h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Recently I spoke with a friend on the subject... He almost made me furious. In his opinion the only reason why clones should ever be is to maintain our life so that we are able to do what we like and what we want. That he says is the path to true democracy. Wasn't democracy about equal rights or I am in total ignorance of theory?

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Tango

If researchers can just make parts like ears and skin, why not figure out a way to make organs, so they don't have to make "body farms". Also, do you believe that a human clone was really created...as in a tangible baby to hold, or do you think that they just fertilized an egg and implanted it...this is a very controversial topic, which i take great interest in...

If researchers can just make parts like ears and skin, why not figure out a way to make organs or limb and muscles, so they don't have to make "body farms". Also, do you believe that a human clone was really created...as in a tangible baby to hold, or do you think that they just fertilized an egg and implanted it...this is a very controversial topic, which i take great interest in...

here's a question we should ask ourselves...what is to become of using a dna signature to identify individuals? catching criminals using dna will become an imperfect science. just a thought.

as far as i've been able to determine, cloning is still in it's infancy. if i understand correctly, the animals we've been able clone are far from healthy. they are beset with a whole host of ailments.and we shouldn't confuse cloning to reproduce with using cloned cells for stem cell research.

It's true but with stem cell technology we will be able to (hopefully) cure people with uncureable diseases or illnesses. Suchas Paralysis and Smallpox. So it could have it's advantages.

do monozygotic twins have a soul each? depends if you believe in souls.

i believe monozygotic's would indeed have a soul...after all, even though they come from one egg, they are whole beings, separate and wholly unique spiritually.

'Xactly! and they are natural clones.

Perhaps clones would share a soul, and the more clones the thinner the soul...or maybe not...ummm...sorry.

Is the sole carried in the cytoplasm of the nucleus?

OR the nucleus

Sole!!

I'll start again:

"Is the soul carried in the cytoplasm or the nucleus?"



Ste

Do clones have a soul?
According to a recent straw poll of man-on-the-street on the news (BBC, I think) most people seem to think that clones would *not* have a soul. ???! I wonder how they framed this question, because this answer seems to me nonsensical.

If a soul means a ticket to Heaven / reincarnation / whichever religious belief system floats your boat, well, obviously this would be a personal view and the consequences would depend on what that religion said about that.

But if a soul means the right to be treated with the dignity and respect we owe to every human on this planet - well if scientists *did* ever manage to create true clones, then of course they would have souls, because they would have just as much humanity as the person they were originally cloned from.

I think the problem in the public perception comes from the fact that semi-humans such as zombies, Frankensteins, and the "clones" in the last Star Wars film are meant to be unsettling. They play on people's underlying fear of what it might mean to lose their uniqueness, and perhaps their intelligence and therefore their capacity for free will.

This is a difficult philosophical problem, but I think even a gone-wrong clone (like an epsilon in Huxley's "Brave New World") would have more similarity to a child or a senile elderly person (who both deserve the same sort of respect that we owe to any human) than to a cat or dog (which are not human, and we have a different but still very important set of responsibilities towards).

Whether we have the right to risk creating gone-wrong clones is a different and very important question and I think the answer is NO. It would be a horrible thing to do. Turning the original question back on itself, I think we would have to lose our collective souls, or sell them to the devil, to allow this.


If you think a soul is something that can be physically isolated, like a molecule that can reside in the nucleus or the cytoplasm, then you've totally lost me there I'm afraid.

breakfastlunchandtea

and will clones have "soul" for that matter...ala james brown.

If the Raelians really have succeeded in cloning a person, then I hope the clone *does* have soul a la James Brown ... then he wouldn't stand for any of that alien cult nonsense

I think clones do have souls becuase the people who create them have souls so why shouldn't they?

i do not believe that ANY HUMAN has a "soul". i believe that most humans are tricked by illusions created by the mind into feeling as if we have "souls", something "spiritual", something beyond the physical and the mind. there is no reason to believe in anything besides the physical substrate [the brain] and the correlating subjective experience [the mind]. nothing "spiritual" needs to be invoked. it is not logical.

but, IF naturally conceived humans have "souls", then logic would lead us to believe that clones must also have "souls".
the alternative would be to presume that something divine happens when a sperm and an egg combine such that a "soul" appears.

PeteY out!

Any real distinction between cloned human beings and un-cloned human beings is absurd. "Clones" aren't some new form of life. A clone is a person, exactly the same as every other person who has ever lived on this planet in all respects excepting the manner of their conception and birth.