SHIP OF THESEUS

[Gary Childress]

If all the atoms in your body are replaced, is it still you?

Suffice to say, I am me. I'm not you and I am not not here. If the same goes for you, then you'll have to figure that out on your own. Whether or not the atoms in my body are the same or not makes no difference to me if I cannot prevent them from leaving me from one nanosecond to the next.

HOWEVER, the question still remains. If all the atoms that constitute my body are taken away, then will I see anything if I don't have eyes? Remember anything if I don't have a brain (or even have a single thought for that matter without neurons), hear anything if I don't have ears, feel good after having sex if there is no dopamine, and so on. I'm not in a hurry to die and have my body completely decay in order to find out (though I sometimes think being cremated might be better than being pickled and placed in a casket in the ground to slowly rot for however long it takes to turn into inorganic dust under those circumstances).

[attofishpi]

I WAS NOT!!!!!

a good example indeed my friend. thank you for bringing that up.

Yes, I think the scriptwriter may have heard of this Theseus paradox. It's hilarious.

..so again dear fellow, which do you think is the boat of Theseus?

Whichever ship has "Theseus" painted on the stern! (and it's a totally new ship btw)

See HOW SIMPLE and EASY 'it' REALLY IS, or COULD BE.

I disagree with attofishpi.

[Toppsy Kretts]

I disagree with attofishpi.

How so?

[attofishpi]

I disagree with attofishpi.

How so?

(at the time that was written , attofishpi was wrong on a technical point - refitting of a ship - something my Father was employed in.)

Didn't you read this?:-

Trigger, a council road sweeper has a broom that he’s been using for a month. At the end of the month he realises the broom head could do with replacing.
He puts the old broom head into a recycling bin.
After a few weeks, Trigger has worn down the handle of his broom and puts the handle into recycling also, and places a new handle on the broom.
We can say at this point, that Trigger has a NEW broom.

Dave, another council worker needs a broom. He goes to recycling and finds a broom head, and a broom handle (ya the ones Trigger had left).
Dave puts the broom head onto the handle. Does he have Triggers original broom?
We can say at the point, that YES – Dave now has Triggers broom.

But alas, it’s Dave’s broom now!

So using the above analogy and applying it to the Theseus scenario.
Ship B is CLOSER to being the original ship. But when a ship is constructed, it is a NEW ship regardless of where the material came from.

Whereas ship refitting remains the ORIGINAL ship - no matter how much material was used!

Ok, I will change my stance, ship A remains the Theseus. (see a 'philosopher' CAN change his mind.)

[LuckyR]

je suis le navire de thésée.

None of us have a single molecule that was present in our bodies seven years ago, it is said.

Exactly. In conscious organisms many if not most consider memories plus personalities to constitute the individual, as opposed to the discrete molecules that make up their bodies. Hence why many consider their relatives "gone" upon the onset of late stage Alzheimers.

In the case of nonconscious entities, such as a home, the physical entity comprises the individual entity, such that after a home remodel, many consider their home changed even though it is in the same location, at the same address with the same footprint and, say the same exterior appearance.

Yes I accept that in Alzheimers we slowly witness the slow death of the person. Whatever a person might call a "soul" evaporates before our eyes. IThe essence of a person is the same as the unique organisation of the living neural matter.

"Home" is much like a soul in tis respect. WIthout the people who reproduce and live with the concept a house is never a home and when people move house the "home" goes with them, ever changing with the changing members of the family.

Just to clarify, in the context of your syntactical preference, I meant "house" when I wrote: "home".

[Iwannaplato]

I woudl have to assume that the mind is what calles you...you. so yes?

If you are a dualist of some kind, The Ship of Thebes does not present a problem. Your dualism might or might not, but not this issue. Physicalists and materialists on the other hand, have a persistance of self through time issue.

[Iwannaplato]

Suffice to say, I am me. I'm not you and I am not not here. If the same goes for you, then you'll have to figure that out on your own. Whether or not the atoms in my body are the same or not makes no difference to me if I cannot prevent them from leaving me from one nanosecond to the next.

So, you don't worry about things that you cannot control, it seems, or at least this thing. That's great. Some people are like that, others are not.

HOWEVER, the question still remains. If all the atoms that constitute my body are taken away, then will I see anything if I don't have eyes? Remember anything if I don't have a brain (or even have a single thought for that matter without neurons), hear anything if I don't have ears, feel good after having sex if there is no dopamine, and so on. I'm not in a hurry to die and have my body completely decay in order to find out (though I sometimes think being cremated might be better than being pickled and placed in a casket in the ground to slowly rot for however long it takes to turn into inorganic dust under those circumstances).

Well, yes, that's another issue. Does the self persist after death. If you bring in Ship of Thebes, the issue gets even tighter: does the self persist at all, or more than a couple of years?

[Sculptor]

Exactly. In conscious organisms many if not most consider memories plus personalities to constitute the individual, as opposed to the discrete molecules that make up their bodies. Hence why many consider their relatives "gone" upon the onset of late stage Alzheimers.

In the case of nonconscious entities, such as a home, the physical entity comprises the individual entity, such that after a home remodel, many consider their home changed even though it is in the same location, at the same address with the same footprint and, say the same exterior appearance.

Yes I accept that in Alzheimers we slowly witness the slow death of the person. Whatever a person might call a "soul" evaporates before our eyes. IThe essence of a person is the same as the unique organisation of the living neural matter.

"Home" is much like a soul in tis respect. WIthout the people who reproduce and live with the concept a house is never a home and when people move house the "home" goes with them, ever changing with the changing members of the family.

Just to clarify, in the context of your syntactical preference, I meant "house" when I wrote: "home".

Okay. Yes. I think a house is not a home. The house is the physcal thing. The home is a concept of sanctuary and family.

And to be precise, that would be a semantic preference rather than a syntactical difference.

[Age]

Yes, I think the scriptwriter may have heard of this Theseus paradox. It's hilarious.




Whichever ship has "Theseus" painted on the stern! (and it's a totally new ship btw)

See HOW SIMPLE and EASY 'it' REALLY IS, or COULD BE.

I disagree with attofishpi.

Okay.

[Lacewing]

My sense of this is that we are not our form. It is a continually-regenerating organic form that eventually withers, as all organic forms do. The essence that animates that form (and all others) is what we actually are. That essence has no need for identity.

If all the atoms that constitute my body are taken away, then will I see anything if I don't have eyes? Remember anything if I don't have a brain (or even have a single thought for that matter without neurons), hear anything if I don't have ears

There would be no need to have continuance of such limited senses as seeing and thinking and hearing through organic forms (eyes, brain, ears), compared to a knowing essence.

This Earth experience is an opportunity to create and explore in a sensory world. And just like 'losing oneself' in a really good engaging movie, we need not take it all -- or ourselves as actors and directors -- too seriously. Just make a really good movie!

[Skepdick]

A paradox where a ship is fully taken apart and replaced with new wood ( Ship A ), whilst a scavenger comprises the old wood that had been replaced, built into a new ship. Exactly the same as the old ship ( Ship B ).

The ship A is the holding Theseus' crew. And arrives at the dock of Athens.
The ship B is also arriving at the same dock but with one scavenger who built a ship with old wood.

Neither can be the same ship.

The source of this (silly) paradox is the notion of exact sameness which is in ontologically impossible due to our inability to take exact measurements without disturbing the system being measured.

The expressivists (e.g Brandom) distinguish between things which have histories and things which don't.

A ship has history.
An electron doesn't.

The ship made from the scavenged material will easily show a richer, longer history if the material found on the ship were scrutinized at atomic and sub-atomic level.
Whereas with an electron - you can't tell if it's the same electron or a different electron to the one you just observed.

This (in)ability to do perfect cloning is also the fundamental distinction between the classical and quantum computation paradigms.
In classical computing we have exact replicas - we have the COPY operation.
In quantum computation we don't.

The physics reason for this is quite simple - quantum information is a conserved quantity.
Making a perfect copy of a quantum system violates conservation of quantum information.

If you can make a perfect copy of a quantum system you've doubled quantum information.

[Harbal]

A paradox where a ship is fully taken apart and replaced with new wood ( Ship A ), whilst a scavenger comprises the old wood that had been replaced, built into a new ship. Exactly the same as the old ship ( Ship B ).

The ship A is the holding Theseus' crew. And arrives at the dock of Athens.
The ship B is also arriving at the same dock but with one scavenger who built a ship with old wood.

Neither can be the same ship.

The source of this (silly) paradox is the notion of exact sameness which is in ontologically impossible due to our inability to take exact measurements without disturbing the system being measured.

The expressivists (e.g Brandom) distinguish between things which have histories and things which don't.

A ship has history.
An electron doesn't.

The ship made from the scavenged material will easily show a richer, longer history if the material found on the ship were scrutinized at atomic and sub-atomic level.
Whereas with an electron - you can't tell if it's the same electron or a different electron to the one you just observed.

This (in)ability to do perfect cloning is also the fundamental distinction between the classical and quantum computation paradigms.
In classical computing we have exact replicas - we have the COPY operation.
In quantum computation we don't.

The physics reason for this is quite simple - quantum information is a conserved quantity.
Making a perfect copy of a quantum system violates conservation of quantum information.

If you can make a perfect copy of a quantum system you've doubled quantum information.

Balderdash and codswallop.

[Dubious]

Is anything the same thing it used to be? Time changes everything.

[Toppsy Kretts]

Balderdash and codswallop.

I cant possibly take you serious when you say shit like that because this is all I see

https://imgflip.com/i/7wme45?herp=1692756428018

[attofishpi]

Is anything the same thing it used to be? Time changes everything.

Time is a result of causality...it changes nothing.