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I'm not sure if this will stay up, as this is more science than paranormal, but I'll cross my fingers. 'Should make for a good discussion.

Do you think a fully functional "human" can ever be "created", other then giving birth to it?

Are you talking about a frankenstien creature? We might be able to have fake womb for the growth of a human outside of being born from another human- but cloning and producing an adult male from nothing seems unlikely.

Yes, something sort of like Frankenstein. I guess that's the only way to create a man, by putting together parts that are/have been already alive, right?

We can grow parts grafted to mice, so how many parts can be replaced would make an interesting research for the next level of medical possibilities. We are far from the test tube babies but still a distance from generating life into grafted parts. perhaps around 2175 such things will be potential science break through. Space travel to colonize by " homo crafted".

cloning a man i would say would work yet to create a man in the terms of frankenstein monster no i think not, to many factors come into play. specially with organs of the dead.

The only thing I know about creating is skin. I know they do this for really bad burns on people. They take a piece of your skin and they can create more. They might be able to create a human with that technology and other parts of the body possibly creating a human.

I don't think it would work but who knows what is going on in the medical and science feild that we don't know about.

only thing that comes to mind is cloneing even tho i think that is very wrong.

Depends on what my mean by "created"

actually, in the 1910 movie version of Frankenstein the creature was not stitched together from dead parts, but grown in a vat.

it is concevable that one day we will be able to generate a whole human being synthetically. the "robots" in RUR were actually grown rather than built also. as we learn more about how DNA works , we are also experimenting with new ways od creating synthetic materials too. so maybe it won't be too long before we can get polymers to behave like cells, or create cells synthetically. stem cell research could develop further, so we may one day be able to grow humans from a few cells. it was not so very long ago that cloning anything more complex than a frog was considered imposible - yet we can now clone mammals, and we are genetically modifying vegetables and lower animals.

so in the not so distnant future we take stem cells from a clever person, combine the DNA with that of a truly great athlete, then grow a superbody using synthetic cells which can replicate and repair themselves more efficiently to produce humans who are smarter, stronger, faster, and heal quickly from any injury, and are imune to disease.

fiction now - but in 40 or 50 years?

I doubt it will ever be possible to create an adult male/female out of different bodyparts. Just thinking about the nervalsystem and how complex the structure of it and the human brain is, can give a nice headache.

Maybe in 100 years or more, they will be able to create living humans, combined with state of the art technologies, but it still does not seem likely. Somethings are not meant to "created" in other terms than mother nature granted us (giving birth to a baby made by combining an egg and sperm)

Without using any DNA from a parent subject at all? It seems unlikely.

i dont think it would work with out useing dna ppl

using DNA from a stem cell would be needed - and that is possible now - our government is debating as to whether or not it should be allowed to create embryos that are part human and part animal. the technology is closer than you think.

but DNA is just an information template. one day it will be possible to create stem cells by feeding the information of a fully mapped DNA into a computer and then synthesizing it. we do not yet have that sort of nano-technology, but we are accelerating so fast now, that it is impossiblr to guess when it will be possible (not if). to say 100 years is a very conservative estimate. don't forget that we did 12 years ago what was said by experts to ber impossible only 20 years ago (Dolly the sheep) and it was not long ago that combining human and animal DNA to create a hybrid embryo was simply far fetched science fiction - now it is a moral debate.

mark my words - one day people will be able to use computers to comunicate with each other over thousands of miles.

Putting together a man from the body parts of other men...if it could ever be done, he would be more or less like a zombie.
Now...with the use of DNA - who knows?

that depends if you are using parts from living humans cause I think the big problem with creating a human is the brain we don't understand it well enough to create it and the brian cells don't replicate so you can not grow one.

anything that occurs naturally can be grown. Dolly had a brain. a sheeps brain, not a human brain, but the principle is the same. if you can grow any human part in a lab using stem cells or synthetic tissue, why would you want to use dead body parts?

dead body parts are used now - people can have livers, hearts, kidneys, limbs, even eyes from a dead person. i believe now they can even graft a dead person's face onto a living person. but using dead parts are a problem - they have to be compatible, they have to be fresh, and they have to be donated. that's why scientists are trying to grow replacement parts from stem cells.. eventually (i'm speaking of a decade or two, not hundreds of years) growing any human body part will be no harder than growing a complete embryo - something we can already do.

Invigorating the created man would imaginably be a trial and error process. Requiring various "ignition" methods.

that is victorian science fiction. if we are talking a genetically engineered body, then it would be alive from the moment it starts to grow, just as any baby is. if we are talking about a man constructed - either of dead parts or engineered parts, then as long as the parts are all functional, the usual methods of resusitation should surfice - electrical stimulus to the heart, injections of adrenalin, assisted respiratory systems. there is no evidence for a magical spark of life-force. it doesnt happen in the womb, it doesnt happen in ER. people die all the time and are resusitated artificially - there's no magic to it, and the people who revive are not souless zombies. get with the century guys - stop stop using 19th century speculation concerning advances that have already been made in the last century.

I sincerely maintain a notional interest in this thread. as a fan of Mary Shelley, I like the issues such things raise. especially from nineteenth century, theological angles.

i think that theres a lot more to be said on this topic than we can really find out..
after all, scientists often know a lot more than they let the public know - of course they publish journals etc but if they want to gain something for it theyll keep it to themselves until they have it completely figured out.
and what exactly are we talking about here - a fully grown human or an embryo that is created and survives outside of the womb? i think it is likely that we will be able to do both in the not-too-distant future, and we may even be able to do it now.
if we can use other peoples DNA then it becomes a lot easier, however DNA is simply protein strands, so i would think that its probably possible to do it without.

sorry - i didnt mean to stifle such delights - but the creation in Frankenstein was an alegory. it was inspired a great deal from scientific speculation of the day - but also by the paintings of Fuselli, and by the concept that we can create our own demons, and give them life by believing in them. Mary believed that she and her family were being stalked by a spectre of death that they had somehow created themselves.

the idea in the story that the being was made by a man and given life by a machine posed the question could such a life have a soul?

Many years later, Asimov posed a similar question. could a thinking machine possess a soul?

if you grew a brain in a laboratory, it would have no experience, so would be the brain of a new born baby (unless you could program it with memories). but if you took the brain out of a dead skull, and placed it in anew body, would it have the personality of the dead person, or would it be the brain of a new born baby?

science has yet to prove the existance of a soul, but many people who have died and been revived have described a similar experience, so perhaps the old soul would be dragged back from heaven to take residence in the new body.

brains, like stomachs, are very complex and so far no surgeon has managed to successfully transplant one (at least not a human one). but what if your body could be duplicated? what if all your memories, personality, everything that is essentially you, could be transposed into the new body - or copied? would there be two yous? would each one have a soul?

i remember seeing an old black and white sci-fi movie (i think it had Boris Karlof in it) where a scientist duplicated a woman perfectly - even down to her memories. but as the duplicate had no soul, it had no moral compass, so was evil.

That is an interesting theory Karnstein, but still - for your body to function you need a brain, or some hightec complex system that can mimic that.

You stated that Dolly the sheep had a brain, well of course she had, there was no doubt about it, but the human brain is far more complex, and today we still understand next to nothing about this wonderful machine.

But as for the ethics. Let us say this could be done, a make pretend. Would you do it? If yes, then why? to prove you could beat nature?

Cheap labor? at least until the "Homo Craft" are referred to the ACLU for "Homo Craft" Rights.

i think that the question of would you do it is rather a difficult one as what you would basically have to do if this human had no memories or past experiences, if he/she is fully grown, is be a parent to it!
now would you really consider that?
would you also really consider creating a being soley so that it can work for you and be your slave?
it all depends if you can bare that weight on your conscience i suppose - i know i couldnt.

The ethical back lash from proposing Stem cell research was intense enough, imagine if word leeked on this project.. *shivers*

well that is just the problem - that is where i see the ethical dilema. the whole point of creating humans that are not really human is so you can deny them rights. the present UK government is allowing scientists to combine cow DNA with human DNA to create embryos that although they are 80% human, will not be classed as human - so they can do whatever they want to them, and it will all be legal. the idea is to use the embryos to produce stem cells which can then be used in creating all sorts of wonderful new cures - for those wealthy enough to afford them. the oint being articicial "human" embryos will be harfvested like livestock. this is not science fiction - it is happening now. i think that proves that a life does not require a soul - clearly the scientists who do this and the politicians that permit it have no souls of their own.

sorry, but this sort of thing really gets to me - it is just wrong.

by cloning i am sure, and i am also pretty sure that Europe is messing with it as we speak (Bush won't allow for it here in the U.S....seems like Church & State haven't quite "separated" yet).

I dont think we can build a functional man

I think if we could we should have half the team men and half woman..

I think Mary Shelley can handle this one pretty well if you're referring to sewing up pieces of a person and trying to manifest life.

Otherwise I would say that male and female gametes are the only way to conceive life, and must come from two living donors.

The day we are able to create those gametes in a lab and join them to conceive a person will be a terrifying yet astonishing day indeed. A lot of ethical issues would arise. Brave New World, anyone?

I think that it is only a matter of time before mankind perfects that methods needed to reproduce a functional human.

Looking at the performance proof of science right now, that can grow skin in test tubes and grow a replica human ear on the back of a lab rat.

We can gestate an embryo in a "test tube" environment. It should not be too far to go to continuing this growth to produce a fetus that is not resident in a human uterus.

We are a clever creature, us humans, and we will likely figure out the mechanics of growing our humans to order in the near future.

A android or u can cologne but when u cologne they still come out as a baby and grow into the person u cologned.

This concept of growing a human to order is one aspect that is discussed in Frank Herbert's "Dune" series.

One society has the capability to produce a clone known as a ghola, which not only is a genetic copy of the source being, but they find a way to awaken the persons genetically stored memories such that they become the very person they were grew from.

Add to that the capability for them to genetically modify the ghola to act, react, or self-destruct based on undetectable cues.

Will something like this happen by the end of the next decade? Hell no. But we are pressing and pushing the genetic envelope to go to new extremes of biologic growth.

I truly think stem cell research is going to take us there some day. The results are already amazing and who knows what the government isn't telling us even at this stage.

Science is an amazing thing,so I would not be at all surprised if a human was made by science rather than being born.

Its a pretty scary thought that, but hey,.. anything is possible these days. I would say thats very possible in the near future

I would think that if all that was put together was still alive, as in live tissue, then yes. They do that all the time. Not alive? No.

This is all quite interesting.
If a human could be created through cloning or what not...
I wonder what the brain capacity would be. I don't think human brain can be man made and work correctly. Would it be a human with no thoughts? Nothing more than living machine that knows nothing more than to eat, sleep and poop?
After successfully cloning a sheep. I'm sure the scientist know much more than they will ever let the general public know.
Who know...maybe they already cloned a human.

cloning is possible today im sure of. But to do it frankenstein way i seriously doubt is possible.

with science progressing like it is i would like to think that it could possibly be done.

It is greatly possible to create a human from a test tube, genetic testing is taking great leaps as of late

They would be soulless zombies,
and doesn't everyone really want a bunch of soulless minions to do their bidding?

So the cloning of man yes is possible.. but to create a human from various parts that once were alive? Not going to happen. Just dont see it being possible.

There are several ways to "create" a man from cloning to direct genetic manipulation.

Of course cloning isn't much of a creation feat but it does raise questions into the nature of a human soul. These questions are of course purely philosophical and until we have more information it has little bearing on the science of it all.

Now genetic manipulation is a far more interesting way of looking at it. Several years ago scientists created an entirely unique virus (harmless of course) from inert materials. It was our first actual act of creation.

Through genetic modification and the incorporation of new materials it would be very plausible for us to create a man. The question then becomes, is it human or humanoid?

While some may think human evolution has gone as far as it can, we are much to ignorant to think that. Now, given that it seems we have at least reached a point of stagnation we are looking at technology to further our own advancement.

The merging of man and machine thus creating what is commonly known as Homo Excelsior (trans-humanism) may be the real logical next step of human interference with creation.

hmmmmm..... at this point in time, i don't think it's possible to create a fully functional man. maybe in the future, with the scientific advances that will undoubtedly happen, it will be possible.

right now i know that scientists can manipulate many things that deal with the human body; cells structure, birth control, body part transfers, etc. Hitler had this idea back in the '40's when he had his mad scientist do experiments on the Jews he kept on his concentration camps. thankfully today we can transfer body parts from one person to another successfully, and even though they are only organs it is not really a big stretch to think that in the future scientists will be able to remove an arm or leg from one person and implant it in another. if you go through this process enough times you'll eventually have an entirely new working person. so, my final answer is yes, i think that a fully functional man can be created, but no, i don't think this can happen with the scientific knowledge we have now.

to create a body from dead parts is possible in theory - organ transplants come from dead bodies, not live. i dont mean rotting pieces of flesh that are years old - but freshly dead. most organs can be transplanted this way now - but i don't think there ever will be a body made intirely from dead parts, because very soon that sort of technology will be obsolete. there will be no need. it will only be a matter of time before we can grow muscles over a metal framework, so we could create bodies that are part organic and part mechanical - like the cyborgs in Terminator.

we don't have the technology or knowledge yet to successfully remove a human brain, and transplant it into another body - be it an empty clone, or a cyborg - but that is the eventual aim. our brains are capable of outliving the rest of our bodies by at least a hundred years (in theory it could live upto 300 years if looked after), so someone in a dying body could extend their life by having their brain put into a better body.

we know far more about the brain than we did 20 years ago, and it is now possible to reattach severed nerves.

as for the soul of a manufactured being - i dont know. when does a soul inhabit a normal human? at the moment of birth, the moment of conception, or somewhere between the two. i believe that a soul is a function of independamnt thought, not the other way round, so anyone or anything that has a brain capable of high enough level thinking will develop a soul - rather like a computer running a program. i may be wrong though, and even if i am right, what sort of soul would it have? such a creature would probably not regard itself as human, but possibly consider itself to be superior to humans - that would make us a lesser species.

i would not like to see this put to the ultimate test - but i think it inevitable that it will be, and probably within our lifetimes.

maybtoday, but in say 10 or 20 years there might be better technlogy and it might be posible to do so. who is to say, until it is done or proven not posible if we could do it. but lets not name him frankenstein, it is to confusing, how bout fred..

nah - not pretensious enough - they will call him Adam.

There's always cloning.

with all new modern science and things these days i wont b surprised when we do.

I believe it is entirely possible to create a man without him having to be born of a woman. all you would have to do is figure out how to genreate life and put it into a corpse, or a mixture of many corpses and body parts donated to science:) even if it couldn't really happen, it made a great idea for a novel back in the day: phshyea^_^

" silent running' I offer the following potential quote:"They are a feeble race, yet they created us, they created us to exceed them, and perfect their demise."

-Autow-A- (First of the Seventh Batch)

Sadly it has allready been done; cloning has been banned in the United States for that reason, it is beleived abody can be created, but thus far life in the body cannot. However a sheep was cloned and the sheep did have life, but in creating a clone we are playing with creation and that could lead to some very serious consequinces.

Head Line 2275:

Batch Pack Uprise Spreads From Colony

"We are not inferior!" Chanted the leader of Batch Seven..

Homoide-Crafted would be scapegoated for the dwindling planetary resources and shortly after the process was at its peek the "revelation" caused out right Homiod-Crafticide

Cloning yes

refer back to the movie the 6th day that had a type of interesting cloning in it

hate to break the bad news, but whether we create a new race of superbeings or not, we are still doomed.these bodies of ours are frail and age quickly - few of us are likely to live more than 80 or 90 years, and many of us won't last that long. whether they have souls or not - the new race can't make a worse job of ruling the earth as we have.

Also...if this could be done, I would have created my own perfect specimen years ago...

somebody obviously did - i'm here aren't i?

Yea and the back log for a woman (created), could you imagine the investment potential. I mean look at the mail order bride biz..

you two...LOL!

Look at the competition woman already have with "enhanced" females. I mean guys are already preconditioned for silicon like features.

You're right, Dabbler...looks like we are already on our way with the man-made enhancements we have today...in a few more years, it'll be 'bionic' men and women, then we'll just start cloning parts...then a whole person, as another poster implied. I could actually see all of this happening really soon - thanks to the advancement of science...a scary thought, actually.

Vanity thy name is aesthetics

just don't seem like it would work.

Every day they are learning more and more how to alter the DNA and make changes to the body, I can see where this is going, eventionally everyone will be perfect for a price, but what price will the human race pay to dealing in this type of science?

You would think we'd have to find a way to put a body together using body parts that aren't "dead" if you know what I mean. I don't know how we could re-animate a dead body.

The thought of putting live body parts, organs, limbs and whatnot together sounds pretty cool but horrifying at the same time.

yes with the scientific things they have now i really think cloning a human will be possible

We've established that we're not talking about cloning a man, we're talking about creating a man from assorted body parts.

Karntstien- I disagree with you on your last post. The first thing I disagree on is saying these superhumans couldnt do a worse job. Humans are still on the planet thus we haven't screwed it up to much. Superhumans will probably be super smart :) thus understand they need to kill us all off lol

The second part is on life expectancy. We have nearly doubled our LE in the past 150 years. The biggest thing in our way is poor lifestyle and the health related issues it causes.
Currently, under perfect conditions, we don't have a maximum age the brain or heart can survive. Through better medicine, diet, lifestyle and genetic modification we could live several hundered years. Already we are pushing the 120 mark naturally and in mice we have extended their LE to the eqiv. of150 human yrs.

Karntstien said that superhumans would do a better job keeping Earth alive, and the FIRST step to that is to kill off every person there is. We destroy the planet the most.

Superhumans would be much better for this planet than regular humans, I think.

But regardless, this is getting way off-topic.

well if u mean by cloning! or by making man from the sand and God Breathing Breath into him then creating woman from simply one of the Mans Ribs many things are possible these days cloning has become a very good way to create a human there are three terms in cloning w/ three very different goals there is theraputic Cloning which is usually used not to recreate a human being but however made to recreate limbs as well as help treat diseases believe it or not the next type is Adult DNA which was used to create the First Animal Clone "Dolly" and I believe that humans can be made by this method and me bade fully functional indeed however a human would as many believe would be created w/ out a soul and that would not make this Human Clone human b/c of it.... The Horror of Frekeinstien has also gone through the minds of many the Creation Killing the Creators b/c Of something going wrong we should not try to pry deeply into the fundametals of life... But scientists push furthere and further sometimes w/ out limits and that is not safe at all.

Anann, I disagree. The original question that was posed stated, "Do you think a fully functional "human" can ever be "created", other then giving birth to it?"

They did not specify by what means, be it stitching together pieces of body parts, cloning, or just raw laboratory growing processes.

But I am glad you have forced me to revisit the topic and investigate the possibiilty of creating someone from salvaged parts.

With the great successes medical science has had in performing transplants, reconstructions, and grafts, it would be a good assumption that we are not too far off from stitching someone together.

As to who they would be, I believe that if you were reusing a head/brain, that the body would retain that person's personality and "soul" since their mental capacity and memories would be preserved.

Who they become when you finish the reconstruction is an interesting topic to ponder as well.

no the spirit is the fly in the ointment, we can't make that and without it it is not fully human

No I dont think it can be done as a man needs feeling and life etc

the average lifespan is 85 in the UK. but averages are misleading. if you are fairly comfortably off, you can expect to live to at least 90, and probably more. i'll be very lucky if i reach 60. in the part of the country i hail from, few people reach 70. it all depends where you live. quality of the air and water, working conditions, and quality of health care available makes a huge difference..

our national health system is colapsing, more people are becoming obese due to poor diet, and air quality gets worse each year. it is almost a certainty that the average lifespan for a UK citizen will actually drop over the next 20 years. a few lucky people may get a lifespan of 150 years, but most won't.

but even so, what is 150 years in the grand scheme of things? maybe the created humans will be our next evolutionary step? none of us will live for ever, but maybe our ideals will. everyone is worried about souless zombies, but what if the new race is actually better than us? most of our vices grow from insecurity - what if the new race do not have those insecirities?

I just have to agree with SILENTRUNNING. He said it best. Yeah, maybe you could make a Vat Man, or a Frankenstien monster.. but what would be there? What would inhabit it?

I'd say, despite the fact that our technology will likely get to the point we can do that(and soon), I don't think it would even remotely be a good idea. I've had visitors.. their not cool.

that is the million dollar question isn't it? is the spirit / soul a god given thing that cannot be created in a lab - or is it a myth, a mere function of the brain? soon we will find out.

what will be the implications if the manufactured man is no different from one who is born of woman?if feelings are nothing more than chemical reactions, if self awareness is a spontaneous function of higher brain activity, if a sense of right and wrong and a desire to good can emerge in a being made by man - what will that mean for religion? or perhaps religion will simply adapt and say though the beings were made by man, god approves of their creation and gave them the spark of divinity that is a soul.

Well, in some ways I hope that is the case. I really do. It would certainly send some things into motion that I would like to see the outcome of. Religion having to deal with alot of the Dogma, having to rewrite the doctrines to make way for the "new way."

But I have to say, I can't believe that Morality and even being Self Aware, are just brain functions. Not only does that go against many things I've seen and witnessed.. but the thought of it is rather depressing. Hell, I'd rather go by the theory of being a eggplant in the ground, dreaming this entire life, than believe that its all just... pointless. Bah.. I haven't slept enough. Even I can see my runons. Yeesh.

I don't see why not. We can take lives away, so why not make more? Theoretically, it is possible.

cloning a man but would that count we all have diffrent dna he would have someone elses dna right

its possible

its possible

Karnstein: re. your comment about a human brain's ability to live a long time.

First, I've heard of this. CAn you site a source?

I always understood that the brain does not produce new cells, that if you kill them off, that's it baby.

Perhaps this was a gov't sponsored ploy to keep youth off brain-destroying illegal substances, but even smoking kills brain cells, I think.

Today's air kills brain cells.

they are working on cloning ppl

Sorry.

I mean I've not heard of brains regenerating cells, whereas the rest of our body does.

The brain under the right circumstances will regenerate, but science has not figured out the specifics yet, stem cell research is having interesting results in regenerating tissue in the brain and nervous system, its all part of the process of learning to manipulate the bodys cells, in time I'm sure creating a man will be exposed to us all, but there are many fears holding back the research right now.

yeah, the brain is weird. i have read that brain cells don't normally regenerate, but have a far longer lifespan than all our other cells. however, recent discoveries seem to indicate that regeneration does take place - or can. but the brain is only a highly complicated computer. in theory our minds, memories, personalities - oursould if you like, could all be downloaded onto a computer and run as a program. only in theory though - we don't have the means to transfer the information from the brain to a computer, even if we had a computer large enough to handle the task. butwho knows whatthe furure may bring. itwould not be necessary to create a working body - the personality program could be linked to a sensory input probe that projects a holographic body around itself - but the result may turn out to be a complete smeghead.

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