I agree that the clone is not me until you write my brain-states onto his brain (poor clone). At that point it is me—it has my brain states. Both the clone and the original are identical to the one who existed before my brain-states were copied—but they’re not identical to each other, since they would start to have different experiences immediately. “Identical” here meaning “that same person as”—not exact isomorphic copies. It seems obvious to me that personal identity cannot be a matter of isomorphism, since I’m not an exact copy of myself from five seconds ago anyway. So the answer to the question is killing the original quickly doesn’t make a difference to the identity of a clone, but if you allow the original to live a while, it becomes a unique person, and killing him is immoral.
Tell me if I’m not being clear.
I agree that the clone is not me until you write my brain-states onto his brain (poor clone). At that point it is me—it has my brain states. Both the clone and the original are identical to the one who existed before my brain-states were copied—but they’re not identical to each other, since they would start to have different experiences immediately. “Identical” here meaning “that same person as”—not exact isomorphic copies. It seems obvious to me that personal identity cannot be a matter of isomorphism, since I’m not an exact copy of myself from five seconds ago anyway. So the answer to the question is killing the original quickly doesn’t make a difference to the identity of a clone, but if you allow the original to live a while, it becomes a unique person, and killing him is immoral. Tell me if I’m not being clear.