Why not? Would satisfy the demand for replacement organs for transplantations. With way less trouble than what we have now with uncertainty, waiting lists, and organ black markets. Now there are two problems; either the one with the need to grow the clone fast (which incurs technical problems) or have it prepared enough in advance (which incurs storage/maintenance costs as we don’t know when it will be needed), or have a stock of farmed gene-modded “universal donors” without the immune system markers on the cells, and add them on demand by e.g. a viral vector. No brain, no consciousness, no problems.
(Thought. Maybe a hybrid way, where the “universal donors” produce extracellular tissue, the collagen matrix of the organs, and the recipient just provides his own stem cells to populate the scaffolding before it is implanted? Could work within time frames where external mechanical organ replacements can provide survival.)
Grow it including the nerve tissue. Possibly with structure that self-generates the stimuli to get the muscle growing correctly, kind of like the heart tissue keeps its cycling. Or just use almost-complete animals with grossly reduced/eliminated ability to sense, whatever is more economical.
Yah. How that stimulus is introduced to the tissue is of prime importance given the ethical question. Synthetic stimulus is probably the method most conducive to the ethical development of healthy meat, but I wonder about the implications concerning neural complexity.
What does cruelty really constitute? I hope we don’t gloss over the potential implications of latent sentience of any given neural system because of its engineered simplicity just because of its usefulness.
Like I said, surely, with the might of mind over time; these questions will pale into insignificance given the accumulation of knowledge, but I worry about the mistakes that must be made to learn the appropriate method.
Disclaimer: I was horrendously drunk when I wrote this!
You can get self-generation of signals with circuitry of complexity as low as heart has. Few neurons needed.
What’s “latent sentience”? Where is the cutoff? Are ants sentient when they are so dumb they can follow their own feromone trail in circle until they die? Does this concern extend from carbon-based wetware to silicone-based systems too? If not, why?
Also, what about plants? They can sense their environment and react to it in fairly complex ways.
Mistakes will be made and are inevitable. There will be deaths of tissue cultures, lab animals, and perhaps even people (in any as complex environment as a laboratory building accidents happen; can range from ignition of alcohol vapors to attack by a crazy greenie to slipping on a staircase). But there are deaths on any option we do, including doing nothing.
Empty philosophy won’t do much. Lab work can achieve something.
Don’t fret. Half my comments here are made in such a state, but while keeping in mind to remain civil, and with judicious use of the spell checker in combination with my training in English.
Anyway, since drinking reduces inhibitions, it enables us to voice the most creative of our ideas. Even if 90% of them are crap, there’s bound to be a decent percentage that’s usable, or viable, or at least interesting, and they wouldn’t have been voiced if nobody was somewhat dis-inhibited anyway.
