Re: WISDOM CLONES

So this response does not start out entirely on point, here, to his post. Okay here is what I wrote earlier (with a few later modifications):

Very interesting subject.

Right off hand, my thought is that much of the wisdom of the elderly is based upon their personal experience, and contained in the memory of their brains. A clone from them would therefore be "a fresh slate" (of course).

However, I have read somewhere about the experiences of our lives being imprinted cellularly onto our DNA. (This is actually a kind of scary notion, because it would mean that every "wrong" or unethical thing I had ever done, as well as things done to me, would be somehow imprinted onto my DNA for a future generation --- to perhaps have a panic attack at a certain age, or whatever.)

Let me re-emphasize here that I am not stating this particular notion as proven fact, but just speculation.

Also where I read this (I am thinking it was in one of Betty Eadie's books) --- it said that we have the ability to CHANGE past "bad" DNA patterns, such as might have been carried down from our genetic past histories.

So it is NOT like every one is a total captive to all that their ancestors did or were. Because we have the ability to recognize and change negative or bad patterns.

Another interesting thought is that if there is ANY truth to this concept (of genetic imprinting through actual actions during one's lifetime --- theft, good deeds, whatever) --- then presumably such "imprintings" carried on to the next generation would be only up to the point of either conception, or birth.

Men can have children in their later years, but usually not women. So this makes for interesting subject matter. Presumably our ancestry is made up of conceptions at varying ages.

I am just now re-reading your post, and see that I have misinterpreted your sentence by running off with the first phrase of it.

My personal opinions on this involve my beliefs about the supernatural. Apparently in biblical times people did live to be almost a thousand years old (Methusala -- sp?), and so if that is a correct rendition of historical facts, then I could not call it "unnatural" to give a person a super long life.

However with cloning, the question would arise as to whether we would be putting two personas into one body --- and deliberately doing that I would have to see as unethical, as well as "getting rid" (killing) of or sacrificing one personna for the sake of the other.

I do not know whether or not I actually believe in reincarnation. But my opinions lately on life and death are that there comes a time to return to our Maker, sort of like there comes a time to go to bed and sleep for the night.

When I was five years old and first caught on to the concept of death, I was absolutely terrified of it. I did not know there would come a time when I would welcome it more and more, as I got older (and tired) and accomplished the things I wanted to do in life.* I am not ready to die just yet, but am certainly more ready than when I was younger.

It makes me think that at a certain point, it is just natural to die, and nothing to be fought. Although I can't speak for anyone else as to whether or not they "should" be at that point --- only they can be the judge of that.

I also wonder if everyone has a fear of death until they accomplish whatever it is that they came to earth to do --- their purpose and mission, so to speak, of which they are not even consciously aware, but the life process just eventually brings it about.

I don't know that this is a proper forum to delve too much into beliefs and religious beliefs, but these beliefs (and moral priorities) definitely have an underlying impact on what people think of cloning, and various aspects of it.

Other thoughts that come to mind include the recent realizations regarding the impact of play on brain development:

It was found that infants who were put in those baby "walkers" too much of the time were deprived of crawling, and there was a very high incidence of dislexia among them later on. Apparently there is something about crawling that wires the brain at this young age, to spacial perception of left and right. (Sorry I cannot cite a reference source on this, but I do believe something to this effect was once on an Oprah show in which she interviewed conjoined twins. Because of the conjoined situation, one of the twins never crawled, and ended up severely dislexic.)

There is no telling what all of these stages of play are, which wire the human brain for this and that function later on in life. It does make me wonder if placing kids in schools to sit for eight hours is quite all the truly "normal" thing to do. (A few hours maybe, but eight? I remember I got through all that torment by daydreaming most of the time.**)

My first thoughts on raising IQ's several hundred points are this: I'm sure I can't word this just perfectly, but in my opinion, GRADUAL changes in nature are much less rocky, and much better adapted.

I think we need to learn to "handle" what IQ points we do have, before jumping them several hundred points.

Meaning for one --- we need to become more benevolent human beings.

As humans we have not learned to live without wars from time to time, and we have not entirely learned to effectively live in peace, either, without one person or group usurping another (with their beliefs and priorities, etc.)

Also, we don't need someone who impresses us all as if he is a God with his extra high IQ, and yet who is only manipulating and taking advantage of us like cash cows.

Also, people who are smart might have a tendency to be over-confident of their smartness and know-it-all-ness. And maybe especially if they were smarter than other people, and constantly facing that (partial) reality.

And "intelligence" is a very wide umbrella word, also. Who could say a musical genuis had more human value than a mathematical genuis? Or that any genuis had more human value than a regular person? And what with forms of intelligence that are hard to recognize? Or masked in something like dislexia? Or lead poisoning? Or allergies? Etc.

Another concern that could come into play would be that we could easily (and perhaps inadvertantly) sacrifice ONE area of intelligence, for the appeal of another.

This is where it is so important that individual choice of the parent/s come into play.

Because I could say, fine --- you go have yourself a child with an IQ of 790. As for me, I will first see how your child works out and adapts, before I subject mine to such a condition. Then we would have just one perhaps "mal-adjusted" human being, and not a whole raft of them.

And the so-called "mal-adjusted" person might even be of great benefit, both him or herself to society, as well as by what society might learn from such an "experiment." So long as we are not knowingly subjecting a human being to some torment or gross abnormality --- I see no problem. Also there would be the safeguard of only a few of these being created, instead of suddenly many with whom we have no experience.

For me, it all boils down to the fact that parents choose the genes of their children by choosing marriage partners who can excel and survive in their particular world --- whether it be social adeptness, or whatever these survival traits are. Sometimes it is only a shallow willingness to be superficial, I am afraid, or not see underneath to the truth of matters, and things like that. But nevertheless we are honored by nature with OUR choices. (It is not God's choices who we marry or have sex with.)

Okay I guess I've said enough, and spoken my mind for now. I hope this is all I feel I need to say on this or else nothing else in my life will get done (or properly focused on) today! Or tomorrow, etc.

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*If anyone reading this is so "tired" of life they are suicidal, I would suggest they might try taking up a practice of meditation --- silent meditation being in my opinion best.

It approximates the death experience enough to help one feel rejuvenated and refreshed, and ready to get on with the next leg in life (just about no matter what experience triggered the depression).

Or maybe it is that it approximates the experience of being not yet born, in the womb, and thereby refreshed. Whatever the case, it does refresh oneself, from the tangles and all of post-modern life.

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**Okay --- I've counted and it's more around six hours, not eight, that kids sit in school.

Nevertheless, I question taking them at the time of day when they are apt to be most creative, and essentially "robbing" them of all their creative and experiential initiative (every dang day).

This runs the risk of sounding sexist (please don't make more of this statement than is meant) --- but personally I believe projects like sewing and quilting must be great for wiring the brain for geometry. (Origami too.) Childhood carpentry projects would no doubt do something of the same. (Hopefully supervised --- it could be dangerous.)

Personal projects are so much better for development of esteem, too, and think how many kids suffer lack of esteem. These personal projects also teach skills such as patience, and coming back to work on it again when the mind is fresher, etc.

Okay this is now way off the subject of cloning, so I will close.