We call that cannibalism.
Are they though? They have human tissue, for sure. But theyâre not born. Theyâre grown in a vat. A vat in which they remain lifeless until chosen for use and instilled with our consciousness (or a copy thereof). Clones are also loaded with cybernetic hardware, like interface plugs and implant slots, which I believe the clone has to be grown around to accommodate. Furthermore, clones can be created and destroyed on the whim of a digital consciousness. If they were âhuman,â that would have serious moral implications.
I would argue that clones are not human, but rather, humanoid constructs. They are bio-/cybertech vehicles, custom built for our digital consciousness to temporarily inhabit. They look human because our consciousness was modeled on a human consciousness, so thatâs what we find comfortable. Technically, it may be possible to load our consciousness into purely mechanical constructs (ships, tanks, dishwashers), but perhaps itâs too unsettling for a human-modeled infomorph to be completely untethered from human form.
Clone or not, itâs human DNA. It has our weaknesses and our strengths plus or minus any augmentations we want to wire into our bodies.
Bananas are still bananas even though they are all seedless clones from a single one. Itâs a real world example.
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Clones register as human. The cybernetics does not distract from the infomorphs being human. Any more than a non capsuleer getting a artificial heart valve. Would make that non capsuleer less or more human.
Tp circle back to whether any capsuleer is human or passing the threshold into post humanity. My personal opinion that a capsuleer is human. That in spite of passing the threshold. One is still human.
So? This computer uses actual human brain cells. Does that make it human?
Setting aside that bananas arenât sentient, if you grew a cloned banana not on a tree, but around a scaffolding of electronics, such that the synthetic components were irrevocably fused with the organic, would you say itâs still a banana? It may look vaguely like a banana, and itâs composed of banana cells, but itâs certainly distinct from a natural banana, yes? And if you canât even eat it anymore because of all the chips and wires, is not the very nature of the thing altered from what we would call a banana?
If I mush up a banana, add it to a bucket of molten plastic, and then cast that plastic/banana slurry in the shape of a lifelike banana, does that make my creation a banana? After all, it has banana cells in itâŠ
The non-capsuleer was objectively born human. The provenance of the thing does not change with the addition of a single artificial component. But what if all the internal organs were replaced with cybernetic components? Then the limbs? Then everything else? Is a human brain in a mechanical body still a human? What if you replace the brain itself with silicon? At what point does human become not-a-human?
Itâs the Ship of Theseus, but for biological entities.
Are you sure youâre not Amarr? Because what youâve espoused is a tenet of faith (âregardless of evidence to the contrary, I still believe.â)
are you triggered over a computer game? WowâŠ
No. Iâm having an entertaining philosophical discussion.
Why are you resorting to ad hominem? Do you feel threatened?
I think the legs of your next clone needs glued to your shoulders.
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Not at all. Your post seemed angry. First, no that computer isnât a human. It only has a few neurons. I donât consider that human. It has a few human cells.
And I never once said or implied that bananas are sentient. Where did you get that weird notion? Youâre strange. Anyway, bananas arenât vines. Unless youâre talking about modifying the plant, itâs going to do its best to become a tree. And how exactly do you plan to integrate electronics into them? Just by putting a lot of junk in its path? That wonât change its composition. Even if it did, you want to know if itâs still a banana? Why not? Itâs been heavily modified already. Original bananas were nothing like they are now. They were lumpy and full of toxic seeds. Theyâve been altered into the beautiful fruit they are now.
If you mash it into a pulp, how did you change its makeup? Are you saying that if you cook a potato itâs no longer a potato? Do you really believe that mashed potatoes arenât potatoes? Iâm genuinely curious. Youâve seen mashed potatoes right?
I think youâre reading it angry. Iâm just talking about ideas and mostly asking questions intended to provoke thoughtful consideration (i.e., Socratic method).
I didnât⊠I was only making a point that you compared cloned humans to cloned bananas, and that one is sentient and the other is not. I was indulging your argument, but prefacing my response with a qualification. Again, I think youâre reading a combative intonation that simply isnât there. Iâm engaging with you in badinage. If you donât want to play, Iâll stop. You keep responding, so I assumed you wanted to play.
Sigh. Until you brought bananas into the discussion, we were talking about fictional human clones grown in vats around an internal framework of wires, plugs, and electronics. How is that done? I donât know. Itâs fictional. Letâs not conflate a fictional universe with reality.
You and that strawman youâre jousting are drifting way off into left field. Re-read what I said, in its full context. Itâs a deeper question than simply mashing a potato.
Again, Iâm looking for a friendly philosophical discussion about a fictional universe and its canonânot an argument or a meme battle. If you want either of the latter, Iâll not engage with you further.
Now that is a good question. Does a scrap of human DNA still qualifies as being human. That is above my pay grade to be honest. As that seems to go back to a philosophical question of what makes a human, a human
Amarr espouse many things. Some to me make zero sense. But my feeling that I am human is a personal one. Am I right? Am I human or just an imposter thinking I am Aallin. All I can say is that I feel human. That I have the same emotions and pet peeves as I did before.
That I still love my grandchildren and children. That while my perspective has changed. As I am now a capsuleer and as immortal as one is likely to get. I am taking a very much longer view on things than I did before.
However none of that answers the question. That the clone that I inhabit is human. That the clone seems to be as a true clone as one can get. The science suggests that I am human. The best I can do is say, I still feel human. Beyond that I simply do not really know.
I think the Yulai Conference clarified that non-capsuleers are not human, and they do not have souls.
You have the same emotions and pet peeves as you remember having before. IRL, memory is known to be subjective and even mutable. For an infomorph, who is a copy of a mind, I think the question of fidelity is even more difficult to grapple with.
Is there a way for an infomorph to objectively know that what they now experience as emotion, is the same as what they experienced before they became a capsuleer? Or that their memories are accurate, or even real? Think about the movie Blade Runner. In that story, the replicants had memories of childhoods they never experienced and parents they werenât born to. As informorphs, can we trust that our memories of our former selves are even real? Do we have a reliable frame of reference?
On feeling human, is it theoretically possible for a sentient AI to also feel human? If that AI is created in the likeness of the human mind, modeled on human neural physiology, trained on human literature, culture, history, etc., might that AI feel human or even believe itself to be a human? Asimov said that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Might sufficiently advanced AI be indistinguishable from human intelligence?
Going back to your statement, you believe you are still human because you believe you were once human.
I still believe that souls donât exist and that the body is simply an exosuit and life-support for the brain. With human DNA all the way through, Iâm calling all of my clones 100% human. It doesnât matter that the cloneâs brain got a fresh wipe and a complete download of my last cloneâs thoughts and memories. Itâs still human. The body, organs, and memories are all human.
Itâs a human clone of a human and living as a human with the memories of a human.
Technically we are cheese.
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Passing through a birth canal has nothing to do with whether or not you have human DNA. You donât need to be born to be human. You donât need to be authentic to be a human. Human clones are humans too. Proof? Identical twins and triplets are clones and are considered to be human. If you were to remove one twin very early on and have it develop in an incubator until its sibling is born, they would still both be human and theyâd both be clones of each other. A twin is simply a complete separation during what should have been a cell division. Thatâs how clones are made. You take a piece of a person and replicate it so that it grows into a fully formed copy., but itâs still human- just as with twins.
Dolly was a cloned sheep who grew up normally. She even had babies. Unfortunately, she developed a lung disease that did her in, but that wasnât found to have been linked to the cloning.
Frogs have been cloned as well.
So if a sheep can be cloned from a mature sheep and can then grow up and have baby sheep of her own, doesnât that make her a sheep?
Being a clone doesnât diminish what you are.
Possibly, but none of that changes my personal opinion of being human. That just might be the best argument that we capsuleers are still after all. The stubborn insistence on being human. Even when logic and science are a little hazy on the subject.
I am human. Whether that human is Aallin or reasonable facsimile thereof, again do not really know, I will insist that I am human. It is, what it is..
Donât be so literal. I was using âbornâ in a wider sense (weâll get to that in a minute).
Youâre assigning subjective qualities here that I think fly in the face of traditional notions about humanity.
I understand that youâre trying to leverage real-world science to support your position, but here I think we need to separate reality from a fictional universe. Itâs pretty clear that cloning in EVE is not the same as cloning in reality. In reality, a clone (whether man-made or a monozygotic twin) is gestated and grows to maturity naturally. Dollyâs egg was fertilized in a lab and then implanted in a sheepâs uterus where she grew to term and was eventually born. Monozygotic twins develop from eggs fertilized in utero, which then gestate to term and are born. Those birthed then develop from infant to adulthood.
It is pretty obvious that is not the same way EVE clones are created. EVE clones are produced on demand, already fully formed, and equipped with specialized hardware deeply integrated into their nervous system.
When I previously used the term, âborn,â this is the larger point I was getting at. Not only do EVE clones not âpass through a birth canal,â but they donât gestate. They donât grow or develop into what they are. I donât know that the lore is specific about the process, but if I had to speculate, Iâd guess they were 3D printed around a scaffolding of neural interface hardware.
EVE clones are âmadeâ as opposed to being âborn.â
Stepping back and looking at this discussion, I see a common trend of arguing through the lens of our (the playersâ) out-of-game reality versus examining the fictional universe as presented. Letâs not conflate the two, or try to apply morality from one to the other.
All that said, I think the discussion of clones is a diversion. We (capsuleers) are not clones. We are not flesh. We are infomorphs (a copy of a human mind). We inhabit clones, swapping bodies as convenient, but we exist separate from those bodies. We are digital. Immortal. Letâs circle back to the discussion as to whether such a being could be considered human.
Iâll point out that what we presently call AI also hallucinates and will stubbornly insist that untrue information is true.
Well, if weâre not going to use real world science then we cannot use real world science. The scientists in New Eden are able to use their technology to instantly grow a fully formed human clone in an instant. Itâs 100% human and itâs 100% instant. Itâs done that way so that we donât have to wait 18 years real time between clones. I certainly wouldnât want to have to stay alive in this game for 18 years. Thatâs a game limitation. Every game has them. Why do you think that itâs possible for my most recent memories to be instantly transported 95 jumps from one edge of the galaxy to the other in a nanosecond? Probably not even that long. The game says that itâs instant. Weâre talking light years here. Yet the transmission is instant. It wouldnât be as much fun if you died and had to wait a day per 10 light years before you could play again.
Unless the creators of this game come forth and actually add in some details to the cloning feature, this is what Iâm going with. They kept it vague which is why thereâs no way to prove or disprove anything.
And weâre not immortal. Itâs just game magic that one clone picks up where another clone leaves off. My main character knows that he died a year ago. A year ago this month actually. He died in the the tutorial just ten days shy of one year ago. He knows this. But he also knows that itâs his duty to pick up where the last clone left off. And he knows that when he dies, itâll be over for him, but the next clone will carry things through.