buddypalamigo19 t1_iwrf35h wrote
I don't think you would ever die in that scenario. "I" am not my body or my brain. "I" am the dynamic, self-sustaining pattern which is currently circulating through my neurons. If that pattern is maintained on different hardware, then I have not died.
If I build a lego set of a castle, and then replace each plastic brick one at a time with a stone brick, then the castle is still there. In fact, it never went anywhere. The Ship of Theseus paradox always felt kind of silly to me, because the answer always felt so obvious. The pattern of the planks is what makes the ship. If you replace each plank one at a time, the overall pattern is never compromised by more than a single board, so the ship is still there.
Bakoro t1_iwsf7l0 wrote
"The Ship of Theseus" isn't silly, it's an excellent example of getting at the underlying question of what makes a thing, and where are the lines between the thing and the concept of the thing.
How can it be "The ship of Theseus", if there is no part which Theseus ever touched? If it's made of trees planted long after his death?
As soon as a single thing changes, it's no longer the same, by definition. Yet some argue that a thing can be more than the sum its parts.
There's a saying "you can never step in the same river twice". The water is constantly moving and changing, yet "the river" is there.
Personally, I'd say that it stopped being the ship of Theseus the moment Theseus lost ownership. It's just a ship. A ship is something that can be defined and exists in material space. Its qualities meet the specifications of "shipness". Being "the ship of Theseus" is a transiant fiction.
Who you and I are as people is defined by our memories and core processing algorithms, and those also change. I am not the five year-old me, the five year old me changed day by day to become who I am now. I am the river. It's the continuity and memory which make us "the same" despite change.
buddypalamigo19 t1_iwsfvml wrote
It's not silly if you insist on breaking up the world into neatly defined and demarcated "things." If, on the other hand, you see the world as one giant process, and all things within it as nothing but flexible concepts which are loosely attached to subsets of that process, then it is very silly.
Saying that the ship is no longer the same after a single plank changes is... I mean, you're technically correct, yes. But it really smacks of pedantry to me.
Bakoro t1_iwt0z9k wrote
>Saying that the ship is no longer the same after a single plank changes is... I mean, you're technically correct, yes. But it really smacks of pedantry to me.
It's not pedantry, it's literally the point of the thought experiment.
>It's not silly if you insist on breaking up the world into neatly defined and demarcated "things." If, on the other hand, you see the world as one giant process, and all things within it as nothing but flexible concepts which are loosely attached to subsets of that process, then it is very silly.
A process is a thing. The components of a process are a thing. A concept is a thing. Everything inherits from "thing", that's why it's called "everything ".
You are more agreeing with me than not.
buddypalamigo19 t1_iwt55xb wrote
It is pedantry. From my point of view, the thought experiment is silly and unnecessary. It is trying to explain something which is completely obvious, and which does not require an explanation.
I am aware that a process is a thing. I am also aware that there is only so much one can do with language. You are getting hung up on individual words and their literal, narrow definitions.
But whatever. I'm not going to try and convince you of anything, because I suspect we're coming at this from two incompatible paradigms. Peace.
Euclidean_Ideas t1_iwtaxi4 wrote
The reason you think its pedantry is because you probably haven't actually given it proper thought.
How do you define the difference between a process, and a subprocesses. If you don't differentiate between a process and another process. Simply because they are the same larger process, then you are applying nihilistic concepts to answer questions
"The question doesn't matter, because in the end the ship is a linguistic trick and the collective parts that make up the ships never actually existed as a single entity but only as a process. Therefore it doesn't matter how much is replaced"
Well how about if you took the exact ship, and pulled it apart and used all the parts of the ship to create an entirely different ship, but contained all of the different parts and gave it a different name. Would said ship then still be called "The ship of Theseus"? what if you only used half of the planks, or what if you added all those parts in to another ship as replacement parts. Would it still be the same process?
How would your "view" differentiate between the process of our planet as a whole, and the individual human?
Its incredibly simple to expand your "definition" to say its just a part of the whole, and therefore there is no reason to engage because its obvious.. Well that uses the underlying qualities of nihilism to rebuke the fundamentals of the question "I don't think anything have intrinsic value, only what we subscribe to it" is the same thing as saying "I don't think the question have merit because its easy to answer, the boat was never a thing, it was always only the concept"
buddypalamigo19 t1_iwtdhme wrote
Nah, I'm done.
pen7zer t1_iwtuesf wrote
I used to ghost/clone thousands of computers. Sounds like you're saying I can ghost your mind thousands of times and each one would be you.
[deleted] t1_iwtufa6 wrote
[removed]
buddypalamigo19 t1_iwuf1ts wrote
Yes. That being said, each one would immediately cease to be "me" and would become its own "me" upon coming into being. Each would think of itself as me, with my memories, and each would be right.
pen7zer t1_iwugsx5 wrote
So I could k1ll you then cause you'd still be alive.
buddypalamigo19 t1_iwuhzl1 wrote
No. Because each copy would be a sentient being. This really is not complicated.
pen7zer t1_iwui3xf wrote
Agreed but you've got it completely wrong.
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