Philosophy Forum

Read Topic
Reply

when are we no longer us?

Philosophy Forum
» General Discussion
» when are we no longer us?

Get Email Updates • Email this Topic • Print this Page

i'm sure this has been covered, i can't find it, so i apologize for bringing it up again.....

thanks to medical advances, i can get parts of me replaced. hip replacement, knee, shoulder, etc. i can get a whole limb replaced (granted, it's with a mechanical prosthetic, but still).

so lets say someone gets knees replaced, and hips, and arms and legs. lets say he gets new kidneys, a new heart, everything they can do. lets say we figure out how to replace EVERYTHING, in the body.

how much "new parts" can someone get until they are no longer them? is there some percentage cut off? if i'm more than 50% non-original parts, am i me, or am i someone different?

if you end up with your brain inside a body with no original parts, are you still you? are we simply our mind?

what if, sort of like phaedrus in zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, the guy then gets part of his mind erased, and gets, for all intents and purposes, a "new" mind.

i tend to fall on the side of....if you put my mind in a completely different body, i'm still me. i'm my mind.

but perhaps i'm missing something. thoughts?

@harlequin phil,

I think with a different body you would be somewhat different mentally. But, your memories and personality would be intact, so you'd still be you.

@harlequin phil,

harlequin;174482 wrote:

i'm sure this has been covered, i can't find it, so i apologize for bringing it up again.....

thanks to medical advances, i can get parts of me replaced. hip replacement, knee, shoulder, etc. i can get a whole limb replaced (granted, it's with a mechanical prosthetic, but still).

so lets say someone gets knees replaced, and hips, and arms and legs. lets say he gets new kidneys, a new heart, everything they can do. lets say we figure out how to replace EVERYTHING, in the body.

how much "new parts" can someone get until they are no longer them? is there some percentage cut off? if i'm more than 50% non-original parts, am i me, or am i someone different?

if you end up with your brain inside a body with no original parts, are you still you? are we simply our mind?

what if, sort of like phaedrus in zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, the guy then gets part of his mind erased, and gets, for all intents and purposes, a "new" mind.

i tend to fall on the side of....if you put my mind in a completely different body, i'm still me. i'm my mind.

but perhaps i'm missing something. thoughts?

I like the questions, however; you do realize that your body is constantly an on going replacement of cells for other cells, so what is the difference if those "cells" are from something else? This is how I like to put it.

Your body is like a porcelain vase, but imagine that you have a special hammer that is designed to break off a chunk of the vase without actually shattering the whole vase. Every now and then you break a piece off and toss it away, but then you use some clay to fill in the missing piece with. You make sure to maintain the shape, texture and even color each time you break a piece off. Eventually, given enough time, you would have completely replaced all of the vase with new clay, so much so you wouldn't even be able to tell the old vase from this new one. The question becomes, is it the same vase or a different one?

I take this a step further, I say that we don't actually have an identity. We are just a network of bio-chemical processes and the ones that specifically deal with the brain, allow for cognitive functions. These functions believe themselves to be an entity which we call "Me". Even these functions get replaced. So I say that there is never a thing that is permanent that you would consider your self. You are not the same person you were at age five that you are now. There is only one thing that links you to that five year old person and that is memory. Without the memory you would have absolutely no way to determine if you were ever five years old. So you could technically argue that all we are, all that we ever will be, and all that we can know about a self is memory. Everything else is in a constant state of change.

@harlequin phil,

Imo you can have all your body replaced but the CNS, that's when it begins to cause changes to your subconcious/concious behaviour, well dependand on how strong mentally you are, some will change their inner person when their visible outer appearance changes, hence most phantom pain casualties can manipulate themselves with a mirror box.

@harlequin phil,

Krumple - you made some great points. our bodies are constantly regenerating, but from our own DNA, replicating the cells that were there. to me, in essence, we are replacing ourselves with ourselves, we are still "us."

what about if i get a kidney from one person and a heart from another and an eye from yet a different person etc etc? then who am i? whose DNA is in me?

@Krumple,

Krumple;174487 wrote:

I say that we don't actually have an identity. We are just a network of bio-chemical processes and the ones that specifically deal with the brain, allow for cognitive functions. These functions believe themselves to be an entity which we call "Me". Even these functions get replaced. So I say that there is never a thing that is permanent that you would consider your self. You are not the same person you were at age five that you are now. There is only one thing that links you to that five year old person and that is memory. Without the memory you would have absolutely no way to determine if you were ever five years old. So you could technically argue that all we are, all that we ever will be, and all that we can know about a self is memory. Everything else is in a constant state of change.

I can't really agree with this.

From age 5, you will gain experience, knowledge and wisdom, that what makes you evolve, dependant on your upbringing you can provoke different behaviour, thus different personallity. I see my fellow danes more puerile, than those in different neighbour countries of equal age.

Our personality are also formed by hormones, the more testosterone/oestrogene will cause different behaviour, even in the same person. And with age these hormones will trigger, and eventually fade.

Also genetic memory will have a dominant effect, on which goals we put us, how we react to various situations.

...all this translate to our preception of our apperance, fat western people are often precived as stupid and inferior, whilst in certain countries it is considerd a sign of fertility. Many blacks desire light skin, whilst those whith light skin desire dark skin.

A recent study, suggest even small children in kindergarten will precive black skin as inferior to light, along with their general IQ, even the dark skins themselves would also have this distorted preception, fortunaly all no matter skin color has equal IQ.

So indeed we have an identity, both a visual precepted identity, as an inner self identity.

Soem fat people will disregard their outer appearance and still have their innner identity intact, but some will change and often crush their inner identity by getting fat.

@harlequin phil,

harlequin;174657 wrote:

Krumple - you made some great points. our bodies are constantly regenerating, but from our own DNA, replicating the cells that were there. to me, in essence, we are replacing ourselves with ourselves, we are still "us."

No technically you are not. Because the food that you consume is what is used as building blocks for those new cells. Are you really the apple that you eat? What if you eat an animal? What if you ate a person? Are you saying simply because you put a piece of food in your mouth that it now becomes you? If that is the case then wouldn't water be the same thing? So anything inside your body is you? All the fluids including urine is you? So when you urinate are you getting rid of yourself? What about dedication or when you cut your hair or clip your fingernails? Is that all you?

I don't think a mass of cells makes up you, it might appear to be but just like the vase when you replace all the parts of the vase with new clay, how can you call it the same vase? It's all new material, so it can't be the same vase. It is only an illusion since the vase takes on the same shape and form as the old one. That is what DNA is doing. It is taking new materials (enzymes) which come from the food in which you eat. And building new strands with that new material. The DNA is only using half of itself to create new copies. Eventually all of it gets replaced though.

harlequin;174657 wrote:

what about if i get a kidney from one person and a heart from another and an eye from yet a different person etc etc? then who am i? whose DNA is in me?

DNA is DNA, I think the fault is in thinking that you own your dna. Sure it can be a finger print of who you are but that is only because how you have been constructed is not identical to other things.

The way I see it, I am not this body, I am not this mind. Both of those things are just attachments that cognition likes to grab and hold onto. It is programed into us to do this for survival.

@Krumple,

Krumple;174747 wrote:

The way I see it, I am not this body, I am not this mind. Both of those things are just attachments that cognition likes to grab and hold onto. It is programed into us to do this for survival.

Ooooooh!! That's very nice to know, so when I come kick ur butt, it's not ur butt I'm kicking, but ..eeh ..ur other butt? ..which is not ur butt ..but ur butt? ..but? :a-thought:

Philosophy Forum
» General Discussion
» when are we no longer us?

Read Topic
Reply

Philosophy Forum

when are we no longer us?

Quick Links

My Account

able2know