Can Someone Love a Clone (the Same)?

Not a duplicate.

A few years ago, I read an article about people getting their dog's DNA frozen, so when the dog died, they could have their best friend back. 

The context of the article was to point out that cloning pets was possible--but cloning cats would actually produce varied fur color. Whatever in the DNA produces fur color isn't something that works A = A. 

At the time, the article was mostly positive: you'll get your pet back! Nowadays, the attitude of such articles and websites is far more tempered, and companies that offer the storage of DNA include the caveat "the cloned pet will share traits" rather than "it's a copy!"  

What's strange to me is that anybody actually ever believed the clone would be a copy. 

I never thought cloning would produce the same person or pet. Not then. Not now. Who ever believed that? (Of course, I read Cherryh's unparalleled Cyteen, which covers the reality of cloning, in my early twenties. See below.) Identical twins aren't the same. Why would a pet be? Even if the primary difference between the two cats or dogs is environment, if the prior version of the pet was trained and the second isn't, what a person gets, ultimately, is an untrained pet. 

I never bought the idea in sci-fi either--or in magic. 

*Spoilers*

In 609 Bedtime Story, Mum falls in love with Dew from a parallel universe. Dew is shot. The shooting is due to a sequence of events that started in college and rests ultimately upon Dew not taking full responsibility for his choices. He isn't evil and arguably some of the fall-out is unforeseen. But he is the catalyst. 

So Dew takes responsibility--and dies anyway but dies without causing another person's death. 

Mum then realizes that Dew is alive in his own universe and acts as if he is the same person. As do the writers.

The story is a good one. But I can't call the series one of my favorites. The reason is partly the soap opera element (a lot of things go wrong in people's lives!). The other reason is, I did not consider the second Dew the same guy. 

There are similarities, and I could buy into the idea that Mum and Dew would start over...which they kind of do until ANOTHER Mum shows up from another parallel universe and acts as if Dew is the exact same guy. 

What is with these people? 

The more I read regarding nature/nurture/personality, the more I believe that "memories" are a huge part of identity as well as continuity. In No Two Alike Judith Rich Harris argues that reliable studies show the following: genetics account for about 45-50% of potential traits. (That is, two twins might both have a scientific bent--doesn't mean they will both go into the sciences.) Other than evil serial-killer-producing parents, guardians account for little more than 10-12% of where a person ends up.

The rest is a big fat question mark. Harris thinks the answer is the influence of peer groups. I think it is...a big fat question mark! 

My point here is that between environment, culture, and genetics plus lots of questions, memories create our sense of self, how we came about--the crooked path, as appears in Joe versus the Volcano. That is, the stories we string together in our minds about ourselves or about others are held together by a traceable continuity. Harari points out in Sapiens that humans are the only animals who can create bonds based entirely on an imagined entity. 

Without that imagination and those memories, however confabulated, it is hard to know if a person is still that person. Entirely. 

A clone will not have those same memories. Even an adult clone arrives in a narrative from a sideways position--halfway through--with its own continuity. When the alternate universe Dew version is gone, any other Dew-looking guy is going to conjure up not a sense of connection but, I suggest, a sense of loss.

C.J. Cherryh in her seminal work Cyteen makes the same point. Two brothers (Denis and Giraud Nys) attempt to recreate their institution's "genius" Ariane Emory. They can "clone" her intelligence and drive--but not the particular events that drove her in a particular direction. The clone is far less messed up despite sharing a similar personality, genius, and awareness. For one, her "mother" isn't killed (the brothers don't go that far) but, rather, sent away. A missing mother is not the same as a dead mother. The change creates a different understanding and awareness within the young girl who becomes the adult. 

Her genetics are the same. She is not. And Cherryh, the author, doesn't treat her as the same as her predecessor. For one--and most importantly--her interactions with the main male protagonists, Justin and Grant, are entirely new. She has her own memories based on her own experiences.

C.J. Cherryh wrote Cyteen in 1988.