trans_9 | Scientific Philosophy [Closed]

Fate had been doing her best to ignore the heated argument going on over the comms. The fear that other people would be siding with Mei-Xing in this situation was, sadly, very real, and it made her sick. So she had begun wandering the ship, trying to take her mind off things for a while.

She couldn't escape for long, though, and she eventually found herself in the Med Bay. She wasn't exactly sure if she should be here, but if someone told her to leave, she would. But for now, she made her way over to where the clone girl was being kept.

She wasn't really surprised that someone was there. The med team was still trying to figure out what could be done with the girl, after all. Still, she wasn't exactly expecting to see Lex (she had only seen him and his future self during the whole Nightmare King mess, so he didn't really leave a good impression on her), but... it was better than no one.

"How is she?"

Lex glanced over at his new guest.

"Lt. Harlaown," he greeted. "No changes in the condition of the subject. I wouldn't expect there to be any, either."

"I see..." Fate said, a frown crossing her face. She supposed it was a good thing that there were no changes; better no changes than something going wrong, right? But still...

"Has the medical team made any progress on whether or not it's safe to try to wake her up?"

"This thing isn't waking up any time soon," he informed easily. "It's in a persistent vegetative state. Autonomic functions like breathing and heart beat it can do, but even something as primal as reflexes are grossly undeveloped to the point of being non existent. It's brain simply doesn't know how to respond to the stimuli. Any functions higher than that, be it consciousness, or even being aware of its own surroundings, are lost forever. It wouldn't be able to distinguish between the colors red and blue, let alone hold a conversation. If you tried, the overload of stimulus would likely cause its system to go into shock and die.

"I've never seen such an underdeveloped brain in an adult. Even fetuses have higher brain activity.

"This is remarkably fascinating." Not disturbing. Not disgusting. Not weird. But fascinating.

Edited 2010-09-18 22:26 (UTC)

Fate bit down on her tongue until she was sure she tasted blood. It wasn't just the analysis that was getting to her, though it was a large part of the reason. It seemed Lex was another one that saw the clone as nothing more than an object, and after seeing how his future self had acted in Kon's nightmare, she wasn't really too surprised.

"Why are you calling her 'it'?" She said, a bit of an edge to her voice. "This is a human being."

"Actually, according to the genetic database, it's a full-blood elf, not a human," he corrected her. "A similar species, but there are certain genetic differences that become apparent on closer examination."

Though none of that answered her question, did it?

"My mistake, then." Fate said. And there was no way he was going to avoid the question that easily!

"But human or elf, she's still a person. You can't just refer to her as if she was an object."

"That depends on your definition of a person." Not that he cared much, either way. His respect for people came in below his scientific curiosity.

"Is merely being a member of a certain species enough? Or does one have to at least have some small semblance of a personality to qualify? After all, to many philosophers, the hallmark of being human is the ability to be greater than the sum of your parts. The clone is nothing more than a sum of parts, spare parts, at that."

All of the emotions from the past few days, and now this most recent conversation, were really starting to get to Fate. Thank goodness she had good control over her temper, then, or else she might have punched Lex by now.

"She's alive." And the edge was back in her voice, even more clear than before. "Shouldn't that be enough?"

Lex, however, maintained his cool. Either he didn't seem to notice the edge, or he didn't really care that it was there. The latter was the more likely of the two.

"Cows are alive as well," he countered. "So are chickens, pigs, fish, crabs, sponges... All of which would have a significantly more active brain than the clone does.

"Of course, none of those actually look like a human, so its easy to discount those. The emotionally misguided tend to empathize with an object just because it looks like them. They project emotions and feelings it doesn't have onto the thing, try to think of it like a functioning person, when its clearly anything but." And that clone was as far from functional as one could get.

"'Pathetic fallacy' is the term for it. It's the reason why most AI programmers give their creation a humanoid looking form, because its hard to empathize with four billion lines of code unless it looks like you.

"It's all a rather base instinct," and now his tone shifted to one that was a bit more haughty, "one that has no place when performing an objective analysis."

Yep, definitely good for Lex that Fate can control her temper. She's not bothering to control the anger in her voice, though, so that's coming through loud and clear.

"But she's not an object!" She said, beginning to grow a little frustrated over the fact that it just wasn't getting through to him. "Just because they were created differently doesn't mean that clones are any less human than you are!"

Notice how she only specified you, Lex, and not herself as well.

"I would beg to differ."

Oh, he noticed. Interesting she would phrase it that way.

"Tell me, do you have any experience creating clones? Genetically engineering every last molecule of their DNA, laying out the blueprint of what you want them to look like. Manufacturing them, so they come out the age, height, and weight that you desire. Programming them, deciding on their personality, their personal tastes, the things that they know. All the maintenance work they need after being released; ensuring that programming hasn't broken down, not to mention that hitting reset then fast-forward can be quite stressful on DNA..." But he was starting to go off on a tangent there. Still all the terms, described as being so very mechanical.

"They aren't people, they're dolls. Interactive toys, built by people who have reached the absolute height of human arrogance." At least, that was how he reconciled it, after the mess where he clone his own deceased baby brother.

"They can reach a close approximation of being human, and could probably pass for human quite well. They may even think that they're truly sentient, but there isn't a thought in their head that someone else didn't put there for them, a single reaction that's genuinely their own."

He turned away from Fate, and looked at the clone. "Perhaps its for the best this clone isn't self aware. What a sad existence that would be, knowing you'll never be much more than what your creator designed you to be."

Edited 2010-09-19 04:11 (UTC)

"That's not true." Fate tried to keep the stern tone in her voice, but Lex's words had hit their mark, and her voice wavered just a bit. "Clones may look exactly like the people they were cloned from, they might even have their memories and powers... but they can think for themselves. Act for themselves. They're their own people."

The last bit was something she had told herself over and over when she was younger, and it was something she had passed on to the children of Project F. It's also been a kind of mantra for Fate the past few days.

"If she ever wakes up, she doesn't have to be what that girl intended her to be. She'll be free to do whatever she wishes."

He was at least kind enough to not say 'Keep telling yourself that,' though considering the slight sideways glance he gave her, the words definitely hung in the air.

"It won't be waking up. It doesn't even know how to open its own eyes. The most basic of instincts were never programmed into it, and it doesn't have the capacity to develop those on its own.

"Besides, even though it's too late for that, if you could program that in at this juncture, by some miracle, all it would want is whatever you tell it to want. It would only behave the way you tell it to behave. It would think however you tell it to think, learn how you want it to learn, and feel only what you want it to feel.

"Is that really the life you want for this thing?"

"Stop calling her a thing!" Fate finally snapped. "You have no idea how people like this girl feel when they hear some of the things you've been saying, do you? Many of them struggle their whole lives to prove to people like you that they're individuals, instead of some kind of puppet, or just a copy of whoever it was they were cloned from!

Then they hear about about cases like this one, where people are seriously debating on whether or not a clone is a person, and if they should be considered property... and all those doubts and fears come back."

She took a deep breath, trying to get her anger back in check. She didn't mean to shout and rant like that, really. After a moment, she spoke up again, voice back to it's normal soft tone.

"If she can't be woken up, if there really is no way to help her... I would rather let her die in peace than hand her back to Mei-Xing."

"Oh, its probably heard every word, it just can't tell the sounds of our voices apart from background noise, let alone understand any language."

This time, he turned to face Fate, and slowly walked towards her.

"You're projecting again. Talking about thoughts its brain is too underdeveloped to ever have, feelings that it will never generate let alone process."

He paused as he was right in front of her, and regarded her quietly for a moment. His expression didn't hold any malice, and his tone wasn't the least bit threatening. Still, there was almost a sense that he was examining something, not looking at someone.

Were his eyes really trying to dissect your soul just to see if you genuinely had one? Or maybe that's just all in your head, Fate.

"Tell me, Lieutenant, who are you really worried about people judging? Are you really that concerned about this emotionless, soulless, lifeless, empty-headed thing in an oversized test-tube? Or is there someone else you're truly afraid for, and you're simply using the clone as an outlet to voice your fears?"

Edited 2010-09-19 22:47 (UTC)

Once again, Lex's words hit their mark. She tried not to let it show, but there was a brief flash of pain in her eyes that would probably be more than enough to clue him in.

"... There is." She said, after taking another moment to calm herself. She could've lied, could've said she was just worried for herself, or for Kon... but she had a feeling Lex would just keep prying and prying until the truth came out anyway. So as much as it pained her, she'd be saving herself a lot more pain and frustration this way.

"Two of my children, one awake and one still in podsleep, are clones." As she spoke, she stared straight back at Lex, her eyes now showing nothing except a fierce determination. "I'm not going to allow anyone on this ship to call them things, or dolls, or property. I'm going to make sure that nobody can look down on them and consider them something less than human.

But that doesn't mean I'm using this girl as an outlet. I'm truly worried about her."

Edited 2010-09-20 01:11 (UTC)

Lex filed away that little bit of information, but otherwise didn't react. Part of him wondered if there was more, but he'll take this offering for the moment.

"I somehow doubt that," he responded, in reference to her being truly worried about the clone. "I'm sure your heart is in the right place, but if you were concerned for the clone, you'd actually take the time process the facts with a measure of objectivity. And if you find you can't do that..." he finally backed away from her, "then perhaps you should recuse yourself from the remaining the proceedings. Let those with clearer heads decide what's best for the clone."

"I'm not going to." She said firmly. "I can't back down. Not when there are other people willing to hand her back to Mei-Xing."

She couldn't deny what he said, that her emotions have been getting the better of her today... but really, if Lex hadn't been poking and prying at her, she wouldn't have been nearly as on-edge as she was right now.

But if she could barely handle a simple conversation with him, how would she handle a grilling from the Council?

"If you wish. But I wouldn't expect anywhere near the optimum result if I were you."

They won't be messing with her emotions on purpose, for one thing.

"And why do you say that?"

"Just call it... an educated guess based on an impartial analysis of the facts and individuals involved." Men of science didn't have gut feelings, after all.

He picked up a datapad and looked at it. Satisfied with whatever was on it, he made his way towards the exit.

"This conversation has been quite... interesting, but if you'll excuse me, Lieutenant, I must prepare my report to present to the Council. We should chat again sometime."

Scientific Philosophy [Closed]

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