Is it pointless to consider and debate the characteristics of “what makes a person to be the same person”? You seem to say, as long as it’s the current lump of biomass has been formed by a past lump of biomass, it’s the same person. Assume I cloned a person, is that the same person? Does a person become a different person when they replace a lot of organs? Or is it only the brain that is important?
Also: don’t diminish people having fun over theoretical debates by calling them insane. Let people have fun.
Cloning is a special case because answering the question is actually necessary for practical purposes in the real world. Debating whether a child who grew up is a different person because all the cells in the body were replaced, or whether your contract on a dock is voided because you replaced all the boards on a ship one after the other, doesn’t really have any effect on practical life.
I’m not saying anybody having fun theorizing these things is insane, because I agree it can be fun - I’m saying anybody doing it “seriously” would be, in my eyes.
I mean it could have impact on the real world, the same as seriously discussing “can we still do algebra with the imaginary result of taking the root of -1”. Apparently that was purely theoretical nonsense until we noticed that that allows us to do some very cool stuff in the real world.
I’m not saying all hypotheticals are useless. This one of whether a ship is still the same in particular is, though (other than for fun). Imaginary numbers were discovered as a tool while solving mathematical problems, so I would not say they are the same.
If i deconstruct 60% of a ship. Leave the 40% idle while i use the 60% to elsewhere construct a full ship and then proceed to rebuild the 40% in an identical full ship.
Is it pointless to consider and debate the characteristics of “what makes a person to be the same person”? You seem to say, as long as it’s the current lump of biomass has been formed by a past lump of biomass, it’s the same person. Assume I cloned a person, is that the same person? Does a person become a different person when they replace a lot of organs? Or is it only the brain that is important?
Also: don’t diminish people having fun over theoretical debates by calling them insane. Let people have fun.
Cloning is a special case because answering the question is actually necessary for practical purposes in the real world. Debating whether a child who grew up is a different person because all the cells in the body were replaced, or whether your contract on a dock is voided because you replaced all the boards on a ship one after the other, doesn’t really have any effect on practical life.
I’m not saying anybody having fun theorizing these things is insane, because I agree it can be fun - I’m saying anybody doing it “seriously” would be, in my eyes.
I mean it could have impact on the real world, the same as seriously discussing “can we still do algebra with the imaginary result of taking the root of -1”. Apparently that was purely theoretical nonsense until we noticed that that allows us to do some very cool stuff in the real world.
I’m not saying all hypotheticals are useless. This one of whether a ship is still the same in particular is, though (other than for fun). Imaginary numbers were discovered as a tool while solving mathematical problems, so I would not say they are the same.
If i deconstruct 60% of a ship. Leave the 40% idle while i use the 60% to elsewhere construct a full ship and then proceed to rebuild the 40% in an identical full ship.
Which ship should get the original name?
Whichever you want?