Social issues with replicated people

From: Eric Hawthorne <egh.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 10:24:03 -0800

Readers of this list interested in issues of personal identity in the
face of replication
might enjoy the Sci-Fi novel "Kiln People" by David Brin.

In the novel, a technology
has been discovered that allows a person's "soul standing wave" (sic) to
be copied into
a kind of bio-engineered clay substance (molded into a shape like you
and animated
by some kind of enzyme-battery energy store that gives it about a day or
two of "life"
before expiry. ) These "ditto people" come in different qualities (more
expensive to
get a super-smart, super-sensitive version of yourself, cheap to get a
worker-droid
rough copy with fuzzy thinking capabilities and dulled senses.) The
novel, apart from
being a hard-boiled detective yarn in this world, explores issues of
identity,
 and how social conventions and rights and responsibilities change with
the presence
of replication of personalities.

Brin's one of the "good writer" sci-fi writers.
Received on Sat Nov 08 2003 - 13:27:50 PST