'Ship of Theseus' thought experiment.

farntfar said:
I, farntfar, both exist and do not exist.
farntfar, as you know, is simply a label that I have attached to myself for the purposes of being able to interact with this forum.
When I am not interacting with this forum, I am not farntfar. I have another label, which, interestingly enough, is not entirely fixed either, but that's another story, and would only further confuse the issue.
For the purposes of this discussion, my "real" and external name is fixed, and was only changed at the moment of my marriage; which is where the confusion arises, for in France, my name did not change at that point, but remained constantly that I originally bore.

Further, as has been mentioned earlier, my cells are constantly being replaced. Different parts of me replace their cells at different rates apparently, and there are parts of me that do not get replaced at all.
So am I the same person that I was 60 years ago, when I bore most of my original planks?

I feel that I am the same person, though certainly with different memories and different experiences. I also definitely have different views about all sorts of things, including about my own permanence. But my memory lasts back to those early days in a very personal way, if imperfectly and I believe that I have not lost my original identity.

Does the ship have a similar feeling of permanence, despite so many partial replacements.
Certainly Trigger believes he has only ever had a single broom.
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Counter point your statement. Provide a definitive argument against it. Debate with yourself.
Would this hold up in a court of law? I think you have this one farntfar. :)
 
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tinkerdan said:
About 330 billion cells are replaced daily, equivalent to about 1 percent of all our cells.
So in a hundred days are you still you.

I think all of the above are meant to deflect us from this more important question.

At 71 years; who the hell am I?
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Who do you think you are? Counter point your statement. Provide a definitive argument against it. Debate with yourself.
Would this hold up in a court of law?
 
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Another thought in this out of the box experiment!

Aliens: Prometheus
We learn that the Aliens are a DNA mutation of Engineers, Human and a snake like insects. Being that Aliens are 1/3 human, can they be morally and ethically considered to be human to some point? They do possess human DNA. Your point and counter point?:unsure:
 
You've mentioned Star Trek Transporter accidents already, but the TNG episode 'Second Chances' makes your point succinctly. A transporter accident creates two William Thomas Rikers, genetically indistinguishable from each other, with personality and memories identical up to the point of the duplication, but with very different experiences and life choices following. Who is the real Riker? I personally think it is unfair that the original had to change his name to Thomas Riker and couldn't continue his relationship with Deanna. It was the 'William Riker' who was a duplicate.
 
Dave said:
You've mentioned Star Trek Transporter accidents already, but the TNG episode 'Second Chances' makes your point succinctly. A transporter accident creates two William Thomas Rikers, genetically indistinguishable from each other, with personality and memories identical up to the point of the duplication, but with very different experiences and life choices following. Who is the real Riker? I personally think it is unfair that the original had to change his name to Thomas Riker and couldn't continue his relationship with Deanna. It was the 'William Riker' who was a duplicate.
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Good one Dave! Thats where I'm going with this post! :)

Like the splitting of Kirk into the two morel parts. Are they still Kirk? Well, yes. But outside of the story plot, how did it happen? Same with Riker; story plot, but in the ST world, how did the transported do this outside of the story explanation? In other words, your view, point counter point. (see where I'm going?)

There are all kinds of transporter issues in ST that bring out all kinds of arguments.

Isn't there an episode in one of the NG or DSN shows where Regi is in the transporter and in mid transport sees a life form in the transporter field?
And at one point he reaches through the field while in mid transport, unharmed? Shouldn't there have been a massive plasma explosion? Or at least his arm should have been vaporized away. But he was fine and unharmed. Is he still Regi? And yet, life excess in a transporter beam. Where there is one species, there must be others. It's the ST way. Going off that, what other kinds of life could live in that state? ST or not and could they always have been there but affected the ST universe in other ways? You just never saw or recognized the change ... There for, did or did not the ship and crew change or remain the same?

Let's face it, the ST universe is wacky! Every moment of every mission is a phycological roller coaster ride. So how do you know what is or isn't? Is reality the same or not? Or did it just fix itself to look the same as before? Whatever the analogy, it's a good 'outside the box' thought exercise.
 
THX1138 said:
Isn't there an episode in one of the NG or DSN shows where Regi is in the transporter and in mid transport sees a life form in the transporter field?
And at one point he reaches through the field while in mid transport, unharmed?
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Yes, there is: 'Realm of Fear' TNG . There is also a Voyager episode where Tuvok and Neelix get combined into Tuvix. The Transporter is an odd and unlikely piece of tech but they certainly mined it for every possible story idea (fault). The Fly (1958) about a hybrid human/fly is the origin of all these stories (sequel and then 1986 reimagination with own sequel.)

The thing about 'Thomas Riker' though. He was vey badly treated, IMO. He was written to have got an attitude, and went off and joined The Maquis. He should have taken a legal route, and claimed back the identity that was rightfully his. He would have won. They could have never allowed that to happen within the TNG storyline because the Riker we were all familiar with had to remain.
 
In purely mechanical terms, the Riker split seems far more reasonable than the Kirk split, or the Tuvox combination, although the combination and indeed the FLY confusion seem more possible than wet and bad Kirk. But enough of that.

As for the Barclay story, weren't the creatures found out to be people who got stuck in the buffer and who were eventually re-extracted?
But the questions you're asking are mainly about the moral implications. Is purely bad Kirk, still Kirk?

There have been many non-Trek stories where a character has had an accident which hurt their brain, and they then became some sort of amoral version of themselves, losing all sense of conscience or moral direction. It seems to me that these are the same story with a different mechanism. Are the characters the same in these cases after the accident? One would generally say Yes.

What disappoints me about the Trek stories is how they are resolved. Having spent the entire episode not knowing how it happened, in the last 2 minutes they recreate the conditions, push 'em back in the transporter and reintegrate the original people.
 
farntfar said:
Is purely bad Kirk, still Kirk?

There have been many non-Trek stories where a character has had an accident which hurt their brain
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
farntfar said:
in the last 2 minutes they recreate the conditions, push 'em back in the transporter and reintegrate the original people.
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That's the reset button familiar to all who watch episodic TV.
 
What about my Flynn in TRON question? Like in TRON 2? After spending that much time in the computer, Flynn's data has to be changed one would think. If so, how would he know there and then back in the human world? Or, is Flynn an advanced AI in the computer world? Can he be hacked? One would think yes.
 
I've never seen it.

Other cases of people being transferred into computers (Lawnmower man, Lucy etc.) tend to also imply augmented mental powers; so maybe moral change is expected.
I don't really understand the question, "Can he be hacked?", nor how this affects his moral state.
I would suggest that if he becomes a program which is then hacked and modified by the hacker, his moral sense is also being modified by the hacker. So it's a different question.

If I, as a human, am "brainwashed" into beliefs which I didn't previously entertain, I am changed qualitatively. And so, to use the original allegory, I'm no longer made of the same planks.
 
I would kindly suggest that the only reason this seems interesting is because of the linguistic concept "the same", and not because there is any actual physics that applies or matters.

An awful lot of human quandaries come down to semantic nonsense, not important distinctions about the way reality functions. No biologist observes cell division and then requires therapy because they can't figure out which cell is the original and which is the copy.
 
@Swank I took this in a nonsense direction to go outside the box and not follow an exact philosophical way because the science in most SF don't make much sense anyway. Though some SF are based on real science, they are still theoretical and open to this kind of thinking in their own SF realms.
It is silly and may even be pointless, but this can drive new SF and new science theories that may become real appliable science someday.

If nothing else, then just for fun in a self-thought point, counter point exercise about the science in a particular SF world. Go wild with it.
 
THX1138 said:
@Swank I took this in a nonsense direction to go outside the box and not follow an exact philosophical way because the science in most SF don't make much sense anyway. Though some SF are based on real science, they are still theoretical and open to this kind of thinking in their own SF realms.
It is silly and may even be pointless, but this can drive new SF and new science theories that may become real appliable science someday.

If nothing else, then just for fun in a self-thought point, counter point exercise about the science in a particular SF world. Go wild with it.
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Those are two distinctly different things:

SF is largely based on speculative "science". As in; if this happened to be true, then this would follow.

That has little to do with the philosophical/semantic argument suggested by the OP, which does not reference physical reality at all and suggests no useful leverage points to move the characters into action.

Philosophical arguments, like Philip K. Dick stories, are useful concepts to make a plot out of, but the actual speculation at the plot level involves a physics "what if?", not a philosophical one.
 
Right, Like I said, "to go outside the box and not follow an exact philosophical way." FORGET PHILOSOPHY! Use the exercise to think out an SF "Is it the same?" then come up with a speculative or real science to explain both 'Yes' and 'No' points. Then chose one that fits your SF world for a new view that you may not have thought up before.
Toying with this new view, repeat but with a different SF "Is it the same?" and continue. In the end you should have a new SF tech/world with its own speculative or real science to explain it plus a few possible plot twists that in no ways resemble the original SF world you started with.

Just stick with "Is it the same?" then come up with a speculative or real science to explain both 'Yes' and 'No' points.

Again, per the threads description: (Discussion area for news and topics relating to all aspects of science and nature, especially those that might be of interest for science fiction writers.) Why not take topics from this thread and mash them up?
 
If it becomes possible to replace human body parts with long lasting mechanical alternatives, at what point does someone become no longer human? Is there a point where a government may decide that a person no longer has sufficient human frailties to justify retirement or a pension and should continue to work? Does someone become eligible for military conscription once he or she has a sufficient quantity of mechanical parts that could be damaged without pain and replaced? Would society accept someone who has a limb replaced, but reject someone who has had too many replacement parts? Is there a point where sports might disallow someone from competing if he or she had too many replacement parts? What if someone could put his or her body into an autonomous operation mode, perhaps to do manual tasks, without the need to pay attention? Would enslaving these people be justified, as their minds are free to think or experience whatever they wish at the same time?
 
There are already rules in sport about enhancements.
Some para athletes can run faster [over distances?] on the "blades" than the conventionally limbed. So the blade limbs have to be flex tested to make sure they don't give an unfair advantage.
 
Dave said:
What about a vintage car that's had new parts fitted, and engine from another car, and a chassis from an entirely different car
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As long as you keep all the paper work listing all the replacement parts then yes a rebuilt vintage car is the same car.
 
CupofJoe said:
There are already rules in sport about enhancements.
Some para athletes can run faster [over distances?] on the "blades" than the conventionally limbed. So the blade limbs have to be flex tested to make sure they don't give an unfair advantage.
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Yes, currently we perceive clear dividing lines between what is natural human capability and what is augmented human capability. Athletes regularly have knees, shoulders, elbows repaired and no one questions whether they are still normal. What happens when replacement tendons and ligaments start to provide more snap and power? Maybe it isn't enough to exceed the very best natural performers, but it does make the average player better than before. Currently, there is a fuzzy line between acceptable pain blockers and unacceptable ones. What if implantable pain blockers become available? How about implantable stimulants? Is it okay if the athlete merely reuses his or her own adrenaline? One of the complaints about runners using blades is that they artificially extend the leg length. What is someone chose to have his or her leg bones extended?

The problem with incremental changes to anatomy is that clear dividing lines become lost. In athletics, I think there are going to be growing questions as to what augmentation is permitted both internally and externally. At what point does a medically enhanced athlete become illegal? In society, is there a point where a medically enhanced individual is treated differently than a non-medically enhanced individual?
 
Those dividing lines are becoming blurred in women's sports for reasons it's best not to discuss here.
 
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