Are cloned people as real as us?
- Thread starter Itheblaze
- Start date
Modern cloning is really just reproduction without sperm. There is still randomness, HOWEVER, assuming they could totally clone your child. It may look like your child, but it is a different person with a different soul. It would have new memories, new education, and new experiences.
RainmanTime
Super Moderator
We are all 50% Nature and 50% Nurture. How do you clone/transfer the "Nurture" part?
RMT[DOUBLEPOST=1411913634,1411910979][/DOUBLEPOST]
"The new estimate of dark matter content in the universe is 26.8 percent, up from 24 percent, while dark energy falls to 68.3 percent, down from 71.4 percent. Normal matter now is 4.9 percent, up from 4.6 percent."
RMT
RMT[DOUBLEPOST=1411913634,1411910979][/DOUBLEPOST]
What if... all that Dark Energy that we know is out there, having a measurable effect on the universe, really represents the souls of extant beings?http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/planck/news/planck20130321.html#.VCgXVfldVD0
"The new estimate of dark matter content in the universe is 26.8 percent, up from 24 percent, while dark energy falls to 68.3 percent, down from 71.4 percent. Normal matter now is 4.9 percent, up from 4.6 percent."
RMT
G
Guest
What's the other 31.4 percent?
RainmanTime
Super Moderator
Not sure I follow your question, Cosmo. Here is how I see the latest estimates stacking up:
Normal (baryonic) matter = 4.9%
Dark (gravitating) matter = 26.8%
Dark Energy = 68.3%
That adds up to 100% (at least on my worldline!)
RMT
Normal (baryonic) matter = 4.9%
Dark (gravitating) matter = 26.8%
Dark Energy = 68.3%
That adds up to 100% (at least on my worldline!)
RMT
G
Guest
Doh, it's too early to be doing math on a Sunday.
Absolutely.
No. Simply there is no soul. There is only the work of the brain neural network.
Absolutely. They would be children as any other children. Alive and with all the human rights + all of the child protection rights.
Unfortunately, no. The clone is a just a copy of you. No matter how good copy it is, it is still a copy. When you die, you simply die and your perfect copy remains.By the way... human clones are still not made as far as I know.
Yeah, and they haven't done any "true" cloning that I know of, either. As I've said before, it's simply reproduction without sperm. The animals they've "cloned" still turn out a little different, so there is still randomness happening due to the genetic donor.A cat named Rainbow was "cloned", but the colors came out different:
http://drsophiayin.com/blog/entry/cloning-cats-rainbow-and-cc-prove-that-cloning-wont-resurrect-your-pet
I think they should rename the procedure.
aboleth_lich
Temporal Novice
I've always viewed a clone as being comparable to an identical twin. An identical twin strangely conceived and born at a later date through artificial means, but an identical twin nonetheless.
To that end, I don't see why a person's clone would be deemed to be less "real" than a person's identical twin or why a person's clone would have the same personality, memories, etc as the person he or she was cloned from rather than developing a personality, memories, etc of his or her own.
Moreover, although I frankly don't believe in souls myself: I don't see why a person's clone would be any less worthy of a soul of his or her own than a person's identical twin would be either, if souls hypothetically existed.
If you were to clone your dead child, you would have a new child that's genetically identical to the first and would develop his or her own personality and memories (and would hypothetically have his or her own soul). I don't see anything wrong with this per say, especially if the parents cannot conceive another child for some reason, but I would not treat this clone as my deceased child. I treat this clone as a new child with a new identity altogether.
Cloning would not be a route to immortality unless you were to create a mindless shell body that you could then transfer your current mind into it and occupy. However, unless such a shell were mindless from the start and somehow prevented from developing their own mind prior to transfer: you are essentially overwriting your twin's personality in an abstract form of murder. Putting even that aside, cloning could prolong life if we were to grow cloned replacement parts--though harvesting parts from clones is also another, more morally questionable given the above, alternative.
To that end, I don't see why a person's clone would be deemed to be less "real" than a person's identical twin or why a person's clone would have the same personality, memories, etc as the person he or she was cloned from rather than developing a personality, memories, etc of his or her own.
Moreover, although I frankly don't believe in souls myself: I don't see why a person's clone would be any less worthy of a soul of his or her own than a person's identical twin would be either, if souls hypothetically existed.
If you were to clone your dead child, you would have a new child that's genetically identical to the first and would develop his or her own personality and memories (and would hypothetically have his or her own soul). I don't see anything wrong with this per say, especially if the parents cannot conceive another child for some reason, but I would not treat this clone as my deceased child. I treat this clone as a new child with a new identity altogether.
Cloning would not be a route to immortality unless you were to create a mindless shell body that you could then transfer your current mind into it and occupy. However, unless such a shell were mindless from the start and somehow prevented from developing their own mind prior to transfer: you are essentially overwriting your twin's personality in an abstract form of murder. Putting even that aside, cloning could prolong life if we were to grow cloned replacement parts--though harvesting parts from clones is also another, more morally questionable given the above, alternative.
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The thing with cloning is we will not know if the clone will be good or try to overpower others like in the Goosebumps episode and book Stay out of the basement the scientist has blood from hand fall into chemical and creates a clone who looks like him but is plant underneath and locks him and his boss away and is shown to be mean to the kids and create more plant people but get's destroyed in the end by the real one. So a clone could work, also in the article as I read cloning may change appearance like in the case of Rainbow and also behaviour will be different and also could be a mix of happy to moody as well so cloning of a human maynot ever happen too many risks as well. The clone would not act as you, kind of like if we had a lookalike the person could speak like us but would need to learn to act like us so he or she would pass as us and not act stange in front of the ones who know us very well.
aboleth_lich
Temporal Novice
An actual clone of someone would be akin to his or her identical twin, not some bizarre plant monster born of silly Silver Age comic book mad science.
I don't see any reason why a clone would be any more or less likely to be evil and prone to megalomaniac malevolence, good and prone to altruistic benevolence, or anything between those two extremes on the morality scale than someone's twin, or any other human being for that matter, would be.
However, I suppose that a clone would be more likely to be weak and frail if the cloning process is a flawed, imprecise science or conversely more likely to be physically and/or mentally superior if the cloning process is perfected and coupled with Gattaca-esque genetic engineering. Both of those extremes raises genuine ethical concerns about the consequences of cloning as such.
I don't see any reason why a clone would be any more or less likely to be evil and prone to megalomaniac malevolence, good and prone to altruistic benevolence, or anything between those two extremes on the morality scale than someone's twin, or any other human being for that matter, would be.
However, I suppose that a clone would be more likely to be weak and frail if the cloning process is a flawed, imprecise science or conversely more likely to be physically and/or mentally superior if the cloning process is perfected and coupled with Gattaca-esque genetic engineering. Both of those extremes raises genuine ethical concerns about the consequences of cloning as such.