Programmers can answer all existential questions with ease
this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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No more than identical twins are the same person.
Except with cloning the other twin would be a different age as with current tech the clone is back to being a baby. You'd need rapid growth tech and mind transfer tech to at least make the clone have the same age, memories and personality, although that would most likely introduce other differences.
Nothing more than bootstrapping the data for some integration testing
There is at least one case of parents, told at a very early stage that they're expecting twins, deciding to remove and freeze one of the embryos for later reimplantation, so even with actual identical twins, they can be different ages.
But yes, transferring minds is not something we can do. I'm not sure it's something we'll ever be able to do.
Should it actually become possible, I assume that certain parties would even advocate for the unique life/lives of the clone(s). The argument would be that the clones' chance at life shouldn't be overwritten by other being's attempts at extension of life.
"Ethical minefield" doesn't even begin to cover it!
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They are, on the exact moment they are cloned. On the next attosecond they are not.
Edit: Well, if they are cloned on the cellular level, otherwise it's just NO.
What if they're placed into two completely identical environments?
Quantum multiverse theory says that happens all the time.
Is there a universe where that doesn't happen all the time?
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You have no idea what cloning is, right? You're too young to remember Dolly
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But they don't occupy the same space 🤔
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If you fork a process, then it's the two separate processes but sharing the same memory with copy-on-write mapping.
Is that actually more efficient if I need my child process to do something different with different data?
It's more efficient for memory until you start working with different data. Threads also rely on the same syscall on Linux, clone(2), but they don't share the entire context by default, so they're more lightweight. It is recommended to use pthreads(3) API instead of fork(2).
Also, if you care about Windows, threads are far lighter than processes on that platform. Starting a new process is relatively slow compared to other platforms.
Ah thx for the info
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If you just clone a reference to them, then you are just pointing another finger at them.
Is this really an analogy that resonates with programmers today?
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The real answer btw is no, cloned animals aren't identical to their original, same base traits, but for example in cows spot position will be different
Also unless you can copy their memories, they just won't be the same person.
And then they'd have two different life experiences and would immediately begin to differ.
And we also change every milisecond. How long this process takes? It may seem irrelevant but copy of you 5 seconds ago is not you now. It's your restored back up.
Unless your pause execution of the original or there's an ongoing synchronization during the cloning process
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So it's kind of like the moment of inception is the memory reference, and they won't ever be the same?
They're now two people who will love two different lives, they will naturally begin to diverge
Okay, now do the Trolley Problem.
Is it a copy or a hardlink?
Make a deep clone
If you copy by reverence there’s still only one person.
What is clone by reference?
Hive mind
We are all one.
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Huh. Now my confusion about the chicken and the egg debate makes a lot more sense, it seems odd to me that such an easily answered question ended with so much confusion
I'm now realizing it's only a debate with non programmers, I thought it was a mutual ADHD communication thing, now I'm realizing maybe it's just because they learned about inheritance
Depends if you add the ethicator or not
It’s not, it’s a copy, but if you think all consciousness is the same, then maybe.
If you clone them, you'll lose their functions.
Imagine if you saw someone who looked exactly like you and mimicked your exact actions, but they were just 3 or 4 feet to the left of you. That's by reference (I think)
Contrasting an exact copy of you that can think for itself and has autonomy, which is by value (I think)
By value could be described as, the exact same as you at the time of cloning, but it will be its own object and in no way connected to your actions.
Whereas by reference would be exactly what you described
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