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Total Replacement

Mindscatter

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Mindscatter Newbie

Mindscatter

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Meet Dan. He's a 10 year old! Right as we speak, half of all the memory he collected since birth and this very moment (we will call it moment 0) is erased from his brain.

 

Time passes...time passes...

 

Meet Dan again. He's 15 now. Now, we will remove the remaining half of his memories from birth to moment O.

 

Practically, his first 10 years of life are a total mystery for him. Also, practically, his memory suffered a Total Replacement.

 

Although that happened, everybody calls him Dan. He is still considered to be Dan.

 

In the same manner, imagine Dan will have sequentially replaced his arms, legs, lungs, heart, spinal cord...with other arms, legs, lungs, heart, spinal cord....yet, if sufficiently high amounts of time pass during these replacements, even if total replacement of every living cell in the body would be achieved, he would still be called Dan.

 

Discuss how even atheists behave as the soul would exist.

 

MENTION: this topic is made for pure philosophic talk. No blame towards Atheists was intended, as I am an Atheist myself.

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Mindscatter Newbie

Mindscatter

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A name is just a name.

My soul could be named pete' date=' but my name is kyle.

The brain is where ones names are kept, if the brain was replaced, he would not be dan any more.

[/quote']

 

Yes, but the others would still call him Dan.

 

 

Just as, if Dan would die, people going at his tomb would say "Here lays Dan" and not "Here lays a brainless pile of bones".

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Skuldur Newbie

Skuldur

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I've heard this one before, except it was a ship.

 

My thought on the matter is that it's not the same being. Like with the ship, if you replace 1 moldy plank each year, is it the same ship after you've replaced all the planks?

 

The same could be said about the famous paintings that are always being fixed. In the end it isn't the same painting it was.

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shatteredfox Newbie

shatteredfox

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Meet Dan. He's a 10 year old! Right as we speak' date=' half of all the memory he collected since birth and this very moment (we will call it moment 0) is erased from his brain.

 

Time passes...time passes...

 

Meet Dan again. He's 15 now. Now, we will remove the remaining half of his memories from birth to moment O.

 

Practically, his first 10 years of life are a total mystery for him. Also, practically, his memory suffered a Total Replacement.

 

Although that happened, everybody calls him Dan. He is still considered to be Dan.

 

In the same manner, imagine Dan will have sequentially replaced his arms, legs, lungs, heart, spinal cord...with other arms, legs, lungs, heart, spinal cord....yet, if sufficiently high amounts of time pass during these replacements, even if total replacement of every living cell in the body would be achieved, he would still be called Dan.

 

Discuss how even atheists behave as the soul would exist.

 

MENTION: this topic is made for pure philosophic talk. No blame towards Atheists was intended, as I am an Atheist myself.

[/quote']

 

I remember this from a book I was reading(well they were talking about a similar thing.) I'm going to see if I can pull up the lines before I actually put my insight.

 

[Tsugumi]
"Have you ever cut your finger nail?

[Takeshi]
Of course I have

[Tsu]
Well then, is the nail that's been cut away still you?

[shi]
What do you mean?

[Tsu]
I mean, are you there in the nail?

[shi]
No...I guess once it's gone from my body, it's not me anymore

[Tsu]
How about hair?

[shi]
The same goes for hair.

[Tsu]
In that case, this hair here is you right? But if I pull it out...

[shi]
Ouch!

I reflexively put my hand to my head. Tsugumi had yanked out a couple strands.

[Tsu]
This isn't you?

Tsugumi held the hair up, waving it around

[shi]
Hmm..That's tough. It isn't me but... I guess you could call it, 'ex-me.'

[Tsu]
Okay then...What if I rippe your arm off?

[shi]
You gotta be kidding!

Tsugumi grabbed my arm and before I could react, I was drawn into her body. Althought she wasn't abnormally strong, I found it impossible to resist her. It was a natural, flowing movement. Inside the white gondola...Tsugumi's body covered mine, I could feel her breath.
I could feel her pulse. I could feel the warmth of her body. I could smell her scent. It made me slightly dizzy...

[Tsu]
Well if I ripped your arm off?

Gazing intensely at me, Tsugumi continued shooting me questions.

[shi]
. . . . . . . .

[Tsu]
Would you be there, in the arm?

[shi]
No, I suppose I wouldn't be there.

[Tsu]
Okay, then what if I took off your leg? Or if I cut your torso away? Or even if I took out your brain?

Still gazing at me, she moved her hands and put them on my neck. It felt like I was being hunted. The illusion was intense. She looked straight at me. I couldn't shake myself away from her gaze. I felt like I was being sucked inside her....Those eyes, full of that distant light. I wondered where the light originated from...

[Tsu] 
Tell me, Takeshi, where are you?

[shi]
I'm...Where am I?

Me...Takeshi Kuranari. Since the moment I was born I had existed as one person. One continuous, linear, cohesive individual. There was no doubt about that fact. The 'me' as a baby in the photo album, the 'me' running around in elementary school and finally, the 'me' sitting here...They were all the same organism called 'Kuranari Takeshi'

So where exactly did the entity called 'me' exist? In the past, people thought the soul existed in a person's heart.
Descartes believed the soul inhabited the pineal gland in the brain.

The brain. I wondered briefly if I existed only in my memories? But if that were the truth, then if I lost my memory like the Kid, wouldn't that mean I was no longer 'Kuranari Takeshi?'

Thoughts? Senses? Emotions? Sensations? Character? Values? All of those things were nothing but function of the organ called the brain. 

For one thing, the 'me' that ran around in elementary school was composed of different molecules than the 'me' here. From purely a material point of view, my younger 'me' was entirely different than my older 'me.'

Cells die and are replaced daily. Every cell that is replaced will also die. They say the cells in the entire human body are completely replaced every three to five years. By comparison, a rock would be composed of the exact same molecules fives years before, or five years hence. But a human body is different. The cells of 'me' five years ago were not the same as the cells of 'me' now.

Even so, the 'me' of five years before and the 'me' then were definitely the same. Then what was it that defined 'me'. And where did that 'me' exist?...

Tsugumi took her hand off of my neck. I was breathing easier.

[Tsu]
You see. Your existence has no substance. All you are is a concept.

[shi]
A Concept?

[Tsu]
You are just a packet of information.. 'software' The information written on a CD has no physical body, right? The CD itself is just plastic, a hard mass of polycarbonate. But that mass has nothing to do with the information it holds. Information can't have a physical body, that's impossible.

[Tsu]
Information does not have shape or substance. The embodiment of information only takes place through it's application. However, the embodied information itself has no actual body. The essence of information is the information itself...

[shi]
......

[Tsu]
Takeshi, it's the same for you. There is no physical substance to your 'essence.' Instead, the human called 'Takeshi Kuranari' is no more than a concept, information, software. And that essence is realized only through your body, the hardware. That's it. Your body is just the hardware. It's just a device in which the entity of 'you' is embodied.

[shi]
...I see. Hmm. Okay, okay. I understand you perfectly. No, actually I hardly understand you at all..but if what you say is true...Then what? What does that have to do with what you were talking about? 

(story related info not important)

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Mindscatter Newbie

Mindscatter

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Cool story. There is just 1 thing different: neurons.

 

You say cells die and are replaced daily, but neurons NEVER DIVIDE (thus, they are NEVER REPLACED). It was calculated that their life span is 150 years, but of course the other parts of the body don't last that much. (Off topic: due to this, scientists concluded that the max lifespan a human being can achieve is 150, no matter how healthy its life is)

 

The "soul", or "me", I don't care how you call it, is in the brain. If the cells composing the brain die only once, then the "me" is preserved for the entire life.

 

I was talking about outside replacement.

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Mindscatter Newbie

Mindscatter

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Actually, there is a type of real operation that involves electrocuting the temporal lobes to erase the long-term memory. But, of course, you can't choose what to erase, it erases fu*king everything!

lol

I guess that could work.

 

My take no it:

Government Conspiracy.

 

Are you talking about 4kids dubbing?

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