It depends on the type of clone.
In television, books, and the movies, the popular conception of a clone is a “fully formed copy” of the original, with the same memories, skills, physical attributes, etc.
In the hard science of the real world, cloning is already happening, but mostly at the “genetic coding” level – the resulting organisms, while “copies of the original blueprints”, are “constructed in different locations/climes”, and in a way “from different materials”… Think of it like buying the same size plank of the same variety of wood from Home Depot each week – every one will be just a little bit different, though they’ll all “measure up” equally in their specification.
At least in the sense that our memories and experiences make us who we are, such clones would be lacking. That said, there’s no reason why cloning as a process could not be advanced to the point where these additional aspects were also recorded, copied and implanted into the clone(s).
Thus, to answer your question, such an outcome may someday be possible, but for now, the best you can hope for is (after 9-odd months) a newborn sibling who may or may not resemble you throughout its maturation, who will grow up in a world vastly different from your own childhood (no matter how hard you try to replicate your own childhood, the food chain, global warming, and Facebook are all working hard to make that a near impossibility.
As such, your clone will likely bear little resemblance to you now when it reaches your current age. Still, you probably won’t be able to find a better donor when you need a kidney/heart/lung/retina/bone marrow replacement down the line…
For that reason alone, I can imagine a near-future where Hollywood celebs “adopt their own clones” rather than third world refugee babies.
This answer originally appeared on Quora: If there were a clone of me, would the clone think and act like I do? Why?
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