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Do you think that it is wrong how we treat the Wraith in the series?

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    #91
    Originally posted by Ouroboros View Post
    In stargateverse it seems the question has been answered, clones have no soul.
    Which brings us back to the question of what a soul is supposed to be in the Stargate universe.
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      #92
      Originally posted by ciannwn View Post
      Which brings us back to the question of what a soul is supposed to be in the Stargate universe.
      Od which I'd say there remains no concrete evidence just as in our world. Just because the universe is bigger than we ever imagined doesn't mean there's no such thing as a soul. And just because Beckett has been cloned doesn't mean he doesn't have a soul (on both counts), but it doesn't mean it's the same soul.


      "Five Rounds Rapid"

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        #93
        Originally posted by Flying Officer Bennett View Post
        And just because Beckett has been cloned doesn't mean he doesn't have a soul (on both counts), but it doesn't mean it's the same soul.
        What about all the versions of people from alternate universes? Would every single Rodney, for example, have a different soul or would they all share the same one?

        The way that the word was used in 'This Moral Coil' suggests that it's something special to humans although it could just be 'information'.

        http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s4...ipts/410.shtml

        KELLER: You're all fully human. You have the same minds as your original selves, the same thoughts, the same emotions. More importantly, you have something that's always eluded us, something that kept your kind apart from the very beginning and made you special in the eyes of our creators. You would call it a soul. It is that "secret ingredient" you referred to – the key to ascension.

        WEIR: That is not something you can learn to acquire simply by studying us.

        KELLER: Why not? The human brain is just an electro-chemical machine – biologically created, but a machine nonetheless. Everything is quantifiable.


        I'm not snobbish about souls. I think Asurans should have them along with Wraith and every other life form in the universe.
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          #94
          Originally posted by ciannwn View Post
          Which brings us back to the question of what a soul is supposed to be in the Stargate universe.
          Wraith food.

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            #95
            Originally posted by Ouroboros View Post
            Wraith food.
            The Wraith from 'Condemned' wouldn't just settle for ordinary souls, though. He'd go for things like Baked Soul With Lemon Sauce, Poached Soul With Shrimp Sauce and Soul In Herbed Butter.
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              #96
              Originally posted by Ouroboros View Post
              Their species evolved to prey on humans and apparently humans alone so it was never really a matter of choice for them the way it is for vegetarian humans.
              Nah, you misunderstood me. You are right that not eating meat is an easy choice for Humans since we have so many other dietary choices, while not eating Humans is a very, very hard choice for a Wraith since it means death. My point here, however, is that I wouldn't do it. If we Humans were a carnivorous species and I had no choice but to eat flesh or die, then I would choose to live and eat flesh. However, if I absolutely had to eat the flesh of a sentient species and that sentient species were the only food I could eat or die, then I would choose death. I understand that this is an attitude that is not realistic for 99.9% of beings, and I certainly do not recriminate the Wraith for choosing to live. My point, and where we disagree very strongly, is that you fail to see that many Wraith actually enjoy torturing Humans. For many Wraith, it is a great pleasure to murder Humans and see them suffer. It is not merely an issue of feeding. The episode, "Sateda", goes to show what worthless pieces of **** the Wraith can be. Like many Human are, too. In defense of the Wraith, their sadism might come from their Human part, but that still doesen't absolve them.

              That's the reason why psychologically they can't view humans as equals and likely don't even have the same sort of concept of sentient/non sentient that humans do. That concept itself is entirely a human invention used to elevate ourselves above the animals we eat/exploit for our needs.
              Wrong. That concept is very real. There is even a test, the famous mirror test, that determines sentience. Sentience is defined as the ability of recognizing yourself as a separate entity distinguished from other objects/things/beings. Besides Humans, some other large primates like chimpanzees and gorillas have passed the mirror test, as well as dolphins and pigs. As a result of this, several countries in Europe are considering giving the large apes legal status akin to a Human child. Conversely, there is no evidence that a bee regards itself as an autonomous being. Teh same could be said for an oyster or a flower.

              I have no doubt that their society has created something similar. Something which morally places Wraith above humans the same way we place ourselves above other animals. They could even use the same sort of logic if they wanted to. Most of the "we're sentient they're not" type of reasoning for viewing humans as superior to animals centers around intelligence and societal achievements.
              The problem is that the Wraith get all their intelligence and self-conscience from their Human part. The Iratus Bug gave them their need to feed, their strengh and aggressivness. The Wraith are no more sentient than Humans; they are actually less. With the exception of queens and a small number of elite males, the average Wraith has less intelligence, individuality and self-conscience than the average Human. All a Wraith drone wants to do in life is serve his queen and feed. They don't speak, have no dreams of their own nor do they have much brain power anyway. They are the inferiors to Humans at everything except physical strengh and longevity, and even these they only get from parasitizing the Human Species. You put a Wraith who hasn't fed for some weeks to fight a Human, and the Human will kick it's ass.

              But this is all besides the point. Any philosopher will tell you that the criteria used to determine how much a living creature is capable of attaching value to things like living or dying is awareness. A Human suffers more from the idea of dying than an animal because a Human is more aware than an animal, and the animal suffers more from the idea of dying than a plant because it's more aware. An animal can feel death approaching and will release epinephrine as a response, and will try to flee: it reacts more than a plant. A Human reacts even more, asking questions about thje Nature of existence, the meaning of the Universe, etc. The Wraith have shown no greater awareness than Humans. Remember the episode in SG-1, "Triad", where the Goa'uld tried to justify the Goa'uld's greater right to life over the Human using the argument that the Goa' uld have a greater awareness than Humans.

              They could likewise point to their own technological and physical superiority to justify themselves as having the same right to abuse and consume humans as we do to abuse and consume animals.
              Again, their physical superiority is dependent on stealing life force from Humans, and some Humans, like Ronon, have been able to defeat fully fed Wraiths. As for their technological superiority, it comes from stealing from the Ancients, a Human civilization, and because they used this technology they stole from the Ancients to stomp out any sign of burgeoning technological progress of any Human World in Pegasus. They do not show any greater intelligence than Humans, especially considering that their intelligence comes form their Human part. Again, the Wraith show no greater awareness than Humans and thus the capacity to t]attach value to concepts like life and death, so dying to a Wraith is no more of a loss than it is to a Human.

              The easier way to do it would be to point to their immortality though. A human is going to die anyway, so what does it matter if he dies a few years sooner to feed a Wraith who'll live forever so long as he's fed?
              But a Wraith is only immortal if it kills endless Humans. I can use exactly the same argument you are using to justify the Human being allowed to live and the Wraith starve. Why should a Wraith be allowed to feed on a Human that still has 50 years to live if the life force he sucked from the Human will be exhausted in a few weeks at best and he will need to feed again? What greater joys will the Wraith experience in these few weeks and what greater dreams he will fullfill and values he will create in these few weeks with this life force that will be greater than what the Human would in the next 50 years if he kept the life force fro himself? And the Wraith will in the span of his thousands of years of existence kill tens of thousands of Humans, and the amount of dreams, goals and experiences that those thousands of Humans would have in that span of time would be infinitely greater than that of the single Wraith. This is especially true concerning Wraith drones, who are almost the equivalent of Humanoid cockroaches in terms of conscience and awareness. How can you justify, as an example, a Wraith drone feeding of isaac Newton if the latter were still to create his theories and had decades to live? How can you justify from the point of view of utilitarian philosophy the drone using in a couple weeks the vital force that Newton would use to create his theories and provide answers for deep questions concerning the Universe, since the drone is almost mindless and unaware? What greater values, ideas and awareness of the Universe the almost mindless Wraith drone would produce in a few weeks than Newton in several decades?

              We created the concept of sentient/non sentient and then assigned this quality of sentience that we've decided we have and they don't supreme value in order to elevate ourselves as superior to them.
              Well, we could get into a very hardcore metaphysical and epistemological debate here that is far beyond the scope of an exchange at an internet message board - except for a philosophy board -, but there are certain things that are clear about the Nature of values that are not biased in the favor of Humans and are simply the result of logical deliberation. Why do we attach value to life? Because we create values with our lives and we experience. It is in fact because we are aware that we even have a concept of life and death. The only non-biased, objective way of assessing the value of a living being is it's awareness. A plant cares far less about dying than an animal because it's far less aware. We care more about dying than an animal because we are more aware: we not only get an adrenaline response in response to a threat to our lives just like animals, but we are able to ask questions about what it means to die, which animals do not. The Wraith have not shown any greater awareness than Humans, no higher degree of conscience.

              In neither of those cases though are the abuses of the abuser fundamentally necessary to their basic survival the way it is for the Wraith. Nazi's and racists aren't each confronted with a painful and inevitable personal death by starvation if they decide to not act racist and/or not kill people. They do those things because they choose to not because they have to.
              Ah, but the abuses are not fundamental for their survival. They didn't need to torture and hunt Humans for fun. If the Wraith hated having to kill Humans and did it only because they must to survive, then they would just feed on them and not terrorize them by prolonging their agony. Besides, I used this as an example of how a group can be nice to each other and cruel to others. The kindness of one to his family/species/race does not necessarily correlate with overral niceness, which is the point I was trying to convey.
              Last edited by NoobTau'ri; 12 December 2008, 09:19 PM.

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                #97
                Originally posted by NoobTau'ri View Post
                Nah, you misunderstood me. You are right that not eating meat is an easy choice for Humans since we have so many other dietary choices, while not eating Humans is a very, very hard choice for a Wraith since it means death... many Wraith actually enjoy torturing Humans. For many Wraith, it is a great pleasure to murder Humans and see them suffer...
                A few sadistic Wraith we see here or there is hardly enough to cast a blanket condemnation on the entire species. There are afterall many humans one could point out who are a lot worse than any of these Wraith we've seen but using them to call the entire human race evil would obviously be flawed.

                Wrong. That concept is very real. There is even a test, the famous mirror test, that determines sentience. Sentience is defined as the ability of recognizing yourself as a separate entity distinguished from other objects/things/beings. Besides Humans, some other large primates like chimpanzees and gorillas have passed the mirror test, as well as dolphins and pigs. As a result of this, several countries in Europe are considering giving the large apes legal status akin to a Human child. Conversely, there is no evidence that a bee regards itself as an autonomous being. Teh same could be said for an oyster or a flower.

                The problem is that the Wraith get all their intelligence and self-conscience from their Human part. The Iratus Bug gave them their need to feed, their strengh and aggressivness. The Wraith are no more sentient than Humans; they are actually less. With the exception of queens and a small number of elite males, the average Wraith has less intelligence, individuality and self-conscience than the average Human. All a Wraith drone wants to do in life is serve his queen and feed. They don't speak, have no dreams of their own nor do they have much brain power anyway. They are the inferiors to Humans at everything except physical strengh and longevity, and even these they only get from parasitizing the Human Species. You put a Wraith who hasn't fed for some weeks to fight a Human, and the Human will kick it's ass.

                But this is all besides the point. Any philosopher will tell you that the criteria used to determine how much a living creature is capable of attaching value to things like living or dying is awareness. A Human suffers more from the idea of dying than an animal because a Human is more aware than an animal, and the animal suffers more from the idea of dying than a plant because it's more aware. An animal can feel death approaching and will release epinephrine as a response, and will try to flee: it reacts more than a plant. A Human reacts even more, asking questions about thje Nature of existence, the meaning of the Universe, etc. The Wraith have shown no greater awareness than Humans. Remember the episode in SG-1, "Triad", where the Goa'uld tried to justify the Goa'uld's greater right to life over the Human using the argument that the Goa' uld have a greater awareness than Humans.
                But why are these various qualities of sentience held to be superior, and by whom? There's no real reason the Wraith have to regard the presence of sentience in a creature to be particularly valuable or noteworthy in itself the way humans do. There's no objective universal law that says that sentient creatures are more valuable than non sentient ones. They might hold other critera in a lifeform to be more valuable than sentience, immortality, telepathy or any numbr of other traits that they don't share with their prey. Humans hold sentience as valuable because it makes animals who are closer to it more human like which is in itself sort of a backward admission of our own belief in our own inherent superiority.

                Again, their physical superiority is dependent on stealing life force from Humans, and some Humans, like Ronon, have been able to defeat fully fed Wraiths. As for their technological superiority, it comes from stealing from the Ancients, a Human civilization, and because they used this technology they stole from the Ancients to stomp out any sign of burgeoning technological progress of any Human World in Pegasus. They do not show any greater intelligence than Humans, especially considering that their intelligence comes form their Human part. Again, the Wraith show no greater awareness than Humans and thus the capacity to t]attach value to concepts like life and death, so dying to a Wraith is no more of a loss than it is to a Human.
                The food thing is a bizzare objection. They don't "steal" their strength from humans anymore than humans steal their strength from pigs, cows, tomatoes or anything else we happen to eat. The ancient tech thing also rings pretty bogus to me. Their tech base is completely different. They were smart enough to adapt some ancient tech to their purposes yes, ancient power sources mainly in their cloning machine, but to say that they stole everything from the ancients goes a bit far.

                But a Wraith is only immortal if it kills endless Humans. I can use exactly the same argument you are using to justify the Human being allowed to live and the Wraith starve. Why should a Wraith be allowed to feed on a Human that still has 50 years to live if the life force he sucked from the Human will be exhausted in a few weeks at best and he will need to feed again? What greater joys will the Wraith experience in these few weeks and what greater dreams he will fullfill and values he will create in these few weeks with this life force that will be greater than what the Human would in the next 50 years if he kept the life force fro himself? And the Wraith will in the span of his thousands of years of existence kill tens of thousands of Humans, and the amount of dreams, goals and experiences that those thousands of Humans would have in that span of time would be infinitely greater than that of the single Wraith. This is especially true concerning Wraith drones, who are almost the equivalent of Humanoid cockroaches in terms of conscience and awareness. How can you justify, as an example, a Wraith drone feeding of isaac Newton if the latter were still to create his theories and had decades to live? How can you justify from the point of view of utilitarian philosophy the drone using in a couple weeks the vital force that Newton would use to create his theories and provide answers for deep questions concerning the Universe, since the drone is almost mindless and unaware? What greater values, ideas and awareness of the Universe the almost mindless Wraith drone would produce in a few weeks than Newton in several decades?
                You can't justify it objectively very well no, but as a means to bury your potential guilt over killing "infearior beings" to live forever it works rather splendidly, especially when you're not the only one doing it.

                That's what I'm really trying to do here, get inside the Wraith mindset more. What might they think about what they do. The issues that surrond their means of survival are a lot more complex than just good or evil I think and it's something I really wish had been delved into more on the show.

                Well, we could get into a very hardcore metaphysical and epistemological debate here that is far beyond the scope of an exchange at an internet message board - except for a philosophy board -, but there are certain things that are clear about the Nature of values that are not biased in the favor of Humans and are simply the result of logical deliberation. Why do we attach value to life? Because we create values with our lives and we experience. It is in fact because we are aware that we even have a concept of life and death. The only non-biased, objective way of assessing the value of a living being is it's awareness. A plant cares far less about dying than an animal because it's far less aware. We care more about dying than an animal because we are more aware: we not only get an adrenaline response in response to a threat to our lives just like animals, but we are able to ask questions about what it means to die, which animals do not. The Wraith have not shown any greater awareness than Humans, no higher degree of conscience.
                But their circumstances are very different. Humans value sentience because creatures with a greater degree of it remind us more of ourselves and since we're naturally predisposed against wanting to harm one another this naturally extends to things like us as well. The Wraith are not fully human though, and on top of that they're faced with a set of circumstances where assigning the same value to sentience as we do would largely lead to their extinction. Moral concepts like this are never going to come about in a society when those concepts are in stark contradiction to the species basic survival requirements. No intelligent being would intentionally create moral codes that condemn itself as an inherently evil and destructive entity just for existing and call for it to end its own life and the lives of others like it to avoid harming outsiders of another species. Their morality will be shaped by their own circumstances just as ours is. If we could only eat chimps for some reason you'd see how all of a sudden it was the differences that were stressed rather than the similarities. Quite simply put the Wraith will find something else to admire in creatures that isn't sentience, because admiring sentience puts them on a road that ends in their own inescapable villification.

                Ah, but the abuses are not fundamental for their survival. They didn't need to torture and hunt Humans for fun. If the Wraith hated having to kill Humans and did it only because they must to survive, then they would just feed on them and not terrorize them by prolonging their agony. Besides, I used this as an example of how a group can be nice to each other and cruel to others. The kindness of one to his family/species/race does not necessarily correlate with overral niceness, which is the point I was trying to convey.
                I can sort of get what you're saying. What I'm trying to say is that they only act this way toward their food/prey animals. Like I said before I think it's an important thing to notice as it shows that they're not inherently disposed to that sort of behaviour all the time, and rather that that behaviour is reserved for the creatures they have to kill to eat. Expecting them to be kind to those creatures isn't really realistic. There might even be a very real biological reason why scaring a human as much as possible is preferable before feeding on him. We know the feeding process is physically traumaic for the victim and that the chemicals they inject serve to push the body beyond its limits for a short time. It's possible that andrenaline also plays a role in this, so while it's not 100% necessary to scare the prey before feeding it is preferable and certainly not harmful. I'm talking more about things like the sudden hissing and snarling they do sometimes before feedin. Actual drawn out torture games like Sateda is obviously not going to fit into this category.

                Other than Sateda though I can't really think of much else that would qualify as purely sadistic type torture as oppossed to torture with the goal of gaining information like with Sumner or Ronan's old buddies.

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                  #98
                  Originally posted by ciannwn View Post
                  What about all the versions of people from alternate universes? Would every single Rodney, for example, have a different soul or would they all share the same one?
                  Seeing as how there are an infinite number of possibilities and there are most probably evil Rodneys that have taken over the galaxy or something somewhere, it's fair to assume that souls are not shared across the multi-verse.

                  Originally posted by NoobTau'ri View Post
                  Stuff about hunting.
                  A select few Wraith practice hunting against a select few runners. When Ronon was freed, there were only six other runners in the galaxy.

                  The practice of runners is so uncommon, people have only heard legends of them! Teyla didn't say "This is common", she said something along the lines of "I think I've heard of this once".

                  It's not wide-spread. It's not common Wraith practice! And, oh hey, humans hunt too! At least Runners can defend themselves. Tell that to the rabbit some hunter just shot in the woods of South Carolina or whatever.

                  As for the "abuse", the Wraith barely abuse their prey, ever. But there's an importance to not becoming too friendly with their food. Because humans can talk and communicate, unless you keep a distance and keep treating them like animals, you might feel sorry for them, and that's not going to help you when you have to feed in order to live.

                  It's survival instinct telling you not to become too weak.



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                    #99
                    Agreed it's like on that episode where Unas are Humans slaves. The Unas are intelligent and once used humans as slaves (in wraiths case food). Until the humans led an uprising(in wraiths case atlantis expedition). And they gave the treatment right back except not eating the wraith more like decimating them....
                    Tst

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