Friday, December 02, 2005
Scott Adams on Cloning
I don’t have to tell you that there are plenty of good reasons to want your own clone:
a. Spare parts.
b. Slave labor.
c. Decoy in case of assassination attempts.
d. Source of excellent practical jokes on the spouse.
e. Reasonable doubt when you kill someone.
And that’s not even counting if you’re gay. But on the other side, there’s really just one reason you can’t have your own clone: It’s immoral. Sure, it’s illegal too, but that’s mostly because it’s immoral, so it’s really just one reason.
I always wonder who gets to decide what’s immoral when it comes to brand new things that aren’t anything like old things that we all agree on. It’s exactly this sort of question that makes me unfit to hold any kind of elected office. I always lean toward the practical approach that doesn’t make a good sound bite. For example, my political platform would include “Let’s make a few human clones just to see if any of them become soulless zombies intent on eating our flesh before descending to the bowels of Hell.” See what I mean? It makes a crappy bumper sticker.
The big question with clones is how they get their souls, assuming souls exist. If God gives them brand new souls, then they aren’t actually clones at all. They’d be fundamentally different. But it also makes God more of a soul gumball machine than the omnipotent creator of the universe. The scientist who makes the clone would, in effect, be controlling God by making him pinch out another soul to inhabit the clone. That’s disturbing on many levels, not the least of which is the way I phrased it.
But maybe your clone gets half of your soul, say 10.5 grams worth. That would suck too. I have enough trouble dancing with the little bit of a soul I allegedly have. If you cut that in half, I’m polka dancing.
If each of your clones has a new and different soul, but everything else is the same, we’d probably start assigning letters to keep them straight – A,B,C, etc. And that suggests the one best reason to not clone yourself: Everyone would call you an A-soul.
This guy is hilarious even when he's not drawing Dilbert.
a. Spare parts.
b. Slave labor.
c. Decoy in case of assassination attempts.
d. Source of excellent practical jokes on the spouse.
e. Reasonable doubt when you kill someone.
And that’s not even counting if you’re gay. But on the other side, there’s really just one reason you can’t have your own clone: It’s immoral. Sure, it’s illegal too, but that’s mostly because it’s immoral, so it’s really just one reason.
I always wonder who gets to decide what’s immoral when it comes to brand new things that aren’t anything like old things that we all agree on. It’s exactly this sort of question that makes me unfit to hold any kind of elected office. I always lean toward the practical approach that doesn’t make a good sound bite. For example, my political platform would include “Let’s make a few human clones just to see if any of them become soulless zombies intent on eating our flesh before descending to the bowels of Hell.” See what I mean? It makes a crappy bumper sticker.
The big question with clones is how they get their souls, assuming souls exist. If God gives them brand new souls, then they aren’t actually clones at all. They’d be fundamentally different. But it also makes God more of a soul gumball machine than the omnipotent creator of the universe. The scientist who makes the clone would, in effect, be controlling God by making him pinch out another soul to inhabit the clone. That’s disturbing on many levels, not the least of which is the way I phrased it.
But maybe your clone gets half of your soul, say 10.5 grams worth. That would suck too. I have enough trouble dancing with the little bit of a soul I allegedly have. If you cut that in half, I’m polka dancing.
If each of your clones has a new and different soul, but everything else is the same, we’d probably start assigning letters to keep them straight – A,B,C, etc. And that suggests the one best reason to not clone yourself: Everyone would call you an A-soul.
This guy is hilarious even when he's not drawing Dilbert.
