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sukaikun — Catalyst
Published: 2010-08-30 22:13:26 +0000 UTC; Views: 5562; Favourites: 290; Downloads: 100
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The fantasy of creating life through mechanical processes. I've always been interested. When I first learned of Dolly, one of the first successfully cloned animals, I thought, what happens the day human cloning is possible?But, let's just say human cloning is possible, and it weren't taboo. In the unfortunate event of a loved one passing away, would you clone given the opportunity? No, we're not talking magically cloning a thirteen year old our of thin air. Realisitcally, using the deceased child's genetic info to reinpregnate the mother. You'd give birth to him again. You'd hold him in your arms. You'd never know a thing. Same skin, same hair, same eyes, same personality, same smile. Still, though, it's haunting. When you'd look into his eyes, you'd always know he was a clone. This pseudo child trying to imitate your "natural" born child. That would only bother most in some respects. But, why does the term "clone" have a stigma? I feel like I've been referring to clones as emotionless, frankenstein-esque empty bodies. Isn't cloning in some ways similar to in vitro fertilisation? So why does it bother people? I think the whole idea of replication is what really freaks people out.
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Comments: 33
Thought about this some more, damn me. If you were to remove the nucleus of an impregnated egg and replaced it with the nucleus of one of the child's cells, and reintroduced ('reimpregnate') the egg into the mother - cloning - the result MAY be a viable individual, but I still think it would be highly improbable that the resulting child would be anything close to the original, time and chance bearing on the process of development, rendering the process like walking a dog on a block-long leash. I'll go away now...
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In truth, cloning, as you describe it, wouldn't create an exact duplicate of the child gone before. The mother's genome, combined with the child's genome, would be subject to the same randomization and probabilistic consequences as the original combination of genomes which created the original child. Additionally - and VERY importantly - you'd have a catastrophic restriction of genetic 'breadth', as you're basically describing the impregnation of a mother by her own son (!). The result would likely be a monstrous collection of birth defects...
The idea of an imperishable soul, at least in the Western world, has been described by the British historian Edward Gibbon (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) as the Hebrew religion 'infected with neoplatonism'. Modern neurophysiologists will tell you that the mind and body are indivisible, the one derived from the other, and all minds are balanced on the knife edge of a smoothly running neurophysiology to have a lucid consciousness which accurately apprehends reality. Additionally, here, too, the engineers at M.I.T., dealing with empiricism, rather than the creation of internally consistent models without reference to physical reality (religion and philosophy), think that a conscious mind CAN be replicated in non-organic materials.
Finally, and disturbingly, IF an 'AI' were to be created that was aware of it's own specifications and sought to improve itself, many scientists think that the resulting mind would rapidly become 'trillions of trillions of times more powerful than an unaided human intelligence'. It has been said the 'God created Man in his image, and Man has more than returned the favor'. Profound and unsettling to think that the possibility exists to do this literally, however inadvertently, even in theory...
Sorry about all this, but your thinkin' got me to thinkin'...
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and lovely charas too
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it's nicely drawn. but where is the fantasy part in this image?
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Well, that's part of the story. She can't use scientific means alone to create life, so she's sorta using magic to give the body a soul/life.
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That's adorable, stunning and beautiful !!! I love the splendid details !!!
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but i'm not sure about the robo head
maybe i would prefer a more typical robotic head in fantasy or steam punk style or a more human like.
but that mask with the X ..hm..
but i stil like the step between scifi and fantasy magic, with the little hearts inside and the magic wand like tool in her hand
hm i notised u make the light on the edges on the girls faces o.o
it looks good
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ooh this is a very nice illustration. I really like the lighting and expressions on the female character. Keep it up
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I feel like people take the concept of a "soul" much too seriously. I've never seen any sort of evidence to something like that, so I don't believe it. I honestly don't see the point of believing something just because you're raised that way. I was raised Roman Catholic, and I can safely say it's a bunch of utter nonsense right down to the idea of an immortal soul for one simple reason: Quantity. Populations fluctuate. We know in the rational, not-stuck-to-thousand-year-old-ideas segments of humanity that matter can't be created or destroyed and that all energy will eventually run out due to the second law of Thermodynamics. With those two principles in mind, (and knowing that matter and energy are different expressions of the same thing)... if souls are matter, we should be able to find them, so we know they're not matter. If they're energy, we should probably be able to measure them... but that aside, even assuming it's just an energy we can't detect yet, there's no explanation for the number of souls to be increasing in quantity while each individual unit remains on the same scale. That's adding energy, and goes against basic logic that's been proven again and again in scientific laws.
As for "life"... anything can be alive if it's aware. We're not far from creating synthetic life these days, and, personally, I look forward to that time... so I can be one of the idealistic people fighting for synthetic rights while the superstitious people continue to warble about "souls"...
But, enough of my rambling. I really like this picture... though I have to wonder how she expects that machine to want anything but the death of all organic life when she gave it such a cold, inhuman faceplate...
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Absolutely agree. But it's difficult to define what is life. Can we really define life, or rather, something that is living, something that's self aware? I mean, we can create life, and input it with endless information so that it knows itself that it's alive and self aware. But would it be alive, simply because we wired it to think "Oh, this is me in the mirror. I am alive."
Thank you very much! I lol'd @ the faceplate xD
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Well, I can say as a fact that it's not as simple as living|unliving. It's definitely a gradient... but there's a point where something becomes undeniably living, which is going to be amazing and change the world.
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Very interesting story and statement XD
But then, if it's possible to re-birth someone, in an exact condition before, everything could be the same, except one precious thing. Their memories. True it'll be all the same, their looks, intelligence, attitudes, but their memories would be different, and it have to be rewritten. It'll be impossible for them to remember everyone again, including the time they died right after they birthed. If that's me, I'd be dead by a sudden memory stress right after birth XD
If I may add, though, AIs seem to be capable of learning about real living, and might be puzzled in 'being a living' or staying as an 'artificial living'. Well, they would not be puzzled if the humans did good to the planet, of course XD
This piece could be considered as a steampunk then? OnOa
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Haha, very true xD
I guess the way you'raised DOES make a huge difference on your overall intelligence, etc. But your DNA and genetics would still be exactly the same.
And a steampunk? xD
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And if someone was a bulky one, he could be a normal one if he's treated differently too XD
Yep, steampunk~
Implanting soul or emotion is like magic, and the media is an advanced artificial body, so yeah, it's like a steampunk to me XD
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your welcome
your talk about cloning reminded me of a movie i saw a long time ago where this cupels son died and they cloned him but as he grew up something isn't right
it is really annoying because i cant remember the name
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