If divergence were an argument against the clone having been created, by symmetry it is also an argument against the living human having been allowed to exist beyond the creation of the clone.

The living mind may be mistreated, grow sick, die a painful death. The uploaded mind may be mistreated, experience something equivalent.

Those sufferances are valid issues, but they are not arguments for the act of cloning itself to be considered a moral issue.

Uncontrolled diffusion of such uploads may be; I could certainly believe a future in which, say, every American politician gets a thousand copies of their mind stuck in a digital hell created by individual members the other party on computers in their basements that the party leaders never know about. But then, I have read Surface Detail by Iain M Banks.

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mrob 2 hours ago | parent [-]

There is no symmetry. The original existed when the clone did not exist.

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ben_w 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Irrelevant.

The argument itself is symmetric, it applies just as well to your own continued existence as a human.

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mrob 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Only if you deny the reality of consciousness being tied to a physical substrate.

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ben_w 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Incorrect.

To deny that is to assert that consciousness is non-physical, i.e. a soul exists; the case in which a soul exists, brain uploads don't get them and don't get to be moral subjects.

	▲	mrob 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's the exact opposite. The original is the original because it ran on the original hardware. The copy is created inferior because it did not. Intentionally creating inferior beings of equal moral weight is wrong.