Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

And that absolves the billionaire of faking her death and by extension the deaths of the other children purely for selfish reasons?

He's not doing it to help anyone, he's doing it so he can have a fun conversation.

Depends if the Dad knew about and consented to the overall plan.

The dad consenting doesn't not make it a bad thing to do my dude.

If anything it makes it worse by exploiting a grieving and emotionally vulnerable parent.

There is literally 0 chance the billionaire genius isn't a villain here.

A sincere offer to save your young daughter’s life from a spectacularly cruel illness.

From a man with self stated ulterior motives based on purely personal reasons.

The boy-genius isn't doing this to help those suffering from life threatening illness, he's doing it to make someone who he can have an "intellectual" conversation with.

Then he tells the family "sorry I couldn't help your child, they died here's a funeral".

Thinking I might’ve missed something. But do we know he told the families the kids had died?

The brother says he went to Wendy's funeral.

Ahhh! Missed that entirely.

Forget everything I just said!

When she’s talking to her brother she implies that her father knew she was “alive”, but the deal was that he had to keep it secret, so the funeral was for show. Well, maybe, they may well have had the body to bury after she’d uploaded.

I'm not sure what's at stake precisely in debating whether Boy Kavalier is a bad person or exactly how bad a person he is, but I think there's a lot of potential badness for the series to explore in the very nature of the "transfer" of human consciousness and the ultimate fate of the children.

I'm not generally a believer in "transferring" or "downloading" human consciousness, because it seems to me that such "soul transference" is basically mystical bs. What people are really describing when they talk about such things isn't transferring the original consciousness, but mapping it and replicating it in a computer, leaving the original consciousness exactly where it was in the first place - in a dying human body. The original person still expires, and only their tech duplicate remains. In that framework, Marcy would still be dead. And if the process of copying her consciousness into a robot body destroys her original consciousness, that's not "transference" either in my book, it's murder. True transference would be not just philosophical but literal - moving the original consciousness out of one body and into another one just like you or me getting out of an old car and into a new one, with no original you or me left behind to die in the old car, or destroyed and replicated by the act of getting into a new one.

Put another way, if Mad Doc Grotsnik's consciousness was "downloaded" onto a computer to continue after Grotsnik dies, you wouldn't have "the (original) Grotsnik" surviving, but either a false duplicate or "a Grotsnik." You can argue that if the technology truly replicates perfectly that the downloaded Grotsnik still philosophically and even legally should count as "a" real Grotsnik, but unless actual transference somehow occurs, "the" original human Grotsnik still ultimately dies.

I can go with "suspend my disbelief" for the series and imagine that somehow Boy Kavalier's magical Peter Pan technology actually does transfer, rather than just (destroy and?) replicate human consciousness. But what we don't know at this point is whether that particular rug will get pulled out from under us later, and that the series itself will throw emotional identity sturm und drang at us by revealing that the original Marcy's consciousness actually did die, further complicating Wendy hybrid's claim to being the original, to being human, and her relationship with her brother.

The series might content itself with just showing the psychological difficulties / problems of putting child minds in adult, super-powerful bodies, and that's pretty interesting and entertaining. But it could also ultimately reveal that the "transfer" was never as real, effective, or permanent as it seemed, and that the hybrids will have technically-originating dysfunctional flaws that become highly problematic, or even monstrous. Or maybe they are physically built to last forever, but it turns out that their seemingly intact original identities aren't stable and won't last a year.

I'm willing to suspend my disbelief to go along with magical Peter Pan transference as it is presented so far, but I don't know if I should yet, because it could be another problematic dystopian plate spinning in the air, waiting to fall.

Put another way, if Mad Doc Grotsnik's consciousness was "downloaded" onto a computer to continue after Grotsnik dies, you wouldn't have "the (original) Grotsnik" surviving, but either a false duplicate or "a Grotsnik." You can argue that if the technology truly replicates perfectly that the downloaded Grotsnik still philosophically and even legally should count as "a" real Grotsnik, but unless actual transference somehow occurs, "the" original human Grotsnik still ultimately dies.

You’d have a very silly computer on your hands. Every key stroke, a fart noise. And when you try to play it like a synth, all the noises being randomly reassigned.

Random childish insults added to every outgoing email.

That sort of thing.

But here? It does seem to be a full consciousness transfer.

Of course. They’ve not actually shown the full process yet. Instead we get a rather cleverly shot/edited montage of the other kids being in position and then being in their new bodies. I don’t think we explicitly see the original body actually pass away. Unconscious for Wendy, certainly. But not necessarily dead. And if they are dead? We don’t for certain know it was the transfer wot done it, leaving an empty shell. It could be a duplication, followed by a lethal injection type thing.

 Talking Banana wrote:
I'm not sure what's at stake precisely in debating whether Boy Kavalier is a bad person or exactly how bad a person he is, but I think there's a lot of potential badness for the series to explore in the very nature of the "transfer" of human consciousness and the ultimate fate of the children.

I'm not generally a believer in "transferring" or "downloading" human consciousness, because it seems to me that such "soul transference" is basically mystical bs. What people are really describing when they talk about such things isn't transferring the original consciousness, but mapping it and replicating it in a computer, leaving the original consciousness exactly where it was in the first place - in a dying human body. The original person still expires, and only their tech duplicate remains. In that framework, Marcy would still be dead. And if the process of copying her consciousness into a robot body destroys her original consciousness, that's not "transference" either in my book, it's murder. True transference would be not just philosophical but literal - moving the original consciousness out of one body and into another one just like you or me getting out of an old car and into a new one, with no original you or me left behind to die in the old car, or destroyed and replicated by the act of getting into a new one.

Put another way, if Mad Doc Grotsnik's consciousness was "downloaded" onto a computer to continue after Grotsnik dies, you wouldn't have "the (original) Grotsnik" surviving, but either a false duplicate or "a Grotsnik." You can argue that if the technology truly replicates perfectly that the downloaded Grotsnik still philosophically and even legally should count as "a" real Grotsnik, but unless actual transference somehow occurs, "the" original human Grotsnik still ultimately dies.

I can go with "suspend my disbelief" for the series and imagine that somehow Boy Kavalier's magical Peter Pan technology actually does transfer, rather than just (destroy and?) replicate human consciousness. But what we don't know at this point is whether that particular rug will get pulled out from under us later, and that the series itself will throw emotional identity sturm und drang at us by revealing that the original Marcy's consciousness actually did die, further complicating Wendy hybrid's claim to being the original, to being human, and her relationship with her brother.

The series might content itself with just showing the psychological difficulties / problems of putting child minds in adult, super-powerful bodies, and that's pretty interesting and entertaining. But it could also ultimately reveal that the "transfer" was never as real, effective, or permanent as it seemed, and that the hybrids will have technically-originating dysfunctional flaws that become highly problematic, or even monstrous. Or maybe they are physically built to last forever, but it turns out that their seemingly intact original identities aren't stable and won't last a year.

I'm willing to suspend my disbelief to go along with magical Peter Pan transference as it is presented so far, but I don't know if I should yet, because it could be another problematic dystopian plate spinning in the air, waiting to fall.

The computer game SOMA touches on this topic exquisitely. I strongly recommend playing it to the end, just to see what happens.. Lost sleep that night, myself.

Indeed, a potentially failing "transference" is creepy AF. All that is left is a dumb simulation of a person who used to exist, and some of them cant cope with the fact they've died.. All you can do is reset the simulation over and over again, and hope that the psyche of the simulation somehow doesnt implode this time around...

Speaking of whether the transference of Wendy was a successful one or not, we will never know.. at least she didnt go insane. That's already a big win.

If we get serious with the theoreticals for a second, I am quite certain that consciousness, if one exists in the first place, is quantum by its nature. Therefore, in order to obtain a succeful transference would require some sort of quantum entanglement to occur between the old and new "consciousness".. and before we have actual quantum computing in the real world, it aint going to happen any time soon..

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Of course. They’ve not actually shown the full process yet. Instead we get a rather cleverly shot/edited montage of the other kids being in position and then being in their new bodies. I don’t think we explicitly see the original body actually pass away. Unconscious for Wendy, certainly. But not necessarily dead. And if they are dead? We don’t for certain know it was the transfer wot done it, leaving an empty shell. It could be a duplication, followed by a lethal injection type thing.

They did show original Marcy being zipped up in a corpse bag.

As for whether the transfer "did it," I think what would matter is how it did it. If it really transferred her consciousness, it's not murder. If it destroyed her original consciousness in the process of copying it, I'd call that murder.

But ultimately I agree with your point that we don't know for certain. I just don't know yet if I should trust that the process is as effective as it's being presented to be so far, or if horrific unintended consequences from an imperfect experimental technology will become plot points over the next 6 or so episodes. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief either way - I'm really enjoying the show so far, even if I think "transferring" / downloading consciousness is a mirage in real life (I also enjoy supernatural films whose premises I don't remotely believe in) - but this is the Alien franchise, so any number of awful things could still happent. From the very first movie, this series could have had the tagline "You can't spell Alien without A.I.," because synth-related problems have always been at the heart of the series (even if, in some movies, some synths are positively portrayed.) As for the hybrids, transference is utopian, experimental tech being used on children, and the series is already teasing us with senior characters debating whether the hybrids are truly human or synth or what have you. What could possibly go wrong?

Tauist, thanks for the thoughts and for recommending SOMA. It's been on my radar for awhile; I'll give it a whirl.

I disagree with your certainty that we'll "never know" if the transference was fully effective, though. I just don't think we know that yet. Marcy / Wendy hasn't gone insane, but we're only two episodes in. None of the hybrids have gone insane . . . yet. I don't know if that will happen to any of them, but I think it very well could in an Alien franchise series. It certainly wouldn't be out of place; future tech artificial people behaving badly has a lot of precedent in this franchise, so perhaps we will know by the end.

One way or another, though, this series is a prequel, and the Alien movies that follow don't feature cyborgs or hybrids. It looks like A.I. synths are the future, and that Wendy and the Lost Boys, and probably Boy Kavalier and Prodigy, won't survive past episode 8. (Or if any hybrids do survive, the technology to make them won't, and they'll persist in some isolated secretive fashion passing as humans or synths when the series ends.) Personally I'm betting that Boy genius gets his superbrain cored by a hungry Alien before this show is through.

 Talking Banana wrote:
I'm not generally a believer in "transferring" or "downloading" human consciousness, because it seems to me that such "soul transference" is basically mystical bs.

...

True transference would be not just philosophical but literal - moving the original consciousness out of one body and into another one just like you or me getting out of an old car and into a new one, with no original you or me left behind to die in the old car, or destroyed and replicated by the act of getting into a new one.

I cut down the quote to keep the post from exploding in size, but those are the points I want to address.

I'd argue that true transference is mystical bs as well. Conscience doesn't exist separate from the rest of the human body. Any attempt to transfer only the conscience would necessarily result in an alteration from the original. The original isn't going anywhere, ever.

At that point it's about managing perspective. What we're looking at is how to preserve the idea of transference as a move instead of a replacement, so the new individual considers itself a continuation of the old one. I doubt you get around euthanizing the original at the end of transference or before booting up the copy so the copy doesn't get the idea that it's a copy by having another one of itself around, if only for a while.

It's amazing how people get hung up on this one issue.

I remember cons of yesteryear that revilved around Trek's transporter... and if it kills you everytime you use it.

Only thing that's a given is that this struggle between "human" and "machine" WRT hybrids will continue throughout the series. It was talked about at lenght in the podcast.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
It's amazing how people get hung up on this one issue.

I remember cons of yesteryear that revilved around Trek's transporter... and if it kills you everytime you use it.

I don't know about "hung up," but I don't find it very surprising that people talk about it; it's a fascinating subject.

Here's something else I'm finding it fun to wonder about: T. Ocellus.

It’s also the sign of a decent sci-fi.

Whilst we might get an answer later in the show? For now it’s an interesting concept with moral quandaries.

Now, saving your kid’s life as it’s billed? I see nothing inherently wrong with that.

Putting a child’s mind in an adult body? Could be fine - but also genuine concerns and reservations. If, as we’ve not seen, they’re given a chance for their minds to mature in the same sort of environment we’d like all kids to grow up in? All good. But also open to Horrible Things. There it becomes a matter of motivations and protections.

And as with any medical treatment? All about Informed Consent. Ensure accurate information about the potential risks is given to the patient, or their responsible adult, and respect the resulting choice.

Cause for concern here is seemingly little attempt to put the kid’s mind in a kid’s body. Now I don’t want to rule out child sized synthetics being outlawed (there are real world equivalents we won’t go into on Dakka). But also, why are their new bodies not attempts to look like the kids grown up? They’re Synthetics. You can given them pretty much any height, build, skin tone etc. I have to assume they’re custom jobs like for the new technology. Whatever passes for their central nervous system must surely directly mimic that of a human, otherwise the occupant consciousness would have to learn how to walk, not to panic when it can’t breathe and all those other autonomic functions.

One reason? To deliberately obfuscate the “donor”.

He's definitely not a good person. Good people don't say gak like 'I just want to have an interesting conversation because you're all too stupid, so I'll experiment on some kids!'

Whether or not he's full blown evil or merely banally evil remains to be seen.

 LordofHats wrote:
He's definitely not a good person. Good people don't say gak like 'I just want to have an interesting conversation because you're all too stupid, so I'll experiment on some kids!'

Whether or not he's full blown evil or merely banally evil remains to be seen.

I don't like when they put a face on the evil corporation.

That's one of the reasons I didn't like the AvP films as they gave us Mr. Weyland in the first one and Ms. Yutani in the sequel.

I like my evil corporations to be faceless entities, like in Alien: Romulus.

As opposed to Amazon, Facebook, Tesla and that?

Are you actually an AI?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As opposed to Amazon, Facebook, Tesla and that?

Are you actually an AI?

What? Moi?

The hell was that action scene? Forget everything else, they need to research and replicate that boy’s plot armor!

Always a bit strange to see Ade Edmondson in a straight role.

I still have some hope we’ll get to see him swing a frying pan at a Xenomorph.

Acting by the Child Piloted Synthetics is fantastic. It could easily have been the wrong kind of creepy, but it’s done incredibly well. They genuinely feel like kids that just happen to have adult bodies, and not adults pretending to be kids.

But yes, there is an element of “you fell out of the tall tower, you creep”.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pleasingly novel sights and moments too.

Absolutely phenomenal stuff! Just sucks that I now have to wait a week for more.

On the mind transference thing, I generally agree with the idea that it’s a copy (and I think the issues with that are something this series might explore), but I have mused on how that would/could work in reality. I do wonder if you linked a living person to a synthetic neural net over a very extended period of time, so that they are effectively incorporating the technology into their mind, whether that could ultimately allow genuine transfer / continuation of consciousness, as when the biological bit finally switches off, it’s only a small part of the whole.

 Jadenim wrote:
On the mind transference thing, I generally agree with the idea that it’s a copy (and I think the issues with that are something this series might explore), but I have mused on how that would/could work in reality. I do wonder if you linked a living person to a synthetic neural net over a very extended period of time, so that they are effectively incorporating the technology into their mind, whether that could ultimately allow genuine transfer / continuation of consciousness, as when the biological bit finally switches off, it’s only a small part of the whole.

The lost boys acting is remarkable. I'm deeply curious about Wendy and the Aliens connection. Was she a different model of synth body? Why alter to a less capable model for the other prototypes? Is it a case of spending too long as a ghost in the machine expands the consciousness? Why must we wait a week for answers?

On that?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also…has the show joined the hallowed Andor as a show universally enjoyed by Dakkanauts?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Also…has the show joined the hallowed Andor as a show universally enjoyed by Dakkanauts?

Oh crap, you're right! I totally forgot that we're supposed to be fighting!

Sorry, folks.

Let me make amends: Alien Earth is a boring show that ruins the franchise and if you disagree, you're wrong.

Balance restored.

Rude words!

Aspersions about your proclivities!

Loud Noises

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also…has the show joined the hallowed Andor as a show universally enjoyed by Dakkanauts?

Only 3 episodes in. There is still time.

I have some issues so far, but going to wait for the full body of work because I love the showrunners work with Fargo and I've heard good things about Legion, though I never watched that one.