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.
Why is a transplant so far superior to a copy? The original will be gone in seconds regardless, so what does it matter whether you cut+paste or copy+paste? What if just as they're dying, their mind is 'copied' over, esentially feeling like a pure transfer as they wake up, even though the 'original', written as such because this process would essentially be identical to transfer, dies? Is this suddenly an immoral way of going about it?
And with the whole boat thing, I think you missed the actual question I was asking. By the logic you answered the boat issue with, anyway, the loved one who was miraculously resurrected from their heavily damaged remains would no longer be the same person. Is that what you think/feel? Read back over the other post if you missed it.
"With the first issue, again its an issue where you just need to consider the feelings of the person being cloned/the clone."
I suppose so, like I said in the reply, I guess there's nothing wrong with it if everyone's on board, but it's not something that I would be comfortable with.
"Why is a transplant so far superior to a copy? The original will be gone in seconds regardless, so what does it matter whether you cut+paste or copy+paste?"
But the original wouldn't be gone because it would be the same mind. If you transplanted the mind that person would be the exact same person as before, just in a new body.
"Is this suddenly an immoral way of going about it?"
I never said immoral, nothing about this is immoral, I'm just saying I think it would be disrespectful or selfish, but if the clone/original was onboard I guess that wouldn't be a problem. But how about this: Say that someone died in a heroic sacrifice, which saved many lives. Wouldn't that be dishonouring their memory by replacing them with a clone?
"And with the whole boat thing, I think you missed the actual question I was asking. The loved one who was miraculously resurrected from their heavily damaged remains would no longer be the same person. "
I see. What question were you asking? I think I understand a bit more what you mean, but a boat and a person is not really the same. They don't have anything that can truly say they're still the original boat.
I mean with a person, if you replace their limbs or what have you due to injury to the point where say, only their torso is left, you couldn't make the argument that the person has changed, because though they may have more "new" parts, they remain the same. Whereas if you replace parts of a car or boat, it more or less stops being the orignal once the new parts outweigh the old.
If you could somehow put a person back together they're still be the same person, but so would a person how had parts replaced, provided some core consciousness remained in them. Like a human mind in a robot body, provided it was the original mind.
I'm going to throw another analogy into the mix, because we clearly don't have enough yet :P
A painting by an artist costs several thousand pounds say, and yet an imitation work costs significantly less. Why should that be, if there is no fundamental difference between them? If you painted even an exact replica of the Mona Lisa, it would not be THE Mona Lisa would it? (I'd use a more modern work, because obviously there's various historical worth to such old paintings, but I don't know of any recent ones.) My point is that despite being, for all intents an purposes, exactly the same, the original is still fundamentally different by dint of being the original.
If I burned down the Tate Modern, would it be alright as long as all of the paintings within had been copied? I say the Tate Modern, because again, the historical worth of older paintings taints the scales here.
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?
Also, bear in mind that when I said 'immoral', that would include things like disrespect and selfishness. An act that is disrespectful and selfish is undoubtedly immoral. I am arguing against this sort of cloning being disrespectful or selfish, among other things. I mean, you could potentially have purely selfish motives, but that really isn't all there is to it. Also, I would say that putting a heroic and noble person back on the planet would probably be the absolute best application for such cloning, and I would say it was more of an honour than a dishonour. What's dishonourable about it? Someone lived well, was loved, and died nobly, and people would like to have them back. They could likely live longer and have a more and more positive effect on the world. I find it very strange that you think it would be an insult to someone to want to put them back on the planet especially since the amount of benefit such a good person could potentially provide is so high.
With the confusion that's arisen with this whole boat issue, the main question I was asking is written with relatively clear wording in the very same paragraph as the boat story itself. I'll paraphrase it here though. A loved one is killed and their corpse seriously damaged, but technology allows you to completely repair them and restart their mind. Would you take this offer? How about if their mind needed to be 're-installed' like a computer operating system? I feel this question is quite relevant to the discussion.
Finally, when it comes to art analogy, the reasons for the great valuing of an original over a perfect copy are almost entirely due to the nature of art and how we appreciate it. I honestly could, and in fact have, argued for hours and hours about what art is and what it means. Of course when it comes to music we have absolutely no qualms with making clone after clone and selling them as a mass produced product, and in fact in the east they have traditionally had a similar attitude to painting. In places such as Japan they have never paid any attention whatsoever to the concept of the original being somehow superior even to a perfect copy, and series of paintings such as '36 Views of Mount Fuji' were heavily replicated in wood block prints. If I'm not much mistaken, the creation of a wood block print for mass production actually destroys the original. The world of western art is full of rampant idol worship for the great artists. Anything originally drawn by someone we consider to be a genius is intrinsically superior. This is fading away through time, though we still maintain quite a western attitude for the most part. The Mona Lisa is a cultural and historic relic just as much as it is an artistic one, as you said, but here's what I think about the Tate Modern analogy: if there's some way to make absolutely 100% perfect copies of every piece of art there, then yes, that's fine. You could even open two of them to cut down on congestion. I mean, it wouldn't be alright if the Tate Modern burnt down, because it's a nice building and quite a big one, and if it was you who burnt it it certainly wouldn't be alright for you, but you gte my point.
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.
As for the repairing thing, if we're talking about some magical cure all Wolverine-esque healing factor thing then I'd say they'd still be the same as it's basically repairing what exists currently. My definition of the original depends on at least some part of the original person remaining intact and some remnant of their mental faculties too. Enough to be repaired but not so little that it requires complete replacing.
And I can't explain why copying is inferior to transplant because it's just something I am fundamentally unable to get over. The original just IS the original and the copy is a copy, I can't explain why I believe this so strongly, I just do.
Well this has certainly been an interesting discussion, but it's clear neither of us is going to budge on this point so in fear of creating a page long essay I'd say we call it quits.
But on an semi-related note, selfishness and being disrespectful is not inherently immoral IMO. I mean you could refuse to share a chocolate bar with someone, which would be selfish, but certainly not immoral. Just as you could not take your hat off at a funeral, again, disrespectful but not immoral. I'd say that would be bad manners as opposed to being immoral.
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.
In the question I put to you the person had died, and was effectively being resurrected by means of extreme repairing and a reboot of the mind. I added the idea that maybe they need to reinstall the mind because by that point it's basically exactly the same as cloning. In the example I gave they need millions of cells, in cloning just the one. Hyper efficient repairing then, really.
This feels a bit like arguing with religious people about the existence of a god. People generally aren't much keen on budging on their beliefs, and to an extent it's understandable. Probably best we stop now, yeah, last time I had this sort of argument it certainly did not make me a popular guy. At all XD
And on the final point, I'd say that unless there are reasons for those choices other than selfishness for the sake of selfishness and disrespect for the sake of disrespect then they are both immoral. Only slightly immoral, but immoral nonetheless. Immoral does often sound a bit strong though, so I know what you mean.
Why is a transplant so far superior to a copy? The original will be gone in seconds regardless, so what does it matter whether you cut+paste or copy+paste? What if just as they're dying, their mind is 'copied' over, esentially feeling like a pure transfer as they wake up, even though the 'original', written as such because this process would essentially be identical to transfer, dies? Is this suddenly an immoral way of going about it?
And with the whole boat thing, I think you missed the actual question I was asking. By the logic you answered the boat issue with, anyway, the loved one who was miraculously resurrected from their heavily damaged remains would no longer be the same person. Is that what you think/feel? Read back over the other post if you missed it.
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I suppose so, like I said in the reply, I guess there's nothing wrong with it if everyone's on board, but it's not something that I would be comfortable with.
"Why is a transplant so far superior to a copy? The original will be gone in seconds regardless, so what does it matter whether you cut+paste or copy+paste?"
But the original wouldn't be gone because it would be the same mind. If you transplanted the mind that person would be the exact same person as before, just in a new body.
"Is this suddenly an immoral way of going about it?"
I never said immoral, nothing about this is immoral, I'm just saying I think it would be disrespectful or selfish, but if the clone/original was onboard I guess that wouldn't be a problem. But how about this: Say that someone died in a heroic sacrifice, which saved many lives. Wouldn't that be dishonouring their memory by replacing them with a clone?
"And with the whole boat thing, I think you missed the actual question I was asking. The loved one who was miraculously resurrected from their heavily damaged remains would no longer be the same person. "
I see. What question were you asking? I think I understand a bit more what you mean, but a boat and a person is not really the same. They don't have anything that can truly say they're still the original boat.
I mean with a person, if you replace their limbs or what have you due to injury to the point where say, only their torso is left, you couldn't make the argument that the person has changed, because though they may have more "new" parts, they remain the same. Whereas if you replace parts of a car or boat, it more or less stops being the orignal once the new parts outweigh the old.
If you could somehow put a person back together they're still be the same person, but so would a person how had parts replaced, provided some core consciousness remained in them. Like a human mind in a robot body, provided it was the original mind.
I'm going to throw another analogy into the mix, because we clearly don't have enough yet :P
A painting by an artist costs several thousand pounds say, and yet an imitation work costs significantly less. Why should that be, if there is no fundamental difference between them? If you painted even an exact replica of the Mona Lisa, it would not be THE Mona Lisa would it? (I'd use a more modern work, because obviously there's various historical worth to such old paintings, but I don't know of any recent ones.) My point is that despite being, for all intents an purposes, exactly the same, the original is still fundamentally different by dint of being the original.
If I burned down the Tate Modern, would it be alright as long as all of the paintings within had been copied? I say the Tate Modern, because again, the historical worth of older paintings taints the scales here.
Reply
Also, bear in mind that when I said 'immoral', that would include things like disrespect and selfishness. An act that is disrespectful and selfish is undoubtedly immoral. I am arguing against this sort of cloning being disrespectful or selfish, among other things. I mean, you could potentially have purely selfish motives, but that really isn't all there is to it. Also, I would say that putting a heroic and noble person back on the planet would probably be the absolute best application for such cloning, and I would say it was more of an honour than a dishonour. What's dishonourable about it? Someone lived well, was loved, and died nobly, and people would like to have them back. They could likely live longer and have a more and more positive effect on the world. I find it very strange that you think it would be an insult to someone to want to put them back on the planet especially since the amount of benefit such a good person could potentially provide is so high.
With the confusion that's arisen with this whole boat issue, the main question I was asking is written with relatively clear wording in the very same paragraph as the boat story itself. I'll paraphrase it here though. A loved one is killed and their corpse seriously damaged, but technology allows you to completely repair them and restart their mind. Would you take this offer? How about if their mind needed to be 're-installed' like a computer operating system? I feel this question is quite relevant to the discussion.
Finally, when it comes to art analogy, the reasons for the great valuing of an original over a perfect copy are almost entirely due to the nature of art and how we appreciate it. I honestly could, and in fact have, argued for hours and hours about what art is and what it means. Of course when it comes to music we have absolutely no qualms with making clone after clone and selling them as a mass produced product, and in fact in the east they have traditionally had a similar attitude to painting. In places such as Japan they have never paid any attention whatsoever to the concept of the original being somehow superior even to a perfect copy, and series of paintings such as '36 Views of Mount Fuji' were heavily replicated in wood block prints. If I'm not much mistaken, the creation of a wood block print for mass production actually destroys the original. The world of western art is full of rampant idol worship for the great artists. Anything originally drawn by someone we consider to be a genius is intrinsically superior. This is fading away through time, though we still maintain quite a western attitude for the most part. The Mona Lisa is a cultural and historic relic just as much as it is an artistic one, as you said, but here's what I think about the Tate Modern analogy: if there's some way to make absolutely 100% perfect copies of every piece of art there, then yes, that's fine. You could even open two of them to cut down on congestion. I mean, it wouldn't be alright if the Tate Modern burnt down, because it's a nice building and quite a big one, and if it was you who burnt it it certainly wouldn't be alright for you, but you gte my point.
Reply
As for the repairing thing, if we're talking about some magical cure all Wolverine-esque healing factor thing then I'd say they'd still be the same as it's basically repairing what exists currently. My definition of the original depends on at least some part of the original person remaining intact and some remnant of their mental faculties too. Enough to be repaired but not so little that it requires complete replacing.
And I can't explain why copying is inferior to transplant because it's just something I am fundamentally unable to get over. The original just IS the original and the copy is a copy, I can't explain why I believe this so strongly, I just do.
Well this has certainly been an interesting discussion, but it's clear neither of us is going to budge on this point so in fear of creating a page long essay I'd say we call it quits.
But on an semi-related note, selfishness and being disrespectful is not inherently immoral IMO. I mean you could refuse to share a chocolate bar with someone, which would be selfish, but certainly not immoral. Just as you could not take your hat off at a funeral, again, disrespectful but not immoral. I'd say that would be bad manners as opposed to being immoral.
Reply
In the question I put to you the person had died, and was effectively being resurrected by means of extreme repairing and a reboot of the mind. I added the idea that maybe they need to reinstall the mind because by that point it's basically exactly the same as cloning. In the example I gave they need millions of cells, in cloning just the one. Hyper efficient repairing then, really.
This feels a bit like arguing with religious people about the existence of a god. People generally aren't much keen on budging on their beliefs, and to an extent it's understandable. Probably best we stop now, yeah, last time I had this sort of argument it certainly did not make me a popular guy. At all XD
And on the final point, I'd say that unless there are reasons for those choices other than selfishness for the sake of selfishness and disrespect for the sake of disrespect then they are both immoral. Only slightly immoral, but immoral nonetheless. Immoral does often sound a bit strong though, so I know what you mean.
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