| Even Jesus was going to reign 'hereafter', when his 'love' would be turned into confirmed power. This business of reigning in glory hereafter went to the root of Christianity: and is, of course, only an expression of frustrated desire to reign here and now. —D. H. Lawrence |
Clone and Punishment February 18, 2005
Posted by Rastaban in : Afterlife & Immortality,Christianity,gods & God , 12 commentsImagine that someone took some stem cells from your bone marrow and created a clone of you. Imagine, however, that you have never met this clone, that it lives in a different place. A few months later you learn that this twin of yours has been injured. What is the likely effect of learning about its injury? It is natural to feel sympathy for the clone’s pain, but probably you would not react as strongly as you would to the injury of a close friend or sibling, for someone you knew and loved.
Imagine the news now comes that an enemy of yours has captured the clone and has begun to torture it, under the assumption that torturing your clone will have the effect of torturing you.
Undoubtedly you consider this behavior barbaric and evil. But you will probably also find it bizarre that your enemy honestly believes that inflicting pain on the clone will literally inflict pain on you — as if the clone was some kind of voodoo doll. You will consider the enemy’s behavior evil, certainly, but also stupid.
But what now if the clone is somehow downloaded with your memories, so that it becomes not just a duplicate of your body but also a duplicate of your mind. Would this new twist make a difference when the bad guy tortured the clone? Would it make it so that torturing the clone now had the literal effect of torturing you?
Quite obviously, it would not. (more…)
