There is this fascination with clones. It mostly tends to arise from thoughts of immortality, fear of death, things unfinished, etc. What if we could create a clone of ourselves and thus continue our journey? This can then be extended to imagining cloning geniuses, super athletes, etc. and having a grandiose vision of what a world filled with such people might be like. It can't happen. It won't happen. At least in the way that many people think of it. Reality itself prevents it...
We are more than our physical shell. We are also the product of our experiences. Somehow if you can clone the body there might some day be a way to transmit those experiences into the new mind so it becomes the same person. Even then this is unlikely. Our experiences are written into more than just our minds. They are written into muscle memory, they are written into the scars from things we have felt. They are written into the tattoos and changes we have made to ourselves.
Let's imagine for a moment that none of those things mattered. Reality still has a reality check in store for us.
If someone is cloned. They still must occupy physical space. Some things will be closer to the clone than they may be to the original. If you have more than one clone some things will be physically in closer proximity to one clone than it is some of the others. The wind blowing through the air will move at different paces and hit the clones in different manners. The sounds will come at them from different directions at different perceivable volumes. The light from the sun, the stars, the moon, and lights of man will be different based upon the location of a clone. Things will look different and be perceived differently due to physical location in relation to what is being viewed.
Instantly the clones begin to diverge. They are no longer the same. They have had different experiences.
If we consider this begins perhaps at some point in the womb whether artificial or natural, and at the very least it begins at birth then the concept of a clone most often presented is imaginary and an impossibility with one exception.
The exception being that we are in some kind of simulation and whatever controls it might be able to instantiate a duplicate of a person standing in exactly the same spot with the same experiential memory while simultaneously removing the original so that two bodies are not inhabiting the same exact physical location. That is often referred to as magical thinking. It is not likely. It is not even likely if we are in a simulation. Yet if we are in a simulation then perhaps such a thing could occur if it were designed to facilitate such a thing.
In the womb as your mother shifts that may impart some muscle memory about that movement. Some minute thing that we may choose to consider inconsequential. The sounds heard while in the womb have been found in some studies to have an impact on a child. This is experiential. Imagine the child in a test tube. Unless that is devoid of all sound, and sensations then two clones next to each other would still have slightly different experiences beginning even at such an early time.
These experiential factors come rapidly from all around us and they don't stop. We are changing second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, etc.
It is more than our genes. We are the product of our genetics and our experiences. Our genetics will give us some advantages yet ultimately it is more likely the experiences are what define us. How did we overcome those differences?
Each of us will develop very different tastes, and likes. We will have probability matrixes within us that cause us to react based upon generalizations about we think are likely outcomes simply from things we see, hear, and otherwise observe with the senses available to us. If our probability matrixes are fine tuned we will hopefully fare well in life. Yet it is probabilities that we react to because there is no certainty. The wind can suddenly change. A fire somewhere nearby can suddenly start. Our life can change in an instance. Some things in life require very rapid adaptation to or we perish. Often we do perish.
As to these probability matrixes. Imagine if Marilyn Monroe stood next to Marie Curie. At a glance you can assume things. These things would be based upon probability matrixes from experiences you have had in life. Some of them would also be influenced by biology. If you are attracted to men then you might consider something like Chris Hemsworth standing next to Albert Einstein.
On a purely biologically driven perspective history has proven we are attracted to specific traits and on that choice alone Monroe and Hemsworth would have no shortage of sexual suitors. The challenge can go the other way for Curie, and Einstein. Though in reality all of them likely did fine in this regard. Marie actually had to overcome the biases due to her being a female in a male dominated science. She did win a Nobel prize and it was hard fought.
Monroe was essentially an object of sexual attraction and predominantly still is. Yet she early on either committed suicide or was murdered depending upon what you research. The official story is suicide and it is actually quite probable. The thing about probability is that there can always be exceptions.
As to experiential development of who we become. What if your sexual attraction has developed beyond simply looking at the outside when you seek a mate? What if the moment they open their mouth and titter, laugh, act entitled, act unintelligent, etc. you find them suddenly unattractive? What if the moment someone like Marie Curie begins speaking her brilliance of mind stuns you and your attraction increases?
This is experiential. It is not the same from person to person. This would likely be true even if they were clones.
Immortality through clones is not going to happen...
Perhaps that is why some people think they can upload themselves into computers. If you think that would still be you then you have another thing coming. It would definitely be SOMETHING but it would not be you. Perhaps you think it would be a new evolutionary version of yourself. This could be true. Yet what would it now be attracted to? What would it now think is necessary for it's survival and pleasure? What would be the cost of that?
That is again the realm of the imagination. All we can do is speculate upon it and journey onwards...
As always. Thank you for your time. I know it is valuable and finite within each of us.
It looks like I may have accidentally clicked on upvote for this article. It was not intentional. I don't upvote myself.
Nope. I went from a Dolphin years ago down to less than now. Back up to I think 5 or 6000. Then I try to keep it at the moment around what I am.