Day 145: The Bloodlight Chronicles

The Bloodlight Chronicles: Reconciliation by Steve Stanton.  ISBN: 9781550229547 (publishes Sept 1, 2010).

Bloodlight Chronicles contains an awful lot of sci-fi with not a lot of focus on any one aspect.  But Stanton posed an excellent question in the form of Niko, an illegal clone.  The basis of the question was whether or not clones would be allowed into heaven (I have to paraphrase for legal reasons and all).

I like this question.  Technically a clone is not a god-made being.  There is no way for clones to exist except as the very rare identical/paternal twins.  But this is more of an instantaneous cloning and has the ability to produce minor variations in genetic material during the process, and the fact that it happens so rarely in nature almost feels like god reaching down to say, "Hah! Look what I can do."  That god guy, he's kind of a show-off.  I like to imagine him as a combination of Stephen Colbert and Bill Murray in a metaphysical body resembling Billy Gibbons.  That's a hell of a lot of ego in one being, omnipotent or no.

In any case, one could argue that god made us in his image, and if god can create intelligent life with a soul, theoretically so can we.  This argument doesn't hold up in my opinion.  The whole thing that makes god god is the ability to do things we can't...or at least that we shouldn't.  I can't say that I'm totally opposed to the idea of cloning humans.  If, for instance, a major disease decimated our population, cloning might be a good way to provide additional genetic material.  If we somehow lose the ability to reproduce normally as a species, cloning may be the only way to continue the species.

But this doesn't answer the question of whether or not they have souls, and if those souls would be granted access to heaven.  I guess it depends on how angry and vengeful your god is.  I like to think he's not such a bad guy and grants access to heaven on a case by case basis with brownie points for intent and how you treat your fellow schmucks, regardless of religion, etc.  So I like to think that clones would be allowed access to heaven; after all, they didn't choose to have the same genetic material as someone else, but they can choose how to live their lives.

My review can be found on Goodreads.

Day 144: The Bloodlight Chronicles

The Bloodlight Chronicles: Reconciliation by Steve Stanton.  ISBN: 9781550229547 (publishes Sept 1, 2010).

I'm trying something new: I'm going to either link to my review, or a review I think is good at the end of the blog post so the whiners will stop whining about me not doing reviews.  So there!  Whiners.

For those of you who have read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, you'll be familiar with the concept of what I like to call the InterFace (i.e. the Internet you interface with).  I really hate that idea.  Oh sure, it looks cool, particularly the Holodeck version from Star Trek, but think of how much time certain people would waste with non face-to-face interactions.  We already spend so much time hiding behind cell phones and computer screens, I can't imagine what it would be like to have access to "real" life experiences.

But then literature doesn't really give us the good aspects that I'm sure exist in the InterFace.  For instance, I bet it would make certain science experiments a lot easier and safer.  And there's something to be said about watching a historical moment in 3D.  But look at all the non-research related/productive things the internet is currently used for.  I waste so much time with media in my life that it's amazing I can keep up with this blog at all.  In fact, I've been in a bit of a crunch lately because I have a temp job right now that completely wipes me out emotionally.  I don't want to talk about it, because it just makes me angry and sad and confused and a bunch of other things I don't want to deal with, at least not right now and not in this forum.

It's kind of ironic that the thing that I use to produce my blog is also the thing that distracts me from it.  I sometimes wonder what else it distracts me from.  Maybe I would have written that great novel that I'm sure is floating around in my head somewhere, but then where would I do my research?  This is probably the greatest catch-22 of our time, we have this amazing powerful tool...that is also a huge stumbling block for the development of our species.  I can just imagine our species forgetting to physically breed if we ever create an InterFace.  But then, maybe that's for the best too.

My review can be found on Goodreads.