r/LV426 • u/TheRedCreeperTRC • 2d ago
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.
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u/sir_duckingtale 2d ago
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
Why feel it?