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buddypalamigo19 t1_iwsfvml wrote

Reply to comment by Bakoro in When does an individual's death occur if the biological brain is gradually replaced by synthetic neurons? by NefariousNaz

It's not silly if you insist on breaking up the world into neatly defined and demarcated "things." If, on the other hand, you see the world as one giant process, and all things within it as nothing but flexible concepts which are loosely attached to subsets of that process, then it is very silly.

Saying that the ship is no longer the same after a single plank changes is... I mean, you're technically correct, yes. But it really smacks of pedantry to me.

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Bakoro t1_iwt0z9k wrote

>Saying that the ship is no longer the same after a single plank changes is... I mean, you're technically correct, yes. But it really smacks of pedantry to me.

It's not pedantry, it's literally the point of the thought experiment.

>It's not silly if you insist on breaking up the world into neatly defined and demarcated "things." If, on the other hand, you see the world as one giant process, and all things within it as nothing but flexible concepts which are loosely attached to subsets of that process, then it is very silly.

A process is a thing. The components of a process are a thing. A concept is a thing. Everything inherits from "thing", that's why it's called "everything ".

You are more agreeing with me than not.

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buddypalamigo19 t1_iwt55xb wrote

It is pedantry. From my point of view, the thought experiment is silly and unnecessary. It is trying to explain something which is completely obvious, and which does not require an explanation.

I am aware that a process is a thing. I am also aware that there is only so much one can do with language. You are getting hung up on individual words and their literal, narrow definitions.

But whatever. I'm not going to try and convince you of anything, because I suspect we're coming at this from two incompatible paradigms. Peace.

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Euclidean_Ideas t1_iwtaxi4 wrote

The reason you think its pedantry is because you probably haven't actually given it proper thought.

How do you define the difference between a process, and a subprocesses. If you don't differentiate between a process and another process. Simply because they are the same larger process, then you are applying nihilistic concepts to answer questions

"The question doesn't matter, because in the end the ship is a linguistic trick and the collective parts that make up the ships never actually existed as a single entity but only as a process. Therefore it doesn't matter how much is replaced"

Well how about if you took the exact ship, and pulled it apart and used all the parts of the ship to create an entirely different ship, but contained all of the different parts and gave it a different name. Would said ship then still be called "The ship of Theseus"? what if you only used half of the planks, or what if you added all those parts in to another ship as replacement parts. Would it still be the same process?

How would your "view" differentiate between the process of our planet as a whole, and the individual human?

Its incredibly simple to expand your "definition" to say its just a part of the whole, and therefore there is no reason to engage because its obvious.. Well that uses the underlying qualities of nihilism to rebuke the fundamentals of the question "I don't think anything have intrinsic value, only what we subscribe to it" is the same thing as saying "I don't think the question have merit because its easy to answer, the boat was never a thing, it was always only the concept"

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