Do you guys believe in the spirit , the most important characteristc of our generation?So, if we reach to clone somebody, will it be like us?Maybe I'm confused...Yes , a new life will be born.
is this what you mean? ok, let me get this right....you're asking if a cloned person will have a similar mind as the 1st person..????? if that's the question, i don't think anyone will be able to answer it (there is nothing wrong with speculations offcoursePlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ) cause we have to know where and how this being works, and we don't know. personally i would say that there are some parts of the mind which are certainly influenced by our genetics, so these persons will certainly have common parts of the mind. But most of the mind will form in the youth of the child, by influences of religion, culture and other factors which depend on the people who raise the child.... and offcourse, a new life will be born. (now I hope you meant this, else this is a very useless post....)
Tedman, Here is a short extract from an excellent post made by Boris some time ago. Because of the way the brain is wired up to the body, each hemisphere controls the opposite half of the body. So, the right hemisphere controls the left arm, leg, etc., while the left hemisphere controls the right half. One patient had a problem with his left hemisphere: apparently, it just couldn't stand his wife. At the mere sight of his spouse, his right hand would immediately form a fist, his right leg start making valiant attempts to get the body closer to the wife, and his right arm start violently swinging at the wife with a clear intent to do damage. With his left leg he would fight his right leg, and with his left hand try to restrain his right hand, all the while displaying a grimace of rage on the right side of his face while the left side of the face expressed clear alarm and distress. Another lady had an even more serious problem, with the two halves of her body engaging in a vicious feud. She literally beat herself up, tried to choke herself in her sleep, tore her own hair out, and all of that occurred in the context of the right side of her body doing damage to the left side, and vice versa. Fortunately, such horrible side effects tend to mellow out as time passes, but the patients never return to normal -- to the end of their lives, they literally remain split in half. Yet, if a single, indivisible, unified soul was controlling the brain, then surely cutting the link between the hemispheres would not preclude them from functioning in harmony! At the very least, they shouldn't be trying to kill each other! But contrary to all common sense as we used to know it, the two hemispheres literally turn into two distinct personalities. Each of them is capable of independent emotion, independnt knowledge, independent interaction with the world. For example, questions can be asked of the right hemisphere, and it will answer them (though not verbally, because in most people the right hemisphere is incapable of language) -- but the left, verbal, hemisphere will never know about either the questions or the answers, and will in fact tell you so when asked. Even more poignantly, the right hemisphere possesses knowledge that the left hemisphere doesn't, and vice versa. Both hemispheres exhibit structured thought and problem solving abilities, independent of each other. Both of them express feelings and emotions, again independently of each other. Each has its own stream of consciousness, again independent of the other hemisphere. So indeed, the two hemispheres are in most respects separate, distinct, independent human beings! Yet, they originally only had one soul. How would the doctrine of souls explain such a phenomenon? There are many other such examples that make the whole idea of a soul or spirit completely absurd. There is no scientific reason and there does not expect to be any real practical reasons why we will not be able to clone humans in the near future. We have already cloned human stem cells which strongly indicates that there will be no obstacles, apart from political and religious, to effective human cloning. As indicated in Boris’s post, alleged souls and spirits really can’t exist. Cris
*sigh* Again the relevance of your post remains obscure to me, Cris. I can make up several arguments why your story (which btw is very unscientific: it's a bit too popular) does not necessarily "make the whole idea of a soul or spirit completely absurd" Here is a good exercise in critical thinking: try figure out two reasons why the symptoms of split brain patients do not necessarily lead to the conclusiuons that the notion of a soul is absurd.
It wouldn't matter, because my clone would stay in cryostasis until I needed an organ transplant.LOLPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Merlijn, My assumptions about what is usually meant by soul. 1. Becomes the supernatural component of a person at biological conception (i.e. there is only one soul per person). 2. Is completely responsible for the personality of the chosen human. My post indicates that there are events where true split personalities occur not because of psychoses but because of physical damage to the brain. My point is that if (2) above is true then how can there be two apparent fully independent personalities in the cases described? If souls can come and go so that the split brain has acquired two souls, then (1) cannot be true (only I soul per person). Do you want to alter, what I think, is the usual definition of a soul? If not then how do you explain split-brain personalities? The absurdity comes from having to explain why (1) and (2) cannot be true at all times. Do you want me to quote actual clinical studies? Cris
Nephilin, Hi and welcome to sciforums. I notice the LOL, so I assume you are joking. But for others I’ll point out that once your clone is created it still has to grow to a reasonable size before it could be harvested to provide you with replacement parts. That will be murder. A clone isn’t an instant full-size copy of the host. It is just another way to begin the life of an individual, who happens to have the same DNA as someone else. Its lifetime experiences, education, and probably environment, will be very different to the host. Cris
Merjin, Yes quite possibly, but in my post I mention that and “other” examples create the “completely absurd” assertion. What I was trying to avoid was a long discussion on souls again since this is probably the wrong forum. The issue is whether a clone can or cannot be produced without consideration of a soul. Since cloned human stem cells did survive for a short time then I am suggesting that a soul is not required for human cloning to become a reality. That I hope is my attempt for the thread not to digress too far into religion. Although this thread does verge on being in the wrong forum anyway. We could move it and let rip with soul disproof’s again, but I’d rather not go there again for the moment. And sigh! to you too. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Cris
Not saying your wrong Cris, but... I think it would be up to the society in question. Should this clone be considered a member of society or just a by-product to be utilized as specified: spare parts, slaves, or disposable soldiers...dispoable people in fact. Now, we can say that right now, that couldn't happen. What about twenty years down the road...a hundred. Who can say what will be the norm in the future. I watched something a year or two ago that unnerved me. I mean it was scary. These scientists, during the intial cloning hub bub days, said that it would be possible to blend monkey or pig DNA with humans. I mean were talking Planet of the Apes here. They also implied what we might do with them too. Like I said, used as slaves or the military could get a hold of them for a massive suicide force. You have to figure that the day will come, when mankind will be genetically perfected. We will be smarter, stronger, faster and probably able to live hundreds of years. Now, with that, I'm wondering if they will also do the opposite, by making a whole different class, that is bred to be stupid work horses that do only dangerous or menial jobs. That stuff is enough to make me want to crawl under a rock. P.S. keep your DNA to yourself, you don't know where it will end up. P.S.S. Cris, I wasn't kidding. My clone is in cryostasis until I need a new liver.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Nephilim, Nah. Once human clones are born they will be seen as perfectly normal humans and no different from anyone else. Your scenario can never happen without a massive breakdown of human morality, and I don’t see that ever happening. And genetics and genetic manipulation will be very short lived, a few decades at most. The dominant advances over that time will be AI and the development of super intelligence, i.e. machines that will exceed human intelligence. Our only hope of survival will be to adapt ourselves to that technology or become a dominated species. It is more likely we will adapt and that means the human race, as we know it, as a biological species will be extinct within 100 years. Cris
I'm just a critical thinker. "My post indicates that there are events where true split personalities occur not because of psychoses but because of physical damage to the brain. " Yes of course (you are talking to a psychologist). So, when I say split brain, I mean a brain with a severered corpus callosum, so that the two hemispheres of the cerebrum are fully or partially seperated. "how can there be two apparent fully independent personalities in the cases described? " It is in any case not true that each hemisphere harbours a complete personality! No way! And I can assure you that even in a split-brain patient the two hemispheres are still communicating with each other. They only lack the normal direct lines of communication. How about: with a split brain the soul itself becomes damaged, so that in some cirumstances causes strange pathalogical behaviour. And I am not interested in religeous arguments, only in logical foundings of the "scientific" ones. I hope you do not think I actually believe all the things I wrote, do you? I am just a critical thinker and there is a possibility that it's true. In any case I see no reason why cloning will lead to zombies (beings without a soul) or whatever strange results. If there is such a thing as a soul, there is no reason to believe that there can be only one soul per set of DNA strands. Nature (God?) clones without problem: twins are a result (as Adam has indicated). BTW I thought that the soul was not responsible for the actions. I thought soul merely means something vague as sacret life energy.
I think human morality will breakdown over time, it's happening all around us right now. I don't think this technology will dissappear once it becomes mainstream. Your thinking in terms of a single clone or twin. What would stop them from making hundreds. I think once the benifit is seen, they could be as common as pets. Human morality has never stopped man from playing God. And lets face it, mankind shouldn't be trying to put on a deity's pants and waving a magic wand, trying to change nature. I'm not saying were not getting good at it, we just need to choose our paths wisely.
I think It depends upon Kind of enviorment you"re living in.if clone has stayed in complete different world then his mind will develop accordingly,isnt it so?Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! bye!
Reminds me of the book “Virgin Planet” by Poul Anderson. Spacecraft crashes on an uninhabited planet. No men survive the crash. At least I think that is how it starts (been about 30 years). The women use cloning to clone themselves. After many generations there is a large population but everyone looks like the original donors. When a man eventually lands on the planet he is considered an alien, but biology soon plays a hand. Cris
It was more of a fill in the blank question. Governments, Corporations, cults/religous sects, you know, the usual.
