Clones

[milo]

If you have a carrot
you can eat that carrot
-or-
you can plant that carrot
in the ground.

In about 60 days
you will grow
a carrot

and you can eat that one instead.
It will not be better,
it will not be any worse.
Technically it will be
the exact same carrot
(although it will look and taste different)

Which makes me think about clones
and how they are technically the same
(except that clones don't have souls)

which, in turn, makes me think
about carrots
and wonder
do carrots have souls?

[Brownlie]

If you have a carrot
you can eat that carrot
-or-
you can plant that carrot
in the ground.

In about 60 days
you will grow
a carrot

and you can eat that one instead.
It will not be better,
it will not be any worse.
Technically it will be
the exact same carrot
(although it will look and taste different)

Which makes me think about clones
and how they are technically the same
(except that clones don't have souls)

which, in turn, makes me think
about carrots
and wonder
do carrots have souls?

Well, the poem itself appears to be a cloned form.

[milo]

If you have a carrot
you can eat that carrot
-or-
you can plant that carrot
in the ground.

In about 60 days
you will grow
a carrot

and you can eat that one instead.
It will not be better,
it will not be any worse.
Technically it will be
the exact same carrot
(although it will look and taste different)

Which makes me think about clones
and how they are technically the same
(except that clones don't have souls)

which, in turn, makes me think
about carrots
and wonder
do carrots have souls?

Well, the poem itself appears to be a cloned form.

not really a poem, just a thought. I could probably make it into a poem though, I suppose.

[Brownlie]

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.

[vtsai01]

Sounds like you're talking about gingers lol

[tectak]

If you have a carrot
you can eat that carrot
-or-
you can plant that carrot
in the ground.

In about 60 days
you will grow
a carrot

and you can eat that one instead.
It will not be better,
it will not be any worse.
Technically it will be
the exact same carrot
(although it will look and taste different)

Which makes me think about clones
and how they are technically the same
(except that clones don't have souls)

which, in turn, makes me think
about carrots
and wonder
do carrots have souls?

Well, the poem itself appears to be a cloned form.

not really a poem, just a thought. I could probably make it into a poem though, I suppose.

Don't.
Jasper Carrot

[ChristopherSea]

Propagating any plant from a cutting yields a 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.

[ellajam]

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.

[milo]

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.

[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.

[abu nuwas]

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.

Leaving aside what is now feasible......
The manufacture of a human 'clone' from basic elements -- a heap of atoms lying around -- would present some interesting questions. Let us suppose it were possible, and one was knocked up of me, 30 mins ago. It of course must have everything exactly as I was then, including the bits of brain which contain memory. But can it be aware of its own existence? If it is, at what point did the awareness creep in, and why? Did all the original bits and bobs have some tiny piece of self-awareness in them? If it is not, but is just like a very sophisticated robot (ultra sophisticated in my case), then my self-aware body would be having something non-dependent on my physical make-up, and, one might suppose, when the physical body faded away, that same something would have no reason to.

If everything has a little awareness, then so do carrots. It's known as Carrot Theory....

[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.

Leaving aside what is now feasible......
The manufacture of a human 'clone' from basic elements -- a heap of atoms lying around -- would present some interesting questions. Let us suppose it were possible, and one was knocked up of me, 30 mins ago. It of course must have everything exactly as I was then, including the bits of brain which contain memory. But can it be aware of its own existence? If it is, at what point did the awareness creep in, and why? Did all the original bits and bobs have some tiny piece of self-awareness in them? If it is not, but is just like a very sophisticated robot (ultra sophisticated in my case), then my self-aware body would be having something non-dependent on my physical make-up, and, one might suppose, when the physical body faded away, that same something would have no reason to.

If everything has a little awareness, then so do carrots. It's known as Carrot Theory....

When you clone yourself, you take the DNA out of one of your cells in the form of a nucleus and place it into an egg that has had it's nucleus removed. You implant that into a surrogate womb and grow a new being with your genetic make up, but that is all. There is no memory, experience or soul replication. It's like in 'The Boy's From Brazil'. They all had Hitlers's genes, but Dr. Mengele had to manipulate their environments and upbringing to try to make another Hitler.

[milo]

If everything has a little awareness, then so do carrots. It's known as Carrot Theory....

><Clap><

---

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.

Darwin was an interesting chap and pretty revolutionary thinker for his time but most of this reads rather staid now and discounts the potential for individual adaptation too much. anyway, we are poets and speak in metaphors, let's see how well your "natural selection" argument holds up metaphorically:

Climate change - build a house
Competition - harness competitive species for collaboration, build a zoo, invent firearms
Disease - invent a cure, build a hospital, discover drugs
Evolution - uh . . . did you think this through?
wildlife destruction - create a cause or campaign, print posters or fliers, collect donations

[ChristopherSea]

I think this massive clone, and essentially immortal stand, of aspens proves that if a species is perfectly adapted to their environment, why change (genetic variants have no advantage). As you point out, by eliminating selection pressure, humans are not evolving genetically either, much like those trees.

[abu nuwas]

If everything has a little awareness, then so do carrots. It's known as Carrot Theory....
[/quote]

When you clone yourself, you take the DNA out of one of your cells in the form of a nucleus and place it into an egg that has had it's nucleus removed. You implant that into a surrogate womb and grow a new being with your genetic make up, but that is all. There is no memory, experience or soul replication. It's like in 'The Boy's From Brazil'. They all had Hitlers's genes, but Dr. Mengele had to manipulate their environments and upbringing to try to make another Hitler.
[/quote]

Yes. I was speculating that the day might come, when science and technology had progressed to a point where we could be manufactured from scratch, from the atomic or sub-atomic level. A part of that would be building the brain, exactly as the one being copied. That would mean having the same memories. You would expect it to do and say the same things. But whereas I know I exist, would this? There are some pretty clever gadgets about -but even if they can knock me over at chess, I tend to think they have no self-awareness. So at what point would this awareness pop up? I appreciate that it may be a year or two before this can be tested - it is the question which intrigues me.

Re your tree, have people taken seeds and tried to propagate it?

[milo]

If everything has a little awareness, then so do carrots. It's known as Carrot Theory....

When you clone yourself, you take the DNA out of one of your cells in the form of a nucleus and place it into an egg that has had it's nucleus removed. You implant that into a surrogate womb and grow a new being with your genetic make up, but that is all. There is no memory, experience or soul replication. It's like in 'The Boy's From Brazil'. They all had Hitlers's genes, but Dr. Mengele had to manipulate their environments and upbringing to try to make another Hitler.
[/quote]

Yes. I was speculating that the day might come, when science and technology had progressed to a point where we could be manufactured from scratch, from the atomic or sub-atomic level. A part of that would be building the brain, exactly as the one being copied. That would mean having the same memories. You would expect it to do and say the same things. But whereas I know I exist, would this? There are some pretty clever gadgets about -but even if they can knock me over at chess, I tend to think they have no self-awareness. So at what point would this awareness pop up? I appreciate that it may be a year or two before this can be tested - it is the question which intrigues me.

Re your tree, have people taken seeds and tried to propagate it?
[/quote]

Of course the best case situation would be if you could just cut someone's foot off and plant it to grow a clone but your idea is great too

[abu nuwas]

Re your tree, have people taken seeds and tried to propagate it?
[/quote]

Of course the best case situation would be if you could just cut someone's foot off and plant it to grow a clone but your idea is great too
[/quote]

Mother Nature as 3D printer.....

[milo]

Cries of the Carrots

[ellajam]

Kindred Carrots by Jane Pellicciotto

[abu nuwas]

Ella

Excellent! And how it disproves the cruel comment on the thing Milo posted, where someone says they have no interests...No interests!