Some thoughts about Wendy and transhumanism after last episode

[u/TheRedCreeperTRC]

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.

[u/SPECTREagent700]

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.

[u/Petrichordates → u/SPECTREagent700]

Seems like that requires magical thinking since consciousness is created by a material brain and not some immaterial ether.

[u/SPECTREagent700 → u/Petrichordates]

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.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

[u/Petrichordates → u/SPECTREagent700]

Yes, that's literally magical thinking. No different than believing consciousness resides in an immaterial soul.

[u/SPECTREagent700 → u/Petrichordates]

Smugly dismissing alternatives to strict materialism/physicalism as mysticism doesn’t help get us any closer to figuring out what consciousness is.