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[Vector]

No growth of anything with a pre-frontal cortex and I'm OK.

I suspect that you'll find serious disagreement in other parts of the internet, but none here.

[Mrhappyface]

I have no problem with it. Provided, as said by lordbucket, they weren't creating full bodies then cutting out their organs.

Why would you do that. It's horribly inefficient. Also, what's the problem with full bodies, after all, they'd be brain death for all points and purposes.

((If they aren't, I'm afraid we stumbled into a Hollywood film.))

I blame Michael Bay then.
Regardless though, there are many bits and pieces that don't necessarily have to come from humans. Such as pigs and sharks.

[Nirur Torir]

I like to follow such advances, and eagerly await the day we'll be able to print out limbs/organs customized to fit the recipient.

A few months ago [The paper was submitted in March 2013], scientists took a mouse heart, removed the living cells (with some sort of acid bath, I think), leaving a protein scaffold. They then used human stem cells to replace the former mouse cells with human cells. They got it to beat (the article didn't mention how). It could probably be implanted in the cell donor with only a low risk of rejection, and the original protein scaffold would be replaced by the body over time. Source

IIRC, the protein scaffolds can be made with 3D printers. We can still only seed them to grow only one or two types of cells, but I expect clinical trials of complex artificial fully-biological organs within two decades at most.

3D printers in the medical field would be awesome.

They can use MRI scans to create inorganic replicas to practice surgery on a specific patient, or create specialized tools for the job (say, to better work around a formerly broken bone). Plus there's Organovo, linked by Weenog, who can currently print a micro-liver, and are working at full organs.

[ChairmanPoo]

And Tengion, ACTC...  there are many big names in biomedical technologies nowadays...

[GlyphGryph]

Regardless though, there are many bits and pieces that don't necessarily have to come from humans. Such as pigs and sharks.

And, in fact, that's where many pieces come from nowadays - I've known quite a few folks with animal parts in them.

[LordBucket]

I have no problem with it. Provided, as said by lordbucket, they weren't creating
full bodies then cutting out their organs.

Why would you do that. It's horribly inefficient.

How long does it take to grow a replacement part? weeks? Months? I don't know. If you're in an accident and lose something important it would be convenient to already have a replacement available, wouldn't it?

Also, what's the problem with full bodies, after all, they'd be brain death for all points and purposes.

I wouldn't necessarily trust corporations motivated by profit to oversee such a thing. I would be concerned that it was "just cheaper and more efficient" to grow a fully functional living clone and keep it sedated so as to look non-viable.

How would you know?

I wouldn't want to take that chance, and would be extremely uncomfortable creating a living creature solely for the purpose of cutting it up for my convenience. If we are to play god, let us choose to be benevolent gods.

I wouldn't want to live in a world where having my heart cut out and replaced with a "more efficient" metal and plastic model was similarly expected.

And what exactly do you have against having an improved organ, especially considering the
failures of the one you used as an example is the one responsible for most early deaths?

Honest answer? I'm not a firm believer in the "my consciousness is exclusively in my brain" worldview. If my heart were removed, I'm not sure that I would be "me" anymore. It's not uncommon for heart transplant patients to report emotional and personality changes. If you're replacing your heart with a purely metal and plastic part...that has implications I wouldn't be eager to explore.

It would be one thing to be an individual who had an accident and was to choose between death and having a plastic heart. It would be another thing entirely to have society as a whole replacing biological hearts with plastic on birth as casually as we circumcise and pierce ears. Yes, it might be "efficient." It might eliminate the leading cause of death. It also might destroy us an an emotional species.

I would be hesitant to take that chance, for forever, based only on current medical knowledge.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

How long does it take to grow a replacement part? weeks? Months? I don't know. If you're in an accident and lose something important it would be convenient to already have a replacement available, wouldn't it?

If that's your logic, it would cost less time and money to grow and maintain each indvidual organ than an entire clone, if you really want one in reserve.

Also, what's the problem with full bodies, after all, they'd be brain death for all points and purposes.

I wouldn't necessarily trust corporations motivated by profit to oversee such a thing. I would be concerned that it was "just cheaper and more efficient" to grow a fully functional living clone and keep it sedated so as to look non-viable.

How would you know?

I wouldn't want to take that chance, and would be extremely uncomfortable creating a living creature solely for the purpose of cutting it up for my convenience. If we are to play god, let us choose to be benevolent gods.

It is a moot point anyway. You cannot accelerate growth like that, making the idea of growing an entire clone for you in your adult life impractical in the extreme. It would pretty much be necessary to grow individual organs, by taking cells from your existing organs and letting them grow on a protein structure.

Honest answer? I'm not a firm believer in the "my consciousness is exclusively in my brain" worldview. If my heart were removed, I'm not sure that I would be "me" anymore. It's not uncommon for heart transplant patients to report emotional and personality changes. If you're replacing your heart with a purely metal and plastic part...that has implications I wouldn't be eager to explore.

And do you have any evidence at all to support this view?

It would be one thing to be an individual who had an accident and was to choose between death and having a plastic heart. It would be another thing entirely to have society as a whole replacing biological hearts with plastic on birth as casually as we circumcise and pierce ears.

Now that is pretty unlikely to happen. Major surgery to implant an artificial organ in someone who is still going to change in size wouldn't be a good idea as a routine procedure. Now, if you're 70 and have anything but perfect heart history, then it might be a good idea to get an artificial heart just in case.

Yes, it might be "efficient."

Why do you keep using quotes around "efficient"? Artificial organs will become more efficient than normal ones. That's just the way it is. Evolution does not usually result in maximum efficiency, it mostly results in the minimum of what will work.

It might eliminate the leading cause of death. It also might destroy us an an emotional species.

That is just plain silly. People are emotionally changed by brain damage, but not by heart damage. In fact, most people accrue significant heart damage over the course of their lives. So why do you think that your heart controls your emotions?

By the way, we already have and use full artificial hearts. While they haven't gotten better than organic hearts (yet), the people who have had them have thus far not turned into robots.

[GlyphGryph]

"Efficiency" is always dependent on context though. What would it even mean for an artificial heart to be more efficient? I'm not really sure. I can definitely see it being better than an organic heart if it has a lower chance of failure, or if the organic heart is somehow flawed and incapable of completing its hearty functions, but I'm not entirely sure what more efficient would be. I mean, organic stuff is self repairing and works off some really powerful low level principles to get things done for a minimum of energy - I have trouble believing we are going to beat it out any time in the next fifty years at least... so long as its working properly, of course.

[10ebbor10]

Printing takes a few hours at most,  because if it takes longer, the cells start dying on the eldest layers. Many organs can be made, and most retrieval and replacement operations take longer. (This assumes stem cells are in reserve, which they would need to be anyway)

Full body cloning can't really be accelerated, as doing that tends to be disastrous for all organs involved. Same for sedation. Even if your clones were sentient by design, (unlikely, as sentience is hard), there are many ways to lobotomize without trouble.

But judging by the rest of your posts, we're rapidly leaving the realm of science and entering that of conspiracies and new age mythiscism.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

"Efficiency" is always dependent on context though. What would it even mean for an artificial heart to be more efficient? I'm not really sure. I can definitely see it being better than an organic heart if it has a lower chance of failure, or if the organic heart is somehow flawed and incapable of completing its hearty functions, but I'm not entirely sure what more efficient would be. I mean, organic stuff is self repairing and works off some really powerful low level principles to get things done for a minimum of energy - I have trouble believing we are going to beat it out any time in the next fifty years at least... so long as its working properly, of course.

A more efficient artificial heart would likely have the qualities of being able to outlive the rest of your fleshy bits, not grow to such a size that it loses efficiency (one of the big reasons why obesity results in heart trouble) and get more blood flow for less work (hence why athlete's heart happens). If we wanted to get really fancy we could look into giving them emergency functions, like a reserve of high-oxygen artificial blood that won't be hindered by normal bloodflow stoppages, or perhaps an ideal rate for bleeding out as slowly as possible in the event of severe injury.

I think we'll beat it. The first generation artificial hearts lasted about one year after implantation, the second generation five years, and the third are aiming for 25 years. The progression is in leaps and bounds. Self-repair functions are a thing that could happen, but sheer durability is a factor that might render that moot.

[LordBucket]

Honest answer? I'm not a beleiver in the "my consciousness is in my brain" worldview. If my heart were removed, I'm not sure that I would be "me" anymore.


If that's your logic, it would cost less time and money to grow and maintain
each indvidual organ than an entire clone, if you really want one in reserve.

Maybe if you're only making heart/lungs/liver/kidney/eyes/intestines/testicles/esophagus/spleen/bladder/galblladder/pancreas...wait, this list is getting longer than you expected, isn't it?

But that aside, remember that internal organs are not the only things that might need replacing. For example, what if you lose a leg? Would be convenient to have a replacement, wouldn't it? But there's no way to anticipate what you'll need and only make that. The simplest solution is to make an entire body.

That is just plain silly.

Our worldviews are different. *shrug*

Think of Dolly the sheep. Cloning...simple and no problems, right? Well, no she had all sorts of unexpected problems and was euthanized at half the expected age because of them. So we did it, we learned some things, and the next time we did it better.

But mistakes can be made. As I said, I would be extremely hesitant to take a chance that could effect the entire species for forever based on only what we know right now. At first Dolly the sheep seemed like a great success. If we'd started cloning humans in mass based only on that early success, we'd have created all sorts of problems in the long run. If individuals get replacement plastic hearts because they choose it an on an individual basis, I'm ok with that. Making it standard policy for everybody...not so much.

Incidentally, in the interest of not wasting both our time, remember that at this point we're discussing very specific hypothetical  cases. Please don't ignore the context of the specific case and try to apply that to the entire discussion and turn this into a 2 page argument over misapplied context.

[10ebbor10]

Honest answer? I'm not a beleiver in the "my consciousness is in my brain" worldview. If my heart were removed, I'm not sure that I would be "me" anymore.


If that's your logic, it would cost less time and money to grow and maintain
each indvidual organ than an entire clone, if you really want one in reserve.

Maybe if you're only making heart/lungs/liver/kidney/eyes/intestines/testicles/esophagus/spleen/bladder/galblladder/pancreas...wait, this list is getting longer than you expected, isn't it?

But that aside, remember that internal organs are the only things that might need replacing. For example, what if you lose a leg? Would be convenient to have a replacement, wouldn't it? But there's no way to anticipate what you'll need and only make that. The simplest solution is to make an entire body.

The simplest solution is to make a stack of personable stem cells, and print each organ as needed. These things have an expirancy date, the more the more complex the organ is. After all, there're few things that are live threatening.

Also, when you do need a clone for a live threathening issue, you have to throw him away, losing a significant portion of your investment.

Point is, this is all beside the question, as we can't clone humans yet, but we can 3d print (simple) organs

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Maybe if you're only making heart/lungs/liver/kidney/eyes/intestines/testicles/esophagus/spleen/bladder/galblladder/pancreas...wait, this list is getting longer than you expected, isn't it?

But that aside, remember that internal organs are not the only things that might need replacing. For example, what if you lose a leg? Would be convenient to have a replacement, wouldn't it? But there's no way to anticipate what you'll need and only make that. The simplest solution is to make an entire body.

What part of "it can never be practical to make an entire cloned person" are you not getting? It is such an extravagant idea that it wouldn't be practical for any situation.

Our worldviews are different. *shrug*

That's not the point. Do you have any evidence that organs other than your brain effect your mental personhood?

Think of Dolly the sheep. Cloning...simple and no problems, right? Well, no she had all sorts of unexpected problems and was euthanized at half the expected age because of them. So we did it, we learned some things, and the next time we did it better.

But mistakes can be made. As I said, I would be extremely hesitant to take a chance that could effect the entire species for forever based on only what we know right now. At first Dolly the sheep seemed like a great success. If we'd started cloning humans in mass based only on that early success, we'd have created all sorts of problems in the long run. If individuals get replacement plastic hearts because they choose it an on an individual basis, I'm ok with that. Making it standard policy for everybody...not so much.

The issues are not relevant. Obviously there will be problems. Once the problems have been fixed, which they most likely will be, it will be the most rational thing for most people to get them when they reach the stage in life where their original organs are likely to fail. Obviously nobody is going to make you get nice shiny new organs, but are you going to be so resistant when you are dying of some degenerative disease otherwise?

[LordBucket]

The simplest solution is to make a stack of personable stem cells, and print each organ as needed.

Yes, that solution is preferable to the 'clone in a vat' scenario for a variety of reasons.

Also, when you do need a clone for a live threathening issue, you have to
throw him away, losing a significant portion of your investment.

1) Not necessarily. You could remove a leg or a lung and still easily have a perfectly viable clone with many useful parts.

2) The primary motivation for the clone in a vat scenario is not cost efficiency, but rather the certainty of always having a suitable replacement part available.

this is all beside the question, as we can't clone humans yet, but we can 3d print (simple) organs

I am aware of nothing preventing us from cloning humans besides legal/ethical concerns. The technology exists and has for a while. 3d printing of organs is still in its infancy, and as you say we can print simple organs. Hearts might be a few years away.

Please note, from previous experience, this is starting to look like yet another bay12 pointless argument about a specific hypothetical case blown completely out of proportion that descends into pages and pages of stupidity as people forget the original context. I am not promoting the clone in a vat scenario. Remember, I only brought it up because I said it was something I would not be comfortable with.

[10ebbor10]

A certainty that will only be needed in extremely quick life-threatening operations, hence why the clone would need to die after each "usefull" procedure.

I am aware of nothing preventing us from cloning humans besides legal/ethical concerns. The technology exists and has for a while. 3d printing of organs is still in its infancy, and as you say we can print simple organs. Hearts might be a few years away.

Please note, from previous experience, this is starting to look like yet another bay12 pointless argument about a specific hypothetical case blown completely out of proportion that descends into pages and pages of stupidity as people forget the original context. I am not promoting the clone in a vat scenario. Remember, I only brought it up because I said it was something I would not be comfortable with.

We haven't fixed the scrambled Dna problem yet. A human clone would most likely be an abhorrent mutant. And well, 5 year till the tech is finished is better than waiting 20 years till your clone is done growing.