From: "Roy C. Lackey" 
Subject: Re: (urth) Typhon's choices
Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2003 00:13:27 -0500

mantis wrote:
>While I'm not myself so interested in "this casual talk of cloning," and
>thus do not want to be seen as defending it, still, the point of Roy and
>Andrew that Typhon could have used a clone with a personality
>implant/download misses what I think is the critical criteria for Typhon
>the original biological individual: the continuity of experience.
[snip]
>Having one's head surgically grafted onto the hulking body of a slave
>(note: body upgrade here) is unambiguously a continuity of experience for
>the old form.

If Typhon never lost consciousness during the operation, then I could agree.
But I think it's almost 100% certain that he lost consciousness at some
point, if not from anesthesia, then the decollation itself. If he never
regained consciousness he would never know it. If he did regain
consciousness, hours or days later, then from his point of view it wouldn't
matter if he did so in a head grafted onto an unwilling slave's body or into
the fresh body of a clone. Either way, there is just as much personal
"continuity of experience" as anyone has when they wake from sleep or a
knock on the head.

You will object that, in the case of cloning, the original Typhon would
still be alive and wouldn't want to die. That's not necessarily the case.
That body was failing anyway, and it would have been Typhon's own choice to
make the transfer in the first place. He wouldn't have been an unwilling
victim. Even if he had second thoughts after the transfer--too bad. The
original Typhon was a megalomaniac, but he was also intelligent and
ruthless. The clone would be the same. I don't see Typhon having any qualms
at all about having his original self killed; he would know that he could
have no more dangerous a rival. He could even have arranged for the scan to
be fatal, as it was in 5HC.

-Roy


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