Implications of 'Respawning'
Let's say you're a soldier in a science-fiction war. Everything is relatively similar to how wars are fought today, except that when you die, your likeness and memories are imprinted onto a flash-cloned husk, thereby creating a near-exact replica of you. From the clone's perspective, you died and then woke up in the cloning facility. From your perspective, you're dead (whether or not you have a perspective at that point is unknown, but beyond the scope of this question).
There have been many (somewhat unsatisfying) explanations of this system, such as how in a society where raw materials and energy are plentiful, the time to train a soldier is much more valuable than the molecules that make them up. In my case, the explanation is it's a way to get past an imposed limit on the maximum number of combatants in a battle. Either way, I'm not as worried about why it's done as what it would mean to the people it's done to.
For instance, how would an individual react knowing that if they die, they will be replaced? For some people, it might be kinda nice; after all, someone'll still be taking care of the wife and kids. But that brings up the second part of my question, how would people react to these clones? And the third, How would clones react to themselves?
I used the example of this process being done to soldiers, though I suppose the possibility exists for anyone in a dangerous job, or with the foresight to get memory-tracking implants and a full body scan. This might be similar to the problem of uploading your conciousness to an AI, though for now I want to stick to the constraints of "the original is most assuredly dead, and the copy is most assuredly not the original, though for all intents and purposes the two are indistinguishable."
EDIT- I may not have been clear enough about this, I'm not too worried about the science behind it, the cost of it, or the uses of it. I just want to know what people will think of it.
And let's also assume that no one is making multiple duplicates of a single individual. I suppose there can be flaws in the system (good for a laugh or two), but for the most part I'm just worried about one guy who is a copy of another guy who is now dead.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/11230. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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There is much the same problem with teleportation. Let's compare the two:
Teleportation
I am going off what seems to be the most accepted method - it's not the only one.
- You are taken apart into molecules
- Information about these molecules is sent across some network to the destination
- The teleporter at the end recreates you using this information.
Cloning
- You die; your molecules are no longer part of a 'human'
- The implants in your body use the residual electrical energy to tell the cloner to recreate you
- The cloning vat puts your molecules back together using stored information.
In both of these situations, the end result is not you. This is true no matter what anyone says; the molecules that make you up are no longer the same molecules.
There is every possibility that these clones and teleported people (hereinafter collectively referred to as "clones") would be accepted into society: they would be able to seamlessly take the place of the former person they represent. Their DNA is identical, as are their fingerprints, earprints (yes that's a thing), memories and neuronic connections. They could easily share the same passport.
Many people would come to see them as a good thing. After all, it means you never have to go through unexpectedly losing a loved one or family member. You can just call in a clone and everything will be fine... won't it?
No.
Overpopulation
The planet is already struggling to support the number of people we have on it. It is estimated that it can only support an absolute maximum of 10 billion people. If people start using this technology to create immortality, we have serious problems. This could, however, be relieved using another colonised planet.Mutations
Although the problem of genetic mutations during the cloning process is almost nonexistent, the software and hardware running these machines are vulnerable to hacking, destruction, or just plain bad coding while running. It is almost impossible to eliminate every bug; what if someone's memory gets mutated and they don't remember their family?
These clones, while technically possible, are still not ideal: there are always going to be problems that prevent them being 100% effective. That said, it would be possible to achieve a fairly high effectivity.
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