Is Rei human?

[ZeroNow]

SPOILER: Show

Nope, the Angels are descended from Adam, a being equal to Lillith;
Both were created by precursor aliens. This is outright confirmed in the Manga and in that one game that was based on a 10 hour interview with anno, but it can also be deduced from episode 21 where both the black & white moons are said to be artificial structures that existed before known history.

I think that was an error from the first English dub tho so that's not on you.

So in the EVA verse, ALL humans (& other earth life) are made from alien goo.
The "the monsters are basically human" twist is like an integral part of the show.
You may not buy it but that just means you disagree with the show, doesn't change that it's making a big deal about using the term "human" for monster things like the EVAs & even for Rei. Like I said, it's a theme, you're supposed to think about what's being said by that.

Also, define "created from alien goo." The show & source materials are vague on the exact specifics of Rei's creation, but the EoE booklet specifies that she came about from the result of the attempt to retrieve Yui. Could've been anything from a fully formed but yet soulless baby Rei I to a few strands of contaminated DNA, but there's a considerable amount of Yui genes in there with all that implies for brain chemistry.

Once again, monkey's share a great deal of our genetic makeup, it doesn't mean their human.

SPOILER: Show

Again, Kaworu is part angel too - if anything, more so than Rei - & while he maybe perceives things a bit differently & isn't exactly an average joe, he does plenty of emoting.
Also, the first Rei isn't particularly expressionless - She smiles at Ritsuko when introduced to her, makes fun of Naoko like a snotty kid etc. She's not over the top cheerful
Since she's smol & hasn't had to much time to be impacted by the environment yet she's probably a good indication of angel genes/ Lillith soul would have before environmental influences come in.

Kaworu knows exactly who he is, and doesn't waste much time getting back to it. He lets Rei know too who SHE is, the same as him, and from there it doesn't take long.

Rei is exactly like one of those fluorescent cats or medicine making pigs that is implanted with some genes from another creature to give it certain useful abilities & characteristics but is still basically a cat or a pig, or in this case, a human girl.

Uh... you misthought your own example. A cat or a pig implanted with some genes is still a cat or a pig. A clone implanted with some genes is still a clone - NOT a human girl. She doesn't begin as a human girl born of a mammal.

That's like, your opinion man. You didn't measure her with an objective bland-o-meter.
Rei is famous for being a super popular character that spawned tons of copycats all over anime & selling out all her figures.
So while you're free to think that her personality is bland (obviously it's a matter of taste & taste is always subjective), clearly many people disagree with you.

I'm sure they do, but I suspect it's for more than just her personality.

The thing is, I LIKE Rei's personality, as monotone and bland as it is. It makes her a character unique to the story, and her being able to break through and actually communicate with Shinji, in a way that she wasn't able to with Gendo or anyone else - is vital to what happens in the end.

Still doesn't make her a human being.

But that makes her vital to the story as well.

Think about it - if she's part human then why is it a big deal she does what she does and let's Shinji decide the fate of man? She's much much MORE than human, yet is still able to somehow make a connection to this f'ed up personality trapped inside this mortal shell. THAT is special. THAT is the universe and infinite universal peace and love ACCEPTING that man is imperfect yet still deserves to exist.

Isn't that the message of the whole story ultimately?

If Rei's a human being, then that really isn't anything special. But she wasn't - she was an angel - tricked into having to experience our pain and confusion and limitations - and when she finds out, she's rightfully pissed and turns on Gendo. But while she's here - she makes a breakthrough - the power of Shinji's heart somehow gets through to her. And ultimately it saves our world.

[Kendrix]

Uh... you misthought your own example. A cat or a pig implanted with some genes is still a cat or a pig. A clone implanted with some genes is still a clone - NOT a human girl. She doesn't begin as a human girl born of a mammal.

What in your opinion makes a clone so fundamentally, irrevocably different from a regular human?

A clone is just an organism whose genes are near identical to another. That's the textbook definition of clone.
In real life, clones are made by taking a cell core from one organism and plopping it in a fresh egg cell from another. Both the cell core & the egg cell came from regular organisms.
After the cell divides, it's chemically & biologically identical to any other embryo.
Also, because epigenetics is a thing, the clone might not even look exactly like the original. Having genes doesn't mean they are being read, after all. There's some randomness in this process, so even same genes, same environment wouldn't give you an identical animal.

Even conjoined twins who can't go anywhere without each other have different personalities. I even know of a case of conjoined twins where one was transgender and his sister wasn't.

They cloned a sheep and it was an ordinary sheep. People have test tube babies and they are ordinary babies.

These days people have even synthesized DNA through chemical means - they made the sequence of a virus, & it replicated like a regular virus though it was completely artificial made from nonliving matter.

Rei isn't a 100% copy of course, they spliced in some angel genes - what is called a transgenic organism so she has some abilities & traits regular humans don't have. But for most intents & purposes other than third-impact-causing, she acts exactly like a human. She walks, talks, eats, poops, blushes - exactly like the glowing cat example. But she basically looks like the human donor complete with a similar intelligence level and some little quirks like how she holds things, though her personality is obviously completely different due to her extremely different upbringing.

[ErgoProxy]

What in your opinion makes a clone so fundamentally, irrevocably different from a regular human?

Ignorance. There's plenty of human clones walking around the world who emerged and were born with no scientifical interference, just by laws of nature. We call them monozygotic twins. Eg. the former president of Poland, late Lech Kaczyński, was such a clone.

What's even more interesting, the reverse process - two zygotes merging into single embryo - is also possible and it produces a genetically patchwork human. We call that phenomenon chimerism.

Bite that, ZeroNow.

[ZeroNow]

SPOILER: Show

What in your opinion makes a clone so fundamentally, irrevocably different from a regular human?

A clone is just an organism whose genes are near identical to another. That's the textbook definition of clone.
In real life, clones are made by taking a cell core from one organism and plopping it in a fresh egg cell from another. Both the cell core & the egg cell came from regular organisms.
After the cell divides, it's chemically & biologically identical to any other embryo.
Also, because epigenetics is a thing, the clone might not even look exactly like the original. Having genes doesn't mean they are being read, after all. There's some randomness in this process, so even same genes, same environment wouldn't give you an identical animal.

Even conjoined twins who can't go anywhere without each other have different personalities. I even know of a case of conjoined twins where one was transgender and his sister wasn't.

They cloned a sheep and it was an ordinary sheep. People have test tube babies and they are ordinary babies.

These days people have even synthesized DNA through chemical means - they made the sequence of a virus, & it replicated like a regular virus though it was completely artificial made from nonliving matter.

Rei isn't a 100% copy of course, they spliced in some angel genes - what is called a transgenic organism so she has some abilities & traits regular humans don't have. But for most intents & purposes other than third-impact-causing, she acts exactly like a human. She walks, talks, eats, poops, blushes - exactly like the glowing cat example. But she basically looks like the human donor complete with a similar intelligence level and some little quirks like how she holds things, though her personality is obviously completely different due to her extremely different upbringing.

What makes a clone so fundamentally, irrevocably different from a regular human is that it wasn't born of a human mother. THAT process makes mammals (mostly) unique. And it is a critical part of human existence - we nature off of another human being in the womb for 9 months and then we thrust into the world.

Scientifically you can not clone a personality - that is created through an endless road fork of experiences, learning and environment. Our self-awareness, on the level a human being has it - is a freak of nature. It is something that we're not sure why or how it exists, but it is unique. Science Fiction for most of it's existence (something only a human being could create) makes note of this very specifically. Being a human BEING isn't something that can be done - you can make the perfect vessel (and some would claim Rei IS), but you can't make a real human being inside.

That is Rei's disconnect from humanity - and a point of the show, regardless if they were going for that or not. She is a non-human, forced to live within a human construct, and learn human ways. She makes some progress - but ultimately, when shown who she really is - well, the first Rei immediately blows herself up, the 2nd one begins to plot, and the 3rd one carries it out. Nothing is going to stop it from returning to it's true form.

Along the way she makes contact with someone very special tho... and that saves the world as we know it.

Ignorance. There's plenty of human clones walking around the world who emerged and were born with no scientifical interference, just by laws of nature. We call them monozygotic twins. Eg. the former president of Poland, late Lech Kaczyński, was such a clone.

What's even more interesting, the reverse process - two zygotes merging into single embryo - is also possible and it produces a genetically patchwork human. We call that phenomenon chimerism.

Bite that, ZeroNow.

Born from human mothers. Nice try.

[ErgoProxy]

Read the links and start to learn, or one day your faith will betray you.

[Mr. Tines]

What makes a clone so fundamentally, irrevocably different from a regular human is that it wasn't born of a human mother. THAT process makes mammals (mostly) unique.

The famous clone, Dolly the sheep, was born of a ewe -- we don't quite yet have artificial wombs.

But if we do, what would you consider the outcome of a standard in vitro fertilization gestated in such a device?

[Kendrix]

And it is a critical part of human existence - we nature off of another human being in the womb for 9 months and then we thrust into the world.

The first 6 of those month the neocortex isn't even finished! Experiences aren't even possible!
All those stories you read of babies remembering music or masturbating or whatever are things that happen in the last three months, when the brain is done.
What is so special about the womb anyways? like how, mechanistically, does the womb confer that "human quality"? It's a hollow muscle with a mucous layer.

If that was so, wouldn't we notice some difference in premature and cesarian babies?
The survival rate at that stage is just 30% as of 2019 and half of them end up disabled, but children as premature as 22 weeks have grown into perfectly fine children, having missed almost half of the magical womb time (a typical pregnancy is 41 weeks), & practically all the time in which they have the human-specific parts of a brain formed. Such babies essentially became full humans in an incubator.
Many premature babies do have health problems or disabilities but that's more to do with the lungs not being mature yet.

Heck, there have been cases where ppl delivered an live baby that had attached not in the womb but in their abdominal cavity! The baby had to be extracted by surgery of course of course & this is very rare. It's possible because the sack, placenta etc. actually grow from the embryo's own tissue. An embryo comes with its own "wrapping" so to speak. It grows pretty much on its own as long though of course it needs enough space and blood vessels. We're not that far removed from our egg-laying ancestors.

Would an otherwise perfectly normal human fetus grown in a artificial womb not be "human" then? Obviously you can't just grow a baby in a vat, there are signal molecules passing, hormones, the growth of the baby depends on the molecules present in the amniotic fluid, but like with the rat embryo grown on a scaffold, those things can be worked out.
You could speculate that the molecules from the food & the mother's heartbeat might be important simply for regulatory reasons, but then you pump in those molecules or play a recording of a heartbeat for example.
This should defs be perfected on chimps before going anywhere NEAR humans, but it's being researched. Think of all the premature babies you could save with such tech. Or when someone can't physically or phychologically handle a pregancy but still wants a baby. Or gay couples.

They already got a lamb fetus to develop perfectly normally for a month (one fifth of a normal sheep pregnancy - and the resulting lambs had none of the problems associated with prematurity! So this would really help those very early preemies' lung problems when it's ready for use in humans & lead to a much lower disability rate. in fact the scientist who built it is looking to do just that. ), & that experiment ended because they reached the end of the experiment duration, not because it failed.

Doing it for a full pregnancy is still not possible today, but only in the way that a smartphone wasn't possible in the sixties.

Scientifically you can not clone a personality - that is created through an endless road fork of experiences, learning and environment.

Uh, no one's saying that the personality is being cloned. Obviously not. Didn't I write a whole paragraph about how clones are different from the original?
Rei doesn't have the same personality as Yui.

She has her own, wholly new one, formed by, I dare say, "an endless road fork of experiences, learning and environment."
A brain creates a personality through the act of growing there's no need to "copy" one.

Our self-awareness, on the level a human being has it - is a freak of nature. It is something that we're not sure why or how it exists, but it is unique.

It's really not.

We haven't got all the details worked out be we know roughly how it happens.

Why does it exist? Because of neurons. How does it exist? Through neurons. Is it unique? In part. It's not a binary thing. It exists in gradations. A manta ray has some self-awareness - it can recognize its reflection. Dolphis, Crows and Elephants have more. Humans have the most out of any being yet.

What is consciousness & self awareness but having a concept of oneself, feedback, self-regulation? Let us not forger that there are many situations where humans act quite predictable & automatic. Consider political manipulation through facebook for example.

I recommend Ray Kurzweil's Book "How to create a mind". It shows very well the state of the art in understanding the brain and creating AI. Some of his predictions are a tad optimistic, but he explains everything very completely down to deep thought, creativity, love & free will.

I don't think those things get less awesome or less valuable when we understand how they work.

It's not completely cracked yet but the speed at which we keep understanding more & more of it & explaining things previously thought mysterious makes it silly to claim we never will get it. There is no solid reason to think we won't.


To Summarize
As I see it there's two ways you can approach it:

a) You apply real world logic. "I don't care what Anno says, giant monsters and people are not the same" Fair nuff.
But then the real life logic applies, ie, clones & genetically engineered organisms are no different from regular organisms. It's a fact. This is known science, routine procedure in industry. Drank soda today? Took meds? It was made with genetic engineering.
In real world logic, Rei is the same as a glowing cat.

The very fact that Rei & Kaworu can exist posit that angels have "genes" that work roughly like real life genes.

b) You apply EVA verse logic. "Obviously it's not like a real life clone, superpowers like transforming into a giant floating ladies aren't realistic" Fair nuff.
But then you have to go by the in-universe logic that governs those superpowers. The in-universe logic according to which monster-like entities like EVAs, Rei and Kaworu are labeled emphatically, repeatedly as humans. That's an explicit artistic choice he made. Maybe doesn't make sense to you but makes sense to Anno.

ep 23:
Shinji: "The EVAs are human?!"
Ritsuko: "Yes they are human."
EoE:
Hyuuga: "Pattern Blue? Is it an Angel?"(when giant naked Rei ascends)
Aoba: "No, It's a human!" (The scientific instruments say so, apparently.)
Ep 25:
Telop: "Why did you kill him?"
Shinj:"Because he was an angel?"
Telop: "Though he was human as well?"
Shinji: *trying hard to convince himself * "No, he was an angel"
Rei: "he was just as human as me"
Shinji: * has no counter to this, whimpers in despair & guilt* "Somebody help me..."

[Derantor]

@ZeroNow: Oh, so it is only about this:

What makes a clone so fundamentally, irrevocably different from a regular human is that it wasn't born of a human mother.

That's a very idiosyncratic way of defining what is human. "It has to come from a mammals womb" is not a definition of human I ever heard. It's a pointless distinction anyway. Where something is grown really does not matter. It's the DNA that builds up the body on its own. It doesn't care if it does it in a womb or a test tube, and the outcome is indistinguishable from a person that was birthed from a womb.

Honestly, I've got no clue what you are even trying to prove here. You defined humanity in a way that excludes Rei. Fine. Now what? What's the point of that? She's treated like a human by the show, she acts like a human, she is, disregarding semantics, a human being. She's not a Lilin, sure, but she's still human the way NGE defines it. I don't know why you're so stuck up on the notion that people (in a fantasy setting) *must* be born from a human womb to count as people, especially when humanity in 2020 is on its way to make it possible to clone people without using a female as a host.

Pointing out how your logic is faulty when applied to other examples isn't strawmanning, either. You even highlight what I said: "By the same line of reasoning, I could assert ..." and "If we [question her humanity], we can question other character's humanity as well". At no point did I say "You said this or that", but you conveniently repeated your reasons for believing Rei isn't human: "And what I called into question of Rei's 'humanity' for me, was as a CLONE, her 'personality' was pretty bland, and then when she turned into Giant White Naked Rei, something that a human being can not do, it pretty much nailed it." So, "Bland Personality" and "Does things normal humans can't do" form part of your argument.

Anyway, what this exchange tells me is that you're mostly interested in "winning" this argument, and I'm honestly not interested in that, as I don't even see what the point of the argument we are having is. Rei is not human in your book. Okay. She is in mine. Agree to disagree.

What I am interested in however is that you still use omnislashing and block-quotes. I hid the worst offenders in spoilers.
Please don't continue to omnislash. Blockio already told you so, as well!

Edit: To hopefully bring some light into the confusion: it's all about terms.
So. Humans (as in: Homo Sapiens), in NGE, are Lilin (Lilin is what would be called "human" in our world).
Angels are Angels.
Shinji is a Lilin.
Rei is an Angel in a Lilin's body.
So Rei =/= Shinji, because Angel =/= Lilin.
HOWEVER: Angels and Lilin are still "human" in the show, as Kendrix pointed out. I hope that clears things up.

[Blockio]

In addition to that;
@ZeroNow, your tone of conversation leaves much to be desired. Replying to a well laid-out paragraph with "nice try" and similar stunts are not something that is looked upon too kindly in here; I advise you to take a look at the forum rules again

[Kendrix]

*shrugs*
Personally I don't think he was trolling or being contrarian on purpose -

More like he has always believed, or is emotionally invested in, that there's like a sharp unambiguous dividing line between sentience and un-sentience. That's not uncommon and kind of understandable, at least it's natural to search for one, though it's probably not 'wombs'
For the longest time the ruling paradigmn everyone was fixated on was that it's "tool use", & then we found out that actually, a fair number of animals can do that

Hey, at least I got to nerd out about biology, the one joy in my life (besides Anime)

[ZeroNow]

In addition to that;
@ZeroNow, your tone of conversation leaves much to be desired. Replying to a well laid-out paragraph with "nice try" and similar stunts are not something that is looked upon too kindly in here; I advise you to take a look at the forum rules again

I was replying to "Bite That, Zero Now", is that not also frowned upon?

[pwhodges]

Something that's frowned upon in every forum anywhere is answering back to the mods... Maybe you should reflect on that.

[UrsusArctos]

I was replying to "Bite That, Zero Now", is that not also frowned upon?

Just to clear things up, we had a conversation with ErgoProxy in PMs, and he clarified that it was really a matter of an expression being lost in translation. He had no insulting or provocative intent in using the phrase "Bite that!". ErgoProxy's native language is Polish, and he used it in the context of a Polish expression meaning "you have to accept it, even if you don't want to" - the emotional content being a neutral "these are the facts" and not a provocative "I win and you lose" as it comes off in English.

ZeroNow, while ErgoProxy's accidental misuse of "bite that" was an honest mistake - and I grant that you didn't know it - it's no excuse for responding to him with "nice try", because it's plain you were being deliberately provocative. The other staff have talked about your behavior more than adequately, and I suggest you heed their advice.

[ZeroNow]

DON'T DOUBLE POST - URSUS

Just to clear things up, we had a conversation with ErgoProxy in PMs, and he clarified that it was really a matter of an expression being lost in translation. He had no insulting or provocative intent in using the phrase "Bite that!". ErgoProxy's native language is Polish, and he used it in the context of a Polish expression meaning "you have to accept it, even if you don't want to" - the emotional content being a neutral "these are the facts" and not a provocative "I win and you lose" as it comes off in English.

ZeroNow, while ErgoProxy's accidental misuse of "bite that" was an honest mistake - and I grant that you didn't know it - it's no excuse for responding to him with "nice try", because it's plain you were being deliberately provocative. The other staff have talked about your behavior more than adequately, and I suggest you heed their advice.

Cool. I'll tone it down per moderations request. I mean no disrespect, it was a serious question I asked.
But I get it - new guy - don't make waves - be extra polite - try and fit in...
I thought I was having a normal conversation...

*shrugs*
Personally I don't think he was trolling or being contrarian on purpose -

I wasn't. I was just trying to have a conversation and learn in the process.

More like he has always believed, or is emotionally invested in, that there's like a sharp unambiguous dividing line between sentience and un-sentience. That's not uncommon and kind of understandable, at least it's natural to search for one, though it's probably not 'wombs'
For the longest time the ruling paradigmn everyone was fixated on was that it's "tool use", & then we found out that actually, a fair number of animals can do that

Hey, at least I got to nerd out about biology, the one joy in my life (besides Anime)

Real world question. Why don't we clone human beings?

[UrsusArctos]

You're neither trying to have a normal conversation nor learn in the process. As Blockio and pwhodges have said, your tone with both regular users and board staff is excessively rude and your idea of a conversation is to try to push your ideas upon everyone else without caring what the others say.

You think you're being polite? NONE of the many new users who have signed up are one iota as abrasive as you. It's you who are the problem, not because you're a 'new user', but because you're behaving poorly.

So stop acting like you're the injured party here. You're not. Shape up or ship out.

[orcot]

Rei is human to the same extent that lilin are human.

Rei is not born from a mother true, but neither is Shinji in the end (Shinji got dissolved inside unit 01) when his body reconstituted his mom was not less involved then when Rei was born.

Here is a picture of a cat I like

The one on the left is named Rainbow, she's a calico you can see that she is female as cat color is stored on it's X chromoson; (You can't have 3 colored male Calico's [unless you make a chimera that someone obviously has done]), but I digress the Right one is named CC, CC is a tabby obvliously. But she is still a clone of Rainbow. Why they are different becomes complicated fast, but don't stare to blindly on the word clone.

[ZeroNow]

Rei is human to the same extent that lilin are human.

Rei is not born from a mother true, but neither is Shinji in the end (Shinji got dissolved inside unit 01) when his body reconstituted his mom was not less involved then when Rei was born.

Here is a picture of a cat I like

The one on the left is named Rainbow, she's a calico you can see that she is female as cat color is stored on it's X chromoson; (You can't have 3 colored male Calico's [unless you make a chimera that someone obviously has done]), but I digress the Right one is named CC, CC is a tabby obvliously. But she is still a clone of Rainbow. Why they are different becomes complicated fast, but don't stare to blindly on the word clone.

If lilin are human, then being a human being as we know it is meaningless. To be a human being - born of a human mother and able to posses an evolving individual personality from your natural environment - a unique, individual personality - is a special one of a kind occurrence of our universe (as far as we know). The lilin, are a variation of humanity, part of the process.

What makes us unique is being born into this world through another human being, with this freak self-awareness of ourselves that as far as we know, only human beings have.

Shinji was born from a human mother. Rei was not.

Cats aren't human.

[Kendrix]

As I poointed out above is a definition of "humanity" that is not based on real life science or in-universe logic.

Again, what of premature babies, or artificial wombs? Since Rei is clearly influenced by her experiences throughout the show, how does that not constitute "evolving an unique personality from your environment" , except because you arbitrarily rule that it doesn't.
Cats may be dumber than us but they are not meaningfully different in terms o biological complexity, in fact some plants are more complex. The underlying principles are the same.

Your PoV is basically like a religious dogma at this point, ascribing the same magical properties to the womb that the ancient Egyptians attributed to the heart I'd rather go for the heart, at least it's useful; the womb is the second most annoying organ right after the mess that is the human knee. - we're probably not going to convince you but there's no reason anyone else has to believe it.



If you're not willing to challenge the bounds of conventional thinking, Sci Fi isn't for you dude.

[EvaUnitREM]

I think Rei is sort of a mix, while a human normally, she is not fully her own person

[Berserker]

If lilin are human, then being a human being as we know it is meaningless. To be a human being - born of a human mother and able to posses an evolving individual personality from your natural environment

We're talking about a character from an anime where science fiction and religion are entagled, in a peacefully co-existing way, not questioning each other that much. IF the lore says humans are lilin, there's nothing we can do about it.

Cats aren't human.

Instance, dude. It's called giving an instance or simply speaking, example since you won't even try grasping it the conventional way. Actually this made me come up with another one, tree grafting. While there are various types of grafting, the simplest you can do is break a mature branch and shove it in soil without any sort of stock plant(This method, for obvious reasons, has the lowest chance of the scion to grow roots before dying. I was able to grow two rose plant successfully this way). This is basically cloning as the new plant contains every single gene from its "mother" tree. Are the grafted trees called "not trees but something else"? They don't born from seeds, which by comparison can be called as a womb for trees. They inherit every single genetic detail from their ancestor tree, yet they're completely a new life but of course, a tree.