Intergalactic Summit

That was actually Empress Jamyl.

Whilst no believer myself, this assertion is false of itself. As the aphorism states, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It seems to me to be perfectly acceptable for theologians to explore the idea of a soul and how it may interact with the physical being. Theology is an ancient study, just as philosophy - and both have a place in the human experience.

Where one takes issue, is when the essentially unprovable is used to justify interference in other people's lives. Or even to otherwise restrict the individual's passion to enjoy the life they have in favour of some post-life 'reward'.

There is a Gallente philosopher from ancient times who wrote: “For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.”

The sentiment, to me at least, seems to have some resonance with the spiritual message of the Council's decision (whist reserving my cynicism about the politics) that enables all the Faithful to enjoy the life they have without worrying about how their choices may affect some post-mortem fate that may or may not exist.

Death is death. But even if we disregard personal deaths of each capsuleer, the idea that I have expressed was that the whole Capsuleer program's age is only 12 years.

It doesn't matter what you think as a death or not, what idea your share or not, the fact remains - baseliner average life expectancy greatly exceeds 12 years... in all known parts of space.

I feel like you've sort of missed what I was saying.

I don't have a problem with how the soul might move from one place to another - To the best of my understanding, the Amarrian faith does have a sort of concept of a higher realm, so there's nothing saying it couldn't zip from one side of the cluster to another, as the article seems to suggest. That's internally consistent.

What they don't even seem to be trying to justify with this explanation, however, is the necessary duplication of the soul that would occur when making two people from one scan. Which does happen, CONCORD regulations or not.

Hm. That's true, I did. I'm sorry.

As Mrs. Pryce was saying, the Exhortation does affirm the ban on such a thing. Considering the history of violent incidents flowing out of people duplicating themselves, the idea that the soul is damaged or divided somehow in such an event seems like a reasonable concern.

People keep saying this is a sudden thing. We've been having this debate as a culture for many years. The resolution may have been sped up by the Empress' request, but it's been in the making since at least the time of my grandparents.

Yes. Because this is a sudden thing. A decision on a centuries-old debate just happens to come less than two weeks after the new Empress calls for an expansion of the cloning program. That's sudden. There's a reason the debate's lasted so long, after all: it can't really be won either way. One of two chains progresses:

I. Clones are soulless monsters. Those soulless monsters can still have kids. Do the kids have souls? What about the children of a clone and a 'real' human? Do they have half a soul? Has a slowly-widening spiderweb of soulless or only partially-souled people been introduced into the cluster?

II. Clones have souls. Only its possible to make dozens of simultaneous clones. If that happens, which one gets the soul? Do they all get the soul? Do they suddenly get multiple souls? Can you mass produce human souls??? Do they get part of the soul? Oh god, we're back to the potential for partially-souled people breeding.

Sure, CONCORD has regulations that say 'you're not allowed to make multiple clones', but CONCORD regulations aren't exactly a theological authority. CONCORD can't tell me I'm out of harmony. So hiding behind the dodge of 'The Theology Council certainly upholds the ban' doesn't actually address the issue. It's not 'should you do this?' but 'What happens if you do?' Let's look at some potentials:

A. Everybody gets the same soul.

Let's start off by saying some demented cloning technician has decided to have a little fun, and make 4 clones of you the next time you get podded. You don't know about this, but it happens, and you wake up in four different places, unaware of the tech's perfidity.

Ok, so there's four of you running around, each doing different things, not telepathically linked or any of that nonsense. Four 'yous'. And they're all sharing the same soul. Like a karmic bank account. Three of them are good, virtuous people. Examplars, paragons, even. The fourth is a raving maniac who goes around sexually defiling the flaming corpses of puppies with other flaming corpses of puppies, or something. Really vile crap.

Clones 1-3 don't even know about this. They don't even know about one another! They're living quiet lives in the Empire while Number Four is off being depraved in the bowels of the Federation. He's taken on a different name. He's had cosmetic surgery to get a different face. But three good, devout people are toast.

That seems a little excessive.

B. Everyone gets their own soul.

Does anyone really think the Theology Council is going to say human cloning technology has the ability to mass-produce souls? Completely setting aside the hubris of it, that raises all sorts of ugly questions like 'When do these souls get made? Do they come into existence when the infomorph is transferred, and the brain is flash-grown? If so, does data corruption mean only a partial soul, or a damaged soul? If not, do my jump clones and waiting medical clone have unaware souls that I'm displacing when I jump in?'

G'head. Open that can of worms. I dare you.

C. The soul gets split up

Does the soul 'heal'? If so, this is really just B. with a bit of a delay. If not, we're back to the conundrum of partially-souled people and what happens when they breed.

D. Only one of you gets the soul.

Only two questions need to be asked to demonstrate why nobody in their right mind would try to push this one: 1. How do you determine who gets the soul? 2. Haven't we then just established that everyone else is a soulless monster, and what if they clone further and/or have kids?

No matter how you slice it, simply saying that 'CONCORD says not to do that, and we agree' doesn't actually address the matter at all. Doesn't even begin to address it. And it's an issue that immediately follows from the idea that clones have souls: 'If a man-made copy of a human being has a soul, what happens when you make more than one at a time?'

There's a reason the debate's been going on probably since the first slow-growth genetic cloning with stem cells became possible. So, yes, to have it decided at such a convenient point in time is definitely 'sudden'. And incredibly unlikely. I'd be less surprised at the idea of an Amarr bishop drinking industrial cleanser.

While those are very interesting questions and no doubt have been part of the debate, an advisory resolution such as this would likely have been similarly drafted after a relatively short period of debate had any Emperor/Empress requested it. When someone of that position asks a subordinate for an answer, it's unwise to refuse on the basis of "it's complicated."

The Supreme Sobor reached a consensus, but there are still people on the other side of the debate and I'm sure they still have their objections. Furthermore, this was also an advisory recommendation, it has not been ratified by the Empress and Privy Council. It's a bit soon for all the Amarr-haters out there to scream about some sort of conspiracy especially when her Holiness already publicly announced her intentions to expand capsuleer education within the Empire.

Not that I'm unhappy that so many non-believers are suddenly interested in the nature of the soul. That part has been quite a pleasant surprise from the IGS.

We'll need to draft up a short Explanatory Pamplet. Good idea Karmilla!

I just stick to my ancestral beliefs but with the idea that there is one Andesh but multiple branching states of Ohnesh. Then not talk about it afterwards. Because trying to figure this out hurts my head. I'm not a metaphysicist, dammit!