The reality is that no one, after a few years, is composed of the same pieces and parts that they began with. Every single molecule, every atom, every electron has been substituted. Some same molecules and atoms and ions will be in the body, but those will just be there coincidentally. In fact, it would be almost beyond probability for the same molecule or atom or anything to be in the same place with the same composing fundamental matter that it had a few years earlier. Still, the person is identified as the same individual so far as our humble definitions are concerned.
Found this on a Question/Answer board.
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=3067582100&topic=2673
The great Greek hero Jason had built a fabulous ship called the Argos, with which
he and fifty other heroes went in search of the famed Golden Fleece.
Jason prized his ship highly, and took extraordinary care of it. Whenever a plank
rotted or a piece of equipment broke down, he immediately had it replaced with a
new one. Thus he maintained his magnificent ship for years.
One day, a strange thought entered his mind. During the journey, every single
piece of the boat had been replaced at least once. So he wondered whether this
was still his original boat he was sailing with, or a new one. And if the latter was
the case, then at what exact moment did it stop being his old ship, and when did it
become the new one?
It was answered thus:
The ancient Greek philosophers enjoyed telling this riddle, because they thought it had no answer.
They had created, in their view, the perfect irresolvable riddle.
Now comes the message
And yet, had they turned their attention to the East, they would have realized
that this riddle had already been answered thousands of years before by the
ancient Vedic rishis (divine seers of India).
Let us compare the boat to our existence. According to the teaching of the rishis,
the “planks” are the ever-changing characteristics and attributes with which we
commonly identify. The body is born, grows, matures, and decays.
Medical science has established that the human body renews all of its cells every
seven years. Yet we are still the same person, even though we keep changing
bodies. Even our sense of self keeps evolving as we grow older, yet we remain
the same person.
If we keep stripping away all the “planks” of our body-mind complex, what
remains? In other words, what is the real “boat” that keeps on existing?
It is the soul, the unchanging Self within us that is unaffected by the changing
of the “planks.”
The Vedas boldly declare: “The inspired Self is not born nor does He die; He
springs from nothing and becomes nothing. Unborn, permanent, unchanging,
primordial, He is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.”
(Katha Upanishad 2:18)
Huh! What a load of old hogwash.
the perfect irresolvable riddle....
My 'Mad Mary' answers it without it all the spiritual mumbo-jumbo.
"Let us compare the boat to our existence...."
No. Let us NOT compare the boat to our existence.
Let us see the boat for what it is. A boat called the Mad Mary that has
undergone a major re-fit and it is still the Mad Mary.
What is the Mad Mary clone that we made of all the original Mad Mary parts as per one of the above posts? It's not the MM?
What if the captain and the crew of the MM stop using the refitted MM and take the one reconstructed from original parts out on their routine? Are they no longer sailing the MM?
Originally posted by greenpawn34
Huh! What a load of old hogwash.
the perfect irresolvable riddle....
My 'Mad Mary' answers it without it all the spiritual mumbo-jumbo.
"Let us compare the boat to our existence...."
No. Let us NOT compare the boat to our existence.
Let us see the boat for what it is. A boat called the Mad Mary that has
undergone a major re-fit and it is still the Mad Mary.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
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The self is quite durable.
All my cells change, and I am still me.
I have a stroke and can no longer think "I am me", and I am still me.
My brain is downloaded into a memory crystal and you can only talk to me by logging-in to my interface, my body is destroyed, and you are still talking to me.
Originally posted by iamatigerI have a stroke and can no longer think "I am me", and I am still me.
The self is quite durable.
All my cells change, and I am still me.
I have a stroke and can no longer think "I am me", and I am still me.
My brain is downloaded into a memory crystal and you can only talk to me by logging-in to my interface, my body is destroyed, and you are still talking to me.
I don't think that's necessarily true.
Originally posted by forkedknightYou beat me to it! Suppose you were able to take out the damaged pieces of wood from the old boat, reconstruct them in some way, (stem cells growing new wood to fill in the broken bits?) and used them to create another boat, which one is the real boat?
Every time you replace a board in "The Mad Mary", you keep the old piece. Once all of the boards have been replaced, you take all the old pieces and form them into a boat. is it "The Mad Mary"? Is it a new boat? It has all the original pieces of "The Mad Mary".
Originally posted by Banana KingEventually, one of the boards that you replace will have the name "mad mary" painted on it. When this board is replaced, it is a new boat, because even if you paint the same name "mad mary", it is just another boat with the same name.
to the original question i would answer...it is the same MAD MARY boat but it is the same as some random other guy in the world that has a MAD MARY boat too. So its the same "mad ary" boat but its not the same boat
I find the reconstruction argument quite catchy. You can put it to an extreme and exchange all parts at once and rebuild from the dis-assembled pieces the old mad mary.
For me the point of interest is the usage of 'new' here. Its usage here is similar to the paradoxon of walking home and never reaching it (you walk half way and have half way left. so you walk the half way of what was left over. you still have a way left... etc.). What is done in that paradoxon is the making of time and space intervals, getting away from a continuum to a fragmented reality.
Funnily enough, thats what chess is about, too 🙂 .
Anyways, 'new' is used here as well in a fragmented way - one is assuming, that there exists a precise time-point at which something changes from old to new. However, the Mad Mary was only new (if at all 😉 ) at its original making. Since then the Mad Mary is under a constant, continous change, from new-ness to old-ness. In a way, the Mad Mary is never just 'the' Mad Mary, it is a changing thing, almost organic, almost alive.
Whether you exchange atoms, planks, engines or every single part - you never get back the 'new' mad mary. You get, at each time-point, a different 'mad mary' and since there exist uncountable time intervalls, you have actually uncountable 'mad marys'...
Originally posted by jasperdashIt becomes a new boat 12 seconds after the third "old" plank has been fully separated from the boat.
if a man has a boat, and one board is rotten, so he replaces it. if eventually, one by one, all the boards have been replaced so there is not one original part. is it a new boat? and if so, when dd it stop being his old boat and start being his new boat?
I thought everybody knew that.
Originally posted by AThousandYoungThat's one of the things that occasionally irritates me about philosophy. Use an imprecise definition, and then claim that the resulting ambiguity is somehow "deep".
Yep. Most questions like this are resolved by using properly precise definitions.
Apologies to any philosophers here. 🙂