The Ship of Theseus Applied to People

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WanderingGaze22
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The Ship of Theseus Applied to People

Post by WanderingGaze22 »

The Ship of Theseus is an artifact in a museum. Over time, its planks of wood rot and are replaced with new planks. When no original plank remains is it still the Ship of Theseus? And if those removed planks are somehow restored and reassembled, free of the rot, is that the Ship of Theseus? This experiment questions the impertinence in the physical and how the concept of becoming essentially immortal through replacing parts affects the state of being.

We have progressed in the medical field in the past 50 years to the point where a severed limb can be reattached with moderate effort. In the 60s, a brain injury would have meant permanent damage with no recovery, now depending on the circumstances, a few replacements from a "brain bank" and side effects are minimal to none. Same goes for lungs,heart, skin, even bone marrow. There is even accounts of severe spinal injuries showing recovering nerves and vertebrates. Point is if this keeps up, the act of replacing vital organs with ease will be common and one cannot help but wonder a person replaces so much of themselves with possibly other donors, it still the same person or can they end up being classified as something else entirely?
Steve3007
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Re: The Ship of Theseus Applied to People

Post by Steve3007 »

Among people I work with (and with whom I sometimes have vaguely philosophical conversations) the shorthand we use to refer this phenomenon is "Trigger's broom". That's because there was a character in a sitcom called Trigger who swept the market square with a broom. He once remarked that he's had the same broom for 20 years, even though it's had 5 new heads and 2 new handles. A joke that implicitly references The Ship of Theseus. And a convenient short hand in workplace discussions about the difference between the persistence of patterns and the persistence of matter.
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JackDaydream
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Re: The Ship of Theseus Applied to People

Post by JackDaydream »

@WanderingGaze22

Your idea of replacement of body parts is bound up with the philosophy of transhumanism, in which people's lives are extended almost indefinitely. On another site, I was reading the view of one such writer, David Pearce, who suggested that in a hundred years from now it will be common for people to have a head replacement. I began thinking would it really be the same brain and mind if through nanotechnology an identical brain was created? It is a bit of a different slant to the issue of whether a mind can exist without a brain, or of creating artificial intelligence, but is one of whether mind can be transferred to a new brain or head?
WanderingGaze22
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Re: The Ship of Theseus Applied to People

Post by WanderingGaze22 »

Steve3007 wrote: September 29th, 2021, 3:52 am Among people I work with (and with whom I sometimes have vaguely philosophical conversations) the shorthand we use to refer this phenomenon is "Trigger's broom". That's because there was a character in a sitcom called Trigger who swept the market square with a broom. He once remarked that he's had the same broom for 20 years, even though it's had 5 new heads and 2 new handles. A joke that implicitly references The Ship of Theseus. And a convenient short hand in workplace discussions about the difference between the persistence of patterns and the persistence of matter.
Interesting subject, if he went into more detail of what kind of wood and heads he used, it would make for a better thought experiment.
WanderingGaze22
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Re: The Ship of Theseus Applied to People

Post by WanderingGaze22 »

JackDaydream wrote: September 29th, 2021, 4:22 am @WanderingGaze22

Your idea of replacement of body parts is bound up with the philosophy of transhumanism, in which people's lives are extended almost indefinitely. On another site, I was reading the view of one such writer, David Pearce, who suggested that in a hundred years from now it will be common for people to have a head replacement. I began thinking would it really be the same brain and mind if through nanotechnology an identical brain was created? It is a bit of a different slant to the issue of whether a mind can exist without a brain, or of creating artificial intelligence, but is one of whether mind can be transferred to a new brain or head?
I think of the 2014 film Transcendence and I agree with you there. Can the mind truly exist without the brain and the old adage of knowing then what you know now seems applicable in the sense that if you knew such technology was available, would anyone stand by the old beliefs of limits in the mind?
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LuckyR
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Re: The Ship of Theseus Applied to People

Post by LuckyR »

This question revolves around the definition of self. If an alzheimers patient loses all memories are they the same self as when their memory was intact?

Since body cells are replaced over time but brain cells aren't, most would conclude that the Ship of Theseus doesn't apply to people.
"As usual... it depends."
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JackDaydream
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Re: The Ship of Theseus Applied to People

Post by JackDaydream »

@WanderingGaze22
I am a bit puzzled as to whether the technology has really been developed to enable head and brain replacement possible or whether it is science fiction. It is hard to know because so much which we experience on a day to day basis would not have been considered possible 100 years ago. People rely on medical interventions, including body part transplants. One thing which I have read about is that with transplants the donated part sometimes dies at the time of the donor's own death, which shows that bodies are aspects of nature. Human beings seek to control nature, but how far is it possible? Almost all medical interventions have potential side--effects. It is hard to know what nanotechnology and the creation of artificial body parts will do for the self. Is it going to be the creation of new kinds of beings, part human and part machine, or even a steampunk future?
WanderingGaze22
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Re: The Ship of Theseus Applied to People

Post by WanderingGaze22 »

JackDaydream wrote: September 30th, 2021, 10:04 am @WanderingGaze22
I am a bit puzzled as to whether the technology has really been developed to enable head and brain replacement possible or whether it is science fiction. It is hard to know because so much which we experience on a day to day basis would not have been considered possible 100 years ago. People rely on medical interventions, including body part transplants. One thing which I have read about is that with transplants the donated part sometimes dies at the time of the donor's own death, which shows that bodies are aspects of nature. Human beings seek to control nature, but how far is it possible? Almost all medical interventions have potential side--effects. It is hard to know what nanotechnology and the creation of artificial body parts will do for the self. Is it going to be the creation of new kinds of beings, part human and part machine, or even a steampunk future?
I would hope not, looking at the older films featuring Robocop, the answer could be self-explanatory. Robocop had memories of the man whose face he was using and while he stated he was the man, he prefers to be called by his name.
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