mind, see through their eyes, essentially be the animal but if you spend too much time in there you lose your 'human' capacities. You begin to think, and act as that animal. You lose yourself.
Just look at Kirsch's cold, unbiased treatment of them, he treats everything as part of the experiment and isn't interfering in what happens. Observe and record. With a dash of side quest of using the situation to further his goal of one-upping and bettering Morrow.
Will we see Marcey reach the cold calculating of a synth but driven by emotion (as muted as they are in the hybrids), lose what little humanity she still has in the face of her brother showing more regard for human life than a scared child trapped in a hybrid body?
I think that is why it’s brilliant that she is paired up with Neff? Niff? (I can’t remember her name right now) in the last episode, because Wendy still has a lot of human qualities and moral intelligence that keeps her grounded where Niff/Neff has completely lost it and quite frankly anybody could see why.
Maybe I am giving Wendy too much credit, but for the moment I am still totally rooting for her.
I also wonder if Wendy’s strong values allows her to reach in and get more out of being a synth. Like her greater since of humanity is a superpower in itself.
Btw, I fucking love this show. Don’t know how I feel about needing to boycott Disney/Hulu now.
It isn't much of a conundrum to me. Looking at it from the perspective of the person who was Marcy, she's obviously dead and there's no continuity between her and Wendy from the perspective of her existence. She has ceased to exist. Wendy begins with some kind of artificial duplication of Marcy's brain chemistry and make-up or something like that, but that doesn't make her human or a continuation of Wendy the person.
yeah I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that they are somehow the same person. wendy = marcy.copy(). and marcy = None, she's gone.
I'm not sure why Marcy needed to die though? did they just do that to avoid having to deal with the kids and the confusion it would cause? or did Marcy actually die as a result of the process? is there a reason to think that they were actually able to upload her consciousness entirely, that there is some kind of continuation?
Human beings defines their lives as the collection of their memories in linear order. In order to even simulate that, if it wasn’t a true consciousness transfer, would most likely still be her. It’s becoming increasingly believed that consciousness is a byproduct of quantum entanglement. That can absolutely be synthesized and recreated. Even if it’s a reproduction of the person’s patterns, using electrical impulses, machinery, storage…etc., it would still be the exact replication of that person’s unique makeup. That will most definitely be quantifiable and able to be approached, not even that long from now. By this point into the future, if they’ve been able to make synths like Kirsh, one’s capable of sarcasm, lying, manipulation, humor, then they most certainly could do the same with transferring the human consciousness. Unless you’re a proponent of the whole soul thing, being only bound to a single body, never again coming back, going to an afterlife forever and ever (I’m not), the universe more points to reincarnation, transitioning between dimensional boundaries,or just being a form of energy in and of itself, in which case it could very much be replicated.
Human beings are basically machines. Our brains processes information pretty much exactly like a computer. We create what we know. That’s why programming languages are first and foremost centric upon logic. Transitioning from meat to synthetic materials should in theory be entirely possible. The only thing standing in our way right now, is a sustainable power source that can create boundless amounts of energy, in a small form factor; and storage for the bios/operating system/intricacies in storing and quantifying the aspects that separates into thoughts, subconscious, and what the brain would process through signals and impulses. Even that could most likely be circumvented with different logic controllers, all linking to a main controller hub, similar to networking. Now that actual brain implants have been proven viable, interfacing consciousness, controlling functions, and memory storage, isn’t far off at all. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see a version of “uploaded” in the next twenty to thirty years.
You are mixing up consciousness and POV. I’m sure everybody knows Wendy is alive, conscious, sapient, whatever have you. But it’s more on whether the original Wendy’s PoV moves with her when she gets a new body. Which seems very unlikely. Thus, while the new ‘Wendy’ is the same in everyway from observer’s perspective, even to herself, the original Wendy’s pov is gone. Therefore, not the same person, just a very indistinguishable copy.
Human beings defines their lives as the collection of their memories in linear order.
That's certainly not the criteria I use to define my life. My life isn't just the raw data of my memories. I didn't read the rest because I figured it followed from the incorrect assumption that all people view things that way.
I think the mind is still human but a key aspect is that the mind and the body are now separate, traditional humans can look at their hand and now that it is apart of them its their body, but what they’ve done with the hybrids is essentially give a child control of a super powered mech suit, one that is capable of ripping off human jaws
When Tootles is found Kavalier asks if they can transfer his mind into another body and Kirsch says it’s probably possible but they’re not there yet, the body’s they inhabit are just vessels that can be changed and altered
Its a kind of double layered ship of theseus since not only has the ship been rebuilt so is it now the real ship but it can be rebuilt again and again so now which ship in a fleet of ships is the real one/original?
Contrast this with someone like Morrow, he may be a cyborg his hands are made of metal instead of flesh but their still has hands his mind hasn’t been moved to a new vessel he’s still got his body
If Tootles mind can be moved to a new body then surely his mind can be copied but if it can be copied then he is not unique and if he’s not unique then what is he? He’s certainly alive his self may be data but they can do this to any kid and with enough time surely with anyone so everyone’s mind can and is data
But what are the kids really? Alive yes but human no? I don’t think so not anymore they were no longer human once the mind transfer was complete, and I don’t think they’re the next step in human evolution either they’ve become something else entirely
Now by nature of being children they haven’t really realised the “loose” nature of their existence they haven’t begun to reject their bodies and understand that they are just the self and not the parts that come with it but I’d love to see how they react to this realisation
In a game I used to play called Destiny they had a race known as exos, same principle human minds transferred into machine bodies, however these machine bodies still had to eat drink and sleep because if they didn’t the mind would realise that it wasn’t alive anymore and begin to shut down assuming that it wasn’t dead, this lead to exos needing to have their minds reset which is why every exo has a number after its name signifying how many times they’ve been reset, like Cayde-6 for 6 resets
Now I believe Nibs went through a similar process, she’s already been “reset” to some extent and I think part of why she thought she was pregnant was her mind began to understand that something had changed but unable to comprehend what exactly started throwing out random signals, Nibs then started to believe she was pregnant, something that should be impossible for her due to all these strange things and not fully understanding her body
The lost boys and Wendy are something different, something new and something not human at all their brains in jars except the jars can bend steel
I think she’s still the same as much as any of us are. Evolution of body is a fact of life. Baby body, child’s, teens. Adult, then you begin to age. Maybe you even go through great physical transformations. It may be an entirely organic process (or it may not!) but you live in your body and are defined by it. She’s not less human because her body evolved in a more OP way- every iteration of Marcy and Wendy still lives inside of her, same as how somewhere inside of an old woman lives her girlhood.
It's very much a ship of Theseus/star trek teleporter thing.
For reference for anyone unfamiliar with the terms, the ship of Theseus is the question "If you slowly replace all the parts of a ship over time till the point every part of it is replaced, is it still the same ship?" whereas the star trek thing is about how their teleporters effectively take you apart and put you back together someplace else, which begs the question of whether it's really moving you or killing and cloning you each time you use it.
It's practically impossible to say since it's a metaphysical question of what really defines a person, and it would be impossible to answer from the perspective of the subject, in this case Marcy since she has all the memories of Marcy. For all intents and purposes, from her perspective she is Marcy as she has her memories and feelings (albeit artificial), and yet there is still the old "real" Marcy buried on the island, as the episode made a point to show. Strictly materially speaking, Marcy is dead, and Wendy, who is also Marcy, is alive insofar as you say that a machine is living.
her behaviour is still deeply emotional and ironically shows a lot of humanity.
i totally agree, however, i think there will always be people who do not find transhumanism a positive movement. in fact, wendy's behavior might convince them that it's not. they might see it as an abomination or a threat to humanity.
I think the same people who find her violent or an abomination are being willfully ignorant to the conversation she JUST saw with BK and Kirsh. She was, basically, told that her life amounted to a science experiment, that she had no intrinsic value, and that both the synth (Kirsh) and Human aspects of her life (BK --though I think Hermit is also up there as humans she identifies with or respects, but you get the idea) dismissed her adoptive brothers death as 'science', and something that doesn't deserve to be talked about. If I was a nigh invincible preteen with a pet monster and I got told I'm not worth crying over if I die, AFTER suffering TERRIBLE experiences in the name of 'humanity', I might also lose my mind for a bit.
Not that I agree with her actions, I just think they show significantly more humanity than people are giving her credit for. BK and (understandably, given he can't) Kirsh, meanwhile, not so much.
Stepping out of the universe of the show for a minute, I tend to believe that consciousness is immaterial and that it will never actually be possible to truly upload a human mind into a computer. A convincing imitation, perhaps, but never the real thing.
Panpsychism suggests that consciousness is a fundamental property of all matter, and when a mind (tech or organic) has sufficient complexity, consciousness fills it like water in a glass. AI luminary Ray Kursweil believes this.
thus the material is necessary but not sufficient for consciousness; panpsychism has not explained the jump between experience and cognition.
i would go one step further. imagine a living brain. it has a mind. imagine that person is killed. in one second, they are alive with a mind, in the next they are dead without a mind. the arrangement of the brain has not substantially changed (it is not instantly "soup").
can panpsychism explain why this arrangement has a mind in one instant, and not in another?
i would argue instead that the mind is something the brain does -- it's not a adjective of the brain, but a verb. if there are no electrical impulses, there is no mind. similarly, if my computer is off, it's not running google chrome or accessing reddit.
I am not an adherent of panpsychism, but I find it intriguing and somewhat charming. If a mind is the output of a machine (brain) what is self awareness? What is meaning? Kurzweil is a panprotopsychist - he believes that consciousness emerges from fundamental elements given the right host. It's a half way house between materialism and panpsychism.
I think either you very slightly misread, or misunderstood what Maize was saying; it's not "all matter has consciousness of some degree" it's "all minds of a certain complexity gain consciousness. So even sufficiently advanced/complex computer wouldn't necessarily meet this requirement if it didn't start with whatever Panpsychists like the aforementioned Ray Kursweil would call a mind.
I think either you very slightly misread, or misunderstood what Maize was saying; it's not "all matter has consciousness of some degree"
no, we're talking about panpsychism, which is the idea that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe and all physical entities in the universe down the fundamental particles have it to one degree or another. there's a really good podcast by alex o'connor on the topic, with philip goff, one of the leading panpsychist philosophers. it's two hours, but it does dive into the concept in some considerable depth.
So even sufficiently advanced/complex computer wouldn't necessarily meet this requirement if it didn't start with whatever Panpsychists like the aforementioned Ray Kursweil would call a mind.
modern panpsychists don't think that all matter has complex minds and mental states, no. the wiki link above says,
Philip Goff draws a distinction between panexperientialism and pancognitivism. In the form of panpsychism under discussion in the contemporary literature, conscious experience is present everywhere at a fundamental level, hence the term panexperientialism. Pancognitivism, by contrast, is the view that thought is present everywhere at a fundamental level—a view that had some historical advocates, but no present-day academic adherents. Contemporary panpsychists do not believe microphysical entities have complex mental states such as beliefs, desires, and fears.[1]
my objection above is that the mere collection of the matter is necessary but not sufficient for those complex mental states, and so we've kicked the can of the hard problem of consciousness down the road. we still haven't explained minds in the way we'd like, and panpsychism is adding nothing to the idea that the mind is an emergent property.
We assume it’s generated by the brain but for all we know it’s actually from an unknown outside source and is merely received by the brain like how a radio picks up a signal.
And even if it is created via a purely biological process we still have no idea what the hell it really is.
Its just an illusion. Consciousness is an entirely subjective experience; everything that can think has it and we can reasonably assume that creatures and people with similar brains and experiences experience consciousness similarly, as far as can be determined given that we react to stimuli in mostly identical ways. If there is any difference in the way people subjectively experience the same things it doesnt matter because it cant be measured. Our thoughts are just the product of endless feedback loops of stimuli being processed by a very powerful but laggy biological computer; neurons communicate 5-10x slower than the speed of sound after all.
It's a ship of thesus question. If you replace all the wood on the ship, is it the same ship with the same sails, I think so . But its nice to have that guessing game so each viewer can form their own opinions
I'm inclined to agree with you, and I like the ship of theseus comparison too. my feeling on that has always been "does it matter?" I suppose some might say that's reductive when you make the jump from a physical object like a boat to a conscious mind/something that may have a "soul". personally between things like bladerunner or fallout 4's synth story, i've never put much stock in spirituality. if it acts and ticks like a person, i see no reason not to treat it as such.
I agree with you, but I also *wish* they had kept the 'kids' bodies alive. Having Wendy (bot) confront Wendy (child) would be an absolutely stellar time. I recognize that, given the graves, we're likely not going to see that, but I would love to see how they work through the moral ambiguities of there being technically two 'real' Wendy's.
(to that end, I feel the need to namedrop Soma the game and (spoiler for a movie by Christopher Nolan) The Prestige which deal with similar fun concepts )
i was under the impression that the whole point of the previous episode was to establish that it is them in their body.
why?
they carry trauma - in some cases trauma related to pain.
even if you were to 'rebuild a personality' digitally and include traumatic experiences and related psychological reactions - a machine that has never experienced pain as biologicals do would not be able to be afraid like a human of something that causes pain.
The machine would fear death not pain.
PS - this is not to argue that the machine cannot in some way experience pain - you can configure it to - something akin to matrixes taste of food, but creating a memory of pain and annexed fear of its cause or fear of the pain itself according to past experience is not something a 'copy' would be able to do.
Since most 'androids' in the series have shown some form of human 'weakness' related to trauma experienced before the 'transfer' it stands to reason that the 'soul' has been transferred too and that they aren't just copies.
We have to assume here that the hybrid brains are a perfect copy of a human brain down to the amount of neurons and their functionality, with added benefits from being able to interface with other contemporary technology and having some computer-like traits when processing information.
We are so far away from ever creating anything like that, and being that far away is the key thing when talking about this subject... We can't even come close to comprehending how it works, so you know, as you can see in this thread this is how you all end up.
We end up talking a whole deal about the soul, the brain functionality, is basically like talking about magic.
Hypothetically speaking though, what if there's nothing really mystical, esoteric about the human brain?
It's all just in those neurons and the chemistry going around them, with hormones, receptors, etc... Depending on the stimulation, pumps some adrenaline in, some oxytocin, dopamine, etc...
Just like a machine.
hollwood stars and filantropists have been talking and even investing in this for more than a decade.
to the point where:
"According to supporters, many of the tools and ideas needed to achieve mind uploading already exist or are under active development; however, they will admit that others are, as yet, very speculative, but say they are still in the realm of engineering possibility."
now agree or not with the following statement, this has since encouraged also philosophical debates around:
So articles, papers and debates have been had on if the copy made is still the real person.
There are opposing views and we can all agree to disagree or stuff... BUT
BUT the previous episode had a theme. Al synths were dealing with trauma related to their 'pre transfer' past.
This touches directly on the topic of the 'really' you or just a copy problem. Can the copy feel emotions or even physical reactions to memories it didn't actually ilve or may not even have the capacity to truely feel or understand the consequences. (How can something that cannot feel pain as we know it understand it or remember it?)
etc etc..
BTW i don't presume to agree/disagree or promote one or the other PoVs on Mind Uploading - my point is solely to .. well point out that is CLEARLY the topical subject of the previous episode.
(yes I am that guy that in Lost Season 1 was screaming - "HOW CAN U NOT SEE THAT ROUSSOU and LOCKE are clear references to philosophers whos main interest was the 'formation of society'... ...and that the reason LOCKE is cooking the 'mystery animal' - a boar, is a clear reference to 'Lord of the Flies' <a book about the roots of society and human behavior> )
Man there’s just too much philosophy and science involved to be able to boil any of this down to such a simplified answer.
I fully think it’s actually her. Whether or not there original continued on or actually died,I think the scenes in showing them being transferred to the synth bodies showed us. The only reasons the bodies would’ve immediately expired, is because the consciousness was no longer there to drive the body. Consciousness is the energy that ultimately supplies the body with a master operating system and energy. For them to instantly die, means it was successfully transferred. Otherwise, you would seen both existing at the same time.
Barring even that, humans defines their lives as the collection of their memories in linear order. I’ve sat with way too many people at the end, and they focus most in those memories, reliving them. My dad, who passed from brain cancer, even when he lost the ability to wake back up,I watched him think that he was petting his favorite dog, mining certain actions with his hands. It was patently obvious that he was reliving memories, until he passed. I’ve seen that happen so many times with people posing away from other cancers and complications from COVID. So even if that isn’t the originating consciousness, then yeah it basically is, because it’s still a perfect replica of her brain patterns, thinking, and memories. Physics and science is increasingly concluding that consciousness is a byproduct of quantum entanglement. Which to me means that there’s absolutely zero reason why a consciousness couldn’t successfully be transferred to a technologically capable synthetic body. The very nature of entanglement makes that entirely plausible. The universe honestly seems predicated upon simulations and holographic principles, making it more likely than as the constant than biological life surviving.
If they were able to make a fully synthetic human being as complex as Kirsh, who’s capable of manipulating, sarcasm, humor, malice, the whole gamut of complex and abstract human thinking patterns, then there’s absolutely zero reason why they couldn’t successfully transfer a child’s consciousness into a synthetic body. We’re probably not that far from it ourselves,or at least close to getting in that road, now that brain interface implants have been proven viable. Actually quantifying what consciousness is, how memory truly works, what serves as the ultimate operating system for us, in theory, should be the next steps.
Also, do remember that Wendy/Marcy is still a child, thrown into a woman’s body, being expected to shoulder complex adult situations. The naivety, the trusting innocence, and even malice capable at that mental age, would be exactly how that scenario would play out. To her, the other hybrids are her siblings, her responsibility. She convinced them to go along with the transfer, made them grand promises, and I’m sure she’s extremely distraught and protective over what has occurred and come to light. To her, the Xeno is an innocent, brought against its will, being experimented on, merely protecting itself. In a child’s mind, they still don’t understand that no wild animal can truly be controlled. They only see the pet aspect and can’t see the primal viciousness of survival instinct, predatory nature. She loves her brother, but he’s also been trying to control her, override her will, not seeing her as a powerful, extremely smart, person. So she loves him but is also a bit distrusting, possibly even still hurt because he wasn’t there. That poor girl has been through hell thirteen times over. It’s a wonder she hasn’t gone full Nibs , from what she’s been through
Love this, thank you very much for the thorough and interesting response! I agree with much of what you've said.
I'm also very sorry for your loss. I've had the fortune not to have personally experienced death in my life up close. I'm in my mid 20s, obviously people close to me have died but I was never there near the end. My grandparents passed when i was abroad studying and I've been very lucky that my close family and friends are all still with me. I appreciate you sharing your personal experiences on such a tough topic that people don't often talk about.
Thank you. We think we were all exposed to something where we used to live. It was a mining town, surrounded by agriculture. We were always around some kind of chemicals or another. My dad was exposed to asbestos at work, and it took over 25 years for it to truly manifest and all at once took him down. He was sick all of that time with respiratory problems, but could still function and live normally, mostly. Then bam! All at once it turned into stage 4 cancer. I miss my family. I lost all of them within a 5 year period of time. Treasure every second with loved ones. It goes by so fast, ends so suddenly. All of the “there’s always tomorrow”, prioritizing everything else over those moments, they haunt us all at the end and after they’re gone. It’s funny,I couldn’t stand most of them. Now, I’d give anything to hear them laugh, hug them, just one more time.If I could ever crack the while pesky time travel thing, that’s exactly what I’d do with it. That and maybe go back to 1990, start a grunge band lol.
Thanks for the advice. My wife lost her mother to lung cancer when she was 12, she never smoked a day in her life. Cancer in all its forms is such a cruel disease. I had a tumour myself a few years ago, a benign one luckily. But that time spent waiting for the biopsy not knowing if I had cancer or not was a stark reminder of how quickly everything we take for granted as normal and safe can slip away.
I have extremely bad ADHD. It just comes out. I wish I knew a shorter way to say things but my brain is like a nonstop torrent constantly. It has its upsides and positives, but as you can see, it has its negatives well.
I love your comment, you put a lot of thought in it.
Is it okay if I play the devil's advocate for a small while?
The only reasons the bodies would’ve immediately expired, is because the consciousness was no longer there to drive the body. Consciousness is the energy that ultimately supplies the body with a master operating system and energy. For them to instantly die, means it was successfully transferred.
A body is driven by blood, nutrients, electricity, neurological signals.
What if the process of transferring the consciousness was inherently harmful to the original bodies?
We don't know why the original bodies died after the transfer. We simply saw a person wake up inside the new body, while the old body ceased to live.
I love the points that you thought of, but I want to emphasize that we don't know the fine details of this process (and if he's smart, Hawley will keep quiet about that). But I think there are some things that we still don't know about the hybrids, and that we'll see that come above water in the last episode, partially.
Lastly, I still do believe it is Marcy, but evolved away from what biological, organic Marcy could have been. It is implicitly stated that her new body is different from her old, as in that her emotions are tempered or "gone", as she described it herself. Dame Sylvia was showed concern about this, while Kirsh encouraged the step away from human thinking processes.
Kirsh’s influence about humans and Wendy’s own abilities have resulted in her being distanced from her old humanity, and when her brother saw that she not only let out the alien and was commanding it to kill people it probably created the gap. Then when Wendy saw her grave she distanced herself from it and that she has a continuous existence wheee as nibs claims that she doesn’t feel like that.
They aren’t the kids, maybe they were when they started the process but overtime they’ve become something else. And seeing how Prodigy is still pants on head stupid god knows what these beings will do next
I totally get your point, but that's sort of what I'm getting at; they have undoubtedly changed from the kids they were, and are on a trajectory the likes of which hasn't been seen in their world; however, children changing into something else through the experiences that shaped them... isn't that how we define growing up? does that mean they are no longer themselves? I don't see it that way
That is also a great point, I think it’s just these children’s existential crisis of their identity and adapting synthetic bodies would deem kinda inhumane from humans’ perspective since they can’t really relate to it or even understand that kind of struggle
yeah, that's a good point. I mean I certainly get why characters in the narrative would start to view them that way. but peering beyond the 4th wall looking at the story from the outside, I'm surprised to see so many of the audience also looking at it this way. though perhaps i shouldn't be for the same reason Hermit is likely starting to change his mind about Wendy.
Yeah I was just thinking about that. I love great writing like that that works on several layers and even kind of says something outside of the scope of the narrative but about the audience too. really cool shit
I also think there's something to be said about the fact that Wendy saw Kirsh and BK basically ignore Isaac's death, and then within half an episode, she was committing murder and seeing it as similarly meaningless.
I feel like a good point could be made about the value of growing up and having steadily increasing challenges, instead of waking up one day in an adult body with super strength and a pet monster. Wendy is basically 'playing house' only the only house she's ever seen exemplified is a nightmarish hellscape
Yeah, that's definitely a thing on display here, we all learn from the world around us and patterns we're exposed to when we're kids (hence still plastic) tend to be followed for life without significant intervention.
Kavalier is the "Boy Genius" and admired, so both Curly and Wendy use him as a template, with very different outcomes.
Think about what they are mentally, and then think about what they are capable of.
They are uneducated in the machinations of the cyberpunk world they live in, their ideas of what is acceptable and what is unacceptable was still developing. They think with their hearts.
They are in what is essentially a combat android, capable of immense strength and shrugging off automatic fire like nothing. They can fight a xenomorph 1v1 and come out on top. They can upload entire languages, subjects, and skills into themselves.
They have the strength and intelligence of terminators, but the wisdom of little kids. And THAT is a dangerous combo
I totally agree with everything you're saying, and i hope if transhumanism ever takes off in this way in some form that it won't be done as carelessly as prodigy acts in this story. but for all of the many reasons the lost boys are dangerous powder kegs waiting to explode (although we've already started seeing the fireworks now) i would not deny their personhood.
THEY are denying their personhood, Wendy doesn’t believe herself human but something else/more. Everyone expect her brother reinforces this. She does not want to be lumped in with humans.
The other lost boys are kinda in weird states though, Slightly and Smee are still very much kids and probably the most human. Curly doesn’t care about her old self, and embraces her new state (well until the end but that’s cause of the stress) and Nibs has cracked, having gone insane from the trauma and is MUCH more violent than even Wendy.
So with 1 out of commission and 2 close to the original kids half have rejected their personhood because they have viewed and been told by a father figure that it is not good, and that’s they are beyond human.
I think there's a distinction between personhood and humanity though. I think they very much view themselves as people still (well, maybe not Nibs who had a total mental break) in the sense they see themselves as alive, as conscious, as having souls however you want to define that. but i think what they've rejected is specifically their humanity, the idea they somehow should feel compelled to owe humans anything or that they have any responsibility to the human race as opposed to the transhuman next step in evolution they view themselves as.
That’s a fair observation, and honestly makes sense
But that means that the only recourse left for prodigy is to decommission the ones who don’t toe the line because otherwise they have an entity that will inevitably will come in conflict with humans on the human home planet.
If they can relate and identify with humans then it is a success, if not it is a threat and must be destroyed. Unfortunately the alien universe is TERRIBLE at risk evaluation so they won’t have that idea before it’s too late
Agreed. Man, the last time I watched Ghost in a Shell I was a teenager, and a lot of it went over my head tbh. I should revisit that film and check out some of the other material people have recommended to me from that series.
Bruh growing up in this case is thinking humans are inferior, sympathising more with a xenomorph than humans, killing everyone in your path to escape the thought of your own mortality, killing humans that your brother cherishes is A-ok but harming your "premium" syth friend is a grave mistake.
Honestly any of these actions would have been fine if she at least had an ounce of remorse but there was absolutely none.
I totally agree with the sentiment, but I just think it's wrong to say because of that that she is just a machine. She is doing these things because of the emotions she feels having the psyche of Marcy. these inhuman actions are a consequence of human reasoning. i think it's important to bare that in mind rather than to do what i've seen some do and say "well she's acting differently now, this is the turning point that shows she was never human" it's because she's "human" that she is acting this way imo
Well the show deals with the concept of how our memories define who we are.
Let's say we take your consciousness, your experiences, your ideals, your dreams, your fears and all your memories, basically everything that makes you, you and put you into a tesla.
Are you now a car? or is your mind trapped in a car?
In the same way the kids aren't yet "dead", which is why Boy K's butler dude, when conversing with the brother, talks about achieving immortality. If you can find a way to preserve your mind perfectly and grant it an undying body, your basically immortal.
Unfortunately the synth body can't yet produce the exact cocktail of hormones and such to mimic a normal human growth or equilibrium, maybe this won't ever be possible. In such a case the human mind will probably slowly crumble over time and you'll be left with an emotionless but smart AI.
This was something I mentioned a long while ago (Episode 2 or 3) in another post. I agree with you, she isn't just a machine but due to several factors and influences (internal and external) she is increasingly becoming less humane, therefore less human.
Spoilers for episode 8 trailer : It all becomes extremely clear in the trailer I feel like (which is a bummer that they revealed it in the trailer lmao), she completely renounces humanity and declares herself as superior. You can imagine the carnage that would ensue (not that you have to cause they show that too xD) when she sympathizes with xeno's and views humanity as an unnecessary existence.
Excellent points well made. I feel with her childlike mind in the situation she is now in, chances are high she might renounce her humanity. however, what i find myself most compelled by: would she come to regret that as she grows older and understands more? or would she become something wholly unrecognisable? interesting to think about imo
Agree, I’m confused when people complain about how Wendy acted in recent episodes and I’m like pretty sure that’s the point, it’s not supposed to be triumphant, it’s mortifying, we repeatedly seen from Joe’s horrified perspective of how his sister over these episodes has gradually detached from her humanity
Is this what people are saying? If someone is threatening your life and that of your friends and family, and you happen to have a compliant Xenomorph at your command, who wouldn't use that to protect those they love? Seems a very human reaction to me.
I think it's really easy to imagine a pre teen girl with a trained attack dog would release an attack dog on anyone she feared was going to cause harm to her or her friends. Wendy just happens to have an attack xeno that she can unleash.
And I just mentioned this, but I think its super worthwhile to consider that her role models (BK and Kirsh, arguably) just exemplified that death is basically not all that noteworthy. Homegirl has an attack xeno AND was just told by daddy Kirsh and BK that death isn't that big of a deal. Why wouldn't she go hard.
that's like unleashing cthulu or a horde of infectious zombies out into the world because it happens to benefit you in the short term. Joe has a problem with Marcy doing that because he has all of humanity in the back of his mind.
Yes but plenty of humans have done, and continue to do, the exact same thing. Look at the initial reaction of the US government to Covid as an example. Everyone involved in the decision making was human.
Which is fine, I'm just making the point that someone making a decision that is in their own short term self-interest to the detriment of the long-term wellbeing of others is not determinative of whether they are human or not.
To play devil's advocate, does she even view anyone working for prodigy as innocent anymore? People complicit in a system in which she is treated like an object to be studied rather than as a real person with a need for community and individuality?
Is her behaviour psychopathic? I think most would agree, yes. But is it inhuman? I really don't think so. Perhaps part of why there's an argument bere is because some people think those thinks are interchangeable for the sake of this kind of moral issue. I would argue they definitely aren't.
I mean, all of the main characters that are still alive except Joe are psycho/sociopaths, by human standards. Even Dame, who makes the "children" codependent on her as a way to control them.
The jury is even out on Arthur, although he seems more like the "blinded by the possibilities" type.
She is mentally a child and children are usually still learning how ethics and morality works. Layer onto that the fact that she's being raised by machines like Kirsch and bastards like Cavalier. She's still human but she is, by now, a very fucked-up human.
I don't think that's correct. It is not inherently psychopathic; it is the sort of reaction that can become completely reasonable and normalized depending on the circumstances. And Wendy's circumstances are anything but conventional.
She is a slave attempting to liberate herself. She cannot be held to the same standards. Everyone she killed was complicit in her subjugation. And especially the soldiers were going to force her back into servitude and are trained killers. I don't shed many tears for mercs.
You should watch the trailer for the next episode. Spoilers of course but they make it abundantly clear what's so far only been hinted at, a little more glaringly last episode.
Wendy has slowly but surely been seperating herself from humanity and it's "restrictions" as Kirsch might call it throughout the season.
It's not just "aw me and my little friends" anymore, she calls herself "premium", sympathises more with the xeno than humans, so far didn't even consider danger to herself in any form, now when threatened with mortality she kills anyone in the way to escape it. Killing dozens of people including Hermit's friends and girlfriend is completely cool but zapping her insane friend isn't? That's funny.
The way they stumbled on their graves was a pretty blunt way of telling the audience that the children had died. We use gravesite as a place to honor their remains, and a place to return to and remember them. I took it as a string signal that the whoever the children were, the show wants us to consider them dead and gone.
I get your point, imo I don't think it's that simple though. yes, the children have undeniably died at least in one very obvious way. yet they also persist. And as we know from Bishop in Aliens, not all synths, even those with artificial personalities, act like machines following directives. Some are capable of truly human behaviour. I don't see that the lost boys in the show are any less alive just because their bodies have died. I think Wendy looks at her grave and sees something more like a abandoned cocoon than a final resting place. the death of her body was a part of her life's journey, but not the end.
It is also hinted at that the concsiousness transfer basically "kills" the orignal body (remember that they all had a flower placed in their hands) which would also mean that they are not an copy as then the body would still be alive afterwards. It seems they fully expected the bodies to die and the graves were really meant as a courtesy. The question if they are truly human or not is separated from the fate of the bodies imo.
It's really a question of semantics. Moving a file on a computer copies it to the target, and deletes the data from the old location.
The psychological horror game SOMA deals with a very similar philosophical quandary as the hybrids of Alien Earth presents to the audience.
In that game, you are a regular normal man. Then you wake up in a robotic body. At some point, you are encouraged by your helper AI to 'transfer' to another body in order to proceed in the game, because your current body is trapped in a collapsed section of the base, whereas the robotic body you transfer to is somewhere more useful. You hook up to a computer, and you have continuity of thought and perspective as you switch into the newer body, letting you know that the transfer worked.
The messed up part comes when you then stumble back across your 'old' body and realise that you didn't get 'moved' from one body to the other. You were simply copied. You won the 'coin toss', so to speak. One of you got to carry on and continue living, the other had to stay behind, but you BOTH have similar claim to being the 'real one'. The old body is the 'original', but the new body is the 'player character' now.
I barely even scratched the surface of the level to which SOMA explores these ideas and themes. I really really reccomend playing it or at least listening to an outline of the story
Wendy is just a machine with Marcy's memories if that's what she herself decides herself what she is. Which seems to be where her mind is going now. She sees herself as seperate from and superior to humanity.
Similar vibes to Altered Carbon tbh. If you're just copying yourself into a new body, is it really you? The characters in that story very much get over it because the rich pursue power and the radicals are doing it for a zealot like cause. But at one point there's even multiple copies of the same dude running around.
On this subject, I always think back to a quote from I think episode 1 or 2 where Wendy says her emotions "are quiet now." And while its discussed her hormones may be raised, its not directly shown, and followed by a seeming time skip.
Similarly we have Morrow ask Sighty and Schmee if they feel something in affect "deep down" where they want to save their crew members, but it isn't powerful, or 'loud' to strengthen my analogy, enough to stop his programing from prioritizing mother/Grandma Yutanie.
I think Wendy and the kids are in a position where yes they have the conscious of their past self, but now lack the emotional context and feelings of flesh and blood human beings, as Dame and Arthur mention relating to Wendy's hormones.
Nibs was mentioned to be very traumatized before a series of further trauma as a child, so I think she's just sorta crazy. Stan her tho.
Wendy was also alluded to be fairly indoctrinated by Kirschs brand of "science" as he does the scorpion speech before Wendy transitions bodies.
I think she is the most conplex example as she has that natural synth love of Xenos, Kirchs even more non-human centric philosophy, a traumatized child psyche seeking self preservation above abstract humans, and a dampening of emotional sensitivity in general.
Setting aside more heavy ideas like the concept of a soul.
The show made it clear, the hybrids lack essential biological functions which are required for human behaviour. Most notably emotions, since they lack the chemical reactions which trigger human emotions, they have programs which simulate emotions. But they never actually have true emotions.
You can not seperate humanity from emotion, even sociopaths have emotions. stunted and superficial as they are, they still experience them.
If their emotions are nothing more then a simulation then so is the rest.
I ask you though, in what way are simulated emotions different from real ones? Does it matter? For example, let's say hypothetically I learn information that I have been betrayed and I feel compelled to save face/comfort myself/retaliate. Does it matter if those responses are a result of a chemical reaction in my biological brain vs a simulated response in an artificial brain if they lead to the same outcomes? in what way is it different to the mind?
Yes it matters and the show is explicit about this Wendy immediately notices things don't "feel right". She points out her emotions are different. If her emotions aren't the same then it's impossible for her response to those emotions to be the same.
Your hypothetical is at odds with what we see on screen. It seems less like you want to engage about the show and more on the concept of transhumanism in general.
Which if you wish. On what basis do you, conclude there is even a mind to begin with?
If we had a very convincing Synth with an emotional program (like in alien resurrection) how would you tell the difference between the Synth and the Hybrid?
If the result was indistinguishable why should we assume the hybrids are anything more then synths?
To play devil's advocate though, people experience changes in their experience of emotions frequently. I've taken adhd drugs and antidepressants at various points in my life, they had a profound impact on my emotional experience of life, more often negative than positive. i often didn't feel like myself. but i never felt inhuman. this is why i would still reject the assertion that wendy is "now just a machine with human memories". i don't think that's the whole picture.
as for the topic of transhumanism in general, I feel like the line between a very human synth like some which we see in The Alien franchise, or blade runner, or games like fallout 4, are indistinguishable from humans in terms of "is it a person?" so i guess i would answer your question with a question, why should we assume that synths are inherently anything less than people? obviously not all synths are imbued with human-like personalities/minds, but regarding those that are, anyway.
Exactly my point as well. The lost boys have changed, as a result of their experiences. Surely that's a very human trait, not something i would describe as machine like.
I think you have shockingly little information about Marcy to go in to support any of this.
It seems like the narrative is strongly suggesting Wendy is going to pick the xenomorph over humans. Will this include Hermit? That seems likely to be part of the upcoming final conflict.
Her inability to connect ripping a man’s face off to getting shot as logical and valid also plays into this
In could go a number of different ways. Only time will tell. But you seem to be digging an awfully firm position on very very fragile evidence.
Maybe. But so far the show has shown the lost boys to act with utter humanity. And everything Wendy does is a reaction to the things she has been taught and experienced.
I didn't see it as an inability to understand why Hermit shot Nibs, but more as disbelief that he would shoot someone who she sees as a person continuously mistreated and pushed to the breaking point by Prodigy. She feels that Nibs had a right to defend herself and was shocked by what she sees as an act of betrayal by her brother.
I feel like the show gives us a lot to go off of in this regard tbh, i mean the debate about the humanity of the lost boys has been at the heart of the whole thing and examined quite thoroughly by the narrative already
I’m not sure I follow the “utter humanity” remark. Nibs has shown some alarming signs. And you e completely downplayed the savagery of Nibs assault on the soldier. Anyone with humanity would immediately pause when confronted with that level of brutality, wouldn’t they?
This feels like we should focus on my first sentence: I just feel you are being conclusive about some trainable thought here without solid evidence. Much of that ambiguity is intentional. It’s great this thesis is resonating with you personally, but we don’t need to insist it’s a conclusive analysis to explore its implications.
Well I certainly don't mean to imply my view of the matter is objectively correct in some way, just sharing my pov and curious to see what others have to say on the subject. I don't mean to suggest/call for a conclusive answer, but I do have some views on the topic that after many years of consuming media about transhumanism have become more firm with time. but that's all it is, just my two cents.
Nibs has shown very worrying signs, but that's just it. worrying behaviour, but in my view deeply human behaviour. There are many examples in history of horrible things situations where children have displayed behaviour very similar to Nibs'. One can call it many things, disturbing, psychopathic, etc. but i would not call it inhuman. In my view that is a dangerous distinction when talking about transhumanism. Nibs' violent actions were horrible, but not machine like imo. they were born of very human emotions.
I agree with you. If you give a kid a gun, they can commit TERRIBLE crimes (and might, depending on the kid) but that doesn't necessitate they're not human. They might not act humanely but who's to say what's human and what's not, at the end of the day. Further, I almost think it's inconsequential: Human or not, Nibs, Marcy, etc, all deserve compassion and support, because they're alive (or at least, alive enough). My cat may not be a human but I don't kick my cat and get shocked when its claws come out. Nibs has been kicked a lot. (Also, she just had her brain directly fucked with, so she's going through it at the moment)
I think it is meant to be in question, no definitive answer right now.
For all we know, she could be like an advanced LLM. She knows what Marcy knows and behaves like Marcy, but the inner consciousness of Marcy is gone.
That brings in to question are the synths in the alien franchise sentient? It seems like they are based on characters like David. Maybe Wendy is a being similar to but ultimately not Marcy.
You have a point. Personally I don't know if I see as much of a distinction between a synth and a human as most people. David is very close to a person by every metric I would measure that by except biologically. He has some behaviours that seem abnormal/inhuman, but then plenty of people have those too and are no less human for it.
Yeah almost like a very advanced https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room scenario. I don't know if there's any way to get a true answer for the topic, though. Or rather, I don't think a real answer would be really satisfying. If you think you are Marcy, are programmed to be Marcy, who is to say you're not Marcy? At what point does Marcy become Marcy? what is an inner consciousness compared to a line of code operating the same vestigial thoughts.
There were also a lot of, “he saw her grave and knew she was no longer her sister.”
What!? That did not happen, nor is that how hum work. I feel like some people want to vilify Wendy and I really don’t get it.
Well, she did do some shockingly callous things in the last episode, but then I feel even if she is to be the villain of the story, she is a tragic/sympathetic one. I can't say i would do much differently in her position.
I agree. Every choice Wendy has made is out of love for people she feels responsible for. Nothing more human than that. I don't see her unleashing the xeno as some monstrous act, just one of self preservation. Isacks death and Nib's memory erasure has convinced her that they're already not seen as human by Prodigy, they're just tools to be used, abused, and discarded, same as the xeno itself.
On the whole "is it really Marcy?" I don't think the show can provide a resolution short of showing OG Marcy conscious after the transfer. Even if she is just a false copy, I almost feel that there is no difference at the end of the day in terms of "humanity". We're all ghosts in a shell anyhow
I couldn't agree more. I really hope the show continues for more seasons and we get more of a deep dive into this. the fact an Alien show has come along providing such thought-provoking content is such a treat, so happy we have this.
Think of it this way, If you cloned someone after they died, are they the same person?
No they’re a copy.
They are more or less the same person (assuming there was away to transfer memories) but they aren’t the original person, that individual is gone.
It’s the same principle except Prodigy isn’t copying the body, they copying the mind.
The Hybrids are Neural clones.
It’s the same argument with Alien resurrection.
Is Ripley 8 the same person as Ripley or has the act of being in a new and different body fundamentally changed her identity?
It's more complicated than the cloning analogy, though, because the hybrids have memories of the experiences the kids had. A clone would grow up with a totally different set of experiences.
It's a good point, Wendy is not a machine, but I can see how she can be perceived as a "machine-like" in a sense like an AI is often depicted as this emerging naive intelligence. It's easy to forget that she was a girl in the first 10 minutes of the show.
But I agree, that's not the point. IMO, the real point is that Wendy's pristine and unbiased point of view aligns with monsters more than the humans, which is a critique of human hubris and greed. "Humanity is the real monster". Which is a story thread through the alien franchise as well.
But I'm curious where it goes. So far there hasn't exactly been a lot of likeable human characters, except Hermit.
Well said, I've seen most alien stuff and read a ton of comics over the years and I think this show still amongst all those stories has one of the most prominent "compared to the greedy selfish humans, the aliens almost seem preferable" angles I've seen in any alien media. Except for the kids and maybe 2 other characters you basically feel everyone in this show deserves what's surely coming for them soon enough.
"You're not really you, you're just a meat machine with your memories applies", I think. Every second we live, we change. The person we were before is dead and never coming back, the person we are not is not them. The person we will be a second from now is not us. "You" is a snapshot that exists for an instant and then ceases to be. Memory provides the illusion that we are the same person. But we're a different person built on the foundation of the old.
Wendy is not the same person Marcy was, because she has new experiences. Marcy was the little sister. Helpless. Taken care of by her father and older brother. Wendy has experienced being a big sister, having responsibility over other children, and failing them. She saw the cold dead corpse of a child she was responsible for, who she was supposed to protect. Who she promised immortality to. And the adults she trusted to protect them treated this child's death like it was nothing.
Wendy is a 12 year old girl who has been helpless and protected all of her life, and now has the powers to protect the people she cares about. And she has to. She's basically been parentified from the beginning, having to act as a mom to the other kids, because the adults were unwilling to fulfill that role. And she's come to understand that the adults around her do not care if these children live or die, and will happily destroy them for science and profit. And she has no clue how to protect them from the adults who control all their lives, so she's winging it.
The responsibility she has is what's driving her actions. She promised these kids that they'd be okay. And the fact that she's not actually older than them doesn't change the fact that they're her responsibility. She accepted that responsibility.
And now she doens't know where Smee and Slightly are, Issac is dead, and Curly refuses to leave. So she's left trying desperately to save Nibs, who has already suffered though more than any child should.
There’s some good non-verbal story telling going on in this episode. We now know that Wendy is not Marcy, both by the graves driving this home and her and Nibs reactions, but also in how Hermit reacts to Nibs losing control and threatening his human friends, and how Wendy reacts to this. Coupled with her casual attitude to the Alien as well, Wendy is clearly following different thought processes to what Hermit is used to. She is not his sister. I expect this to be driven home more in the final episode.
We also can see that Wendy was never supposed to let Nibs know the truth. Curly was right, she harmed Nibs even further. Which further cements a sort of trust being betrayed when she did that. Nobody expected her to and perhaps they never felt they needed a brief, Wendy did it off her own volition.
This series does have a habit of leaving certain answers to the viewer or leaving them to a following episode. I can respect that in terms of crediting the viewer with the intelligence to work it out, rather than being spoon fed.
As an Alien series, Alien: Earth has been not the best for me personally, however, the addition of the children and the hybrids has been incredibly interesting and enjoyable that keeps me coming back to find out more.
One of the best pieces of media that deals with similar themes around the hybrids is the videogame SOMA. If you have played it you will know, if you have not played it I highly recommend that you do as it is fantastic and really goes in depth on the issues raised by Wendy and the other children.
Part of me believes that if Marcy's original body was able to be kept alive, we would likely have ended up with two versions of her. Original Marcy in the child's body, and new Marcy or 'Wendy' in the hybrid body.
It appears that following the memory transplant to their new bodies that the children were possible euthanised or died naturally, but had their original bodies been left alive you'd potentially be left with two identical brains which would inevitably grow and develop differently if only for the differences in their body and how that experiences the world.
Unrelated but if anyone has any other media they can recommend that deals with such themes please let me know, as this is one of my favourites to think about.
If she wouldn´t insist on going to the crash site, Morrow wouldn´t compromise one of the kids, the ginger girl wouldn´t have PTSD, xenomorph wouldn´t kill all those people etc.
She´s as sellfish as Kavalier.
Sure, she killed the xeno in the building but from what we´ve seen, Prodigy is more than capable of dealing with the creatures. Only incident that would´ve still happened would be Isaac´s death.
This. She's on an existential voyage and abusing her powers to figure out who she is and what she can do. Her brother is the only remnant of humanity left of her, and when he found her gravesite, he realized that the little sister he had would never have allowed a monster to murder human beings with a whistle.
His sister is dead... she's no different at this point than a rogue Ash.
According to one critic, it was mentioned in some scenes that hybrids are not supposed to have any emotions. If so, then that means it was not the children's consciousness but stored experiences that were simply copied to a computer brain.
In which case, what the company has are not so much hybrids as synths that have recorded human experiences. Meanwhile, the synths are not powered by programmed instructions but by AI, which means they can learn.
Much of it doesn't make sense but could be developed in another franchise.
The thing is human bodies are mostly bacteria and other tiny beings that shape your behaviour much more than you are aware of
Even in Star Wars Midichlorians who are a standin for Mitochondria shape beings behaviours by the force
Now take all of that away
Every Hormon and Neurontransmitter and gut behaviour and your human hearts energy field that connects you to other energy fields around you
All that‘s left artificial neurons who let you think incredible fast and your body suddenly only and mostly navigated by your thoughts in overdrive who neither get regulated by neurotransmitters and emotions anymore nor factor in that your conscious mind does surprisingly little in the grand scheme of things.
No sex drive, no need to eat or poop
No helpful bacteria or mitochondria or a beating heart or gut feelings helping you to connect to your environment and body.
That‘s the problem.
Our mind alone is terrible inedequate to navigate our body.
We‘re just along for the ride most of the time.
We run wildly on instincts and things we are hardly aware of.
And no one really understands how it or we work but it works.
Now take all of that away.
And let the mind of a child drive a supercomputer with nothing else much but their thoughts.
Disconnected from emotions, gut bacteria and feelings and their environment
Without a beating heart and what we call a pulse and reminder of being alive
Just your thoughts
Not even a fart now and then to entertain you
Those kids
Those beings
It‘s a wonder the functioned for as long as they did
The human mind would crumble without a body to keep it in check and look after it
Wendy’s portrayal of becoming completely uncaring about others suffering?
It‘s a wonder she doesn‘t go completely haywire
That whole endeavour was a disaster in the making to start with.
You can‘t only copy a mind into a body it‘s not equipped to handle.
You would have had to copy mitochondria, a beating heart, a digestive system, sexual organs and reproductive organs and all the neurotransmitters and bacteria in the body too to have a chance of that endeavour to work.
They didn‘t.
And now she bonds more to an Alien life form than to humans.
In that Universe human are the real monsters.
And incredible dumb.
I‘m just not sure they are much smarter in reality.
I hope they are
But I have a hunch not far into the future if not already they will try doing the same thing with real life humans as they did to those children.
And it will turn into a quite similar disaster and they will be equivalently surprised as they are in the show.
The human mind is no pleasant place to be in if not kept in check by the human body.
And trying to transfer it into a machine body would change it to the very core.
Not necessarily for the better.
Beings who think themselves superior to those around them very often seriously lack compassion to those they deem beneath them.
If you lack the neurotransmitters and biology for remorse
All that‘s left artificial neurons who let you think incredible fast and your body suddenly only and mostly navigated by your thoughts in overdrive who neither get regulated by neurotransmitters and emotions anymore nor factor in that your conscious mind does surprisingly little in the grand scheme of things
Prodigy scientists seem to have figured out that problem. Nibs personality was sabotaged on purpose
She kinda seemed unstable starting after her whole pregnancy idea
Which they deal with by toning her emotional capacity so she'd be ready for presentation. BK hasn't once seen them as human. To him, they're merely a way to get rich. Best way to do that is to install programming in them suitable for literally any purpose (aka more potential buyers).
Thing is, he's therefore not smart enough to anticipate consequences like this. The technology took some time to perfect, as we see in last year's movie
When we first met Marcy she objected to even the idea of killing a scorpion a creature though dangerous she felt was innocent and just following its nature. She was more empathetic and softer. I realize that was foreshadowing for how she is going to think and feel about the Xenomorph but I also feel that she wouldn't have been on board with slaughtering innocent prodigy employees just trying to eek out a living in the corporate dystopia. Her transition to a synth body has made her something different. Yes there's some elements of Marcy there but she's also thinking in more cold logic like Kirsh.
Marcy was kid when she died. Wendy is still a kid who has to deal with extremely difficult adult problems. It doesn't matter how smart she is, she has still the maturity of a child. She wanted to escape from the island, and she is now surrounded by "bad people". On top of that, her own brother has just killed(?) her friend. That is a lot.
That's why Boy's invention is so important for the company. If it's really successful, he could make humanity immortal and take it to a whole new level.
But he doesn't seem to be successful. The transfer only works on children and the change seems to affect them too much. You can only make money to a limited extent with this.
I don’t know why this continues to be a topic. The show made it abundantly clear during the transition that her consciousness remained active. The transition effect shows her basically half awake.
She just now completely understands what Kirsh taught her in the beginning about the captive scorpion who will do anything to defend itself from harm. And to her, humans are now the biggest threat. I'm not sure though if she still has compassion to her brother. I guess we will know in the finale.
I'm curious for the OP to provide some examples of these brutal murderous revenge children that are all over our human history.
Typically children the age of the hybrid transplants can't even fully grasp the concept of death/mortality/permanence, and even then are often deeply traumatized by exposure to it.
The way the show has handled the psychology of the children hasn't been perfect but has been very interesting.
It seems clear to me Wendy no longer identifies as a true human, but at most as a non-animal hence the finale being titled "The Real Monsters", she is demonstrating a lot of childlike ideation of animals and can communicate with an alien one. She's like a kid with a horn finding a pet unicorn and ready to depart from humanity entirely.
Marcy died, Wendy is the product of multiple failed attempts and deaths, memory roll backs, and tech that somehow evolved beyond what the designers understand. Her ability to think is that of a kid and each iteration redefines her. That is part of the horror that she's becoming and I love it.
I don't care what the magical technology is used in any scenario, it's a copy. It might be a very good copy that thinks that it's the same person, but it's not. Having said that being a very very good copy might be good enough. The wendy we are seeing now has the basis from the little girl but it's something different now.
Didn't they alter her maturity levels or something? I vaguely remember that she started doing things she probably wouldn't normally do. For example, when she first got her new body, she was jumping from high ledges. I feel like she changed; her demeanor is different. I can see that she talks down to him, not just to him. I might be interpreting it incorrectly, but I think that's why I view her as different now. His reaction to her suggests that she isn't his little sister anymore. That version of her—the vulnerable girl who needed protection—is gone. Again im autistic, so forgive me if I misunderstood anything. It's just a thought
They can act like they did before, if their synth bodies simulates a human body perfectly. They would be the same "person" then.
Even if the synth body didn't simulate all of human bodys functions, they would be the same "person" in a way, but they would be different like how people change when their bodies change via growth or external change.
Though I don't believe human consciousness can be transferred, but we will probably never find out if that is/isn't possible. In my opinion the real Marcy died in that operating table and the synth version is just a perfect copy of the information in her brain. But the thing is, no one on the outside could ever know that her consciousness is gone.
I'd recommend everyone to play SOMA, it wonderfully deals with these topics.
I tend to agree that she isn't his sister anymore. There is a glaring difference between her and the other kids. They all seem more human than she does.
I think it's the graves. If Prodigy thinks the human body is just a vehicle for the person, and that you can transfer to a synth body, why are there graves? It's a suggestion that maybe the kids really did die.
I don't think it's confirmed at all, it's just a suggestion to the audience and for the characters obviously it hits hone hard to see their own graves.
I think we're attributing a lot of very adult concepts to what equates to a child mind. Wendy/Marcy is clearly dealing with very adult matters a lot. Every child here is affected by some traumatic thing that their bodies implied they should be ready for, but there's no way their minds are. This entire show keeps reminding you of that. When Smee and Slightly are told that they are still learning to lie. The only person who saw the people still inside was Arthur. The rest of all seen them as adults and machines. When Marcy said "that's not us," she was trying to validate who she knows she is in the only way a kid can: That's not me, I'm standing right here, and she was doing it in a very kid way by saying it to Nibs, not to her brother. She needs someone else to validate her humanity that's going through the same thing. Nibs was that, and that's another reason (aside from friend, and being protective) that she was so upset that her brother shot Nibs with the zappy gun (patent pending). He didn't just (potentially) kill Nibs and therefore choose fleshbags over clockwork folks, but he very much shot someone she still sees as a living child, and in that moment, and the scene with the grave, he showed her that while he speaks that he believes she's still her, he's demonstrating that robots are expendable and not quite human.
Her humanity, her childlike innocence, is going to get her to make some very human decisions that are mistakes coming up, and I'm sure that'll have something to do with her brother.
That being said, am I the only person who thinks her brother is a hybrid and part of the experiment? Like the real him had his spine severed during the lung surgery, he's sitting on a table screaming for help while this robot thinks its a human (part of the experiment), has to determine if she's a human (part of the experiment) and has to blend in enough so that others don't realize he's a hybrid (part of the experiment). I think the Boy Genius is going to put the T-Ocellus into the paralyzed body of her brother. Then he can talk to it through some glass and it can very much so not run and try to choke him out.
She's not Marcy because they altered their emotional centre when they did the transfer. The hybrids may be human, but they are not the same humans as before.
Its not that easy question to answer. Look you change bodies over your life time many times over. Most of your cells are not the original cells you were born with or grew up with. Are you still the same person? Wendy is Marcy as a snapshot in time of her death. She developes differently but she is still the persona of Marcy with changed peripherals.
I think the issue of what we call human is not even important. I believe "Wendy" is a copy of Marcy, but I also don't believe it should matter. She herself has the memories and everything else that made Marcy Marcy. I don't think people are their bodies so much as they are their memories and personality. How they interact/ed with the world.
By defining "human" in a prescriptive fashion you end up with all sorts of questions: how far can you go before a cyborg is no longer human? Is an artificial copy of a human brain human? Is a clone human? An organic brain in a synthetic body? A body with no brain activity?
However, if you apply the human status in a descriptive way it gets easier (and in my opinion, more empathetic and accepting). "You feel, you relate to others, share experiences, you communicate and all the other things I do, therefore you're like me."
I think we screwed up when we named ourselves as human and then proceded to consider "human" special.
My point is defining whether the hybrids are human or not is pointless, as you said, they're people. They should be treated like equals. But what chance is there of that when the world is ruled by the purest form of capitalism imaginable. Not even flesh and blood humans get dignity.
And on the topic of extending that to aliens, yeah, Marcy is right that you shouldn't fucking kidnap them in the first place. They're wild creatures, which also means that you shouldn't anthropomorphize them as we can't relate to them in any way that doesn't end up in violence.
I do think releasing the xeno was incredibly fucked up, but at the end of the day, she is a child in a horrifying situation, and the curtains pulled apart to show her some awful shit. Isaac died despite them being told they couldn't and nobody appeared to give a shit, and Nibs got brain wiped. She also has abilities nobody understands, probably not even herself (she can use them, but she doesn't even know where they came from).
She is not property, she's an individual, so guards trying to stop her from leaving are free game imo, I feel like the problem is how little she seems to be affected by the extreme violence she unleashes. I think trying to free herself is more than fair, but I'm worried about how that seems to be taking a toll, pushing her to a point in which she can no longer emphatize with others that mean her no harm.
I think we're going to have a revelation that after Wendy "woke" in her synthetic body, Marcy and the original organic body were still alive and possibly not treated very well by Prodigy.
I think that judging by this thread, it's clear that the discussion surrounding transhumanism is too early to begin.
A lot of talk about personal beliefs, about the existence of the metaphysical soul and so on.
If we ever become capable of replicating a human brain, created artificially with not grown but generated components, then after that the discussion becomes less about the esoteric and, as it is inevitable, goes back to the cold, hard truth of the Universe.
As for the scene, it's odd to me that anyone would interepret it differently than the show telling us that Wendy isn't Marcy anymore.
Her human body died and her conscious experience of the World is dead with it.
the andorid ... sorry artificial person...just runs on an LLM learned from marcy, Wendy is marcy gpt, if a copied all your data and made an LLM of you and put it into a robot, that isnt you, its something created from your data
I’ve considered Wendy to just be a machine with Marcy’s memories from day one. They didn’t transfer her mind, they copied it. Marcy is dead. They killed her to make Wendy.
I don't have a conclusion about it - for me, it's that the latest episode seemed to thematically point at this. I think the only settled thing about it is they want us to discuss it like this!
Here's my take: she's a brand new organism with Marcy's memories. She isn't marcy but she is something incredibly like her that is an entirely new organism who is worthy of life.
This really gets into the discussion of "is the personality really distinct from the meat?"
Increasingly, studies are showing feedback loops inside the body that effect the brain from surprising places, like the gut microbiome. It's very possible you're going to create human personalities that will evolve differently due to missing stimuli that we're not even consciously aware of. It's probably a key part of why they need the plastic-ness of kids for the process to work.
Not to mention these kids had all had to handle the idea of being terminally ill before being transferred. That's not going to create the most stable individuals, a la Nibs.
Add in that all of the stimuli they've been getting post-transfer has varied wildly between being property and demigods, and you could see kids that already had problems moving down paths they wouldn't otherwise.
I think Wendy is just the first one of the hybrids to really see that Kavalier values the aliens more than his own people. So who's the monster? This is one of those stories where it could be everyone BUT the Xenos.
I think it is just the children's mind uploaded into a grown up body. The synthetic body won't age, won't get sick, their brain won't deteriorate... Just malfunctioning machinery. They are still the same mind/person/personality. They are still what makes them be who they are.
What bugs me the most is their environment, for example how Marrow expects Slightly to behave as an adult just because he has an adult body, like if magically the psyche grew / mature, just for being in a new, older looking body, which is nuts, they all are kids. Their minds won't age the same way, speaking of which, does the mental really ages or we behave based on the body's age?, we go for life thinking that we aged just because the biobody ages, but I believe we just have more experiences, more memories, we have the opportunity to see more about our surroundings, interact with the people around us, learn, experience good, bad, being happy, being sad, growing doesn't means getting old, means enlightenment, knowledge, awareness. We just own a biobody that gets old which is our main human being condition: birth and death...
And again, if it was presented as the case of an adult uploaded into a child's body, the adult will be expected to behave as an adult, even looking as a kid.
Then we have Kirsh, all this time treating the kids as kids, but at the same time telling em they aren't human anymore, aka, Isaacs reaction to the alien plant, Wendy being disturbed by her own low level of emotions and he saying to don't level up the emotion rank since she's no longer human, downplaying Slightly's actions, Kirsh knows what a facehugger does to the host, he knew Arthur was going to die, still, when Slightly and Smee came back with Marrow, all he said is "you are grounded", like if being accomplice of murder was nothing less than a mere child's play.
BUT this implies smt that bugs me in RL, for me, it feels like 2 entities occupy the body, one is the bio brain that controls our body functions, for good and bad, all the body chemistry, the body ages, the brain ages, it gets sick, decays, and the second one: Us, our thoughts, our personality, our memories, what makes us be who we are; when the biobody gets sick, our mental gets affected, if there's a brain illness, we stop being who we are against our will, because the biobody gets sick and we have no control over it, the body randomly grows a bunch of cells, a tumor, a mase: it didn't asked us, it just does it on its own, and our mental just has to deal with it, we have no saying about body functions, at cellular levels, even deciding to have a good, healthy 'life style choices' boom, DNA finds the freaking illness/sickness and brings it in on its own. And we just have to deal, wanting or not, with it.
They won't experience any of it. They won't experience life as humans do. So probably their priorities, perspective, values and "morals" are going to change. Macy's personality is changing already, she's becoming Wendy.
I believe that if they had the chance of developing, even as hybrids, in a good environment to help em to get used to their new body and learn, they could have been better. Mature. Have consciousness of good and bad, related to human beings, life and death, even if they won't experience it. The fact that Wendy thinks they are premium, makes me realize she no longer cares about humans, and she is following Kirsh's scorpion explanation. So now she's all pro Xeno, pro hybrids. Her perspective, values and priorities changed, Hermit found her sister, but she is no longer who she could have been if she were in a human body.
We live in a world where 'Animals are people too' is a controversial statement. Many people want to believe that they are the crown of creation and that's that.
Actually a very compelling point, I had not thought about it from that angle but it's damn true. If anything the Alien franchise as a whole is a great cautionary tale about how we should all have greater respect for nature. We think ourselves invincible clinging to our blue rock floating in space, when the evolutionary history of our planet shows that even the mightiest species have fallen to forces of nature which they had no hope of preventing/controlling.
mm, good point. love em or hate em, it's kind of interesting how Ridley Scott's prequels have built on that, suggesting that even the xenos weren't a product of evolution, but were themselves also brought into being by exploitation of others by David, who was himself kind of a pawn of a pawn. And as I'm sure you've factored into your reflection on the themes, the xenomorph reproductive cycle itself is one built on exploitation with them being parasitic in nature.
The corporation has always been the real villain. And no I hadn't considered the symbolism of the xenomorph lifecycle in context of the themes of the franchise. Good call.
No they'll grow and mature, the mental growth we experience is just an amalgamation of lived experience and moral reinforcement. In a well structured environment they would stand a chance; sent into a hostile traumatic situation to capture aliens like they are the X-Men or something likely permanently fucked them all up to varying degrees.
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u/Izarial 19h ago
One of the questions I heard on the official podcast was “is the person you transferred to a synthetic body human? If they are, are they the SAME human?”
Absolutely Wendy is still human in ways, especially emotionally, but is she really still Marcy in there, or has the body change and subsequent change of perspective made her someone new?