Could they assend??

[Betelgeuze]

Im not sure what you all mean by organics. I don't believe the reps or their counterparts can ever ascend. They do not have souls and are only machines with chips,etc that are run off a program. They were created by non ascending beings. The ancients were superior beings who were smart and had much power. I would believe they could but not the reps. I would think if they did it would have a horrible consiquence. I would not want them as gods.

Why would they need a soul to ascend? Like another poster said, what is a soul? Ascension seems to be about reaching a certain state of mind, get your brain functions right. I don't think their is any reason that the Asurans couldn't reach a state of mind that corresponds with that of the Ancients.

[NATIK]

Just my 2 pen'th, doesn't the whole SG story line go against what we were taught at school etc... about creation etc... Man being made in his image, blah, blah, blah........

That depends on what kind of school you go to, here in Denmark only fanatical christian schools teach that kind of stuff the public schools have religion teaching something like 1 hour a week and it focus on alternate religions mostly to broaden our horizons.

In Stargate a soul has never been mentioned in connection with ascending, all you need to do to ascend is be at peace with yourself and your surroundings and learn how to turn the matter of your body into pure energy.

Souls are also purely a thing of belief, I doubt someone like Anubis believed in souls when he ascended his religion was the worship of himself as a supreme being.
While you may think that a soul is something everyone have, I for example don't believe in them and view humans as biological machines aswell.

[HyperionOmega]

Of course they can ascend. 1) because there's no reason they can't and 2) TPTB introduced Niam's goal for a reason. As long as Atlantis keeps going for a while, they will almost certainly explore it further, culminating in an ascended Asuran.

On that note, our "souls" are the product of our biology and our environment. It's just extremely complex and capable of consciously influencing itself, which is what makes it special. Humans can control their own selection. Such advanced machines would almost certainly be able to this.

[Artus]

On that note, our "souls" are the product of our biology and our environment. It's just extremely complex and capable of consciously influencing itself, which is what makes it special

Sorry could you explain this im not sure what you ment thanks

[NATIK]

What I think he is saying is that what people describe as a "soul" is in fact the product of our sentience, which is our ability to percieve the world around us, think about it and the fact that we are self-aware (which arguably is not needed for sentience but that is another discussion), in which case the Asuran would have "souls" aswell as they are capable of these things just as well as we are.

Since sentience is most definatly required for ascension you can from that definition say that a "soul" is required for it aswell as they are both descriptions of the same, one is just religious while the other is scientific.