in the shell

Elmo_Redux · Joined: 23 Feb 2007 Posts: 154 Location: CLASSIFIED

This is a question that several famous philosophers have asked before in reference to typewriters, pipes and in one episode of only fools and horses a broom. But it gains another dimension when we talk about it in terms of people.

If I trim my nails and replace my hair with a wig am I the still the same person I was before? If I replace my limbs with prosthetics am I still the same person I was before? What if I go full cyborg with a fully artificial cyberbrain. My thoughts are still my own are they not, or does my new body shape those too? If it's done piece by piece, at what point of replacing parts of myself do I become a new person?

Is it the memories that I'd still retain that'd make me, me? what if I replaced those too?

Another mostly accurate way of looking at it is an organic example of the same process. Due to the way my cells die and are replaced by new cells there is no part of me at the age of four left in me now. I have even forgotten most(for arguments sake let's say 'all) of my memories from that time. Was that child me? what happened to that child is he now gone, dead?

Elmo_Redux · Joined: 23 Feb 2007 Posts: 154 Location: CLASSIFIED

other people remember that child as me and every version of me right up to this point. So maybe we live through a period of time in the perceptions of others, and when we live in isolation we live only in moments.

marto_motoko · Joined: 27 Nov 2005 Posts: 536 Location: Ni'ihama

The individual "I" occurs only for the instance it is there. People are ever changing, and in a sense, despite being "you" throughout your whole life, you evolve, and you maintain the new you by replacing the things that previously defined you with new ones.

I feel a sense of being myself only when I'm by myself. When one person has anyone else around them, they only exist as a particle of themselves, because others easily shape us in different ways according to what is necessary to coexist with them.
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Who are you? Who slips into my robot body and whispers to my ghost?

GhostLine · Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:56 pm Post subject:

That's a hard question to answer depending on your world view. The Socratic view generally sees us as an eternal soul within a corruptible body. This is generally accepted in modern Christendom, while its Hebraic roots finds no differentiation between flesh and spirit. But also even ancient wisdom had spiritual prejudices set against those born deformed....
I once went to a Japanese Noh play in San Francisco where a deceased spirit was lost in limbo because a portion of his heart had been transplanted to save the life of another. It was still rooted to the living while it was bound for afterlife or reincarnation...this also would cause doom for the recipient of the heart. So while I think many westerners would not find a too strong of a collision between ethics and prosthetics...ramifications may be much stronger elsewhere.

holdenmcclure · Joined: 22 Feb 2008 Posts: 54

This question can only be answered with a purely subjective opinion. It is completely dependent on each individuals view of what defines yourself. Your persona both physically and mentally is constantly changing. Environmental influence is constantly altering your perception of the universe consciously and subconsciously. Basically what Marto said. Oh and sorry GhostLine but the "Spirit" and other religious theories are bull**** to me, but that is just my opinion. Vague religious analogies will only make this question more complicated.

GhostLine · Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 11:16 pm Post subject:

BabyHipster · Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 2:36 pm Post subject:

I am not the "I" that I was nor am I the "I" that I will be. The only things connecting "I" to I are the past they share and the DNA that permeates them.
All else is in flux. That is what I think now, tomorrow's "I" might have a different opinion.

Aoi · Joined: 12 Mar 2008 Posts: 11 Location: Computer

"At what point does a person become another person?"

Every second.

I suppose the most clear definition of "person" would be one of the following:
(a) brain (conglomerate of cells)
(b) mind (what the brain does)
(c) soul (in a mind/body independence theory)
(d) personality (traits which describe how you behave)

In (a), (b), and (d), a person never remains in existence but always changes. I don't believe (c) has any credibility and is an obsolete notion, especially in today's time. Anyway, (c) is ambiguous and wouldn't answer the question.

Individual Twelve · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 3:43 am Post subject:

My twopenny's worth:

A person only becomes another person when their personality changes. Physical appearance may alter over time, and people will mature, but if the person has the same essential way of thinking, beliefs, personality et cetera, they are still the same person.

GhostLine · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 10:36 pm Post subject:

Shellheads: What would your older self say to your younger self? Vice versa?

Elmo_Redux · Joined: 23 Feb 2007 Posts: 154 Location: CLASSIFIED

'go for it you little bas***d'

Individual Twelve · Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 11:04 am Post subject:

Hmm...

To my younger self, "Join the ATC! We rule!"

To my older self, "Do you like Mario games?"
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AI · Joined: 13 Feb 2008 Posts: 34 Location: An Insane Asylum

Epiphany · Joined: 08 Dec 2006 Posts: 260 Location: South Florida

Ghost Without A Shell · Joined: 31 Mar 2009 Posts: 10 Location: The net