The Perfect Clone

[Dark Ronin]

After reading a thread I've decided to be more original. The only problem is that most anything original actually belongs in another forum. Anyway here goes.

I recently did an experiment with flatworms. They have eyespots that detect light and use those to stay away from light. My class trained those worms to follow light, something flatworms would never usually do. Then we blended them all up and fed them to other flatworms who didn’t like light. Those flatworms began going towards the light. This is a fairly common experiment, but it made me think. Their brain structures are simple (if you can even call it a brain) so just eating others can make them change their behavior.

We also know that everything we learn, every thought we have, is a physical change in our brains; neurons making new connections, losing old ones, or just a firing of them. The only other influence on who we are and how we act is hormone levels.

My question sorta relates to cloning. We can make clones, but they will grow differently. What they will have in common is basically every physical feature. So assuming you had a clone mimic the original person’s diet, you could essentially have the same exact person, if you were to rearrange the neurons in that person’s brain. I know it sounds a little far fetched, but it seems completely plausible. All we would need is a better understanding of how the brain is arranged.

So then would it be possible to have a perfect clone? I don’t think it would be impossible for someone to raise a genetic copy of himself then physically reorganize their brain through surgery and essentially have a younger healthier version of that person.

Ok so I took some of the originality out of it by bringing up cloning, but it’s really the only popular example I can come up with. I’m hoping the focus can be less on cloning and more on the brain.

[talisman]

uh gonna have to have a lot more equal than just diet. The only way to get a perfect clone would be to raise two genetically identical twins in the exact same environment such that they would have the exact same experiences in life. It's not just farfetched -- it's impossible.

As far as rearranging neurons in the brain via surgery... well you'd have to be an incredibly pimp surgeon to manipulate the estimated 10 trillion neuronal connections in such a way that they were identical between two individuals.

[devonin]

The only way, so far as I'm aware, to actually generate a "Perfect copy, identical in every way" would be to develop cloning technology to the point that it became that olf mad scientist standby: the walk-in clone machine.

Like, I go into the chamber, a big zap happens, two mes come out.

The current method of cloning (That of simply making another person from your DNA) will basically make someone who is identical only insofar as they share your DNA. Environmental changes would occur -immidiately- The fetus after all, wouldn't be raised in the same womb you were, so you'd have differences occuring right then as different amounts of different types of nutrients and chemicals effected the fetus while it developed.

As for the neurology portion of the post: I'm not sure what to tell you about flatworms, but I'm pretty positive that if a human ate the brain of a human who was say...a psychopath, I really don't think that would somehow magically change the human's brain chemistry, making them a psychopath.

[atalkingcow]

Originally Posted by devonin

As for the neurology portion of the post: I'm not sure what to tell you about flatworms, but I'm pretty positive that if a human ate the brain of a human who was say...a psychopath, I really don't think that would somehow magically change the human's brain chemistry, making them a psychopath.

I'm pretty sure that if a human ate the brain of a human who was say...a psychopath..they are already a psychopath. Or the victim of a really cruel prank.

On Topic... There's a book my Aunt has that deals with this, and when she gets home from work I'll see if i can get the title/author for the OP. It deals almost entirely with the Psychological effects of being a clone.

:::Edit:::
It IS called "Joshua, Son of None" By Nancy Freedman.

[Dark Ronin]

Originally Posted by devonin

The only way, so far as I'm aware, to actually generate a "Perfect copy, identical in every way" would be to develop cloning technology to the point that it became that olf mad scientist standby: the walk-in clone machine.

Like, I go into the chamber, a big zap happens, two mes come out.

The current method of cloning (That of simply making another person from your DNA) will basically make someone who is identical only insofar as they share your DNA. Environmental changes would occur -immidiately- The fetus after all, wouldn't be raised in the same womb you were, so you'd have differences occuring right then as different amounts of different types of nutrients and chemicals effected the fetus while it developed.

As for the neurology portion of the post: I'm not sure what to tell you about flatworms, but I'm pretty positive that if a human ate the brain of a human who was say...a psychopath, I really don't think that would somehow magically change the human's brain chemistry, making them a psychopath.

Originally Posted by talisman

uh gonna have to have a lot more equal than just diet. The only way to get a perfect clone would be to raise two genetically identical twins in the exact same environment such that they would have the exact same experiences in life. It's not just farfetched -- it's impossible.

As far as rearranging neurons in the brain via surgery... well you'd have to be an incredibly pimp surgeon to manipulate the estimated 10 trillion neuronal connections in such a way that they were identical between two individuals.

To cover both of your objections the environmental factor wouldn’t exist if the brain could be reorganized in a way that would make it identical to the original brain. Who you are is your brain. If a brain is cloned exactly that brain would have the same environmental growth. The diet would only affect the growth of the “host” clone. The body could in a sense be grown then the brain erased and a new person would be created. I know its so unethical its not even funny but I really do believe it is possible, and it may even be in the near future, relatively speaking.

On to talisman’s statement. Yes the brain is extremely complex. But so are a lot of other things. We went from our only tools being rocks and wood to jets and space shuttles. We have the ability to do great things. I refuse to limit myself on anything simply because it might be hard.

To combine some of what talisman said with devonin’s idea; it would be extremely hard to map out all of the neurons in the brain and understand them, it would be less hard to dissect one and see how it is put together. You wouldn’t have to understand it exactly only mimic it. I can take an engine apart and put it back together no sweat; I don’t have to know what any of it does. True a brain is infinitely more complex, but still. Anyway getting back to my point we would only have to do it once or twice. Once it is understood, it wouldn’t be hard to design a computer to map out a brain and possibly even program a machine to recreate it. If this happened we could make multiple clones of ourselves, and live forever in a sense. Of course this is a topic covered in a lot of science fiction, genetic variation is destroyed and we lose the ability to reproduce, all that good stuff. But if that would happen at all it would likely be thousands of years from now. I know I’m taking away from the truth of my idea, but if you really think about it, it makes sense.

Originally Posted by atalkingcow

I'm pretty sure that if a human ate the brain of a human who was say...a psychopath..they are already a psychopath. Or the victim of a really cruel prank.

On Topic... There's a book my Aunt has that deals with this, and when she gets home from work I'll see if i can get the title/author for the OP. It deals almost entirely with the Psychological effects of being a clone.

:::Edit:::
It IS called "Joshua, Son of None" By Nancy Freedman.

As far as I know no one as ever eaten a raw human brain, but I agree it just doesn’t make sense, of course a flatworm doing it doesn’t make sense either. So I just don’t know. I’ll be sure to look into that book sometime. Thanks for letting me know about it. I’m more interested in the medical side of it, but psychology is the study of the mind so that works just as well.

[devonin]

To cover both of your objections the environmental factor wouldn’t exist if the brain could be reorganized in a way that would make it identical to the original brain. Who you are is your brain. If a brain is cloned exactly that brain would have the same environmental growth.

A clone breathing the air that exists now at an age where you breathed different air is a sufficiently different environmental change to make you not -perfectly- identical anymore. If your clone was a perfect exact clone, there is basically -no- delay between that clone existing, and the first environmental difference between it and how you developed.

And you simply cannot "modify" a brain in a way to make it identical to another brain, since for one, you and your clone will -always- be at a different stage of development and growth (IE. You can't make a 15 year old's brain be magically identical to a 30 year old's brain) and even if you could make them as close to physically identical as possible, we simply don't have the science to duplicate such a thing. If we did, we could be modifying everyone's brain to have the collective knowledge of all the greatest intellectuals.

[Dark Ronin]

Originally Posted by devonin

A clone breathing the air that exists now at an age where you breathed different air is a sufficiently different environmental change to make you not -perfectly- identical anymore. If your clone was a perfect exact clone, there is basically -no- delay between that clone existing, and the first environmental difference between it and how you developed.

I'm sure one could find some way to modify it. The air doesn’t make that big of a difference, but I do see your point. How could someone ensure that they get the exact same nutrition unless that person had been monitored their entire life. That’s more trouble than its worth, but not impossible.

Originally Posted by devonin

And you simply cannot "modify" a brain in a way to make it identical to another brain, since for one, you and your clone will -always- be at a different stage of development and growth (IE. You can't make a 15 year old's brain be magically identical to a 30 year old's brain) and even if you could make them as close to physically identical as possible, we simply don't have the science to duplicate such a thing. If we did, we could be modifying everyone's brain to have the collective knowledge of all the greatest intellectuals.

We don’t have the ability to do it yet. I see your point about the 15 year old and 30 year old brain. I'm not sure if you could duplicate that or not, but the random damage alone would be nearly impossible to copy. Plus I just thought about it and there’s no way I could ever get permission to even study something like this in America. We'll have to leave it up to the Russians to try this one out. Well thanks for killing my dreams. Feel free to close the thread.

[devonin]

Actually, internationally you have some incredibly limiting factors on what you can do experimentally to anything with a backbone (And octopodes) so no matter where you decided to you wanted to do this, currently you'd be doing it in secret with no official sanction from anyone. But sure, I can close the thread I guess.