[m12k]

What do you think the ethical consequences will be? Genuinely curious, because I don't really see what they would be, or why there would be any. At least not compared to something like e.g. creating an actual artificial intelligence, and then needing to decide if it has rights, and what kind and so on. Creating a novel type of microorganism out of non-living components doesn't really seem to come with the same kind of can of worms, but maybe I'm overlooking something?

[jddj]

It depends. For me it would be incredibly interesting.

If we take that life plausibly "started" as as one single-celled individual who then "reproduced" through cell division (let's call him Luca), then he's effectively never died - in the same way that we consider ourselves to have not died despite regularly cycling tissues and cells.

All life as we know it, if viewed like that, is one organism whose chain of cell division has never been broken as he's grown over billions of years. Variation between those cells (kingdoms, species, plant / animal etc) become like skin, hair and brain / liver cells within the human body.

It would be like taking a runner grass or banana tree and trying to draw a line around true individuals.

If we created life outside of that unbroken chain of cell division, we would have created something which is definitely "other than Luca" and that feels philosophically significant.

[kubanczyk]

> If we take that life plausibly "started" as as one single-celled individual

That's quite an assumption. I think there were 42 original proto-organisms spread over all the aeons. Creating a 43rd artificially is not a big deal.

[jddj]

Definitely. If I'm mistaken and we can point to an organism living right now which isn't directly related to / descendant from the Last Universal Common Ancestor then we're already dealing with multiple "individuals", and having another indeed would be no big deal.

Otherwise, I still think that it would be.

To clarify, though: I'm not at all against the creation of another individual.

[mannykannot]

Well, for those whose ethics are founded on their religious beliefs and whose religious beliefs are dependent on the premise that only God can create life, then there might be some adjustment to be made - but people are very good at dealing with inconvenient facts in ways both rational and irrational.

[originalvichy]

I think goal posts will rightly move towards creating a universe. I guess agnostics have already ”given up” with the thought that a creator was needed for biological life. A creator for a universe is a greater question.

[postalrat]

I think that goal post has already been moved. Big bang theory created a perfect point to separate god the natural world.

[NateEag]

As a Christian that has read the Bible probably a dozen times, I know of nothing in the book that says only God can create life.

Can you point me to a spot where it says that?