The good ship "Athena"

[tek]

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Of course that would still be you. The tough question is whether even a different brain could still be you.

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Well, we've established that a different brain, so to speak, would make one a different person (alzheimers, amnesia, etc).

I disagree with your reply about different bodies. IMO people who lose weight (such as gastric bypass) after having been obese for most of their life would change. Same with people who become severly physically handicapped. And in my previous example I still say if one received artifical legs and arms, one would be different.

By different, I mean a different meta outlook. I have no experience in these matters, so these are just guesses (similar to your guesses about religion).

The problem here is that you are trying to convince us that a sailboat has its own identity, like a human being does.

Is the sailboat its own real entity, or is it just a collection of wooden planks and cloth sails? Another example would be: Does Water exist? Or is it just an abstraction we've created in our minds to identify a collection of H2O molecules.

Obviously you can stretch this concept out ad infinitum, but you get my point.

Now what you could potentially derive from this, is do WE really exist? Or are our brains just a collection of neurons and chemicals reacting according to the laws of physics, unable to truly make its own choices any more than an electronic computer?

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Now what you could potentially derive from this, is do WE really exist? Or are our brains just a collection of neurons and chemicals reacting according to the laws of physics, unable to truly make its own choices any more than an electronic computer?

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That has my vote. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Cyrus]

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The problem here is that you are trying to convince us that a sailboat has its own identity, like a human being does.
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Is the sailboat its own real entity, or is it just a collection of wooden planks and cloth sails? Another example would be: Does Water exist? Or is it just an abstraction we've created in our minds to identify a collection of H2O molecules.

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Water exists. And, yes, the term "water" is short-hand for that collection of Hydrogen-and-Oxygene molecules you mentioned.

Water has no "identity" like a person does -- or a ship on which we assign a name.

But specific masses of water do have an "identity" -- and get a name e.g. Lake Titicaca.

In fact, we could construct an "Athena"-like thought experiment about Titicaca. Suppose we take the whole water out of that lake, dry it completely, and pour it inside the Grand Canyon. Do we have Titicaca transported to the Grand Canyon then? And, if we would fill up the empty basin in the Peruvian border to Bolivia once more, which of the two lakes is Titicaca?

I would argue that Titicaca would be the one in South America, on the basis of the original geographical location. Which (aha!) makes "geographical location" the defining criterion for a lake's identity. (This could be a true-life example and not just a thought experiment, actually, whereby through some earth underground movements the water from lake X drains out and re-appears miles away as lake Y.)

So, which is the "defining criterion" for the good ship "Athena"?

...And, to the point, which is it for humans?

(Sklansky says the brain. I say consciousness. We are saying the same thing.)

[hmkpoker]

I think it was me who said that thing you mentioned in the beginning.

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..The question is: Which ship is the "Athena" ?

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Insubstantial, relative and completely subjective. It all depends on the eye of the beholder.