More human cloning - A philosophical question

[four elevener]

I got into a discussion with a friend the other day after we watched a movie called The Sixth Man, starring California's governer. For those who haven't seen it: in the film, humans are cloned from "blanks" and with a retina scan, are given the original's memories and personality. Arnold's character even loses a family pete and considers having it cloned at a store in the mall called RePet. Another character has his wife cloned repeatedly in order to find a cure for her cancer. As the clone lays dying in the hospital (aware that she's a clone), she tells the husband that it's time to let her go, that the original died years ago and that she doesn't want to come back anymore.

The legality and morality of the issue and absurdities of the science aside, the movie got me thinking: if in the very distant future, science was able to do just that, and you lost a loved one, would you have him/her cloned? Keep in mind that the clone would look, act, and feel the exact same as the original, retaining their memories, feelings and experiences. To them, they would essentially still be the same person, except having experienced death and returned from it.

I can see the religious not wanting to do so for obvious reasons, but since atheists don't believe in the existance of a soul, how would they reconcile something like that in their mind if they chose to clone a deceased loved one? If you didn't believe in a soul, would you be able to love the clone as if he/she was the original or would the thought always linger in the back of your mind that your original is really dead and buried somewhere? Would you feel any differently about cloning a pet?

On the flip side of the coin, if you were a clone and were brought back by a loved one, how would you feel about yourself, knowing you weren't the original, yet there you are, standing there with all the same feelings, memories, experiences that the original You had? Unlike the concept of cryogenitcally freezing yourself, once you die this you ceases to exist. Only your clone would have the fortune (or misfortune) of experiencing your death and living to remember it, creating new experiences and feelings that he/she will never experience again upon their death, but their clones will...and so forth.

I spose I'm asking several questions here so feel free to answer any or all of them. I'm not suggesting this discussion serves any purpose...it's purely hypothetical, maybe even a little silly, but very interesting to me.

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

Assuming body functionality remains as it was when I was alive, I would have no problems being reincarnated as a clone. I don't have memories and feelings. I am memories and feelings. Putting them in a new box doesn't matter.

As for a loved one, it is the type of question that should be discussed before it's a possibility, just like pulling-the-plug issues now.

 

[Aoidoi]

If one actually has the memories of your original life and can be cloned to eliminate physical infirmities like old age, cancer, gunshot wounds to the head... seems pretty much like immortality to me. Can't say the concept of a soul even enters into it. I'd be signed up for the permaclone plan.

If they can't cure what's going wrong with your body (haven't seen the movie) then I for damn sure wouldn't want to be cloned once my brain was mush and I couldn't feed myself any more. There'd be a cutoff clause in the contract.

The idea that I'd clone a loved one without their consent is pretty ridiculous. Clearly if this technology was available every single human being would consider whether or not they wanted to be cloned and have their preference on record. I wouldn't go against that preference cause, you know, when they came back they'd be pissed. And have nothing to lose. And have ray guns.

As a random nitpick... what's being postulated really in no way resembles cloning as currently conceived. Making a genetic duplicate is a hop, skip, leap, and then a suborbital hop, skip and jump to lightspeed from recreating a fully functional human being complete with accurate memories and personality. That the governator actually claimed that movie raised real concerns about science was laughable. As hypothetical discussion it's interesting, but it's relationship to reality about on par with the rest of Arhnold's flicks.

 

[Seismosaurus]

It's odd to think of this as any kind of immortality. One of the points that the movie raises is that since your memories and personality are scanned into a computer to be downloaded into the clone, there's no reason they can't make multiple copies of you; and indeed we do get two Arnies running around talking to one another.

But if that's so then the clone can't be considered to be the same person as the original, can it? It may be an absolutely identical copy, but isn't it just a copy nonetheless?

So it doesn't allow you to live forever. It simply allows you to die, and somebody else who is very similar to you to pick up your life.

 

[Luzz]

If the clone looks and feels like the original, I don´t see why I shouldn´t be treating the clone as the original. It does not make sense.
The problem with your thought experiment is that deep inside you feel something is still missing.

 

[ServiceSoon]

Just another line on the living will document.

Question 74) Do you want to be cloned upon your death and reincarnated? Yes or No

 

[Darth Rotor]

If this were possible, I'd want it to happen so Tim Robbins could be cloned. This should be done. Then, I could ask him to please go and **** himself.

Likewise with a rather long list of -- never mind.

Science has some curious side benefits, doesn't it?

DR

Please do not circumvent the nannyware.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: LibraryLady

 

[Lynx2174]

I got into a discussion with a friend the other day after we watched a movie called The Sixth Man, starring California's governer. For those who haven't seen it: in the film, humans are cloned from "blanks" and with a retina scan, are given the original's memories and personality. Arnold's character even loses a family pete and considers having it cloned at a store in the mall called RePet. Another character has his wife cloned repeatedly in order to find a cure for her cancer. As the clone lays dying in the hospital (aware that she's a clone), she tells the husband that it's time to let her go, that the original died years ago and that she doesn't want to come back anymore.

The legality and morality of the issue and absurdities of the science aside, the movie got me thinking: if in the very distant future, science was able to do just that, and you lost a loved one, would you have him/her cloned? Keep in mind that the clone would look, act, and feel the exact same as the original, retaining their memories, feelings and experiences. To them, they would essentially still be the same person, except having experienced death and returned from it.

I can see the religious not wanting to do so for obvious reasons, but since atheists don't believe in the existance of a soul, how would they reconcile something like that in their mind if they chose to clone a deceased loved one? If you didn't believe in a soul, would you be able to love the clone as if he/she was the original or would the thought always linger in the back of your mind that your original is really dead and buried somewhere? Would you feel any differently about cloning a pet?

On the flip side of the coin, if you were a clone and were brought back by a loved one, how would you feel about yourself, knowing you weren't the original, yet there you are, standing there with all the same feelings, memories, experiences that the original You had? Unlike the concept of cryogenitcally freezing yourself, once you die this you ceases to exist. Only your clone would have the fortune (or misfortune) of experiencing your death and living to remember it, creating new experiences and feelings that he/she will never experience again upon their death, but their clones will...and so forth.

I spose I'm asking several questions here so feel free to answer any or all of them. I'm not suggesting this discussion serves any purpose...it's purely hypothetical, maybe even a little silly, but very interesting to me.

1. The movie was called the "Sixth Day". Also: the clones wouldn't remember dying, as they start from the point at which the previous clone was scanned.

2. Only if they wanted me to. By the movie's logic, they'd have to be scanned before they could be brought back with memories, the absurdity of a retinal scan for that aside. One would think that they'd have to volunteer for it, which would indicate that if I had the possibility of bringing them back, they'd have intended for me to.

3. I don't think I'd get too angsty about it. Even if I hadn't intended to be cloned, I would then be a consciousness, and alive, and that's good enough for me. No reason to feel bad just because somebody's been me before.

 

[Dogdoctor]

First of all no where in the near future will we be able to clone adults. Even if we figure out a way to record memories off a brain we have to wait while bodies grow up to adult and have all the life experiences that people do growing up. Saying that there was a way to do all this in the future and we had already figured out all these things we would have also conquered cancer and everyone who was living would likely have been living hundreds of years and there would be no new people since essentially no one would die. But forgetting about all that I wouldn't have much problems with it other than the lack of evolution that was occurring due to lack of selective pressures (however it's likely such
technology would bring about selective pressures of it's own.)

 

[four elevener]

1. The movie was called the "Sixth Day". Also: the clones wouldn't remember dying, as they start from the point at which the previous clone was scanned.

2. Only if they wanted me to. By the movie's logic, they'd have to be scanned before they could be brought back with memories, the absurdity of a retinal scan for that aside. One would think that they'd have to volunteer for it, which would indicate that if I had the possibility of bringing them back, they'd have intended for me to.

3. I don't think I'd get too angsty about it. Even if I hadn't intended to be cloned, I would then be a consciousness, and alive, and that's good enough for me. No reason to feel bad just because somebody's been me before.

The Sixth Day...ah yes. Thanks for clarifying. In the film, the bad guys who were cloned repeatedly because they kept screwing up did remember their deaths. One of them kept feeling a phantom pain in their chest after getting run over by a car and another woke up from being "activated" clutching her neck where she was shot. In any case, a small matter.

I'd like to add that even though I don't believe in the existance of a soul, if a loved one of mine were cloned (particularly a spouse), I think I would still feel funny about them. Although the clone would--in every essence and detail--be an exact duplicate of my spouse in every way, I would be aware that the person I married and loved isn't really enjoying the continuation of their existance, even if my "new" spouse feels like they are, and would prolly get their feelings hurt if I expressed that to them. That would probably get under my skin a bit. I would prolly feel the same way about a pet. Now, if I were the clone, I don't think I'd have a problem with it. I might even think it was pretty cool, but I'd also know that upon my death, I would cease to exist, and if cloned again, my copy would experience "my" continued existance....or the existance of the original me.

 

[Darth Rotor]

If this were possible, I'd want it to happen so Tim Robbins could be cloned. This should be done. Then, I could ask him to please go and **** himself.

Likewise with a rather long list of -- never mind.

Science has some curious side benefits, doesn't it?

DR

Please do not circumvent the nannyware.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: LibraryLady

For Fox ache, one letter rather than an asterisk is a foul?

Fine, I'll use more picturesque speach in the future.

Science allows me to do that, thanks to my electronic internet communication device, an IBM PC clone derivative (Pro Tip: Clone is on topic here) and its keyboard.

JREF means required creative writing, got it.

DR

 

[Seismosaurus]

If the clone looks and feels like the original, I don´t see why I shouldn´t be treating the clone as the original.

So if you clone two copies of a person they are the same person? If one goes out to murder somebody and escapes we can just punish the other one?

 

[Darth Rotor]

So if you clone two copies of a person they are the same person? If one goes out to murder somebody and escapes we can just punish the other one?

I smell a discussion on twins brewing.

I'd like to clone my dog.

He will die in a few years, he's eleven. He is the perfect combination of size and nature that suits us. Raised by us, the clone would probably be different, as the kids are gone, but I'd expect a similarly great dog.

I don't think we can afford cloning, so we will enjoy his company while we can, and then miss him when he goes.

I was tempted to take his ashes and hair and have a diamond made from them, but the cost was prohibitive for our circumstances.

DR

 

[Crossbow]

Actually, the movie The Sixth Day reminded me a good bit of the Marshak and Culbreth sicence fiction book The Price of the Phoenix where the antagonist developed a way to create a new person when the original person died.

The story was quite insightful in that if there were multiple individuals, then which of them should have ownership of the various property, possessions, relationships, careers, and so on that have been built up over so many years.

I expect that if such technology was available, then these questions could be quite vexing and would often result in violent outcomes.

 

[Beerina]

If a carbon copy of me is made, complete with memories, I care not because if I, this body, die, then that's it. That some copy of me continues to exist is quaint, but does me no good. I cease to exist.

Now if you do some fancy hookup with wires such that my continuing consciousness transfers over there, then the other body is shut down, then I'd be happy. Yes, if, after separation, that body were turned back on, I'd probably kick and scream that wait, I'm not dead yet, I'm not "over there", I'm still back here in the old body. So even this "perfect" solution is unsettling at best.

 

[Quinn]

Yes, if, after separation, that body were turned back on, I'd probably kick and scream that wait, I'm not dead yet...

Then the body collector would just whack you on the head and throw you on his cart. Problem solved.

 

[-Fran-]

Reminds me of a Science Fiction comic I read many years ago. In it rich and influential people had themselves cloned and the clones raised, so that when they got older and maybe ill, they could harvest their much younger clone of its organs when they needed them. The story was of such a clone that managed to escape, ended up on the streets, started to use drugs, got caught, killed and harvested for the good parts that were not destroyed by the drugs... If I remember it all correctly. It was a very cheerful and uplifting story

But I guess that would be another use for them, if you could get around the ethical problems (hard to see how you could though) taking their organs that would then fit perfecly, and live on yourself a little bit longer, instead of sort of living on after your death, through them. These clones would never get your memories and experiences, they would have their own, and be their own persons, but not considererd persons at all by the law, but a container of spare parts.

Would it be another thing if they were cloned without enough brainfunction to never be conscious about what they are - just a body? In the comic at least the one that escaped knew what was going to happen to him.

 

[slingblade]

Fran, there's a book very much like that for the young adult (teen) audience, The House of the Scorpion. A hateful, rich old man has a clone raised on his estate, for when the old man's heart gives out, again. I believe it has a somewhat happier outcome...

 

[-Fran-]

Fran, there's a book very much like that for the young adult (teen) audience, The House of the Scorpion. A hateful, rich old man has a clone raised on his estate, for when the old man's heart gives out, again. I believe it has a somewhat happier outcome...

Imagine just how cold you would have to be for something like that *shudder*

Sounds like an interesting book, I think I'll look for it (and dig that old comic up too, and re-read it).

 

[Seismosaurus]

The whole "raise a colony of clones for spare parts" is an old one. The Island was a recent version, but I've seem much earlier ones.