To clone or not to clone?

Question

Do you think you would get along with your clone of equal age? Or would you want to raise your clone from birth?

Answer 1

With current (and foreseeable) technology, the clone would have to be raised from birth.  A cloned embryo is created and implanted into a surrogate mother and grows, develops, and is born like a normal baby.  Unless you did a genetic analysis, It would be completely indistinguishable from a normal baby... in other words, no memories yet, no experiences, no personality beyond what a baby normally has.

I don't want to think about accelerating growth to produce an adult clone, even if it were possible... imagine trying to teach an adult to speak, to feed itself, to use the bathroom.  Not to mention the fact that the ability to learn drastically decreases after early childhood, making it much more difficult to teach an adult these basic tasks.

I'm not opposed to the concept of cloning (except for the fact that the earth is already overpopulated and we don't need even more people), but I don't think I'd want a clone.  An adult clone (created with magic memory-transferring technology) would just be too weird to deal with.  As for creating a baby clone... I think I'd prefer the natural way.  I'd like to see what traits my child would inherit and how nature would take its course.

Answer 2

Clone of same age? Ask identical twins; they are as close genetically as a clone can be, maybe closer. Note: identical twins' genetics change over time; they older they are, the less "identical" they are. Minor variations, but still there.

From what I've seen, some identical twins get along well, some do not. It depends.

A clone over years difference of time would not be so similar. First, their experience would be different, that influences personality. Second, maturity would be different. How well you get along with a younger version of you would depend on your personality traits, and how well you get along with younger people (and older people) in general.

Answer 3

Ask twins if they get along with each other.

It would be pretty weird to raise...yourself!! Although you would look the same (if you looked at photos of the them of the same age of course) you wouldn't have the same personality or likes, dislikes etc.