More human cloning - A philosophical question

[-Fran-]

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.

Is that a film?

Yeah, I guess it's an almost unavoidable idea when considering what consequenses cloning people would have.

 

[Radrook]

trip.i;3458767

....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.

If I did choose that option I would do so with the understanding that the person isn't really the original one but a copy. To be the same person the clone would have had to have died itself and have been cloned and clearly it wasn't. Neither did it really experience death but just seems to remember it did because it was programmed to remember. Since the original was never programmed in that way-then the clone cannot be the exact original and would continue to appear to me as a replica.

I can see the religious not wanting to do so for obvious reasons, but since atheists don't believe in the existence 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?

I'm not so sure that atheism by itself would make every, or even most atheists impervious to being spooked. Especially if the clone were given the memory of experienced death. We might, of course, consider not imprinting it with that memory. However, that would make it an amnesiac copy to whom one could not express the pain we felt when it died. This restriction placed on our relationship with such a clone would mitigate against the illusion of sameness necessary for a normal relationship between the cloned and the uncloned.

The clone's memory of its own death might also come across on a subconscious level as a bit ghoulish. True, atheists might not believe in God or the supernatural-but being human, they can be made nervous by such situations despite their best efforts at taking things nonchalantly philosophically. Especially if the atheist in question enjoys watching fright films where the resurrected are almost invariable ravenously out to devour human flesh.

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.

An atheist clone could deal with that experience with less emotional or intellectual conflict than, let's say, a Christian clone since the atheist clone would not need to reconcile the experience with religious beliefs. A religious clone might, for example, perceive itself as an affront to its God and by extension an abomination. Both however, would be emotionally affected by the death memory, especially if that death was traumatic and involved pre-death extended suffering. Such a memory alone might tend to generate recurring nightmares and feelings of abnormality regardless of philosophical or religious beliefs.


BTW
A SCi Fi film dealing with the resurrection of a cloned-like person or persons is "Solaris"

About cloning a pet, well, not me but I'm sure that there would be a market for that considering how attached people can become to animals.

 

[Beerina]

I read a SF story once where a cloning device from the future is accidently delivered to some guy. Actually it's more like a matter copying device. It can copy people perfectly, including their minds.

He gets the idea to copy a girl he's totally hot for so he can have his way with here (I don't recall what he was planning to do when her copy rejects him, too.) In any case, he tests it on himself first, so he strips and copies himself. The copy immediately starts getting dressed, planning to flee rather than be disassembled into component chemicals so he'll have enough for the girl. At that point, some guy from the future shows up to take the thing back, sees the guy has cloned himself, looks at the dressed one, and disassembles the screaming naked one. The clothed one of course says, "Ah, well, take it away."

 

[Wauthan]

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.

One of the unforeseen flaws in being a science journalist is that I keep getting questions like this one at every single party I attend. While it's great to meet such interest, and I do enjoy discussing genetics, it's one of those moments when you either tell the person what they want to hear or risk getting uncomfortable cold stares the rest of the night.

My take on it: No, I would not want to clone my loved one. And you already explained why I wouldn't want it in your post. "To them, they would essentially still be the same person, except having experienced death and returned from it."

But to everyone else but them, and perhaps especially so for those who loved the deceased, they would not be the same person. I would now be living with the newly born twin sister of the woman I buried. And, since your example really creepy, this newly born woman would have physical appearance of being the same age as my dead loved one, and be under the impression that she indeed was her, memories and all.

In my, perhaps naive, view this is nothing short of grief gone insane. I can see no rational explanation as to why anyone would go through with this, only an almost unbelivably selfish wish to spare oneself the pain of loss. You've literally replaced the one you claimed to love, and the one doing the replacing has been given no choice but to love you back. Two people died here. The one you loved, and the clone who was denied it's own unique personality and the freedom to choose a life of her own.

I guess that my sense of "good" is founded on the belief that all people, and indeed all living things, have the undeniable right to be unique. Or, to put it in other words, to have freedom to be themselves, all that they can be and be allowed to face the consequences of such freedom. It is after all a right I myself would refuse to surrender, though of course this "freedom" might only exist in my own mind.

As much fun as these kind of discussion are I always find myself a bit confused over their popularity. I mean it's not like the old fashioned way of creating humans actually needs replacing.

 

[NonCleverName]

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.

Ok first, atheists can believe in souls. Atheism deals only with deities.

Second, I would have no problem with a clone of my girlfriend if it was the exact same. Unless ofcourse she told me that if she died she didn't want to be brought back as a clone. Would I want to clone her? It would depend on what my mindset was at the time of her death.

Third, I would have no problem in being a clone. So what if I have the label as a clone? I'm still human, and I have the exact same feelings and memories of the original.

 

[Radrook]

Actually, the problem is not one of duplication of exact data as much as it is the transefernce of consciousness. The replication and imprinting of data does not necessarily involve the transference of conciousness, and if it doesn't-then the clone isn't really us and we would remain unconcious in death while our clone goes about mimicking how we would think and behave if we were indeed really alive.

The website below considers various aspects of this consciousness problem from the cloning one to artificial intelligence.

excerpt:

Alien Consciousness - Philosophical Problems

But surely all of this is just idle speculation isn't it, it has no current bearing on reality ? Unfortunately it has. The field of Artificial Intelligence is busy trying to create a conscious robot, Medicine is starting to connect certain brains to machines, Artificial Life is deriving the basics for the creation of non-carbon lifeforms, and Astronomy, with the SETI project, is trying to locate the extraterrestrials. Soon these questions may require answers...
http://www.calresco.org/alien.htm

]

 

[ServiceSoon]

Second, I would have no problem with a clone of my girlfriend if it was the exact same. Unless ofcourse she told me that if she died she didn't want to be brought back as a clone. Would I want to clone her? It would depend on what my mindset was at the time of her death.

Waiting to make the decision at that time is probably the wrong time to make the decision.