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.

Huh? :confused:

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 offcourse;) )
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

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.LOL:)

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.


It wouldn't matter, because my clone would stay in cryostasis until I needed an organ transplant.LOL 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,


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" 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. :p

Cris

Identical twins.

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. 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.:D

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

"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.

Your scenario can never happen without a massive breakdown of human morality, and I don’t see that ever happening. 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.
Once human clones are born they will be seen as perfectly normal humans and no different from anyone else. 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.

"What would stop them from making hundreds."

who is "them"?

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?:confused:




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

Aahahahahaaa...:cool:




bye!

who is "them"?It was more of a fill in the blank question. Governments, Corporations, cults/religous sects, you know, the usual.

You guys havent answered my question ? Does the spirit exist??

Originally posted by Tedman"Xp"
You guys havent answered my question ? Does the spirit exist?? No of course not. It is a purely human concept developed to make humans feel more comfortable about death.

There is nothing that shows that this conecpt is anything other than human imaginative fantasy.

Cris

That totally depends on what you mean by "spirit".

I do not believe in some kind of "life-energy" or "life-force" that will live after our biologcal deaths. And I assume you mean something like that (correct me if I am wrong).

Personally: I am not certain whether it is death I need comforting about, it's the (seemingly?) purposelesness of it all.

I meant by "spirit" the force that let us live and action.

Merlijn,


Personally: I am not certain whether it is death I need comforting about, it's the (seemingly?) purposelesness of it all.Superb. And that feeling that many feel leads many to create religions that help to dispel those concerns by creating false hopes.

There is nothing that says that reality has to be safe, pleasant, or comfortable. The delusions that people create to make themselves feel comfortable detract from real understanding of reality.

Cris

You guys havent answered my question ? Does the spirit exist??I think yes. Especially when you consider out of body experiences. My favorite being ones when the person has been dead for quite awhile:

Pim van Lommel, M. D., Cardiologist, Division of Cardiology, Hospital Rijnstate, Arnhem, Netherlands: "It was a 43-year-old man who had an out-of-hospital (cardiac) arrest and so when he was admitted to the hospital, they had been doing CPR for more than half an hour. So he was deeply unconscious and cyanotic when he was admitted to the hospital. He was in very bad shape. He had no blood pressure, no heartbeat, and so they were performing CPR. And after 1.5 hours in the hospital at last he had blood pressure and heart beat, but there was brain damage. So, there was no spontaneous respiration. So they had to intubate him and when the nurse intubated him, he had to remove the dental prosthesis and put it on the crash car. And the patient had to be on artificial respiration for more than one week in ICU and then he came back to the cardiac ward. And the first time the nurse entered his room to give him medication, the patient recognized the nurse and said, 'Oh, you was the one who was there when I was admitted in the hospital and you took out my dentures, the dental prosthesis, to intubate me. And he could describe exactly what doctors were there, how they looked like, what the room looked like. And the nurse was so upset because he had never heard of an NDE before. So, he rang us. And we explained to him and we asked him to write down everything that had happened.http://www.earthfiles.com/earth311.htm

Then again if you don't believe, I guess we won't find out until that time.;)

Cris,
I know. But sometimes I really would prefer to be able to forget about it all and be happy in a church.
It is a hard life being a rationalist critic.

This hamster believes a “real understanding of reality” isn’t possible. All one has are models. Some models work well in some situations and poorly in others. The “reality” may be that people are walking pre-corpses and that nothing they do matters in the least. Using this as one’s daily “working” model would likely lead to an unhappy life. (Don’t really know as this hamster’s daily model isn’t so “realistic”.)

This hamster knows bright people who deliberately choose to “believe” in a benign spiritual force. They are aware they have little evidence to back up their “belief”. They find they are happier and more effective in life if they choose to view the universe as caring and meaningful. In some ways this hamster envies their flexibility. (Or ability to live a useful delusion. Whatever.)

To a degree this hamster feels all people choose what they believe. There are limits. A person’s training in science or rational thought may prevent acceptance of comforting beliefs. (Or religious training may keep a person from ever coming to terms with one’s own divorce or a child’s divorce. Religion may keep one from being happy.)

To a degree this hamster feels all people choose what they believe. There are limits. A person’s training in science or rational thought may prevent acceptance of comforting beliefs. (Or religious training may keep a person from ever coming to terms with one’s own divorce or a child’s divorce. Religion may keep one from being happy.)So what do you believe, being a hamster of intellect. Is there a soul?

Nephilim, this hamster’s answer largely depends on what is meant by “soul”. Some believe that a soul holds memory of past lives. Or holds personality. Or intelligence attributes. This hamster believes the scientific evidence is against such a soul. There are many examples of brain injury causing loss of memory or changes in personality or intelligence. Indicates to this hamster that such traits don’t survive death. The evidence isn’t conclusive, as brain function isn’t fully understood.

If a soul doesn’t hold memory, personality, or intelligence this hamster doesn’t know what it is. Saying the “soul” is the part of a human that doesn’t die begs the question of whether any part of a human survives death.

On the other hand this hamster is well aware that the universe is far beyond this hamster’s comprehension. This hamster loves science and uses the methods of science to sift good information from garbage. However science doesn’t have all the answers. In some cases the methods of science filter out evidence.

(Repeatability can be a tough requirement. A friend spent a summer trying to duplicate a biochemistry experiment performed on the west coast. By accident she found that the higher humidity of the Houston air prevented a critical reaction. Some phenomena are inherently non-repeatable.)

This hamster is unwilling to totally discard the experiences of intelligent people that led them to conclude that something survives death. This hamster doesn’t believe such evidence meets scientific standards. That doesn’t mean it is not evidence.

This hamster believes the universe contains many strange phenomena. Possibly some unknown phenomenon gives rise to what some people interpret as the human soul. Until there is more evidence this hamster leaves the question open.

Whether they have a soul or not, I would think it an injustice to clones since you know scientists will screw up the first batch. I mean nobody cares if a sheep is born messed up, but what happens if it is human.

Originally posted by Tedman"Xp"
You guys havent answered my question ? Does the spirit exist??

Yes, ask yourself, what is the difference between a live and a dead body.

Love.

Jan Ardena.

I think we'll definetly find an answer or at least a very similar "pre-answer" if we look at the data on identical twins separated at birth.

Ooops. I meant that as my two cents for the ORIGINAL discussion.

You guys havent answered my question ? Does the spirit exist??

Most certainly. It enters the ovum at the moment of conception, when
a sperm cell has been selected by the egg and allowed entry.

That is why a cloned individual will be born with '666' on the left buttocks
cheek. It's god's way of letting all know that the clone has no spirit and
its organs may be harvested.

Now go to bed and dream pretty dreams.

Take care :rolleyes:

I can't help thinking that if there weren't a spirit, then how and why did organisms develop and evolve? There has to be some kind of key code inherent in all oganisms that prompted life to begin in the first place. I mean we can talk about plants and animals evolving to cope with changing circumstances, but have we dicovered an 'evolution gene', or 'life prompting' gene? I don't think so and neither will we ever discover a 'spirit' gene.
This is because I think that the spirit, ie the life/evolution prompter is not a part of our tangible physical make up, even though it exists within every life form.

I think the spirit is made up of multiple frequencies (of some kind of (electrical?) energy). The frequencies contain information that can influence elements to behave in certain ways. It's easy to imagine how even we can send invisible frequencies that influence things, think of phones, radios, satellite computer links, remote controllers etc. Only the sort of code contained in these frequences works directly on the stuff of the universe, starting with water! These frequencies travel through the universe, passing through planets and suns and when they find water they stay. Once even some of the water on a planet has been charged with these frequences it doesn't take long for it to spread all over the place through evaporation/condensation.

The water immediately begins to interact with whatever is available to it, ie soil, sunlight, oxygen, heat etc and original simple life forms are created out of the fundamental elements perfectly suited to the conditions of the locality. The life forms now also contain the frequencies, which are constantly transmitting information back to the source. Yes I said the source, but don't ask me where it is
:rolleyes:
The source picks up the information received and retransmits code updates, which are received by the life forms and causes them to evolve in order to suit ever-changing circumstances. When a life form dies, the frequencies burst out of the dead body and some immediately are attracted to and fuse with another life form whose frequencies are vibrating at the same rate* (each species frequencies vibrate at different rates/wavebands, so no crossovers), the others are automatically redirected back to the source (or perhaps somewhere else?)

So what is the purpose of life in the first place? I think life forms on earth and elsewhere act like the nerve endings or sensory organs of the universe. We (all life forms) are the universe itself experiencing different forms of physical reality in dimensions far removed from our common beginnings as part of a huge explosion! This begs the question, where does this will or need to sense, to experience, to evolve come from? Is there actually some kind of incomprehensible God in existence, is there some kind of goal that we simply cannot comprehend, are we too low in the chain to understand? Because we certainly want to! I've just hit on something..The purpose of life is to understand! Sounds good enough for me.

*I think life forms contain uncountable numbers of frequencies peculiar to their species stretching back to the original life form created. Though they all vibrate in unique wavelengths, they are all part of the same waveband. The frquencies transmit and receive unique information throughout a lifetime. The presently living host's main frequency is a combination of mother's and father's but variable on a scale and can be influenced by the majority vibrating rate of the other frequencies, this might explain personality disorders or why some offspring are so different to their parents and siblings.

Did anyone see the movie "The Sixth Day"?

It dealt with clones. Rather fanciful in a way but a few things that came out of it were possibilities for pets. In the story there is a pet, um, call it a pet store. Where if your pet has died within the last 12 hours they can give it back to you. A lock of hair or blood is all that is necessary. Had an alergy to say, dog hair? How about hypoallergic hair? Your dog was just a little to big or small? They would adjust it to your liking. Got a bird and you would like to have it match your interior. No problem. Remembers all the tricks you taught it and even where he buried his bones. Human cloning is illegal. Only it's happening.

Have a soul? If one does then the other does. Exact living copies. Is it a reproduction of the original or do you get a brand new soul? That would be the question. If it is a reproduction is it as strong or is it 1/2 as strong? You got me...

I do believe that humans have a 'spirit' of some sort, and don't rely completely on our brain. I could be wrong though, but I don't think that our thoughts and memories can be cloned.

I do believe that humans have a 'spirit' of some sort, and don't rely completely on our brain. I could be wrong though, but I don't think that our thoughts and memories can be cloned.
Cloning doesn't mean we have to clone our memories or thoughts...

And since a cloned person also starts with one cell, just as everyone, they create a spirit/mind exactly the same way as everyone else.

That's not what I meant. I meant to say, that if we were to clone a human, it wouldn't behave the same way, or it may not even do anything.

Originally posted by Popcorn8636
That's not what I meant. I meant to say, that if we were to clone a human, it wouldn't behave the same way, or it may not even do anything.

Let's look at it from a merging of the two viewpoints shall we?

If a soul exists, one could argue that the physical body is simply
a material way for the soul to interact with the physical world; the
brain being nothing more than a radio: a nifty device the soul can
use to control the physical body. The soul doesn't necessarily give
the body (brain) a personality and intelligence: do I need to go in
detail ?

Whether or not a soul exists, however, is irrelevant for our clone:
the set and setting will affect it's personality, traits and behavior.
From this, the clone will form experiences that are totally unique
to him.

I think a spirit or soul is like water. You can have an ocean of it, as in the case of god, should such a being exist. You can also have a glass, like a person, or a drop, like a rat. I don't think its something only we have.

I think the soul grows as a life form becomes more intelligent. I think a human zygote has about the same amount of spirit as a bacterium.