the night before last night, when I slept alone. many weird things but it ended up with me walking around with hal and really wanting to tell him I had a crush on him. I was friends with his other, the original, but just getting to know this one. I knew his body but that didn't have anything to do with him. hal hasn't popped up in my dreams before, I just think about him sometimes, as a character study.
think about this. you step into a machine that clones you instantaneously. you remember making the decision to clone yourself, you remember your whole life up to now. but you are the copy. technically, you're not real. what claim do you have on that identity, if any? what right do you have to establish your own? what do you do then?
I don't even know what his analog would be in the real world. maybe just growing up. people expecting you to be who you were when you were younger, or "before". people insisting you be that, or be not that, now that you're older.
and the problem of the original. I think it's about the guilt of creation- seeing yourself in your projects and being sick of it, but unable to destroy it. it's how you know yourself, even though every second from its creation is a step away from it being "you". maybe eventually it's far enough apart to destroy, or to accept.whatever