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[FearfulJesuit]

If you make an unauthorized copy of a brain, is it piracy or kidnapping?

This could go very badly. I can imagine very naïve teenagers in love copying their love interests' brains and having two or three of the same girlfriend or boyfriend.

That would not end well.

[Xantalos]

If you make an unauthorized copy of a brain, is it piracy or kidnapping?

This could go very badly. I can imagine very naïve teenagers in love copying their love interests' brains and having two or three of the same girlfriend or boyfriend.

That would not end well.

Not at all.

[Fenrir]

Oh! I know: it’s identity theft.

[FearfulJesuit]

I can kind of imagine it crossing badly with some people's stranger and darker desires.

That being said, I think there'll still be disabled and otherwise not-quite-normal people around because people will want to know what it's like to live with disabilities.

[Xantalos]

Of course, but safe to say I'd deal very badly to someone copying my personality.

[Itnetlolor]

If you make an unauthorized copy of a brain, is it piracy or kidnapping?

This could go very badly. I can imagine very naïve teenagers in love copying their love interests' brains and having two or three of the same girlfriend or boyfriend.

That would not end well.

Not at all.

Unless there's hardware available that are more powerful/complex than the human brain, then you'll have to bio-engineer a brain, mount it to a cyber-brain case, and hope it's compatible with the information you cram into it.

Plus, considering the possibility of souls, if you were to copy someone, how can you be certain they're the same person (or at least come out as the same person)? What will fill in the void of that copy? In other words, with an unauthorized clone of yourself, how can you be certain they are still you? You don't currently possess that meatbag, but it's a full-on carbon copy of you; but is it still you? That kind of stuff will be a surefire guarantee to scare the crap out of religious people; especially due to a possibility that "empty vessels" are ripe for demonic possession, since they're not already occupied. Something has to "fill the void" of not having a supernatural pilot behind the wheel.

Provided the spiritually-minded were on to something here, this adds yet another dimension of complexity into the mix.

[Xantalos]

Of course, if both clonew and original were walking around, whichever one didn't kill the other would continue living.
Or it might be only me whose clones fight to the death on sight.

[Fenrir]

Plus, considering the possibility of souls, if you were to copy someone, how can you be certain they're the same person? What will fill in the void of that copy? In other words, with an unauthorized clone of yourself, how can you be certain they are still you? You don't currently possess that meatbag, but it's a full-on carbon copy of you; but is it still you? That kind of stuff will be a surefire guarantee to scare the crap out of religious people; especially due to a possibility that "empty vessels" are ripe for demonic possession, since they're not already occupied. Something has to "fill the void" of not having a supernatural pilot behind the wheel.

Provided the spiritually-minded were on to something here, this adds yet another dimension of complexity into the mix.

1. You freely admit that it’s a copy, but you keep asking “Is it still you?”

2. I make copies of files and programs all the time, and I never once stopped to wonder “What if there are magic parts inserted by ancient gods that aren’t being copied?” and no one else does either, so one wonders why we would start asking that when copying persons.

[FearfulJesuit]

Ooh, I can't wait to engineer minds.

It will be an era of complete happiness and human bliss, for we shall pile the servers onto a spaceship and zoom off into the void yonder, ten thousand years, living with perfectly engineered perfect soul mates and living centuries of youth in procedurally generated realities of champagne rivers and lots and lots of sex, until, suddenly, we make planetfall on a new world to be the home of humanity once again...

[Itnetlolor]

Plus, considering the possibility of souls, if you were to copy someone, how can you be certain they're the same person? What will fill in the void of that copy? In other words, with an unauthorized clone of yourself, how can you be certain they are still you? You don't currently possess that meatbag, but it's a full-on carbon copy of you; but is it still you? That kind of stuff will be a surefire guarantee to scare the crap out of religious people; especially due to a possibility that "empty vessels" are ripe for demonic possession, since they're not already occupied. Something has to "fill the void" of not having a supernatural pilot behind the wheel.

Provided the spiritually-minded were on to something here, this adds yet another dimension of complexity into the mix.

1. You freely admit that it’s a copy, but you keep asking “Is it still you?”

2. I make copies of files and programs all the time and I never once stopped to wonder “What if there are magic parts inserted by ancient gods that aren’t being copied?” and no one else does either, so one wonders why we would start asking that when copying persons.

Biologically, it's a carbon-copy; but adding the possibility of souls existing and so forth (don't want to derail this into a whole religious debate thing, or worse), and each soul is unique, how can the soul be copied as well?

EDIT:
I guess something that can help this out would be if anyone has a twin. They can probably elaborate how their interactions with their essential natural carbon-copy (identical-sibling) works.

[alway]

If you make an unauthorized copy of a brain, is it piracy or kidnapping?

This could go very badly. I can imagine very naïve teenagers in love copying their love interests' brains and having two or three of the same girlfriend or boyfriend.

That would not end well.

Not at all.

Unless there's hardware available that are more powerful/complex than the human brain, then you'll have to bio-engineer a brain, mount it to a cyber-brain case, and hope it's compatible with the information you cram into it.

Plus, considering the possibility of souls, if you were to copy someone, how can you be certain they're the same person? What will fill in the void of that copy? In other words, with an unauthorized clone of yourself, how can you be certain they are still you? You don't currently possess that meatbag, but it's a full-on carbon copy of you; but is it still you? That kind of stuff will be a surefire guarantee to scare the crap out of religious people; especially due to a possibility that "empty vessels" are ripe for demonic possession, since they're not already occupied. Something has to "fill the void" of not having a supernatural pilot behind the wheel.

Provided the spiritually-minded were on to something here, this adds yet another dimension of complexity into the mix.

Except they won't and they weren't because it doesn't work that way. Or as I like to say: Show me where the soul interfaces with the brain, and I will build you a perpetual motion machine which runs on soul power.

No one denies muscles are moved by electrical impulses in the nerves; they don't move through magic. Nerves are themselves not magic. In order for something outside physical laws to influence something material, physical laws must be broken. There would be rogue electro-chemical impulses with no physical cause, or at the absolute least, qunatum statistical improbabilities of the highest degree; in any of these cases, energy conservation is not preserved, and thus it could be used to build a perpetual motion machine. None of this happens; if it did, we would detect it; as such, there are no immaterial 'souls' driving you like an RC car.

[Xantalos]

Plus, considering the possibility of souls, if you were to copy someone, how can you be certain they're the same person? What will fill in the void of that copy? In other words, with an unauthorized clone of yourself, how can you be certain they are still you? You don't currently possess that meatbag, but it's a full-on carbon copy of you; but is it still you? That kind of stuff will be a surefire guarantee to scare the crap out of religious people; especially due to a possibility that "empty vessels" are ripe for demonic possession, since they're not already occupied. Something has to "fill the void" of not having a supernatural pilot behind the wheel.

Provided the spiritually-minded were on to something here, this adds yet another dimension of complexity into the mix.

1. You freely admit that it’s a copy, but you keep asking “Is it still you?”

2. I make copies of files and programs all the time and I never once stopped to wonder “What if there are magic parts inserted by ancient gods that aren’t being copied?” and no one else does either, so one wonders why we would start asking that when copying persons.

Biologically, it's a carbon-copy; but adding the possibility of souls existing and so forth (don't want to derail this into a whole religious debate thing, or worse), and each soul is unique, how can the soul be copied as well?

Assuming we have sufficient time manipulation at this point, by duplicating your timeline - ie everything that happened to you ever - and inserting it into the clone's brain. It would then act as you would, and become you.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Even once we can do it, copying a human mind will be no simple task. You'd probably need specialized equipment that most people would not just have laying around. Eventually we'll get to the "casual copying" point, but that's even further off.

[Thecard]

Except they won't and they weren't because it doesn't work that way. Or as I like to say: Show me where the soul interfaces with the brain, and I will build you a perpetual motion machine which runs on soul power.

No one denies muscles are moved by electrical impulses in the nerves; they don't move through magic. Nerves are themselves not magic. In order for something outside physical laws to influence something material, physical laws must be broken. There would be rogue electro-chemical impulses with no physical cause, or at the absolute least, qunatum statistical improbabilities of the highest degree; in any of these cases, energy conservation is not preserved, and thus it could be used to build a perpetual motion machine. None of this happens; if it did, we would detect it; as such, there are no immaterial 'souls' driving you like an RC car.

Bro.  There's something you aren't considering: The soul is not a physical thing.  It is not the brain.  It is not our emotions.  The soul is our humanity, our link to God and to each other.
But that's a religious debate, for another time on another thread, I think.

Also, even if you could harness the power of souls, you could not make perpetual motion.  Energy is always transferred into other forms, and those forms often don't carry energy very well.

[Fenrir]

The soul is our humanity, our link to God and to each other.

Mine seems to be in operable; I’m not able to communicate with either.

Maybe I’m that philosophical zombie you’ve heard so much about.