Star Wars & Sc-Fi Talk

Sci fi mean discovery channel?
Look at "throught the wormhole" and see episode whit brain hack. By monitorizing alfa and teta waves in brain can be said when is perfect moment to do something.

This is more of a philosophical question, but I'm curious as to what you guys think.

Suppose that we have the technology to perfectly clone a person and mature the body to peak adult state and is then held in stasis. Suppose that we also have the technology to read and copy neural patterns from a person's brain, effectively able to store and copy all of their memories and personalities.

Now suppose you are equipped with a device that is constantly uploading your neural patterns onto a "cloud" server. When you die, your clone automatically activates and your cloud-stored neural pattern gets imprinted onto your clone's brain. By all physical measures, it would be as if you just waked up from death into a younger, flawless, body.

The question then is, would it still be you? Would your stream of consciousness carry over to the physical body of your clone, or would it have ended at the death of the original you?

And, if you think your stream of consciousness carries over, then what happens if you had TWO clones, and both wakes up at the same time with the same neural pattern? Through whose eyes would you continue to see the world?

solarz said:

This is more of a philosophical question, but I'm curious as to what you guys think.

Suppose that we have the technology to perfectly clone a person and mature the body to peak adult state and is then held in stasis. Suppose that we also have the technology to read and copy neural patterns from a person's brain, effectively able to store and copy all of their memories and personalities.

Now suppose you are equipped with a device that is constantly uploading your neural patterns onto a "cloud" server. When you die, your clone automatically activates and your cloud-stored neural pattern gets imprinted onto your clone's brain. By all physical measures, it would be as if you just waked up from death into a younger, flawless, body.

The question then is, would it still be you? Would your stream of consciousness carry over to the physical body of your clone, or would it have ended at the death of the original you?

And, if you think your stream of consciousness carries over, then what happens if you had TWO clones, and both wakes up at the same time with the same neural pattern? Through whose eyes would you continue to see the world?

Click to expand...

The answer would be a huge "NO". Why? the key word is "clone". A common misconception is that a "clone" would be 100% identical to the original. However, that is not the case at all. During the cloning process, many steps involve "mixing" of DNA strands that cannot be controlled, which leads to mutations. So mutations WILL occur even though you are cloning identical genes. So the clone will never be 100% identical to the original. Just find some photos of monozygotic twins (twins from a single zygote, pretty much what would happen during lab cloning), you will find differences when you look long and hard enough. Even more interestingly, these twins typically have distinct personalities, suggesting that their genetic make-up is different.

Additionally, do we consider 2 identical natural-born twins the same people, or 2 distinct individuals? They are absolutely 2 separate individuals. So even IF we can get a clone that is 100% identical to the original, we still need to consider them 2 separate individuals.

All in all, as long as we generate 100% biological beings, either the natural way or in the lab, we have to consider each of them distinct individuals. No question about it. It does not matter if they share all your memory. This is would be like you have a twin sibling who has been with you ever since both of you were born. Just because a person shares memory with you, it does not make him you.

The only option to "extend" your life is to make a robot and download your memory to it. Even that, this new bot can never be the 100% same as you. Since it is absolutely impossible to design a robot that not only looks like you, but also shares identical personality, etc. As long as it is designed by human, there will be differences. so it is IMPOSSIBLE to make a 100% clone of a human. When that is the case, the clone (be it 100% biological or mechanical) should always be considered a separate individual.

solarz said:

This is more of a philosophical question, but I'm curious as to what you guys think.

Suppose that we have the technology to perfectly clone a person and mature the body to peak adult state and is then held in stasis. Suppose that we also have the technology to read and copy neural patterns from a person's brain, effectively able to store and copy all of their memories and personalities.

Now suppose you are equipped with a device that is constantly uploading your neural patterns onto a "cloud" server. When you die, your clone automatically activates and your cloud-stored neural pattern gets imprinted onto your clone's brain. By all physical measures, it would be as if you just waked up from death into a younger, flawless, body.

The question then is, would it still be you? Would your stream of consciousness carry over to the physical body of your clone, or would it have ended at the death of the original you?

And, if you think your stream of consciousness carries over, then what happens if you had TWO clones, and both wakes up at the same time with the same neural pattern? Through whose eyes would you continue to see the world?

Click to expand...

Well I believe that humans have souls. So with this situation, I'd have to say that it is impossible to "control+C" a persons personality and who you are and "control+V" into another body even if we had the tech.

The Methuselah Question.
At it's heart is really, Do you believe That a Clone has a Soul?

And We could even get more interesting.
Can a Clone own property? Can you leave your property to your clone? Does your next of kin have any right to sue you the clone for your estate? and in the two clone situation do you clones have grounds for dividing your property?
And we could Add a Third scenario to it What happens if you force the transfer before the original is dead?

lots of ground.
First no. Much, like vesicles said As it stands today as we know of cloning the Clone would not be "You", He might have your mind but chances are there would be differences. especially since the Clone's memory would include your death. That and your accomplishments would result in a unique individual.
Can a Clone own property, Can they inherit your estate, and receive priority over your traditional next of kin?
yes, yes, depends.
Yes as they would I believe be covered under the category of descendants, as to depends well That depends on the next of kin and how close they are. The Clone might not trump the rights of a actual child but surely those of a cousin or niece or nephew.
What happens if you force the transfer? or a second clone is activated? I think the differences are enough that the Clones would again have rights and be different individuals.

I think the difference Solarz was the whole neuron part. I believe much like in the movie The 6th Day. There are so many different applications of cloning. There's a natural cloning which is how there's identical twins. Probably the most simplest and easiest if that were engineered. It's basically identical how biology works but one is done natural and the other is engineered that starts it to begin with. One of the twins can't claim to be the original therefore has a soul while the other doesn't because they both started from the beginning of cells splitting. So what's a soul? Animals use to not have souls but because animals rights have become important to people, now they have souls. Is it that simple to have or not have a soul? Maybe a soul is personality. If it's only personality that makes a difference, then a clone whether natural or engineered would have a soul because life's experience is what personality is about to which a clone would experience for him or herself. It'll be interesting to find an atheist who is paranoid about clones.

Well a Soul is a metaphysical concept. Impossible to describe in science, and it's argument is entirely based on belief. so the Question a clone throws in from a metaphysical is can some thing created by man in his image born of science but based on the existing biological have the essence of the divine?
to a Atheist The concept is a non existent
To a Agnostic like my self, We cannon grasp what a Soul is so If this spark of the Divine exists is there any reason why it could not be passed or a new one exist in a clone?
to a true believer... I have no idea I guess it would be based upon there belief system .

Well, since we all come from DNA (encapsulated in sperms and eggs and nothing else), I would say one's soul should be encoded in the DNA. Since a fertilized egg has been legally identified as a living human being (in the US, at least), then the egg should already contain the soul, thus the DNA. People have been speculating some mystery genes might be the "soul genes"... No one knows... If that is the case, then when you clone, you clone the soul as well. However, as I described earlier, no matter how you clone (natural or lab), you simply cannot achieve absolute identical clones. Thus, everyone has a unique soul, no matter what. And each individual should be treated and respected as such.

I guess you can look at DNA as a template created by God. God has an idea of what every living thing should look like. So he made templates of what a human, a mouse, a fish, a bug each should look like. these templates would be the DNA sequence. And then God came up with processes to allow small degree of variations to occur, thus allowing individuality. then he simply left it to us to keep the templates going...

vesicles said:

The answer would be a huge "NO". Why? the key word is "clone". A common misconception is that a "clone" would be 100% identical to the original. However, that is not the case at all. During the cloning process, many steps involve "mixing" of DNA strands that cannot be controlled, which leads to mutations. So mutations WILL occur even though you are cloning identical genes. So the clone will never be 100% identical to the original. Just find some photos of monozygotic twins (twins from a single zygote, pretty much what would happen during lab cloning), you will find differences when you look long and hard enough. Even more interestingly, these twins typically have distinct personalities, suggesting that their genetic make-up is different.

Additionally, do we consider 2 identical natural-born twins the same people, or 2 distinct individuals? They are absolutely 2 separate individuals. So even IF we can get a clone that is 100% identical to the original, we still need to consider them 2 separate individuals.

All in all, as long as we generate 100% biological beings, either the natural way or in the lab, we have to consider each of them distinct individuals. No question about it. It does not matter if they share all your memory. This is would be like you have a twin sibling who has been with you ever since both of you were born. Just because a person shares memory with you, it does not make him you.

The only option to "extend" your life is to make a robot and download your memory to it. Even that, this new bot can never be the 100% same as you. Since it is absolutely impossible to design a robot that not only looks like you, but also shares identical personality, etc. As long as it is designed by human, there will be differences. so it is IMPOSSIBLE to make a 100% clone of a human. When that is the case, the clone (be it 100% biological or mechanical) should always be considered a separate individual.

Click to expand...

It's interesting that you entertain the possibility with a robot, but reject it with a clone. Even if a clone has minor genetic differences, would it not be a lot easier and faithful to re-imprint a neural pattern on a clone than on a robot?

I guess the clone setup might have distracted from the real issue, which is, can a stream of consciousness carry on in a different physical body, provided that the underlying physical structure of the consciousness (in this case, the brain and its neural pattern at a specific moment) is faithfully copied?

If we turned the concept around, and assume that there exists a self-aware AI with a similar stream of consciousness as real human beings, I think it's pretty easy to accept that you can just copy the AI onto another computer and have it exist again. However, would it still be the same AI?

Another note on twins vs clones. In my particular scenario, I feel that clones differ from twins in a fundamental way.

Although twins are born genetically identical, they are not necessarily born self-aware. Psychologically, we still don't understand how infants learn self-awareness, but it does seem to be acquired after birth. So twins would be two separate streams of consciousness because their consciousness developed separately. On the other hand, in the clone scenario, I was talking about somehow imprinting this consciousness instead of allowing the clone to develop its own.

Of course, this could very well be impossible. How do you modify a brain's neural patterns? It might be feasible if it's just a pattern of neural signals, then you could stimulate individual neurons into firing at a specific rate until you get the desired result. However, what if it requires a rearrangement of cells? Then that becomes an impossible task.

But then if we come back to the whole "downloading your memory into a robot", if we assume that it can be done almost flawlessly, does your stream of consciousness then get carried over? Sure a computer is different from an organic brain, but people who suffer brain damage are essentially working with a "different" hardware as well, and it would be hard to argue in those cases that their previous stream of consciousness was terminated.

What do you guys think?