Forever a-clone

Aug 26, 2011 18:40

In the long list of hypothetical questions I give way too much thought to, this one ranks rather highly ( Read more... )

relationships, clones, musings

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sutanri August 28 2011, 00:31:20 UTC
In my case in particular, quite possibly yes, since I actually discussed this question with my girlfriend for a while and she's actually far more in favour of the whole idea. In fact, it started an interesting discussion between us in the nature of self, and what it is to be 'you'. She argued that if it was an identical body with identical memories and past experience that fully understood its past, present, and future in the same way then the clone would in fact BE the person who died, rather than a replacement. She added that it was in her mind practically indistinguishable from resurrection ( ... )

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sutanri August 28 2011, 00:31:37 UTC
In fact, I'll put in another hypothetical. Y'know that story with the man in the ship that's falling apart? Can't remember who it was at all, but the point is he's sailing along and his boat is falling apart. Every time a bit breaks off, he gets some more wood and repairs it. It takes a very long time, but after he's sailed it for long enough he's eventually replaced every single part on the ship. Miraculously, all of the driftwood from his breaking ship come to the shore, and when it's found some people make a ship from it. Which is his original ship? This might seem a bit irrelevant, but what if the cloning wasn't necessarily 'cloning' so much as it was a fairly extreme form of repairing. Your partner or loved one has been in an accident, was killed, and was incredibly badly damaged. Luckily, technology allows you to fully repair the body and kickstart their minds back into action again. Thank god for the wonders of modern medicine ( ... )

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sparrowsabre7 August 29 2011, 00:02:14 UTC
"for all intents and purposes the clone is, in fact, your partner ( ... )

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sutanri August 29 2011, 12:11:54 UTC
With the first issue, again its an issue where you just need to consider the feelings of the person being cloned/the clone. In the film, this man's wife clearly wasn't so on board with the whole concept. Maybe she believed in the existence of a soul, or similar. Who knows. If that's the case, then yeah, I'd say not cloning would be the best idea, since the clone would share the opinion of the original and wouldn't much approve of its own existence, which is hardly positive ( ... )

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sparrowsabre7 August 29 2011, 15:14:41 UTC
"With the first issue, again its an issue where you just need to consider the feelings of the person being cloned/the clone ( ... )

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sutanri August 29 2011, 21:17:53 UTC
So someone's dying and you can choose to copy (not transplant) their mind from one body to another. If you were to do it, the other body would wake up very pleased that its life had beed saved as just as it was dying it suddenly awoke in this new body. In what way is this inferior to transplant ( ... )

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sparrowsabre7 August 29 2011, 21:46:18 UTC
mm I though you might say that about the sacrifice one =P But I suppose it depends on the context of the world. If cloning and resurrection is common then it would reduce the nobility of the sacrifice because they'd know they could come back. Giving your life for a cause is an incredibly sacred thing, like that monk that set himself on fire as a protest, if he'd been cloned the next day it would've defeated the purpose of his initial sacrifice ( ... )

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sutanri August 30 2011, 11:14:05 UTC
I suppose if they were totally sure they'd be cloned, it may reduce the power behind the gesture (depending on their own belief in cloning), but I'd say that's fairly minor compared to keeping good people on the planet. If it was some form of protest suicide, then you'd probably just write in your will or suicide note 'please don't clone me'. Or in the monk's case, make an even bigger protest by coming back down and burning yourself again and again and again until they got the idea. People can then be sure that the monk know's exactly how painful a death by burning really is, and be amazed that he happily chooses to do it again and again for the cause. But that's besides the point, really ( ... )

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