posted
Today (well, yesterday, now), I watched Arnold "hasta -la vista, baby" Schwarzeneggar's flick The Sixth Day. This film is about cloning. While I don't want to spoil it for anyone who might see it, the technique exists to "grap" a person's mind and transplant it into a clone. Essentially, constant life.
But it's not, is it?
If someone takes a "capture" of my mind right now, and then shoots me, I'm dead. Even if my memories are implanted in an exact duplicate, my "soul" (if you will) will not go to the new clone. While my friends and family might be thrilled (and Omega no doubt irritated), there will be an exact copy of me, which is doing everything that I would've done with every memory I've got.
But it wouldn't be me.
In the movie, the Speaker of the House has his terminally-ill son cloned. Dr. Weir has had his wife cloned. People clone their pets when they die, and if the plans of Mr. Decker are successful, people will clone their loved ones when they die, too.
But, while delivering pies tonight, this thought really bothered me.
A clone which looks like my girlfriend, and talks like her, and thinks like her, and behaves exactly like her -- still isn't her. I find it rather disrespectful to the original person to "clone" them ... I want to be missed when I die, not have someone say, "Oh, well, Jeff's dead -- warm up the clone!"
In the movie, someone says a clone is the ultimate way of ensuring eternal life. But, you know, it's not that either. If Jeff The First is killed, and Jeff #2 is cloned with Jeff The First's memories, Jeff The First will never experience what Jeff #2 will. His life is over. It's only eternal life for the newest clone, who has the memories of each and every clone to come before.
------------------ Star Trek Gamma Quadrant Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted) *** "Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!" -Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001 *** "I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.
posted
Are you familiar w/ the concept of "fiction"?
For one thing, clones are not produced full-grown. Unless you're cloned at the moment of conception, your clone will always be younger than you. If we cloned you now, you're clone would always be... what, twenty-some years younger than you? Not much chance of the two of you ever looking exactly the same at the same time.
As for flashing light into someone's eyes, recording their entire memory, putting it on a floppy disk, and then uploading it into a clone's brain... Well, to put it simply, that == big fucking pile of bullshit.
------------------ "Although, from what I understand, having travelled around the Mid-west quite a bit, apparently Jesus is coming, so I guess the choice now is we should decide whether we should spit or swallow." -Maynard James Keenan
posted
There is a difference between cloning a body and uploading a mind. The first is an almost trivial accomplishment. The second...well, let's wait a few decades and see what happens.
Although you cannot clone a full adult being, (unless someone discovers a way to 'force-grow' a clone), you could always grow a new, brain-less body and have your brain transplanted into it (assuming that medical science will advance soon to the point at which a brain can be transplanted.. not too unlikely, given that we're starting to be able to regrow nerves, and spinal cords aren't far beyond that...
------------------ The government that seems the most unwise, oft goodness to the people best supplies. That which is meddling, touching everything, will work but ill, and disappointment bring. - The Tao Te Ching
Maybe I should of put this in the Officer's Lounge, but I thought this could get a bit "flamey" once people started talking about genetic enhancements and the like.
------------------ Star Trek Gamma Quadrant Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted) *** "Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!" -Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001 *** "I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.
[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 28, 2001).]
posted
There is always a heated debate about these kinds of things, and while I beleive that cloning is not the way to go, I do beleive that genetic engineering is. All of the defects that are detected in a child before or at birth could be rectified thorough genetic re-sequencing. While a lot of people think this is wrong, I doubt that anyone would not accept it if they had given birth to a "defective" child in any way.
------------------ "Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"
posted
And what if they start engineering the color of a child's skin? Blue eyes over green, blonde hair over black? What limits do you impose on these aspects?
------------------ Star Trek Gamma Quadrant Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted) *** "Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!" -Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001 *** "I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.
See, there's this nifty little device, which they have recently made idiotproof, known as a "defibrillator." We use it on dead people to make them live again. Hmmm.
posted
I don't think I'd want to be cloned, personally. I'm unique, and I like it that way, and I'm sure most of you do, too.
------------------ "How do you define fool?" "I don't attempt it. I wait for demonstrations. They inevitably surpass my imagination." - CJ Cherryh, Invader
posted
Yes, but engineering isn't cloning. Cloning is probably easier.
As for limits on engineering... I thought that's what laws and more government was for. Limit it to eliminating genetically-caused diseases (like spina bifida, cystic fibrosis, down's syndrome) and you should be fine.
------------------ The government that seems the most unwise, oft goodness to the people best supplies. That which is meddling, touching everything, will work but ill, and disappointment bring. - The Tao Te Ching
posted
not that type of engineering, just birth defects that will limit a child from becoming another successfull person in society, cosmetic modifications will not be legal on children but they should be available to adults that can make a choice, same as plastic surgery today.
------------------ "Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"
posted
If if sufficiently many members of a society value (in whatever sense) attribute X in a person then lack of X becomes an obstacle to said person becoming 'another succesful person in society', regardless of whether X is 'cosmetic' or not.
Registered: Dec 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
Trek to the contrary, genetic modifications would have no drastic effect on adults. Only during fetal development.
------------------ "How do you define fool?" "I don't attempt it. I wait for demonstrations. They inevitably surpass my imagination." - CJ Cherryh, Invader
posted
I am against human cloning. When you start playing God in that way, then you open up a rather nasty Pandora's box that, knowing human proclivities like I do, can only lead to a lot of unecessary suffering.
------------------ In this crazy world of lemons, baby...you're lemonade!
posted
The only way to reach immortal existense technically is if you can transport your sentience/spirit/soul to another host body. Cloning just to live longer is stupid by default.
The thought of knowing that your clone will continue your life and you yourself'll die scares me.
Like in that Vidiian-ep in Voy where they commit capital suicide, that was terrible. I wonder if present-Harry ever lets his rationalization-guard down and thinks of the people around them that died years ago. He's the only original left... Well, one can argue which ship was the original, but it's natural to assume the one the camera was on during the first 20 minutes...
Printer-friendly view of this topic
