Jim Muth wrote:

At 12:01 AM 8/11/05 -1000, David wrote:

...

Until men have created life from non-living matter, you can't say that they've "created life" by cloning another living thing. They simply reproduced an existing living thing using a more high-tech way of triggering growth and providing nourishment than nature uses.

Still, we've added Jim to our top-secret "clone this person" list so that he'll have more time to make fractals! ;-)

But if it's top-secret, how will I know that I've been cloned? Will I suddenly find myself in two places at once?

The University of Hawaii will contact you for cell donations. (Google University of Hawaii and cloning.)

If I don't experience being inside my clone, then the clone will not really be me.

That's the point where the popular image of cloning breaks down. Science fiction writers (a number of whom are scientists) have written many stories where the process of making an identical clone requires some way to get the cloned person's personality into the clone - such as carefully raising the clone in an exact reproduction of the original's world/life and duplicating every event, etc. Or using some method of recording the original's personality and copying it to the clone (and what happens to the clone's personality in the process?). Then there are others in which the clone has its own separate personality and the original's personality is not reproduced - in the recent Star Wars movies, Boba Fett (bounty hunter who works for the bad guys) is the son-clone of Jango Fett, who is also the original from which the Empire's hordes of soldiers were cloned ...

And if it's not really me, how can you be sure the clone will be obsessed with fractals like I am. What if my 'clone' hates math and fractals? What a waste of effort!

Well, then THAT clone can do the graphic design work and YOU can do the fractals. ;-)

Jim (not yet a clone)

That YOU know of! -- David gnome@hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community