Clones

[ChristopherSea]

Propagating any plant from a cutting is clone of the original. The questioning of the soul may be relevant to human cloning. Although some scientists would argue against the existence of souls. I am not sure if cloning oneself would impart immortality. It is mostly memory and experience that makes us what we are. Even if the clone could latch on to the same soul, it would not have the shared experience of our previous life.

We would just have to find a way to transfer the memories into the clone, see Robert Heinlein.

About that carrot, that's the beauty of local produce. Grown from seed or cutting, it's taste will vary with soil, water and climate differences. A Jersey tomato grown in Idaho will not taste the same.

For some reason I find the idea of planting a carrot.to grow another carrot hugely ironic. And interesting. The taste, of course, is just a nature vs nurture debate as you have explained here.

Good morning!

---

Propagating any plant from a cutting is clone of the original. The questioning of the soul may be relevant to human cloning. Although some scientists would argue against the existence of souls. I am not sure if cloning oneself would impart immortality. It is mostly memory and experience that makes us what we are. Even if the clone could latch on to the same soul, it would not have the shared experience of our previous life.

Yes, of course the oldest living organism has been cloning itself for the last (est.) 80,000 years (some say closer to 1,000,000)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)

It has more cell connections that any human, indeed more than many towns, and has been carrying on for longer than civilization. Enjoy your soul simple human.

---

According to this Carrots have souls, and other sources suggest God might be like a vegetable.

You should make it into a "poem" whatever your definition of that may be though.

I am more interested in gardening just now and I never write "poems" with scare quotes or waste my time attempting to define them. Thanks though.

As a biologist, I think what makes the discovery of this species of quaking aspen's million year existence in a clonal patch of 100 acres without sexual reproduction extra bizarre is the failure of any variant to arise from a seed in that forest. Especially, when they have shown that seeds are viable. In the case of forest fires, it seems that the below ground clonal roots are better adapted for regrowth than the seeds themselves. To exclude nature’s propensity to create variants for survival, suggests that these forest clones would need to be perfectly adapted to those areas as to not need variation in order to adapt to climate changes, competition with other tree species, disease invasion and evolution, wildlife destruction, etc. It's almost as if genetic purity is essential to this ‘island of trembling giants.’ This is poem worthy.