Cloning A Kerry Blue

by Rick Ellis

Cloning of a special friend (or anyone you know - or think you know) whether two or four legged, raises a lot of moral issues. I keep reminding myself that a sentient being (human, dog, etc.) is more than a hunk of animated protoplasm, it is the sum total of everything that has happened to it, all its relationships and experiences. These things cannot (at present) be reproduced, only experienced real-time.

So that a cloned Kerry would be a stranger, just like any other puppy or baby. We'd learn about each other and develop shared experiences which would predict the nature of our future relationship.

On the purely physical side- yes, a particularly perfect Kerry (or human) could theoretically be replicated, we'd see that familiar shape, the gait, maybe even some traits or characteristics that are passed on by genes. But when you looked into those eyes you'd see a unique individual being, unlike any other. You wouldn't see the original dog.

That fact might be the most difficult of all for us to deal with, as we contemplate a brave new world of cloned Oprah's and Hitler's and Mother Theresa's. When the clone is a close friend or a well known entity, we'd WANT to see that person in our clone. We'd expect it. We'd look for the special details that characterize our relationship with that entity. But those things, ultimately, are not physical. I believe that we are not pre-disposed to love (or not love) a specific person or an animal, it happens as a result of our relationship and the way it develops, usually over time.

With a clone, our expectations would be high, and would inevitably be dashed. And for the clone it would also be difficult, living in the shadow of an exact physical double (or maybe more than one!) whose lifetime experiences he/she could never hope to know. The clone would go through life sensing the disappointment of those around it when they realize that it is not, and never could be, all that it's "parent" organism was. It may eventually be more than its parent, but it will never be the same.

Here's a scary scenario: I read a science fiction book long ago, I think it was called "Time Enough for Love", where an incredibly rich, very old man had himself cloned and sort of had the clone "on ice" waiting for the old man to die. At regular intervals the old man had his brain recorded (sort of like backing up your hard disk) so that when he died, the most recent recording could be "played" into the brain of the clone and he (the old man) would "live" again, almost all memories intact. True immortality. Maybe we're not so far away from this as we might like to think...

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