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Just like the article, the ship of Theseus changes in its constituency but not in its identity. Am I a different person because almost none of my cells at the t

by _8j50 3y ago

Just like the article, the ship of Theseus changes in its constituency but not in its identity. Am I a different person because almost none of my cells at the time of my birth remain in me? Of course not. And the wiki article is the same article. Whether something can be identified as a specific thing is a matter of social convention. A transformation of something is not a new thing but exactly the former: a transormation, but still that same thing. When does it become something new? Never. For it to be a different ship, it needs to be deconstructed first fully. But what if you reconstruct it so that it is identical to the former ship? It's still a new ship because identity is defined at the time of construction, independent of relative comparisons. Similar to how your complete identical clone would be a different person.

BLKNSLVR 3y ago
Yes! This is the discussion starter we've been waiting for. Then you're admitting that there's something non-physical that defines the identity of the physical thing, is it possible to argue against that? Or is identity itself meaningless? But it cannot be because without identity there can be no understanding of the universe. Thus, the non-physical is a requirement of the physical. One cannot exist without the other. But where, in what non-physical plane (is there a word for that? ideamension?), does the non-physical inhabit? Or is "understanding" also only existent in the ideamension, not a requirement of the existence of the physical universe? But if not for understanding, why does the universe exist in the first place? Reason; yet another resident of the ideamension.
- _8j50 3y ago
  > Then you're admitting that there's something non-physical that defines the identity of the physical thing It's not a question of being physical but that of independently describable. > Or is identity itself meaningless Identity is how we frame and contextualize for the purpose of thought and communication. For the purpose of thought I might consider the modified ship the same as the one in the initial state but if the law requires you to rename and re-register as new when you modify so much of a ship then for legal purposes I will start identifying it as a new ship but the people that use the ship will probably consider it that same old ship because for the purpose of thought the independently describable object has not changed. It is not identity that has no meaning but that physical objects themselves have no meaning to us unless framed in an independently describable context (i.e.: as separate from all other things in the context). For a computer program, does the letter 'A' exist? It does if the program can decode a byte as such, but does its inability to describe the bits and bytes that way mean the letter 'A' does not exist? Maybe it is 0x41? Identity has meaning but only to those who are able to describe that identity and reason about the context.
amai 3y ago
> ship of Theseus changes in its constituency Does it? Atoms and electrons are indistinguishable so much that physicists argued that every electron is actually the same single electron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe

by _8j50 3y ago

BLKNSLVR 3y ago

Yes! This is the discussion starter we've been waiting for. Then you're admitting that there's something non-physical that defines the identity of the physical thing, is it possible to argue against that? Or is identity itself meaningless? But it cannot be because without identity there can be no understanding of the universe. Thus, the non-physical is a requirement of the physical. One cannot exist without the other. But where, in what non-physical plane (is there a word for that? ideamension?), does the non-physical inhabit? Or is "understanding" also only existent in the ideamension, not a requirement of the existence of the physical universe? But if not for understanding, why does the universe exist in the first place? Reason; yet another resident of the ideamension.

_8j50 3y ago
> Then you're admitting that there's something non-physical that defines the identity of the physical thing It's not a question of being physical but that of independently describable. > Or is identity itself meaningless Identity is how we frame and contextualize for the purpose of thought and communication. For the purpose of thought I might consider the modified ship the same as the one in the initial state but if the law requires you to rename and re-register as new when you modify so much of a ship then for legal purposes I will start identifying it as a new ship but the people that use the ship will probably consider it that same old ship because for the purpose of thought the independently describable object has not changed. It is not identity that has no meaning but that physical objects themselves have no meaning to us unless framed in an independently describable context (i.e.: as separate from all other things in the context). For a computer program, does the letter 'A' exist? It does if the program can decode a byte as such, but does its inability to describe the bits and bytes that way mean the letter 'A' does not exist? Maybe it is 0x41? Identity has meaning but only to those who are able to describe that identity and reason about the context.

amai 3y ago

> ship of Theseus changes in its constituency Does it? Atoms and electrons are indistinguishable so much that physicists argued that every electron is actually the same single electron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe