Federation Cloning Status

Does anyone know what level of technology the Federation was at in regards to cloning? Since we know they can download the PICA memory into a person, could they download a entire personality into a cloned body? This could be one way of having the Archangels return after a thousand years by have cloning technology under the temple?

Also since PICA have been described as the ultimate prosthetics it might be illegal under Federation law or take a long time

The problem with downloading a personality into a cloned body is that it would overwrite any pre-existing personality.. That's murder.

I suppose it might be possible to grow a clone with the brain kept wiped clean, but then again it might not be possible... Only RFC knows.

Thats why i had the comment it might be illegal under Federation Law since as you pointed out it would be murder in fact this is a point in Mutineers Moon when the Mutineers get new bodies it is commented that even using a clone which is murder and using his fellow imperials is even worse

BarryKirk wrote:The problem with downloading a personality into a cloned body is that it would overwrite any pre-existing personality.. That's murder.

So is auto-wiping a PICA's personality after ten days of operation with no crime committed whatsoever. Copy or not, whether it thinks of itself as a person or not, less than ten days old or not, a PICA personality is evidently a real person, and wiping a PICA's mind is tantamount to killing it.

Yet the Federation passed THAT law. Which implies to ME at least that the Federation wasn't nearly as perfect and sunshine and roses as the characters in the story make it out to be.

evilauthor wrote:

BarryKirk wrote:The problem with downloading a personality into a cloned body is that it would overwrite any pre-existing personality.. That's murder.

So is auto-wiping a PICA's personality after ten days of operation with no crime committed whatsoever. Copy or not, whether it thinks of itself as a person or not, less than ten days old or not, a PICA personality is evidently a real person, and wiping a PICA's mind is tantamount to killing it.

Yet the Federation passed THAT law. Which implies to ME at least that the Federation wasn't nearly as perfect and sunshine and roses as the characters in the story make it out to be.

A non-emancipated PICA is, by legal definition, not sentient, wiping its memory is equivalent to erasing a thumb drive so you can replace the music files on it.

That PICA personality is a copy of an existing personality, after uploading any differences (i.e. the memories of experiences that the PICA was sent to have), the copy is superfluous, and erasing it is not a crime.

But in the case of cloning they would probably not bother with a backup of the clones memories and so in this case it probably would be murder

DJMacdonald wrote:
A non-emancipated PICA is, by legal definition, not sentient, wiping its memory is equivalent to erasing a thumb drive so you can replace the music files on it.

That PICA personality is a copy of an existing personality, after uploading any differences (i.e. the memories of experiences that the PICA was sent to have), the copy is superfluous, and erasing it is not a crime.

Legal definition != reality. Given that we SEE Nimue's perspective when she first wakes up in a PICA shell (twice!) and are privy to her thoughts, we see that she has all the personality, memories, morals, and breadth and depth of emotion that the original Nimue had. So a PICA personality is most definitely sentient even if it doesn't think of itself as a person its own right with its own self identity, whatever the (long dead) courts say.

It might be different if say, it was mandatory for a PICA to shut down after 10 days and its memories archived to be reviewed/absorbed by the original human template. Then you could at least say it merged back with the original human. But no, a PICA's memories are completely dumped, tossed out, ERASED when the clock runs out and lost forever.

I'd even go so far that if Archbishop Maikel is right and Merlin has his own soul, then the 10 day limit has essentially been killing the PICA's soul when it dumps a its memories.

And the most criminal thing about the whole 10 day limit law? It was made out of fear. It wasn't based on some PICA actually going on a killing spree. It was made on the basis of people being afraid they might. You know, like how a certain Grand Inquisitor was afraid a little podunk island nation MIGHT defy Church authority, or how a certain nation MIGHT decide to openly side with that island nation. Or how three quarters of a certain small village MIGHT have conspired to blow up a transport barge full of gunpowder.

And no one thinks this is WRONG? Really???

Edit: And that doesn't even address hyperheuristic mode. Nimue 3.0 spent the better part of several months subjective time catching up with current events, learning appropriate skills, and having conversations with Nahrmahn and Owl. Note that it's been mentioned that several subjective MONTHS in hyperheuristic mode can take place in the span of 15 minutes for the rest of the universe. And the PICA countdown timer is apparently based on objective time.

So if a PICA isn't sentient when it first wakes up, what about at the end of 10 objective days in hyperheuristic mode and subjectively experienced YEARS of activity and interaction with other people in hyperheuristic mode? If a PICA isn't sentient after that, then neither Merlin nor Nimue 3.0 can be considered sentient NOW.

evilauthor wrote:
It might be different if say, it was mandatory for a PICA to shut down after 10 days and its memories archived to be reviewed/absorbed by the original human template. Then you could at least say it merged back with the original human. But no, a PICA's memories are completely dumped, tossed out, ERASED when the clock runs out and lost forever.

This is where you're losing me evilauthor.

Per my reading of the text, your 'it might be different' scenario here is exactly what was expected to happen with a PICA.

The entire point of a PICA was that you used it to experience things that you couldn't yourself, and then its memories were merged with yours so that you had those experiences.

So no, there is no 'independent sentient existence' of a PICA in the scenario that law and system was based around. The PICA awoke as a copy of person A, lived as a copy of person A, and then had their memories and experience absorbed back into person A. At no point in those ten days does the PICA personality actually diverge from Person A.

Merlin is a very different case, where a copy was intended to become a new person. There's no original to absorb Merlin's memories, so I suspect even the Federation would have regarded shutting Merlin down at this point.
(We know from the Pearls I think that the Federation military R&D program, for example, consisted of copies of their top scientists running in compressed time. I'm pretty sure the Federation had some kind of legal protections around those individuals - or at least, wasn't planning on erasing them when the war ended!)

Correct, the standard PICA was intended for a short time use with the memories of the "copied personality" merged back into the original person.

According to David Weber there were PICAs where the original person wanted his/her copy to be an independent person. Those type of PICAs were not governed by the 10 day rule.

Also David Weber has said that the personalities copied into an AI environment were legally people by Federation Law.

By the way, there was an earlier comment that the Federation might be as "nice" as people think.

There is text evidence and Word of Weber that toward the end of existence, there was some "twisting" of legalities by the Federation.

But IMO this was understandable when humans are fighting for their lives and there doesn't seem to be a way to win.

GlynnStewart wrote:

evilauthor wrote:
It might be different if say, it was mandatory for a PICA to shut down after 10 days and its memories archived to be reviewed/absorbed by the original human template. Then you could at least say it merged back with the original human. But no, a PICA's memories are completely dumped, tossed out, ERASED when the clock runs out and lost forever.

This is where you're losing me evilauthor.

Per my reading of the text, your 'it might be different' scenario here is exactly what was expected to happen with a PICA.

The entire point of a PICA was that you used it to experience things that you couldn't yourself, and then its memories were merged with yours so that you had those experiences.

So no, there is no 'independent sentient existence' of a PICA in the scenario that law and system was based around. The PICA awoke as a copy of person A, lived as a copy of person A, and then had their memories and experience absorbed back into person A. At no point in those ten days does the PICA personality actually diverge from Person A.

Merlin is a very different case, where a copy was intended to become a new person. There's no original to absorb Merlin's memories, so I suspect even the Federation would have regarded shutting Merlin down at this point.
(We know from the Pearls I think that the Federation military R&D program, for example, consisted of copies of their top scientists running in compressed time. I'm pretty sure the Federation had some kind of legal protections around those individuals - or at least, wasn't planning on erasing them when the war ended!)

I forgot to mention that according to Word of Weber, not only did the 10 day rule apply to emancipated PICAs.

An emancipated PICA was a legal person according to Federation law.

Of course, this has little to do with the original post.

DrakBibliophile wrote:Correct, the standard PICA was intended for a short time use with the memories of the "copied personality" merged back into the original person.

According to David Weber there were PICAs where the original person wanted his/her copy to be an independent person. Those type of PICAs were not governed by the 10 day rule.

Also David Weber has said that the personalities copied into an AI environment were legally people by Federation Law.

By the way, there was an earlier comment that the Federation might be as "nice" as people think.

There is text evidence and Word of Weber that toward the end of existence, there was some "twisting" of legalities by the Federation.

But IMO this was understandable when humans are fighting for their lives and there doesn't seem to be a way to win.

GlynnStewart wrote:This is where you're losing me evilauthor.

Per my reading of the text, your 'it might be different' scenario here is exactly what was expected to happen with a PICA.

The entire point of a PICA was that you used it to experience things that you couldn't yourself, and then its memories were merged with yours so that you had those experiences.

So no, there is no 'independent sentient existence' of a PICA in the scenario that law and system was based around. The PICA awoke as a copy of person A, lived as a copy of person A, and then had their memories and experience absorbed back into person A. At no point in those ten days does the PICA personality actually diverge from Person A.

Merlin is a very different case, where a copy was intended to become a new person. There's no original to absorb Merlin's memories, so I suspect even the Federation would have regarded shutting Merlin down at this point.
(We know from the Pearls I think that the Federation military R&D program, for example, consisted of copies of their top scientists running in compressed time. I'm pretty sure the Federation had some kind of legal protections around those individuals - or at least, wasn't planning on erasing them when the war ended!)