Theseus’ paradox: Are you, you?

(Continued from prev post: How Theseus' paradox questions the overlooked concept: identity.)

So, as mentioned, Theseus’ paradox affects our understanding of ourselves.

How? Well, for starters…

Compare yourself to the ship.

Are you the same person that you were when you were born?

Different?

Did your identity switch along the way?

Are you defined by your material presence or your thoughts and consciousness?

Your body develops new cells every day, your thought process changes with time. You add new knowledge, you amend old knowledge.

If the world as a collective was to decide that this does, in fact, make us different from our past selves, that would have some effects alright.

It could be utilized and misutilized.

The judicial system, for example, would take a big hit. You can just claim to not be the same person that committed the crime and walk out. So smooth.

No one could be held to their words and actions. Good or Bad? That’s an ethics question for you right there!

Would we then resort back to agreeing that we are the same as our past selves (for the greater judicial good), and leave the justification of it, a haze? Isn't that what it is right now though?

Anyways, coming back to the point, do you even have a permanent identity?

But you know it, you’re not a different person, you’re the same you from before for as long as you can remember.

PHEW!

I would suggest, that your memories make you, but then again, memories fade, memories alter (yes)and you HAVE no memories from your early years. So many things.

So, nope.

Now is a good time to introduce a concept: Emergence.

Emergence is when something (ship) appears to have a property that its parts do not have on their own. In other words, it is the property of something that constitutes it as a coherent whole.

For example, people are made up of atoms. People can be referred to as alive or dead. But atoms cannot be referred to as alive or dead. Hence the attribute of being alive is something that can be assigned to atoms as a whole forming a person, giving it meaning.

Similarly, being a ship is an attribute assigned to the wood planks as a whole, it’s a concept made on an emergent level, but is the renewed ship made up with changing the parts one at a time the real ship of Theseus?

And, is the new you, you?

Well… it’s up to each of us to decide the way we want to talk and think about it, without the question bearing an explicit answer. Or at least… not yet.