Cloning.. What are your thoughts?

[LosOjos]

What's the point making a genetic clone if you can't copy/restore memories /personality seems stupid to me

 

Then I'd suggest you read up on it a bit more:

Why Clone?

The Benefits of Human Cloning

 

(not saying I necessarily agree with everything proposed in either of those two links, but they'll give you an idea of the potential benefits of cloning)

[Ghostgame]

Not to nitpick, but surely that isn't your view as such but is the view of a book, which you've decided to follow?

 

Just because the Bible is where my views come from, does not make it any less my view.

Also I don't follow a book, I follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sorry if that seems a bit blunt.

[matt40k]

Personally organ cloning yes, whole human clone no - shall I raise the question of a clone having a spirit\soul ?

 

PS: @SYNACK @localzuk I'll buy a beer to first person who gets @Ghostgame to change his mind about religion and Jesus Christ. I think you'll have a better chance winning the lottery 10 times over

[6Foot2]

Link: Canadian dentist still intends to clone John Lennon, raise him as his son | Consequence of Sound

 

Last summer, news surfaced of a mad Canadian dentist named Michael Zuk, who successfully purchased John Lennon’s rotten molar with plans to extract the DNA and use it to clone the Beatle legend. Fast forward 18 months and Michael Zuk is still at it. In an interview with UK’s Channel 4, he explained that he still intends to clone Lennon once the technology is far enough advanced. Not only that, but he already has its (?) life mapped out...

[CAM]

Just because the Bible is where my views come from, does not make it any less my view.

Also I don't follow a book, I follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sorry if that seems a bit blunt.

 

As an agnostic (or Christian in crisis could be a way to describe it) I see this from a mixed viewpoint. The full cloning of a human being I'd see as wrong and of questionable morals (it also wouldn't work like you see in EVE as you are ultimately a separate lifeform if you were cloned), but the partial cloning for cells of medicinal purposes I'd fully support. If God doesn't exist, a means is right in front of you for curing a terminal disease and staving off death a bit further. If he does exist, then we have been gifted a means of curing disease for a reason and you've been given the opportunity to accept the cure as a way of fulfilling some cause later in life.

 

Ultimately full cloning would answer a number of questions about spirit and soul, it'd be interesting if someone was fully cloned and found themselves existing in two places at once, confirming the existence of a person "as one" with a soul even if they are copied into another body (possibly after death). Further theories may be raised if the copy is a result of quantum mechanics as each atom gets copied and reflects the actions of the original if teleportation or some other gadgetry is used instead of biological processes. But equally, if the clone and the original cannot perceive each other, this would answer the question that post-mortem cloning wouldn't work and that we are self-contained entities with the existence of a soul questioned. Either way this would be a very tricky period for the human race and this is starting to sound like a post from /r/showerthoughts...

[Sdrawkcab]

No. That is my point. There may be disagreements with that view but to me it's valid.

 

Then your view is borne out of ignorance and fear rather than any understanding of the actual subject.

 

Why start a thread and share your views if you don't actually want people to question them? Lots of people on here seem to think that by saying "This is my opinion, you don't have to agree with it" people are magically prevented from arguing with them.

[abillybob]

Ha. " However it would put a crimp in the retail sales of a 'your favourite actress or actor' clones for 'personal use'." The things that just flew through my mind!

 

I'm going to clone Emma Watson..... no particular reason!

[6Foot2]

I'm going to clone Emma Watson.....

 

You might not get who you expect!

 

NSFW: This YouTube clip shows brief FAKE nudity

Link:

 

[No audio]

Edited April 11, 2014 by 6Foot2
Correct spelling mistake and clarify context.

[abillybob]

You might not get who you expect!

 

NSFW: This YouTube clip shows brief FAKE nudity

Link:

 

[No audio]

 

Why have you got to ruin everything for me @DaveP. I will never look at her the same again.

 

Maybe cloning could also be used in the military imagine that unlimited soldiers? Could you clone the dead like could we bring back Hitler and have a load of Hitlers fighting on the front line for england I think we will have humanoid robots working for us anyway before we even start thinking about human cloning! It won't be in our lifetime.

[Earthling]

If we can clone a sheep, one day we'll be able to clone a human being, if we can't already.

 

When all's said and done about morality, gods, beliefs, rights, wrongs, ethics and all, we can all be assured of one thing.

 

Someone, somewhere, some day will do it, if it hasn't been done already. My personal feelings are that it has been done, already, we just don't know about it.

[abillybob]

This dosen't excite me as much! I don't want more people in the world, I want robots so basically just computers walking around. I'd much rather talk to a Asimo then a Person.

[visioN]

What is we did clone Einstein, and he disagrees with it saying he has had his time on the Earth and commits suicide or something or drives him insane?

[Ghostgame]

A bit of lore from EVE Online about cloning.

 

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Cloning

 

In EVE cloning is the way the game explains respawns.

[LosOjos]

What is we did clone Einstein, and he disagrees with it saying he has had his time on the Earth and commits suicide or something or drives him insane?

 

He won't have "had his time on Earth", a clone is a totally separate being to the original, it doesn't share any memories or experiences, just DNA. The easiest way to visualize how a clone would work is to look at identical twins. They may look the same and share much of the same DNA (of course, a clone would share 100% of it's DNA), but they are still entirely separate people.

 

Whether he would be driven insane by the knowledge that he is a clone is another matter...

[spadam]

Also just to point out a clone in the sense that we are dicuusing it here would be a genetically identical copy of a person but would be grown from an embryo and develop in the same way as any other person - We're not talking about suddenly creating a 40 year old being (which by definition would be impossible)

[visioN]

He won't have "had his time on Earth", a clone is a totally separate being to the original, it doesn't share any memories or experiences, just DNA. The easiest way to visualize how a clone would work is to look at identical twins. They may look the same and share much of the same DNA (of course, a clone would share 100% of it's DNA), but they are still entirely separate people.

 

Whether he would be driven insane by the knowledge that he is a clone is another matter...

 

I know they won't have the same memories or experiences.

 

But if I found out that I was created due to being cloned from a dead corpse because that corpse was a great mind and want me to replicate his ground breaking work... I'd be a little... freaked out to say the least! You don't know how he will take it! It is a fair point to say he might think he has had his time on Earth as his exact DNA has already lived - basically trying to cheat god and be born again

[LosOjos]

It is a fair point to say he might think he has had his time on Earth as his exact DNA has already lived - basically trying to cheat god and be born again

 

I see your point, but as we're talking about Einstein, I don't imagine "cheating God" would be a worry of his... then again, maybe the cloned Einstein would find religion, who knows!

[visioN]

I see your point, but as we're talking about Einstein, I don't imagine "cheating God" would be a worry of his... then again, maybe the cloned Einstein would find religion, who knows!

 

Yeah the original Einstein might not have worried about it. But actually being a clone might force different issues on him - as experiences you live through shape the person you are, clone or not.

[VeryPC_Colin_M]

OK back to the dog cloning...

 

If you watched the program you may well have spotted me in there for about 3 seconds with my 2 dogs. When this competition was launched I decided to enter for a laugh; what would the harm be - a new dog and a free round trip to Korea? I found the whole concept pretty Sci-fi and ground breaking and would love to have one of my dogs go down in history as the 1st UK cloned dog - 5 minutes of fame and all that. So we made our video and sent it off to the Koreans (which they chopped in half when putting on youtube). Within a few days we were contacted by the production company and agreed to meet with them. They were really nice people and were producing the program for Channel 4, and they took us through the ins and outs of the procedure, and quizzed us on why we would want one of our dogs cloned, and they liked our reasons. We chose Max; I got him from a rescue home about 6 years ago, and always wondered how he'd have been were he raised by us from birth. We don't know his back history we just know that he's awesome, but has a bit of fight in him on occasion if he feels threatened by other dogs. He's a staffy cross with a Beagle is our best guess and I've never seen a dog that looked like him - he really is a stunner and is so gentle with people; he absolutely melted the production team's heart. He is also 1 of the only dogs to get on with our other dog, Poppy, a cocker spaniel. He looks after her like she's his bride, and she adores him, so we thought a clone of Max would be perfect for her too. When I got him, I had him neutered so unable to mate him, the cloning thing sounded like the next best thing. Mrs Colin has always joked that she'd have our dogs stuffed when they die, and cloning sounded more fun..

 

What we weren't prepared for was the fact they wanted to proceed immediately; we can't cope with another dog at this point in our lives, what with the wedding, and then baby planning, and we decided that whilst a clone of Max would indeed look like Max, there would be very little chance of the clone being Max. You can't clone a dog's personality, we're not stupid, we know this. It would have been selfish of us to proceed is what we felt as we rescued him from a shelter and when he one day leaves us for the big dog bed in the sky, we would choose rescuing a dog over cloning our own dog all day every day. We never gave the ethics of cloning a second thought.

 

However... we were short listed and we backed out; people form extremely close emotional bonds to their pets and having heard some of the other stories of entrants we knew there were people that sounded like they almost needed this. I started out thinking "how cool, I can make Max famous and have another Max, for free!" But ended up feeling like we'd rather rescue than clone, and take our memories of Max with him when he's gone. And probably have him stuffed...

 

Since the beginning of the process we've turned down TV offers from various countries - it appears this dog cloning thing is a hot topic.

 

We felt like they chose the wrong winner for certain, but that British dog owners with lots of money will no doubt begin cloning their pets. Just to reiterate I never had a problem with this ethically (it's just a dog, where in the Bible does it state "thou shalt not clone thy pet?"), it was just morally wrong for us to continue. Now if someone offered to clone Mrs Colin for free......

[Neil-Millgate]

I think that once we reach the point of being able to record and store a persons conciousness/memories then human cloning will happen on a much larger scale. You contract a terminal illness, no worries heres a new body for you. Oh, you have been in a serious accident with significant damage, no worries heres a new body.

 

Effectively you can live forever....whether you want to, can afford to or whether there is enough space on the planet however............

 

Could be an excellent way of exploring deep space?

 

Also the very seedy aspect of unscrupulous people cloning for pleasure famous people or people that you know and can get some dna from.....

 

 

I think that we can all agree that it human cloning will happen, if not already, and we need to have the discussion on a broader level so that we are ready to deal with it.

[LosOjos]

On a loosely related note: BBC News - Doctors implant lab-grown vagina

 

So already scientists and surgeons are making use of the ability to grow cells (is this technically a form of cloning?) to vastly improve the quality of life for people suffering from various difficult ailments. They've actually manage to create tissue that was never there in the first place that is completely compatible with the host... amazing!

[localzuk]

I think that once we reach the point of being able to record and store a persons conciousness/memories then human cloning will happen on a much larger scale. You contract a terminal illness, no worries heres a new body for you. Oh, you have been in a serious accident with significant damage, no worries heres a new body.

 

Indeed. I would love that technology to exist. My quality of life would massively improve if they could clone my body, fixing my various ailments, and then transfer my mind to it... Swapping organs instead would help a bit, but there'd be so much to swap, it'd be like a complete overhaul.

 

That said, there comes a question of duplication. If it is possible to transfer a mind, surely you then end up with the ability to duplicate it? That would lead to a serious problem, if someone decided to build an army of themself etc...

[ICTDirect_Dave]

I think that once we reach the point of being able to record and store a persons conciousness/memories then human cloning will happen on a much larger scale. You contract a terminal illness, no worries heres a new body for you. Oh, you have been in a serious accident with significant damage, no worries heres a new body.

 

Effectively you can live forever....whether you want to, can afford to or whether there is enough space on the planet however............

 

Could be an excellent way of exploring deep space?

 

Also the very seedy aspect of unscrupulous people cloning for pleasure famous people or people that you know and can get some dna from.....

 

 

I think that we can all agree that it human cloning will happen, if not already, and we need to have the discussion on a broader level so that we are ready to deal with it.

 

We're getting towards Iain M Banks' Culture novels here. A society I'd rather like to experience. Have a read of surface Detail (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Surface-Detail-Culture-Novels-Banks/dp/1841498955) It deals with reincarnation and transference of consciousness and is a brilliant read

[abillybob]

On a loosely related note: BBC News - Doctors implant lab-grown vagina

 

Haha you can bet your life in a few years time this kind of stuff will become a dirty toy!!!

 

On other hands it won't be a live forever concept like milgate suggested as it won't be you and your brain inside another body... unless that's what you mean? If they clone you and have all you thoughts etc... yes it would be the exact same person yet it wouldn't be you looking through the other body's eyes if you understand what I'm saying!

Edited April 11, 2014 by abillybob

[featured_spectre]

reminds me of this...scary to think the film was set in 2015! The 6th Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia