WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Ship of Theseus 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.880 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:10.840 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In It's Saturday, 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:14.280 time for a vault episode. This classic episode of Stuff 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:18.400 to Blow Your Mind originally aired August one, and it's 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.080 our Ship of Theseus episode. Yeah, this one's This one 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:22.680 is a lot of fun, Like this one gets to 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:26.480 It's essentially grounded in a thought experiment, A very old 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:30.320 thought experiment, but one that remains interesting, especially when implied 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.560 when applied to things that that seemed hard to break 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:36.440 up into constituent parts like the like the self and 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.720 the mind. Yeah. Like here we are revisiting this episode. 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:42.400 Uh you know what A what a year down the line, 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:45.639 a little over a year having replaced parts of our 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:51.839 bodies being slightly different people as we unveil it once more. 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:56.520 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:05.280 Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.199 My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert, 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:10.320 I know you're not a big fan of air travel, 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:12.479 so I've got a I've got a question for you, 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.759 all right, if you wanted to go to, say somewhere 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:17.080 on the other side of the world. You wanted to 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:19.320 go to China or go to somewhere in Europe or something, 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.160 and you still hate air travel as much as you did, 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:26.160 And I offered you the chance to go there instantly 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:30.720 via a real life teleportation machine that would scan your 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.080 body and figure out where all the atoms are and 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:35.920 then rebuild you in a teleporter pod on the other 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.000 side of the globe wherever you wanted to go, and 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:40.840 you could be there instantly. Would you do it? Oh? 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:43.400 This is a fun one, right, because what happens to 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:45.600 my my old body is it just destroyed and it's 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:49.120 just incinerated on the spot. Well, in incinerated has such 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:53.160 negative vibes. I mean it's not incinerated, it is turned 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:57.400 into its atomic constituents, all right. And then I can't 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.200 just keep both though, I can't double sleep and have 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:02.400 have have one of me here in the States and 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:05.120 the end the other me is is in Asia somewhere. 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:06.720 I don't know. That seems like it would lead to 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:09.600 bad sci fi action movie scenarios where one of you 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.399 must eliminate the other on the commands of the moon King. Well, 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:17.280 you know, it's it's tempting still just to to cut 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:19.440 out all of that air travel, because air travel can 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:23.880 be taxing, it can be exhausting. Um and yet at 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:26.880 the same time, by virtue of being taxing and exhausting, 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.919 I'm never quite the same person when I reached the 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.960 other end of that flight, especially if it's a long flight, right, 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.640 because I may enter into the flight being like a 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:41.920 little anxious, but maybe on some level like looking you know, 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:44.440 looking forward to that you know, long period in which 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.000 I can just listen to music and read. And then 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:50.160 on the other side, then I am I'm potentially tired. 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.640 I'm potentially you know, blust out from you know Xenix 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:57.400 and Steve Roach albums, um, you know, three hours plus. 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:00.639 But I'm not quite the same person, right, I'm I've 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:03.000 changed a little bit, so I might as well be 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.520 this teleported other self. That is, that is a diversion 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:08.360 from who I am now. I don't know, when you 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:10.359 get to the end of a flight, even if it's 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:12.760 been unpleasant, do you really have the sensation that you 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:17.720 have died? Uh, it depends I guess how much turbulence 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:20.840 I have to endure. I mean, that's always the question 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.480 about the teleporter machine, right, I mean, it's the question 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.280 that everybody had to start wondering about Star Trek. I guess. 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.800 I guess there was probably a blissful period early in 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.560 Star Trek history where nobody wondered if the teleporter machines 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.760 killed you, But pretty soon people had to catch on, Right, 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:40.119 is it just is it just killing you and then 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.360 making a copy of you somewhere else that will continue 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:47.320 with your behaviors, but your life ends when you step in. Yeah, 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.920 And it's just everyone's gotten to the point where they're 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:51.520 cool with it. They just don't think about it. Then 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.840 they just step into the teleporter and let's suite annihilation 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:57.680 wash over them. I'm just I'm ready to die, make 0:03:57.720 --> 0:03:59.880 a copy of me somewhere. I don't know, it does 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:01.960 seemed like people would be like that. I mean, most 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:06.040 of the time, people have the sensation that their experiences 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:10.360 are continuous and they want it to continue to be continuous. 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:13.000 I guess in track, as long as there's not an afterlife, 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.400 you're good, right, So just never know, it's just blind 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:17.760 leap of faith, right, And of course, I mean we have, 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:19.440 as we've talked about on the show before, we have 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:23.400 no idea how the say the baton of consciousness is 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.839 handed off from past self to present self, to future self, 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.400 and from one moment to the next. I mean, maybe 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:31.599 maybe it's the case that every time you go under 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.960 general anesthesia, you die, and then a different person wakes 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.320 up with all of your thoughts and memories. Maybe you 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.159 are the copy that woke up after the last time 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:42.560 you went under anesthesia. Maybe that happens every time you 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:45.080 fall asleep. You'd really have no way to know. Yeah, 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.560 that that is certainly a point when the curtain drops 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:51.640 and who who knows exactly what's going on with the set, right, 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:53.800 or at least what's going on with the set is 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.640 is very much an area of interest to uh, to 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:00.600 scientists who study consciousness. Now here's another question for you, Joe. 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:03.359 What if you were able to get ahold of a 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:07.279 time machine. I'm not talking some sort of a realistic, uh, 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.839 you know, time machine like we've talked about discussing, you know, 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.320 black holes and whatnot. I'm talking to a causality wrecking 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:19.800 Hollywood time machine, travel to the past machine, time cop 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:22.720 travel to the past machine. That is rough. So if 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.080 if I were to go back in time and meet 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.440 a younger me, is that younger me really me? Is 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.720 this to means? Because the younger means not physically identical 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.760 to me, it's mind and personality isn't identical to me. 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.159 So if if a Jean Claude van Damme were to 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.760 spin kick me into my past self, would I even 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:44.360 melt into a screaming pilot jelly? Well no, I don't 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:46.279 think so, because I don't think travel into the past 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.599 as possible. But even if it were possible, I assume 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:50.680 that if you went into the past, you would just 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:54.919 be like another person, like an identical twin, And identical 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:57.279 twins don't melt each other into jelly when they collide, 0:05:57.320 --> 0:05:59.440 at least at least as far as I know, I 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.719 don't know. We've never seen it happen. Now we have 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.280 a lot of wonderful of science fiction to utilize when 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:09.120 we we tackle these these questions of identity and self 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:12.800 and change, But they haven't always been around. In the 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.440 old days. You had to do depend on listen more 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:21.680 traditional stories uh and myths for your your thought experiments. 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.560 And in fact, one of the oldest thought experiments is 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:26.960 that we had that we have is uh is very 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.920 much in this vein the ship of theseus the ship 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:31.960 of theseus. Right. So this is one of the most 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.719 classic paradoxes in the history of philosophy. And it also 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:37.880 goes to a thing that I think, for some reason, 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:42.000 it seems the Greeks were particularly interested in, which was 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:46.280 the nature and identity of things? I mean, of course, 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:48.920 the nature and identity of things is always a topic 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:52.720 for philosophers to investigate, but the ancient Greek philosophers seemed 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:57.600 really concerned with what made a thing itself? What were 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.760 the properties or the essences of a thing that gave 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.800 it its identity? How did you know that you were 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.120 really Robert? How did you Robert know that you earned 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.440 that you had the merit of being called Robert? Why 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:13.200 why wasn't something else Robert? And so they had these 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:16.440 ideas of essences and forms and all this stuff is 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:20.520 deeply concerned with what makes something itself and when you 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.560 can call it what it is? You know, this makes 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:25.640 up an interesting side question here. Do you think of 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.560 yourself as Joe? That's a good question, and there are 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:30.080 actually a couple of ways to answer it. I mean, 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:34.040 I would say in when I step back and think 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:36.560 of myself, I do I guess I think of myself 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.160 as Joe, as a self. You know, there's some there's 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:41.680 some soul Joe out there that is the core of 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.040 who I think I am and my main qualities and 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:46.160 all that. And of course you're not always the best 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:48.760 judge of yourself, so other people could probably describe that 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:52.720 person better than I could. But there's there's another sense 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.119 of how you think of yourself in which I don't 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:57.520 think I think of myself as Joe moment to moment. 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:02.120 I think of myself as the most recent contents of 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:06.720 my consciousness. So I'm just a moment to moment. I'm 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.080 not Joe. Moment to moment, I am whatever I'm thinking about. 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:12.680 That's a good way of putting it. Well. When I 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.600 try and answer the question myself, I think, well, I'm not. 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:17.280 I don't only think of myself as Robert. I think 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.080 of myself kind of as the me. You know, I'm 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:23.720 just I'm just this I in in a given scenario. 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.120 Unless I am like you're you're saying essentially becoming the 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:29.680 thoughts that I am having. And then I'm even further 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.400 away from this. When I when I'm forced to think 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:35.920 of myself as Robert, it is because Uh, the external 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.960 world is is making me do it, because that is 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.160 what they call me, and that is what I continue 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.560 to be called because I just, I guess, don't feel 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.319 passionately enough about it to change it. Well, one of 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:48.400 the reasons we wanted to talk about the idea of 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.440 identity in the Ship of Theseus is that the external 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.400 world is increasingly going to be forcing us to think 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:58.080 about questions like this because of new technological capabilities that 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:01.320 are coming online. So this has yet another conversation that 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:03.920 we're having, sort of in the wake of a conversation 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:05.400 you saw in New York this year at the World 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.320 Science Festival. But this is a great topic that's worth 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:10.600 exploring from the bottom up. So I say we go 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.360 all the way back to Theseus and then work our 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:16.800 way to the technological and scientific questions. All right, well, 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:20.079 let's start with theseus. Then, who was a gimme Theseus? 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.640 He's essentially the flash Gordon of mythology. You know, he's 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:27.040 always the most important, but the least interesting character in 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.880 a given story. That's my initial response anyway. But he 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:34.560 also went into the maze and fought the minotaur. Right, yeah, 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.120 not only thought the menotor, but but what is he 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:41.559 is the slayer of the minotaur, solver of the Manillan 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.960 maze as well. Solver. That's the corporate speak idea, right, 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.200 he didn't slay the minotaur. He solved that problem, right, 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.680 He was able to execute on on his strategy. Yes, 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:53.520 but then he also escaped from the maze right by 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:57.120 by virtue of string if I remember, Oh, that's right. Yeah, 0:09:57.240 --> 0:09:59.120 that's a good part, because it's one thing to kill 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:01.240 the minotaur. I mean, that's pretty impressive in on itself, 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:02.720 but you still have to find your way out of 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:06.320 the Manoan maze. How many minimally counterintuitive elements does the 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:08.480 story of theseus and the minotaur have? Well, we have 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:11.000 the minotaur for starters? Is that it is that the 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:15.400 only part? Well the maze I suppose I suppose there 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:17.400 could be a real maze or is there something magic 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.319 about the maze? Well, that's kind of the if I'm 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:24.400 remembering correctly from past episode on on mazes and labyrinths 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:26.760 um one of the things about the maze is that 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.360 depends on depends on which telling you're looking at. If 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:32.360 you go back far enough, it's less of a maze. 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:35.720 It could be something else, something less extravagant. But as 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:41.040 the tradition builds, the maze becomes this, this fabulous, fabulous 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:45.960 dungeons and dragons dungeon scenario, you know, which I love. 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.760 But but I guess that's always something to keep in 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:51.800 mind with with these tales, is this not it fits 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:55.680 in with what we're talking about here today. Mythological story 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.719 is not this one thing that hasn't passed on. It 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:00.480 is a thing that is built upon on a thing 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.440 that changes over time. Ah well, well, that brings us 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:06.280 to the central concept, right the ship of Theseus, so 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.480 to quote from Plutarch in his his Lives, he wrote 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:13.880 you about the lives of illustrious men, And so Plutarch wrote, quote, 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.840 the ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned, 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:21.720 had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:25.240 even to the time of Demetrius. Hilarious, for they took 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.600 away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:32.360 and stronger timber in their place. Insomuch that this ship 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:36.240 became a standing example among the philosophers for the logical 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:40.160 questions of things that grow. One side holding that the 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:43.400 ship remained the same and the other contending that it 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:47.240 was not the same. So there's your classic dilemma on 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:50.480 the Ship of Theseus. They have a ship. The ship, 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.680 of course, like all ships, rots and falls away over time, 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:55.840 so you've got to replace parts of it. Now, if 0:11:55.880 --> 0:12:00.000 you maintain this ship for so long that you've eventually 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:04.559 replaced every original board in the ship and no original 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.960 parts remain, is it the same ship? Is it still 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:11.720 the Ship of Theseus? Or has it become something else? Yeah, 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:15.400 the hokey version of this is, or the hokey variant 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:19.080 is is Grandfather's Acts, which imagine a number of our 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.800 listeners have heard as well, why is this hokey? It's 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:23.760 just it's like it only has two parts to it, Like, 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.480 there's so the Grandfather's Acts as the idea. Hey, here's 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:30.120 Grandfather's Acts. But the handle rotted away. We had to 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:32.160 replace that, and then also the blade brokes we had 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.360 to replace that. Both parts of this two part tool 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:40.040 have been replaced. How can it possibly be Grandfather's Acts? Well, actually, 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:42.560 don't think that's a hokey example, because I think that 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:45.520 kind of thing really comes through when when you think 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:49.520 about say, artifacts in the museum, A lot of historical 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:52.520 artifacts in a museum are not going to be exactly 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:57.360 the same material constituents as when the artifact was first forged, 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.760 or especially a lot of like things that are not 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.280 so much an artifact you can pick up in your hand, 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.720 but like buildings and installations, a lot of these things 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.240 have been restored long ago in history. So you might 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:13.240 see a thing in a museum that at some point 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.960 somebody replaced parts of long ago. So are you seeing 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:20.559 the real original thing? Yeah? You know, this makes me 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.480 think of the Parthenon, which of course is in ruins 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.719 and has been in ruins for a little while. Now 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:28.480 should we rebuild it exactly? But if you rebuild it, 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.120 then yes, you make it look like the thing that 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.080 once was. But then, like you think, the thing that 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:36.719 wants to think that think, and then you have to 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:39.640 choose which era you want to recreate. You know, there's 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:44.000 certain eras that they're certainly not talking about recreating. But 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.160 but then, yeah, once you've restored it, then you also 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.800 lose the the iconic ruins that exist today that then 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.440 in that in a way are more i guess you 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:56.680 could say, honest reminder of what was there before. Well, 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:58.880 in a way also the ruins are part of what 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:01.600 the Parthenon is is. I mean, the Parthenon is a 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.480 thing that exists over time, and if you take away 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:08.000 the ruins, you have in a way destroyed the Parthenon, 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.679 even if you take them away to rebuild it. I 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:12.439 think of that. It makes me think of the Colossi 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:15.920 of Memnon. We discuss which to remind everybody, these were 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:19.920 These were a pair of of ancient coloss i. One 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.320 of them fell over in ancient times. But then what's 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:26.760 also restored poorly in ancient times? Uh so what do 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:28.800 you do? Do you get up you decide one day 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:31.640 that you're just gonna restore them both to how they 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.120 may have once looked? Do you restore them both to 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:35.920 the ruins? I mean there are these are all a 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.120 part of the essentially the life cycle of these statues 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:41.840 over time. Yeah, so this question is actually meaningful. If 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.680 you want people to be able to experience history, what 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:49.080 is the thing that gives them the most authentic experience 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.720 of history? Is it the decayed version as it stands 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:55.200 or is it a restored version? And the same thing 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:56.800 is true of the ship. If you want people to 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.640 be able to see the ship of theseus because it 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.400 has this great historical significance. Do you replace the rotting 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:05.720 parts or do you just let it rot? And if 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.760 you just let it rot, does it eventually disappear? Of 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:10.760 course it does. I think that's one of the reasons 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:14.240 I like the Ship of Theseus more than I care 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:17.240 for a grandfather's acts, because it's more gradual. There's so 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:19.920 many more parts involved. There's more of a question of 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:24.160 at what point, uh, you know, is it more new 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:27.120 than old? At which point in this gradual process does 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:29.480 its lot? Does it lose its identity? Yeah? I see 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:31.880 what you're saying. It's sort of incorporates the paradox of 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.800 the heap into the question of whether a thing that 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.680 is replaced in the same way as the original thing, 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:42.600 because you're you're you're asking is there a transition point? 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:45.240 At what point is you know, if fifty percent of 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:47.880 the mass of the ship has been replaced, now, is 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.040 it no longer the Ship of Theseus? Like it's a 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.120 dollar bill, you know, do you have more than half 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:54.720 of it to have it be worth a dollar? Yeah? 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:57.280 Like this this comes up some more scenario comes up 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.440 when we start thinking about species and does speed ceation? 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:04.640 At what point does this cease to be one species 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:07.680 and truly become a different species. Well, this just highlights 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:10.360 the idea, the fact that species is sort of an 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:15.040 artificial distinction. I mean, it has some utility for biologists, 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.080 but it's a species, not a thing you find in nature. 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:22.120 It's just sort of a useful concept, a useful concept 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:26.720 to describe something that is an ongoing process, which you know. Ultimately, 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:28.480 one of the questions who are asking here today is 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:31.200 to what extent can the same be said about identity? Now, 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.720 of course, lots of philosophers have explored the idea of 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.520 the ship of theseus. You know, philosophers get real worked 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:40.160 up about whether something is what it is. So Plato's 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.920 Cradlest Dialogue in some ways deals with this concept um 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:46.800 and Thomas Hobbes dealt with it too, right, that's right 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:51.040 English philosopher Thomas Hobbs, who have fifteen eight through sixteen 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:54.640 seventy nine. He added another and in my opinion, very 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.800 fun level of complexity to this thought experiment. He said, 0:16:57.800 --> 0:16:59.680 what if you not only gradually replaced all of the 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:01.880 part of the ship of theseus, but what if you 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.760 also took all of those old parts and use them 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:09.200 to assemble an identical boat. So you took the rotting timber, 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:11.960 you replaced that with goodwood, and then you took the 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:14.960 rotting timber and made a new boat out of it. Right, 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:17.800 And at this point, which is the real ship? Now 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:21.800 one is remodeled, though other is reassembled. They're both the 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.240 same same ship, and yet clearly they are not the 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.520 same ship. That is a good variation. I've also heard 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:30.399 a variation of this where you like gradually steal some 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.480 sort of masterpiece a piece at a time and replace it. 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.520 So if you were just wanted to steal, to say, 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:39.720 the ship of Theseus from a museum, and you still 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.080 it piece by piece, you know, swapping out for a 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:46.119 counterfeit piece, then do you ultimately do what do you have? 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:49.439 Did you actually steal the whole ship or and replace 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:51.840 it with a counterfeit or is that still the ship 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.480 in there? I just got an awesome idea for yet 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.760 another remake of the Thomas Crown affair. They steal the 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:01.040 painting one centimeter at a time with razor lads. Yeah. Now, 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:03.000 and and you know another detail that's often thrown in 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.639 as did theseus ever actually stand foot on this ship? 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.159 That ends up playing into the identity of it. But 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:13.080 back to Thomas hop so yeah, he's he's saying, you 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:14.520 know what, have you took the old pieces and you 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:18.160 just reconstructed the ship. But if you you could take 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:21.520 that principle and extend it to other scenarios, less less 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:24.399 contrived ones. Yeah, yeah, I mean he he ends up 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:26.480 pondering this a bit more too. He says, wouldn't this 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:29.320 also mean that nothing can be the same? A man 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:31.960 standing would not be the same as he was when 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:34.400 he was sitting. Water in a vessel would be another 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:36.320 example of this. It's in the vessel and then you 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:39.040 pour it out. I mean, clearly it's the same water 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:42.920 or is it the same water? Based on on this question, 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:47.520 he says, quote, wherefore, the beginnings of individualization is not 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.840 always to be taken either from matter alone or from 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:54.320 form alone. And all this gets down to is this 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:57.919 idea of identity over time as opposed to identity in 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:01.120 a single moment, you know, whatever a single moment is. 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:04.280 And there's a lot of philosophical thought on this topic, 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.720 more than we can possibly summarize in this episode. Well, yeah, 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.480 but I do think it's worth exploring the idea of 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:15.520 thinking about um maybe there. Maybe what these paradoxes are doing, 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.840 like the ship of theseus and Grandfather's acts and the 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:23.280 water in a vessel, is highlighting some fundamental flaw in 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:27.359 our metaphysics. It's showing you, hey, you're generating paradox is 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:31.040 because there's something wrong with the way you categorize things 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:33.000 in the world. It's the same way you might know 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.800 there's something wrong with your physics theory if it's requiring 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:39.040 you to divide by zero or something. You know, something 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:41.520 went wrong somewhere along here. Well, it really feels more 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:45.600 and more like it's a situation where our metaphysics is 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:49.119 largely about figuring out real time events, like you know, 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:52.720 the soldier is running at me, what should I do 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:56.760 to avoid him? But then we we end up extrapolating 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:00.159 that via mental time travel and memory. We're taking it 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:02.320 into the future. We're taking it into the past, and 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:05.800 we're considering knees and hiss and situations that are not 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.560 identical to the present. That's a great point. But more 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:10.199 than that, what would it mean for a thing to 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:13.040 be identical to the present? I mean, is there such 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:16.760 a thing as an identical moment to the president or 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.560 the identity of a thing. Even so, I want to 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:22.320 talk about a cool article I saw. This was published 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:26.080 in aon magazine in November seventeen by Kelso vay Era, 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:29.439 and it's called which is more fundamental processes or Things? 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.280 And it's just a quick, nice little explainer on the 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:36.960 difference between what's known as substance metaphysics and process metaphysics. 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.080 Now metaphysics. Of course, it's just our attempt to understand 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:43.480 the most basic level of reality or existence. It's the 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:47.600 set of principles that's underneath physics. So physics, for example, 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:49.200 might be able to tell to you that a thing 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:51.920 is a certain mass and a certain velocity and so forth. 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:54.840 Metaphysics might ask what does it mean for a thing 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:57.520 to exist? Or what does it mean to have a 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:02.360 property like mass or velocity? What are properties? And so 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:06.600 to quote from Vora's article, quote, Western metaphysics tends to 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:10.600 rely on the paradigm of substances. We often see the 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:14.560 world as a world of things, composed of atomic molecules, 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:20.120 natural kinds, galaxies. Objects are the paradigmatic mode of existence, 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:24.119 the basic building blocks of the universe. What exists exists 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:27.280 as an object, That is to say, things are of 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:31.120 a certain kind, They have some specific qualities and well 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:35.200 defined spatial and temporal limits. And so you might use 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:39.120 the example of like a cat, your cat, Robert, Now, 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:41.720 your cat has existed for a certain amount of time. 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:45.000 It has certain features that you can list that describe 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:47.199 it physically, the color of its fur, the color of 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:49.760 its eyes. I don't know how much it likes to 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:52.280 jump up on the counter, how much it obeys you 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:54.240 when you tell you to do something. I don't know 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:56.240 how much cats ever do that. That's probably not part 0:21:56.240 --> 0:22:00.240 of cat identity. Yeah, she's not much for obeying. But 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:04.840 ve Era argues that perhaps substance metaphysics is just not 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:07.320 the best way of thinking about the world, and it 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:10.560 actually leads to confusion and paradox And so he gives 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:13.159 this example of the question of the you know, you know, 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:15.399 the classic do you see this glass of water is 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:18.480 half empty or half full? But about that glass of water, 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:22.359 Veera writes, quote, but what if the isolated frame a 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:26.919 glass of water fails to give the relevant information? Anyone 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:30.000 would prefer an emptier glass that is getting full to 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:34.400 a fuller one getting empty. Any analysis lacking information about 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:38.760 change misses the point which is just what substance metaphysics 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:42.800 is missing. So he articulates the view of process philosophers, 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:46.240 people who believe that the fundamental constituents of reality are 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:50.880 not things but processes. It's not that a thing exists, 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:54.440 it's that a process is in a particular state at 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:58.240 a particular time. As the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead put it, 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:00.080 we should think of the world as a collect s 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:04.480 of occurrences instead of things. And this resonates with me 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:07.680 a lot. I actually think about this view fairly often, 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:11.200 especially when I'm reading about fundamental physics. But speaking of 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:13.400 the Greeks that I mean this also has a there's 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:15.080 a long tradition of this kind of thought. If you 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:18.000 go back to hero Clydas, who propounded the principle of 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:21.439 panta ray. Everything flows. Existence in a way is like 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:23.800 a river, and you can't step into the same river 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:27.080 twice for multiple reasons, not just because the water of 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:30.679 the river has flown past and and changed, but because 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:33.520 you've changed when you step into the river again. And 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:36.040 I think the important thing about this thing about process 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:39.320 metaphysics is that this doesn't have to change anything about 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:42.040 our understanding of the physical laws of nature, and as 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:44.960 far as far as I can tell, it's totally compatible 0:23:45.000 --> 0:23:47.840 with them, and some would actually say more compatible with them. 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:51.159 It's also certainly more in keeping with our understanding of biology, 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:54.479 which tells us that they're not actually fixed kinds of 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:58.480 animals or plants or bacteria, but there's instead this process 0:23:58.520 --> 0:24:02.520 of change over time, and that the change produces frequencies 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:06.880 of different alleles as its cycles through ever changing states. Yeah, 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:08.800 and then of course you also think about the various 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:12.919 chemical reactions that are are necessary, the various um, you know, 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:16.480 all the things that that that affect our mind stated 0:24:16.520 --> 0:24:18.880 even any given point of the day, you know, when 0:24:18.880 --> 0:24:21.920 we try and decide who we are, or essentially trying 0:24:21.920 --> 0:24:25.040 to like pick out what is the ideal version of 0:24:25.080 --> 0:24:28.600 me that they manifest at any given point in the 0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:32.560 you know, the currently or in the near future or 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:35.040 the near past. Is it the you know, is it 0:24:35.119 --> 0:24:37.760 the I haven't finished my second drink or I'm on 0:24:37.840 --> 0:24:41.080 my second cup of coffee? You know me that that's 0:24:41.160 --> 0:24:43.080 that's the only version that I'm going to account that 0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:45.919 I'm going to count. What's the platonic form of Robert? 0:24:46.000 --> 0:24:48.920 You're trying to seek out some ideal form of yourself 0:24:48.960 --> 0:24:52.439 that you've created as an abstraction that doesn't actually match 0:24:52.520 --> 0:24:54.960 who you are or what you're doing at any given 0:24:54.960 --> 0:24:58.439 moment in time. In fact, try to think of an 0:24:58.480 --> 0:25:01.800 object that you can identify that has an identity that 0:25:02.000 --> 0:25:06.480 does not fundamentally change its former nature over time. A 0:25:06.640 --> 0:25:09.160 seed turns into a sapling, and then into a tree, 0:25:09.200 --> 0:25:11.120 and then it dies, and then it rots and goes 0:25:11.160 --> 0:25:12.800 into the ground. And this is the case of every 0:25:12.800 --> 0:25:14.960 biological thing you can think of. But then, of course, 0:25:15.640 --> 0:25:20.520 on a longer time scale, other things are like that, stars, asteroids, planets, 0:25:21.160 --> 0:25:24.440 black holes. You know, things change over time. Even even 0:25:24.480 --> 0:25:27.800 black holes evaporate over time. You've got hawking radiation. Well, 0:25:27.920 --> 0:25:30.480 just I think too about the very stones that we 0:25:30.520 --> 0:25:32.919 build our monuments and our grave stones out off. We 0:25:33.000 --> 0:25:36.960 build things out of stone because it makes them more permanent. 0:25:37.520 --> 0:25:40.200 You know that that that it will live on after 0:25:40.240 --> 0:25:44.160 we're gone. And that's true. These things tend to exist 0:25:44.280 --> 0:25:48.000 on a scale that goes beyond the limits of of 0:25:48.000 --> 0:25:51.560 our biology, of pure mortal existence. And yet at the 0:25:51.600 --> 0:25:54.360 same time we change the stone to make it into 0:25:54.359 --> 0:25:58.200 the graves gravestone, and any walk through the cemetery will 0:25:58.240 --> 0:26:03.440 remind you that these things to fade uh and and 0:26:03.440 --> 0:26:07.160 and are eroded or are shattered when when tree limbs 0:26:07.160 --> 0:26:12.119 fall upon them. Uh so yeah, everything spoiler, everything changes. 0:26:12.440 --> 0:26:15.359 It's great to walk backwards through time in a cemetery, 0:26:15.400 --> 0:26:18.760 to start with the fresher graves that have the pristine stones, 0:26:18.840 --> 0:26:20.919 and then walk back through time to the older and 0:26:20.960 --> 0:26:24.640 older graves, which often they tend to just disappear into 0:26:24.680 --> 0:26:26.880 the ground. They turn into nubs. You can't read what's 0:26:26.880 --> 0:26:29.080 on them anymore. There there there will maybe be just 0:26:29.160 --> 0:26:31.760 a kind of rock marker and that's it. Yeah. And 0:26:31.800 --> 0:26:33.960 then the sun starts going down and the ghouls come, 0:26:34.000 --> 0:26:36.040 and then you realize you've really been wandering in the 0:26:36.040 --> 0:26:38.840 graveyard too long and you have changed into a delicious meal. 0:26:39.880 --> 0:26:43.240 Uh No, I guess the ghouls prefer grave flesh, don't 0:26:43.240 --> 0:26:46.080 they do? They eat live people, you know, it depends 0:26:46.080 --> 0:26:50.200 on the interpretation, but the stories I like, I think 0:26:50.200 --> 0:26:52.320 the ghouls will go for a live meal if they 0:26:52.320 --> 0:26:54.439 can get it, you know, especially if it's somebody that 0:26:54.480 --> 0:26:58.119 has become lost in the cemetery. And uh and the 0:26:58.160 --> 0:27:00.359 sun is setting. It's like the kid who per furs 0:27:00.480 --> 0:27:04.560 chicken McNuggets but will if they're forced to eat a delicious, 0:27:04.560 --> 0:27:06.679 fresh cooked me a lot of produce and all that. 0:27:08.480 --> 0:27:09.840 But yeah, so I was trying to think of an 0:27:09.840 --> 0:27:13.280 example of a counter example, right, is there something that 0:27:13.359 --> 0:27:15.960 doesn't change over time? And I was like, well, you know, 0:27:16.080 --> 0:27:19.679 you've got maybe fundamental elementary particles. They don't really they 0:27:19.680 --> 0:27:23.720 don't have characteristics, they're all identical, they're interchangeable. Maybe they 0:27:23.760 --> 0:27:26.640 don't change over time. But thinking back to the entire 0:27:26.720 --> 0:27:29.040 history of the universe, that's not actually true. Like during 0:27:29.080 --> 0:27:32.959 the Plank Epoch at the beginning of time, as far 0:27:33.000 --> 0:27:35.760 as we know in the local universe, quarks and electrons 0:27:35.800 --> 0:27:38.639 hadn't been formed yet. This is a time of hot 0:27:38.680 --> 0:27:42.120 condensed energy when we did not have quarks, and then 0:27:42.200 --> 0:27:44.400 later you get quark glue on plasma and all that. 0:27:44.440 --> 0:27:47.080 But so, I don't know, I don't know if you 0:27:47.119 --> 0:27:50.040 can actually think of a thing that is an object 0:27:50.359 --> 0:27:53.600 that has never changed and will never change. Even in 0:27:53.680 --> 0:27:56.920 mythology and religion, you're often hard pressed to find that 0:27:57.040 --> 0:28:00.359 one constant that doesn't change. I think probably, I guess 0:28:00.320 --> 0:28:03.800 if you if you look at you know, Monotheistic Judeo 0:28:03.880 --> 0:28:08.840 christian Um and Islamic interpretations of God. Then you have 0:28:08.920 --> 0:28:12.640 something that is supposedly unchanging over time from the very 0:28:12.640 --> 0:28:15.560 beginning to the very end. But in it's like most 0:28:15.560 --> 0:28:19.959 other religions and cosmologies. You know, God's beget begot, God's 0:28:20.119 --> 0:28:24.320 and and then they all have these essentially life cycles 0:28:24.320 --> 0:28:26.879 that they're going through. Well, I would say even the 0:28:26.920 --> 0:28:30.800 fact that monotheistic gods enter into narratives makes them not 0:28:30.920 --> 0:28:34.240 exactly unchanging. You can't tell a narrative about something that 0:28:34.280 --> 0:28:36.679 doesn't change. If it enters into a new covenant with 0:28:37.280 --> 0:28:41.080 with humanity, then that's hopefully a change. Hopefully there was 0:28:41.160 --> 0:28:43.760 some change in uh, in attitude there that we can 0:28:44.000 --> 0:28:46.280 view as positive. I'm sure there are a million ways 0:28:46.280 --> 0:28:49.240 of splitting that theological hair, but uh, but anyway to 0:28:49.240 --> 0:28:52.720 come back to the idea of process philosophy, process metaphysics, 0:28:52.720 --> 0:28:55.120 thinking of things not as objects. This is not a 0:28:55.160 --> 0:28:58.640 world of things, but a world of processes going through changes. 0:28:59.080 --> 0:29:01.160 How how should this change the way we think about 0:29:01.160 --> 0:29:05.240 the ship of theseus, so Vieira writes. To explain why 0:29:05.280 --> 0:29:09.160 things change without losing their identity substance, philosophers need deposit 0:29:09.240 --> 0:29:13.479 some underlying core, an essence that remains the same throughout change. 0:29:13.840 --> 0:29:16.080 It is not easy to pin down what this core 0:29:16.160 --> 0:29:19.640 might be. As the paradox of theseus ship illustrates, and 0:29:19.680 --> 0:29:22.160 then he explains the ship as we already have. But 0:29:22.200 --> 0:29:25.520 he writes, is this the same ship even though materially 0:29:25.560 --> 0:29:28.680 it is completely different? For substance philosophers, this is something 0:29:28.680 --> 0:29:32.560 of a paradox. For process philosophers, this is a necessary 0:29:32.680 --> 0:29:35.640 part of identity. Of course, it is the same ship. 0:29:35.920 --> 0:29:39.080 Identity ceases to be a static equivalence of a thing 0:29:39.200 --> 0:29:42.840 with itself. After all, without the repairs, the ship would 0:29:42.840 --> 0:29:45.520 have lost its functionality. It would have become a ruin 0:29:45.800 --> 0:29:48.720 or a shipwreck. Well, it just wouldn't be a ship anymore. Yeah, 0:29:49.080 --> 0:29:52.120 uh so Yeah, ships change, parts get replaced, and that's 0:29:52.200 --> 0:29:54.400 part of the process of the ship. There is no 0:29:54.640 --> 0:29:58.440 thing ship. Ship is. A ship is an ongoing process 0:29:58.480 --> 0:30:02.120 of change, just like you and me are. And Naviera 0:30:02.400 --> 0:30:06.000 defends against the idea that processes are just transitions between 0:30:06.040 --> 0:30:09.440 different fundamental substance realities by pointing out one thing we 0:30:09.560 --> 0:30:11.840 mentioned a little bit earlier than the paradox of the heap. 0:30:12.280 --> 0:30:14.200 Uh if you've never read about this before, the paradox 0:30:14.240 --> 0:30:15.960 of the heap basically says, okay, you've got a heap 0:30:16.000 --> 0:30:19.440 of sand. Now you remove one grain of sand at 0:30:19.440 --> 0:30:22.000 a time, and every time you remove a grain of sand, 0:30:22.120 --> 0:30:25.240 you ask is it still a heap of sand? And 0:30:25.480 --> 0:30:27.720 at some point you will only have one grain of 0:30:27.760 --> 0:30:30.720 sand left. That's obviously not a heap. But you can't 0:30:30.800 --> 0:30:33.680 point to a moment where suddenly the heap was not 0:30:33.800 --> 0:30:37.600 a heap anymore. The same thing happens with biological entities 0:30:37.600 --> 0:30:40.280 and evolution. One of the great images that are Richard 0:30:40.320 --> 0:30:43.640 Dawkins is used in explaining the history of an organism 0:30:43.720 --> 0:30:48.080 is try to imagine your ancestors going all the way 0:30:48.080 --> 0:30:52.000 back down the generations, where you hold hands with your mother, 0:30:52.520 --> 0:30:54.760 and then your mother holds hands with her mother, and 0:30:54.800 --> 0:30:58.160 it goes back like that forever. At what point, where 0:30:58.160 --> 0:31:01.320 will you find the moment where mother gave birth to 0:31:02.080 --> 0:31:04.960 a daughter of a different species than her. It will 0:31:05.000 --> 0:31:08.280 never happen every At every point, the mother was giving 0:31:08.320 --> 0:31:11.000 birth to something that was pretty much the same animal 0:31:11.080 --> 0:31:14.479 she was. But these changes accumulate over time, and you 0:31:14.560 --> 0:31:17.280 can't if you zoom in, you'll never see the change. 0:31:17.560 --> 0:31:20.280 I mean, at some point, the thumb is no longer opposable. 0:31:20.320 --> 0:31:22.280 I guess that that might play a role. Well, but 0:31:22.320 --> 0:31:24.880 it's not going to be a transition from opposable to 0:31:24.920 --> 0:31:29.600 not opposable. It'll be it'll be a gradual transition. That's 0:31:29.680 --> 0:31:33.000 something that maybe is not even noticeably less opposable, but 0:31:33.080 --> 0:31:35.800 does just slightly less and eventually it just becomes a 0:31:35.800 --> 0:31:39.440 fist bump. Oh, there you go. Can't hold hands anymore, 0:31:39.520 --> 0:31:41.280 You just fist bumping mom all the way back to 0:31:41.360 --> 0:31:44.000 the protozoa. But that can't be right, right, because the 0:31:44.040 --> 0:31:46.040 fist bump is the thing you arrive at, not a 0:31:46.080 --> 0:31:49.400 thing you came from. Fist bump is the future. But well, 0:31:49.400 --> 0:31:51.240 but who's to say. Who's to say that the fist 0:31:51.240 --> 0:31:57.280 bump wasn't the predominant mode of greeting in among archaic humans. 0:31:57.360 --> 0:31:59.920 They might have even done the explosion, who knows, Yeah, 0:32:00.360 --> 0:32:02.280 or the snail. That's what all those hands on the 0:32:02.320 --> 0:32:07.240 cave walls are the explosion. Alright, On that note, we're 0:32:07.240 --> 0:32:09.160 going to take a quick break. But when we come back, 0:32:09.520 --> 0:32:14.520 we will summon the swampman. Than all right, we're back. 0:32:15.120 --> 0:32:17.200 So we've been talking about the ship of DC. Is 0:32:17.320 --> 0:32:19.800 the question of what determines the identity of a thing. 0:32:19.880 --> 0:32:22.040 If you take a ship and you replace all of 0:32:22.080 --> 0:32:25.360 its parts over many years, is it still the same 0:32:25.360 --> 0:32:28.840 ship even if no original part of that ship remains. 0:32:29.440 --> 0:32:32.400 And one of the ways that this becomes actually relevant 0:32:32.440 --> 0:32:37.160 to the real world is when we start thinking about minds, right, 0:32:37.720 --> 0:32:41.040 because we have this thing we call experience, the experience 0:32:41.080 --> 0:32:45.200 of experience, and you have the sensation that your experience 0:32:45.280 --> 0:32:47.440 is continuous, or at least I have that sensation. I 0:32:47.480 --> 0:32:50.120 assume everybody else does. Everybody else acts like they do, 0:32:50.560 --> 0:32:54.640 and like they want their experience to be a unified 0:32:54.920 --> 0:32:59.600 part of this continuous, ongoing thing that is identifiable as itself. 0:32:59.680 --> 0:33:02.600 You don't want to suddenly be somebody else who is 0:33:02.640 --> 0:33:06.840 no longer you. Those certainly people do have, and this 0:33:06.960 --> 0:33:09.640 becomes a question, like, to what extent do they legitimately 0:33:10.080 --> 0:33:12.800 have this moment of just profound change in their life, 0:33:13.280 --> 0:33:16.880 you know, at a moment of revelation or salvation, you know, 0:33:16.920 --> 0:33:19.440 a road to damask this kind of thing. To what 0:33:19.520 --> 0:33:21.360 extent is it a true change or is it a 0:33:22.200 --> 0:33:25.040 or are we like forcing the change upon ourselves. We're 0:33:25.080 --> 0:33:29.000 saying that we changed, but on on some other level, 0:33:29.040 --> 0:33:31.800 we're still thinking of ourselves as a continuous movement. Well, 0:33:32.120 --> 0:33:35.800 even then, people tend to put the value of their 0:33:35.920 --> 0:33:39.040 change in terms of themselves relative to who they used 0:33:39.040 --> 0:33:42.040 to be. So if you have had this road to 0:33:42.120 --> 0:33:44.560 Damascus moment where you know, I'm a different person now 0:33:44.600 --> 0:33:46.640 and I'm so glad I am, you tend to think 0:33:46.680 --> 0:33:49.720 of that as being valuable relative to whatever kind of 0:33:49.720 --> 0:33:52.440 creepy were before, right, I mean, any if you have 0:33:52.480 --> 0:33:55.040 a good redemption story, you've got to get into what 0:33:55.040 --> 0:33:58.360 what came first. Yeah. And also if every personal change 0:33:58.400 --> 0:34:00.920 or improvement for the better was like the Artrek teleporter 0:34:01.000 --> 0:34:03.200 that just kills you and makes a newer, better copy 0:34:03.240 --> 0:34:06.000 of you, would people really go for it? I don't know. Yeah, 0:34:06.080 --> 0:34:07.600 It's kind of like, you know, occasionally there'll be a 0:34:07.600 --> 0:34:10.760 story where somebody, like generally they've read a book or something, 0:34:10.760 --> 0:34:12.840 but they've made this phenomenal change that used to be 0:34:12.920 --> 0:34:15.360 a terrible person and now they're a good person, and 0:34:15.360 --> 0:34:18.120 they're out there preaching the word about how everyone should 0:34:18.120 --> 0:34:19.839 be a good person too. And it makes you think 0:34:20.080 --> 0:34:24.200 at times, well, I was never a terrible person. How come? 0:34:24.760 --> 0:34:28.239 How come Terry Gross isn't talking to me? You're the 0:34:28.280 --> 0:34:32.040 brother in the prodigal Son story exactly. I never This 0:34:32.080 --> 0:34:34.200 isn't fair. Yeah, I was good the whole time. Where's 0:34:34.239 --> 0:34:37.960 my uh, where's my celebration? Ain't that life where jealous 0:34:38.000 --> 0:34:41.120 creatures aren't? But anyway, so, yeah, we we need to 0:34:41.160 --> 0:34:43.920 talk about the swampman, Robers. We've put the swampman off 0:34:43.960 --> 0:34:47.640 for far too long. So the swampman is a variation 0:34:47.719 --> 0:34:51.680 on the ship of theseus idea applied to the human mind. 0:34:52.200 --> 0:34:55.040 And this is originally a concept that was introduced by 0:34:55.080 --> 0:34:59.480 the philosopher Donald Davidson in a presentation called Knowing One's 0:34:59.480 --> 0:35:03.040 Own Mind, originally, I think in the Proceedings and Addresses 0:35:03.080 --> 0:35:05.759 of the American Philosophical Association. The version I found was 0:35:05.840 --> 0:35:10.960 reprinted in the American Philosophical Association's Centennial series from but 0:35:11.000 --> 0:35:14.200 the original one was back in the eighties seven, and 0:35:14.320 --> 0:35:18.239 so Donald Davidson was raising this question, what is the 0:35:18.320 --> 0:35:22.240 relationship between the identity of a thing in the history 0:35:22.520 --> 0:35:25.200 of that thing. Are you ready to go to the swamp, Robert, 0:35:25.280 --> 0:35:29.040 let's to the swamp? Okay, Davidson says, suppose lightning strikes 0:35:29.080 --> 0:35:32.080 a dead tree in a swamp. I am standing nearby. 0:35:32.680 --> 0:35:36.440 My body is reduced to its elements, while entirely by 0:35:36.520 --> 0:35:40.680 coincidence and out of different molecules, the tree is turned 0:35:40.719 --> 0:35:46.000 into my physical replica. My replica, the swamp Man, moves 0:35:46.080 --> 0:35:49.320 exactly as I did, according to its nature. It departs 0:35:49.440 --> 0:35:53.320 the swamp encounters and seems to recognize my friends and 0:35:53.400 --> 0:35:56.600 appears to return their greetings in English. It moves into 0:35:56.680 --> 0:35:59.960 my house and seems to write articles on radical interpretation. 0:36:00.080 --> 0:36:03.040 And no one can tell the difference. But there is 0:36:03.120 --> 0:36:08.080 a difference. My replica can't recognize my friends. It can't 0:36:08.200 --> 0:36:12.720 recognize anything, since it never cognized anything in the first place. 0:36:13.320 --> 0:36:16.200 It can't know my friends names, though of course it 0:36:16.280 --> 0:36:20.560 seems to. It can't remember my house. It can't mean 0:36:20.719 --> 0:36:24.080 what I do by the word house, for example, since 0:36:24.160 --> 0:36:27.480 the sound house it makes was not learned in the 0:36:27.640 --> 0:36:30.439 context that would give it the right meaning, or any 0:36:30.520 --> 0:36:33.800 meaning at all. Indeed, I don't see how my replica 0:36:33.920 --> 0:36:36.960 can be said to mean anything by the sounds it makes, 0:36:37.400 --> 0:36:41.040 nor to have any thoughts. It's a nice creepy little tale. 0:36:41.239 --> 0:36:43.800 Uh that is summoning. Uh. You know memories of the 0:36:44.280 --> 0:36:47.279 philosophical zombies that we've discussed, the p zombies. Well, yeah, 0:36:47.360 --> 0:36:50.560 so it's the question with the p zombies is it's 0:36:50.600 --> 0:36:54.319 assumed in the P zombie thought experiment that that they 0:36:54.440 --> 0:36:57.160 behave exactly like humans, except they're not conscious. I guess 0:36:57.239 --> 0:37:02.719 Davidson's asking the question of can thing that behaves exactly 0:37:02.800 --> 0:37:08.080 like a normal person but has no prior experiences actually 0:37:08.200 --> 0:37:13.359 be having thoughts, actually be uh speaking meaningful sentences if 0:37:13.400 --> 0:37:17.239 it's just randomly producing phenomena identical to what a person 0:37:17.320 --> 0:37:20.080 would produce if they arrived at those behaviors by the 0:37:20.160 --> 0:37:22.440 normal means. And so to be clear, if we if 0:37:22.480 --> 0:37:24.400 we follow through with this, if we really imagine what 0:37:24.520 --> 0:37:27.040 he's saying, a perfect Adam for Adam copy of you 0:37:27.200 --> 0:37:32.080 would be externally indistinguishable from you, and would presumably behave 0:37:32.320 --> 0:37:35.440 exactly like the original you. There's nothing we know of 0:37:35.520 --> 0:37:38.320 that would make it behave differently, but it would not 0:37:38.600 --> 0:37:42.000 exist in a context in which its behavior would have 0:37:42.120 --> 0:37:45.759 any meaning. It might have a long heartfelt conversation with 0:37:45.840 --> 0:37:48.440 a close friend of yours, and it would behave exactly 0:37:48.560 --> 0:37:50.719 like you would and say the exact same things the 0:37:50.760 --> 0:37:54.200 original You would have said in that conversation, but it 0:37:54.320 --> 0:37:58.000 in fact would never have met this friend before. So 0:37:58.360 --> 0:38:01.760 does the swamp Creature. I have a relationship with your friend. 0:38:02.200 --> 0:38:05.160 Does the swamp creature know the friend? And for the 0:38:05.239 --> 0:38:08.840 same reason, does the swamp creature know anything? Now, I 0:38:08.880 --> 0:38:11.080 know we have some comic book fans out there who 0:38:11.200 --> 0:38:13.960 might think, hey, this sounds a little bit familiar, because 0:38:14.040 --> 0:38:18.040 this is exactly the way that Alec Holland becomes swamp 0:38:18.120 --> 0:38:22.600 Thing in Alan Moore's amazing run with the swamp Thing comic. 0:38:22.840 --> 0:38:26.400 Huh um. Actually went back and read this again. The 0:38:26.880 --> 0:38:31.640 very first issue, I guess you'd say this is is 0:38:31.719 --> 0:38:35.879 titled The Anatomy Lesson. It's from February. Yeah, I haven't 0:38:35.960 --> 0:38:39.239 read it. Actually, I feel bad because Christian once gave 0:38:39.320 --> 0:38:41.839 me a huge stack of comics to read that did 0:38:41.920 --> 0:38:44.160 include a run of Swamp Thing. I'm sure it was Moore's, 0:38:44.280 --> 0:38:46.680 but I never made it to that one though. I 0:38:46.719 --> 0:38:48.840 did read All Star Superman, which was great and I 0:38:48.880 --> 0:38:51.399 think sort of lightly brushed against some of the same 0:38:51.480 --> 0:38:54.480 philosophical questions about the identity of a person through time 0:38:54.560 --> 0:38:57.680 travel and all that. But I gotta read swamp Thing now. 0:38:58.040 --> 0:39:01.719 Oh yeah, it's it's It's definitely worth checking out. It's 0:39:01.760 --> 0:39:03.560 probably been a decade since I read All of it, 0:39:03.880 --> 0:39:06.080 but I did pick up the anatomy lesson and gave 0:39:06.120 --> 0:39:08.360 it another read, and it is indeed wonderful. This is 0:39:08.400 --> 0:39:10.719 the one that originally hooked me when I when I 0:39:10.800 --> 0:39:12.359 read it for the first time, and I wound up 0:39:12.400 --> 0:39:15.719 spending way too much money at the time on all 0:39:15.840 --> 0:39:19.000 of the Alan Moore swamp Thing books. Uh, none of 0:39:19.080 --> 0:39:22.719 them disappointed. But this first story is just perfect. It's 0:39:22.760 --> 0:39:26.040 a it's an intelligent little horror story that cast the very, 0:39:26.160 --> 0:39:28.520 the very identity of swamp thing in a new light. 0:39:29.080 --> 0:39:32.759 So he's not just Alc Holland, a man who is 0:39:32.880 --> 0:39:36.680 mutated into a plant man following a science lab explosion 0:39:36.719 --> 0:39:40.160 in the swamp. No is More describes it. The wonder 0:39:40.280 --> 0:39:44.320 chemical here transforms the plants, and when Holland's burnt corpse 0:39:44.400 --> 0:39:47.560 sinks into the swamp, the plants eat it and regrow 0:39:47.800 --> 0:39:52.040 a body that believes itself to be Alc Holland. So 0:39:52.120 --> 0:39:55.200 the organs don't work, the heart, lungs, brains, it's all 0:39:55.280 --> 0:39:58.600 just vegetable manner that has form but no function. But 0:39:58.719 --> 0:40:02.280 it believes it is Holland, and it is always believed 0:40:02.520 --> 0:40:04.960 that it is Holland. And this is the only thing 0:40:05.080 --> 0:40:08.640 that has kept the swamp Things saying this whole time. Well, 0:40:08.840 --> 0:40:14.080 so this Davidson presentation, I believe is from the first 0:40:14.120 --> 0:40:17.239 time he presented It was in seven, which is after this. 0:40:18.040 --> 0:40:20.520 So I think it would have to be that Davidson 0:40:20.640 --> 0:40:23.759 was inspired by swamp Thing and not the other way around. Yeah, 0:40:23.840 --> 0:40:25.480 I think it might be the case. I did just 0:40:25.520 --> 0:40:27.919 a little bit of research on this, and I could 0:40:27.960 --> 0:40:32.960 not find any definitive statements on inspiration here. But but 0:40:33.520 --> 0:40:35.320 it seems like that would be the case, and I 0:40:35.400 --> 0:40:37.439 think that's great. I suppose we can only wait until 0:40:37.480 --> 0:40:40.719 the leave extraordinary gentlemen show up in the philosophy journals. Now, well, 0:40:40.760 --> 0:40:43.920 I would actually love to see um swamp Thing and 0:40:44.120 --> 0:40:46.680 Swampman meet up. I think that sounds like exactly the 0:40:46.760 --> 0:40:49.080 kind of thing that Alan Moore could return to rite 0:40:49.080 --> 0:40:52.000 at some point. In fact, I'm a little surprised it 0:40:52.040 --> 0:40:57.920 didn't happen, except Swampman would be completely indistinguishable from Donald Davidson, right, 0:40:58.440 --> 0:41:02.080 so it would basically just be Donald Davidson meets swamp Thing, 0:41:02.239 --> 0:41:05.960 except it's not the original Donald Davidson. I mean, it's 0:41:06.000 --> 0:41:08.440 a weird thing to consider. I spend a while trying 0:41:08.520 --> 0:41:12.160 to This is one of those weird kind of thought 0:41:12.239 --> 0:41:15.239 experiments that pokes you and you have to sit there 0:41:15.280 --> 0:41:17.440 for a while thinking like, wait a minute, is this 0:41:18.080 --> 0:41:21.480 Is this truly illuminating or not? I mean, I was 0:41:21.560 --> 0:41:23.839 like trying to decide and I still don't think I've 0:41:23.880 --> 0:41:26.440 made up my mind. But it is strange. What does 0:41:26.480 --> 0:41:29.840 it mean to have a thought? Because we typically believe 0:41:29.880 --> 0:41:33.160 that a thought is about something, So say, for example, 0:41:33.480 --> 0:41:35.360 you have the thought I do not like the smell 0:41:35.440 --> 0:41:38.719 of hard boiled eggs. We consider it part of the 0:41:38.800 --> 0:41:41.680 definition of this thought that you're aware of the existence 0:41:41.760 --> 0:41:44.160 of hard boiled eggs and you have smelled them, or 0:41:44.160 --> 0:41:46.480 at least you think you have, and you do not 0:41:46.680 --> 0:41:49.200 like the smell. But if a being with an atom 0:41:49.239 --> 0:41:51.759 for adom replica of your brain has that thought and 0:41:51.920 --> 0:41:55.200 yet it has never smelled this smell, is it really 0:41:55.280 --> 0:41:58.320 having that thought? What is it doing with its brain? 0:41:59.200 --> 0:42:01.600 You know, it would not be forming that thought from 0:42:01.680 --> 0:42:05.480 information derived from sense experience. That thought when coming from 0:42:05.520 --> 0:42:08.080 a being that's never seen any evidence of the existence 0:42:08.160 --> 0:42:11.040 of hard boiled eggs, has never smelled them, hasn't ever 0:42:11.160 --> 0:42:13.920 learned the words hard boiled eggs or the words smell. 0:42:14.400 --> 0:42:18.319 The thought is just random behavior, no more significant than 0:42:18.440 --> 0:42:21.000 you know, a million pages of random numbers printed out 0:42:21.040 --> 0:42:22.839 on paper. Now at the same time that I can't 0:42:22.880 --> 0:42:25.320 help but think that, hey, I could develop a false 0:42:25.440 --> 0:42:28.520 memory of, say, eating a hard boiled ostrich egg, which 0:42:28.560 --> 0:42:31.000 I don't believe I have ever eaten. But if I but, 0:42:31.160 --> 0:42:34.560 I can easily imagine where I might tweak my memory 0:42:34.680 --> 0:42:37.880 into into thinking that I have. Likewise, what have I 0:42:37.960 --> 0:42:40.200 read a very convincing passage in a novel in which 0:42:40.239 --> 0:42:43.320 a character eats a hard boiled dragon egg. I have 0:42:43.480 --> 0:42:47.320 no actual sense experience of that happening, But if it 0:42:47.520 --> 0:42:50.000 was well written and had lots of detail and atmosphere, 0:42:50.040 --> 0:42:52.360 then I could I could very well in a sense 0:42:52.560 --> 0:42:55.840 experience it in my mind. I think it's fairly obvious 0:42:55.880 --> 0:42:58.520 that that we humans spend a great deal of time 0:42:58.560 --> 0:43:01.920 obsessing over memories that are at least flawed, even if 0:43:01.960 --> 0:43:04.200 we're lucky enough to be free of memories that are 0:43:04.239 --> 0:43:06.560 false entirely. And you're exactly right, I mean we have 0:43:06.680 --> 0:43:08.920 we have false memories all the time, but they arise 0:43:09.040 --> 0:43:12.600 within a context of semantics, right, I mean they arise 0:43:12.640 --> 0:43:16.000 in a world where you know that you exist and 0:43:16.080 --> 0:43:18.719 where words have meanings, and you've learned the meanings of 0:43:18.800 --> 0:43:21.320 words like egg and like smell, and you know that 0:43:21.440 --> 0:43:23.759 there is such a thing as smells. And I mean, 0:43:24.000 --> 0:43:28.360 there's an entire structure that makes that false memory possible 0:43:28.480 --> 0:43:30.960 and makes it feel meaningful. So, for instance, I I've 0:43:31.040 --> 0:43:33.160 had a hard boiled egg, I have seen an ostrich 0:43:33.560 --> 0:43:36.239 I've seen a picture of an ostrich egg. Yeah, I 0:43:36.360 --> 0:43:39.319 can therefore extrapolate what it would be to eat one 0:43:39.719 --> 0:43:43.919 and then have the fuel to to build that false memory. Yeah. 0:43:44.040 --> 0:43:46.760 Now imagine you have a brain that generates that memory, 0:43:46.880 --> 0:43:51.200 except it's never seen anything, and it's never learned any words, 0:43:51.360 --> 0:43:54.120 and it's never had any of this experience. It just 0:43:54.280 --> 0:43:57.040 happens to have the atomic structure of a brain that 0:43:57.160 --> 0:44:00.200 has had all those experiences, and thus it behaves the 0:44:00.280 --> 0:44:02.000 same way. It's like if I had to form a 0:44:02.040 --> 0:44:05.960 false memory of smoking a clues pats like what, I 0:44:06.080 --> 0:44:07.920 don't I don't know where I would begin to to 0:44:08.080 --> 0:44:11.280 assemble that memory exactly. So Yeah, that's what's at stake. 0:44:11.560 --> 0:44:14.279 So I I've I've struggled with this thought experiment because 0:44:14.320 --> 0:44:18.160 I don't know if it's if it's making me feel 0:44:18.239 --> 0:44:21.560 weird because it gets it something really fundamental, or because 0:44:21.600 --> 0:44:24.360 it's one of those confusion machines that just like takes 0:44:24.400 --> 0:44:27.319 our intuitions and churns up a bunch of confusion about 0:44:27.320 --> 0:44:29.440 stuff that doesn't really matter. Yeah, I don't know. I 0:44:29.760 --> 0:44:31.440 keep coming back to the idea that if swamp man 0:44:32.320 --> 0:44:36.200 or even swamp thing, remember like, if he has these 0:44:36.280 --> 0:44:40.640 memories of being this person, then yeah, those those those 0:44:40.719 --> 0:44:44.480 memories arise from those memories, have we have internal context. 0:44:45.080 --> 0:44:48.279 They're kind of like a software that that that that 0:44:48.480 --> 0:44:51.160 that that he's carrying around with him. Yeah, and even 0:44:51.239 --> 0:44:53.080 if he you know, even if it's just a copy 0:44:53.160 --> 0:44:55.319 of the original software, it's still the software. Well, it's 0:44:55.400 --> 0:44:58.200 kind of like if you imagined a software, a piece 0:44:58.239 --> 0:45:03.320 of software created by randomly generating characters to create lines 0:45:03.360 --> 0:45:06.719 of code that would execute eventually, and so at some 0:45:06.920 --> 0:45:09.840 point you could randomly create a piece of software that 0:45:09.960 --> 0:45:13.279 does things. Could you call that software? Could you say 0:45:13.320 --> 0:45:15.719 that it has a purpose, Could you say that it 0:45:15.880 --> 0:45:19.680 has functions? Could you say that it uh that it executes? 0:45:19.760 --> 0:45:22.480 I mean, obviously we don't think software is conscious. I 0:45:22.520 --> 0:45:25.800 guess the question of whether the swampman would be conscious 0:45:25.880 --> 0:45:27.760 is a different kind of thing. Well, if if Swamman 0:45:27.880 --> 0:45:30.960 goes home and and then and says hi to to 0:45:31.120 --> 0:45:35.040 these friends, I feel like he's he's as human as 0:45:35.040 --> 0:45:38.480 anybody else. Really, I think that would be Daniel Dennett's take. 0:45:38.920 --> 0:45:42.719 So Dinnett has addressed the challenges and usefulness of this 0:45:42.800 --> 0:45:45.920 thought experiment about Swampman, despite how popular it's been. Davidson 0:45:46.040 --> 0:45:48.600 first offered it, I think in eight seven, and uh 0:45:49.040 --> 0:45:50.719 though a lot of people have picked up on it 0:45:50.840 --> 0:45:53.440 since then. Davidson apparently told Dnnett at some point that 0:45:53.520 --> 0:45:56.520 he regretted introducing it because he believed it caused a 0:45:56.600 --> 0:46:00.160 lot of unenlightening back and forth without proving much. So 0:46:00.280 --> 0:46:02.840 then it's got a critique of this thought experiment. He says, 0:46:03.719 --> 0:46:05.719 You know, a lot of thought experiments basically try to 0:46:05.800 --> 0:46:09.280 function like science experiments, so you can coct a bizarre, 0:46:09.520 --> 0:46:13.600 implausible scenario with the purpose of isolating a variable. You 0:46:13.680 --> 0:46:17.800 want to put something some particular variable. You want to 0:46:17.840 --> 0:46:20.200 be able to turn one knob up to eleven and 0:46:20.320 --> 0:46:23.000 control everything else, and you know, run everything else down 0:46:23.040 --> 0:46:26.960 to zero, so that you can test your intuitions about 0:46:27.040 --> 0:46:30.680 what happens and with changes in that variable alone, and 0:46:30.880 --> 0:46:33.920 so the variable isolated in this thought experiment is the 0:46:34.080 --> 0:46:36.680 history of an object such as a person. Right, you say, 0:46:36.800 --> 0:46:40.240 materially identical. Only thing that's different is how the atom's 0:46:40.280 --> 0:46:42.560 got that way. And then you know, he admits that 0:46:42.600 --> 0:46:45.360 a lot of times thought experiments like this are really useful. 0:46:45.520 --> 0:46:48.160 I think about how physicists like Einstein and Galileo and 0:46:48.239 --> 0:46:52.480 Newton abuse thought experiments. Uh. They use intuitions and math 0:46:52.640 --> 0:46:55.640 to determine fundamental facts about the laws of nature before 0:46:55.680 --> 0:46:59.960 anybody had actually confirmed them with physical experiments. So thought experiment, 0:47:00.000 --> 0:47:03.440 it's based on bizarre scenarios and intuitions, can be very powerful. 0:47:03.880 --> 0:47:07.799 But other times thought experiments testing bizarre scenarios are are 0:47:07.960 --> 0:47:12.719 just creating unnecessary confusion. And in his discussion of Swampman, 0:47:12.840 --> 0:47:15.920 then it asks us to consider the cow shark. Robert, 0:47:15.960 --> 0:47:18.239 have you ever seen a cow shark? I have not. Well, 0:47:18.360 --> 0:47:20.879 here here's how you know if you have. The cow 0:47:21.040 --> 0:47:24.000 shark is created when a normal cow gives birth to 0:47:24.080 --> 0:47:26.960 an animal that is Adam, for Adam exactly like a 0:47:27.040 --> 0:47:30.239 shark that you would find swimming in the ocean. Now, 0:47:30.440 --> 0:47:34.560 is this newborn animal a cow or a shark? I'm 0:47:34.600 --> 0:47:37.400 gonna say it's a shark. It looks like a shark, 0:47:37.480 --> 0:47:39.399 if it swims like a shark, it's a shark. Even 0:47:39.440 --> 0:47:41.239 if it came out of a cow. Oh, well, so 0:47:41.400 --> 0:47:44.520 you got you're challenging some definitions, right, because some people 0:47:44.520 --> 0:47:46.920 would say, well, white sharks are born to shark parents. 0:47:47.400 --> 0:47:49.680 Even if a shark looks kind of weird, it's still 0:47:49.719 --> 0:47:52.040 a shark, right if it's parents were sharks. Well, that 0:47:52.120 --> 0:47:53.880 kind of logic will get you eaten by a shark, 0:47:54.000 --> 0:47:58.200 I'm thinking. But then denn It adds another wrinkle. He says, Okay, well, 0:47:58.239 --> 0:48:00.919 let's say this shark is them for Adam, a shark, 0:48:01.120 --> 0:48:04.000 but with the exception that it has cow DNA and 0:48:04.080 --> 0:48:06.680 all of it cells. Now is it a cow or 0:48:06.719 --> 0:48:10.080 a shark? It's a very peculiar shark, I would say, now, 0:48:10.200 --> 0:48:12.520 dnn It asks this question with with the idea that 0:48:12.600 --> 0:48:14.760 if you ask this to a biologist, they would probably 0:48:14.880 --> 0:48:17.959 not think this was a very meaningful question, right, because 0:48:18.000 --> 0:48:20.799 in reality, a cow will never give birth to an 0:48:20.840 --> 0:48:23.319 animal in the perfect form of a shark that has 0:48:23.400 --> 0:48:27.719 cow DNA and all of its cells. It's not logically impossible, 0:48:27.800 --> 0:48:30.960 meaning it doesn't involve an inherent contradiction, but it's just 0:48:31.160 --> 0:48:34.080 never ever going to happen in nature, and thus we 0:48:34.200 --> 0:48:37.200 don't learn a lot about biology by testing our intuitions 0:48:37.239 --> 0:48:40.640 about cows and sharks this way, because our intuitions about 0:48:40.680 --> 0:48:43.400 biology have evolved to function in the world where this 0:48:43.600 --> 0:48:46.880 never happens and never will happen. In other words, the 0:48:47.000 --> 0:48:49.800 very tools we're using to solve this puzzle of is 0:48:49.920 --> 0:48:52.279 it a cow is it a shark are shaped by 0:48:52.320 --> 0:48:55.120 a world where this question will never arise because it 0:48:55.280 --> 0:48:57.920 is physically impossible. Now, you could come back and you 0:48:57.960 --> 0:49:00.399 could say, wait a minute, haven't we solved real world 0:49:00.480 --> 0:49:04.360 physics problems by creating physically impossible thought experiments things like 0:49:04.480 --> 0:49:06.839 a like a sleigh traveling at the speed of light 0:49:07.000 --> 0:49:09.560 for relativity, or objects that fly through the air with 0:49:09.719 --> 0:49:13.120 zero friction. And the answer is yes. But Dinnett says, 0:49:13.200 --> 0:49:16.920 you know, those experiments involved much less of an uncontrolled 0:49:17.080 --> 0:49:20.120 departure from reality than the cow, shark or the swampman. 0:49:20.520 --> 0:49:24.239 The physics experiments carefully name and limit their violations of 0:49:24.320 --> 0:49:27.839 reality so that you can take that violation and calibrated 0:49:27.880 --> 0:49:30.719 as part of the experiment, and then real world experiments 0:49:30.760 --> 0:49:33.120 can be devised to test the conclusions of the thought 0:49:33.160 --> 0:49:37.799 experiments after you're done. Not so for cow shark and swampman. Really, 0:49:37.960 --> 0:49:41.279 you know, dinn It says, uh, there's sort of a 0:49:41.360 --> 0:49:44.279 general rule of thumb, and It's quote the utility of 0:49:44.320 --> 0:49:48.120 a thought experiment is inversely proportional to the size of 0:49:48.200 --> 0:49:52.520 its departures from reality. So he does not really seem 0:49:52.560 --> 0:49:56.000 concerned with Davidson's worries about whether swampman can actually have 0:49:56.160 --> 0:49:58.640 thoughts or known the meanings of words, or even be 0:49:58.719 --> 0:50:01.640 a person, because swamp may is physically impossible in the 0:50:01.719 --> 0:50:05.760 context that we've developed words and concepts like thought and meaning. 0:50:05.840 --> 0:50:10.480 In person, a person has thoughts which are derived from evolution, development, 0:50:10.520 --> 0:50:14.440 and experience, and a swampman does not exist within that context. 0:50:14.840 --> 0:50:16.920 So I'm curious when you think about Dennett's critique here. 0:50:16.920 --> 0:50:20.799 I think he makes a good point, but I'm gonna 0:50:20.840 --> 0:50:24.000 have to come back on it. Well, I do feel 0:50:24.080 --> 0:50:27.120 like there is this sense that some of some thought 0:50:27.160 --> 0:50:30.560 experiments are of course very useful, and then the further 0:50:30.680 --> 0:50:32.440 you you get, you kind of get into that territory 0:50:32.520 --> 0:50:34.759 of their fun. They're great to think about it, you know, 0:50:34.840 --> 0:50:37.799 It's like saying, oh, my hands can touch everything but themselves. Man, 0:50:37.920 --> 0:50:40.719 you know they're it's it's great, but I know what 0:50:40.840 --> 0:50:43.319 my hand can touch itself. I'm poking my palm right now. 0:50:43.520 --> 0:50:46.719 Well maybe, but this is why this was that was 0:50:46.800 --> 0:50:50.320 from Futurama. I think with the one of the the 0:50:50.440 --> 0:50:54.160 aliens eats a hippie and becomes high, and it's like, 0:50:54.560 --> 0:50:59.200 my hands can touch everything but themselves. Um So it's yeah, 0:50:59.280 --> 0:51:02.440 kind of a fall paradox. But you know, there's so 0:51:02.480 --> 0:51:06.320 many of these things that they I do. I do 0:51:06.600 --> 0:51:08.160 kind of side within it here. It does feel like 0:51:08.239 --> 0:51:10.960 some of the more extravagant thought experiments do get into 0:51:11.000 --> 0:51:13.480 that area where it's not particularly useful, but it's fun. 0:51:13.560 --> 0:51:17.200 It's more recreational. Right. Yeah, I think that's right. I 0:51:17.239 --> 0:51:19.000 mean I get what he's saying, and I think he's 0:51:19.040 --> 0:51:21.080 exactly right that we should be careful not to draw 0:51:21.239 --> 0:51:26.160 conclusions by testing our intuitions on conditions that those intuitions 0:51:26.200 --> 0:51:29.360 are totally unsuited to evaluate. Here's a great example. I 0:51:29.440 --> 0:51:33.200 bet you've heard people make arguments about the origin of 0:51:33.320 --> 0:51:37.080 the universe based on an intuitive understanding of things like 0:51:37.160 --> 0:51:40.239 space and time. Right, you know, people argue about like 0:51:40.400 --> 0:51:42.800 what it means for the universe to begin or to 0:51:42.880 --> 0:51:45.600 come into existence or something like that, based on what 0:51:45.719 --> 0:51:47.600 they think it means for like a meeting at the 0:51:47.680 --> 0:51:51.640 office to begin. It's just like our concepts are day 0:51:51.640 --> 0:51:55.239 to day concepts are not only unhelpful but directly confusing 0:51:55.320 --> 0:51:58.320 in that context. But I might take issue with Dennett's 0:51:58.320 --> 0:52:01.359 response because I would say we live in a world 0:52:01.440 --> 0:52:04.719 where science and technology might be making versions of the 0:52:04.800 --> 0:52:09.239 Swampman experiment sort of replicable in reality. Maybe not making 0:52:09.280 --> 0:52:12.440 an atom for adom recreation of your entire body that 0:52:12.520 --> 0:52:16.320 does seem fairly impossible, but by making something like a 0:52:16.440 --> 0:52:20.160 perfect copy of the processing functions of your individual brain, 0:52:20.920 --> 0:52:24.040 or say, gradually replacing parts of your brain ship of 0:52:24.120 --> 0:52:27.560 THESEUS style with a biotic computer hardware. And I want 0:52:27.600 --> 0:52:29.800 to be clear that I don't know this is possible. 0:52:30.400 --> 0:52:33.320 I'm pretty skeptical. I think Robert, you're also somewhat skeptical 0:52:33.400 --> 0:52:36.200 of the curse Wiley and hype about digital immortality and 0:52:36.239 --> 0:52:37.600 all that kind of stuff that I think there's a 0:52:37.640 --> 0:52:41.360 lot of unanswered questions about that. That's some techno utopians 0:52:41.440 --> 0:52:44.439 take for granted, But I also can't rule it out, 0:52:44.920 --> 0:52:47.160 so it may not be a sure thing that you 0:52:47.280 --> 0:52:51.200 can replace your brain with a digital copy, or that 0:52:51.360 --> 0:52:53.400 you can replace parts of your brain one at a 0:52:53.520 --> 0:52:57.040 time with hardware. But it's not a swampman, and it's 0:52:57.120 --> 0:52:59.160 not a cow shark. It's a thing that I can't 0:52:59.200 --> 0:53:01.000 be sure we should rule out. So this is a 0:53:01.120 --> 0:53:04.800 question that it's entirely possible we could face in reality 0:53:04.960 --> 0:53:07.719 in the near technological future. All right, so let's take 0:53:07.719 --> 0:53:10.560 another break and when we come back we will discuss 0:53:10.680 --> 0:53:15.440 this a bit more. Alright, we're back, So before we 0:53:15.520 --> 0:53:18.000 keep going, though, Joe, I do want to point out, um, 0:53:18.440 --> 0:53:20.680 your So what you do when I said that, when 0:53:20.719 --> 0:53:22.920 I quoted the Alien and Future rum and said that 0:53:23.080 --> 0:53:27.520 the hand can touch everything but itself, you demonstrated your 0:53:27.560 --> 0:53:30.800 hand touching itself, But actually your fingers were touching your palm. 0:53:31.719 --> 0:53:34.319 Was your hand actually touching your hand? Maybe there's more 0:53:34.360 --> 0:53:37.399 weight to this, uh, this paradox than I thought. Well, 0:53:37.440 --> 0:53:41.120 maybe there are no such things as hands. Is there 0:53:41.160 --> 0:53:43.239 a hand or is it just like a team upon 0:53:43.320 --> 0:53:46.920 which you have fingers and palm playing? You know, that's 0:53:46.920 --> 0:53:49.000 another example that sometimes comes up for the ship of 0:53:49.080 --> 0:53:53.160 theseus a sports team them individual members change over time. 0:53:53.719 --> 0:53:56.440 But we have this idea that the team itself is 0:53:56.520 --> 0:54:00.560 a thing that is consistent, even though sport teams are 0:54:00.640 --> 0:54:03.520 are are generally anything. But you know they'll they'll be 0:54:03.719 --> 0:54:05.960 ups and downs. Uh uh. You know, they may have 0:54:06.040 --> 0:54:08.360 a great year this year, but then who knows what 0:54:08.520 --> 0:54:10.520 next season will be like? Yes, definitely, this happens all 0:54:10.520 --> 0:54:13.320 the time. Let's say you you like a company, you 0:54:13.360 --> 0:54:16.200 want to invest in a company, but that company has 0:54:16.320 --> 0:54:19.480 multiple rounds of like layoffs and new hires and all that, 0:54:19.640 --> 0:54:22.520 so that none of the original people remain. And then 0:54:22.600 --> 0:54:25.120 say they change their branding and they get a new 0:54:25.200 --> 0:54:27.480 name for the company and all that, and they also 0:54:27.640 --> 0:54:30.239 end up changing their core business model so that they're 0:54:30.320 --> 0:54:33.600 doing something different than what they originally did. But you're 0:54:33.640 --> 0:54:36.080 still investing in the company. I don't know why I 0:54:36.120 --> 0:54:38.040 went to that. I'm not usually a big stocks guy. 0:54:40.400 --> 0:54:42.680 So this ship of theseus, as we've discussed it, it 0:54:42.800 --> 0:54:45.160 reveals a lot about the nature of change and this 0:54:45.320 --> 0:54:49.640 elusive quality of self. Any given mind state we express 0:54:49.880 --> 0:54:52.479 is ultimately just a just a phase and a continual path. 0:54:52.920 --> 0:54:56.120 We tend to falsely identify both past selves and future 0:54:56.200 --> 0:54:58.239 selves as being the same as who we are now. 0:54:58.960 --> 0:55:00.960 But the reality, of course is it is it is 0:55:01.080 --> 0:55:05.319 rather akin to these disassembled and reconstructed ships that we're 0:55:05.360 --> 0:55:08.360 talking about. I'm a vessel composed of certain parts of 0:55:08.440 --> 0:55:11.200 my past, and many of these parts will constitute the 0:55:11.239 --> 0:55:15.200 ship of my future. And so when we ponder such 0:55:15.239 --> 0:55:19.560 possibilities as digital immortality or some form of digitalized consciousness, 0:55:19.800 --> 0:55:22.520 we can't help it summon the ship of theseus which 0:55:22.840 --> 0:55:26.080 me am I attempting to safeguard, though will and will 0:55:26.120 --> 0:55:29.520 it remain me? Will it change? Doesn't matter? And then 0:55:29.520 --> 0:55:32.399 there's the whole coin flip to consider. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:55:32.480 --> 0:55:34.799 what's the deal with the coin flip? Propert um, Well, 0:55:34.840 --> 0:55:37.240 this is the idea, like, if I am digitizing myself 0:55:37.360 --> 0:55:40.640 for teleporting, is there any uh well, am I actually 0:55:40.640 --> 0:55:43.840 going to continue experiencing as this new thing? Or is 0:55:43.880 --> 0:55:46.680 it in there? Well that's a great question. I mean, 0:55:47.120 --> 0:55:49.160 we don't really know the answer to that, and I 0:55:49.600 --> 0:55:55.240 feel like it's almost hilarious sometimes. How easily many techno 0:55:55.360 --> 0:56:00.160 utopians and digital immortality enthusiasts just seemed to assume that 0:56:00.320 --> 0:56:03.920 your consciousness can be transported onto some kind of hardware 0:56:04.000 --> 0:56:06.399 or machine. I think that that's far from a given 0:56:06.480 --> 0:56:08.960 we don't even know if it's possible for machines to 0:56:09.040 --> 0:56:11.560 be conscious. Maybe, I mean, it might be possible. But 0:56:11.680 --> 0:56:14.200 even if so, would that be you in there? Would 0:56:14.239 --> 0:56:16.480 it be like the teleporter and Okay, now you die 0:56:16.600 --> 0:56:18.719 and here's a digital copy of you that you don't 0:56:18.760 --> 0:56:20.680 get to share in the experience of I mean it 0:56:20.840 --> 0:56:23.480 ultimately is would it be the same as that stone 0:56:23.640 --> 0:56:26.600 statue of a long dead individual, like it's just the 0:56:27.200 --> 0:56:31.080 technological evolution of that same idea, like that that statue 0:56:31.239 --> 0:56:35.719 is not long dead Napoleon. Uh, neither is this digitized 0:56:35.800 --> 0:56:38.960 Napoleon that we're going to send Alpha Centauri. Now. I 0:56:39.000 --> 0:56:42.120 attended the World Science Festival earlier this year, and one 0:56:42.160 --> 0:56:45.440 of the salons that I attended uh as a smaller 0:56:46.880 --> 0:56:50.280 panel discussion, was titled to Be or Not to Be Bionic? 0:56:51.000 --> 0:56:54.480 And one of the participants on this panel was a 0:56:54.560 --> 0:56:57.680 man by the name of S. Matthew Law, director of 0:56:57.760 --> 0:57:00.800 the Center for Bioethics and affiliate aided professor in the 0:57:00.840 --> 0:57:04.200 Department of Philosophy at New York University, and he brought 0:57:04.320 --> 0:57:06.680 up the whole if you can upload it, is it 0:57:06.840 --> 0:57:11.040 you question and pointed to the gradual replacement of neurons 0:57:11.200 --> 0:57:14.600 one by one is a potential approach. Uh. And it 0:57:14.680 --> 0:57:17.920 makes sense, right, don't just make an immortal robot version 0:57:18.000 --> 0:57:22.000 of me? Now gradually change me piece by piece into 0:57:22.040 --> 0:57:25.840 an immortal robot almost like almost like tricked me into 0:57:25.880 --> 0:57:29.160 being an immortal robot. You know, don't just don't just 0:57:29.360 --> 0:57:32.280 hoodwink me all at once, like like you know, slip 0:57:32.360 --> 0:57:35.200 in there. That's an interesting question. So yeah, I imagine 0:57:35.240 --> 0:57:38.200 if somebody just made a robot copy of you and 0:57:38.320 --> 0:57:40.680 then said well, now this is you, you would say, no, wait, 0:57:40.800 --> 0:57:43.640 that's don't turn me off. That's not me. But if 0:57:43.680 --> 0:57:46.360 they replaced you one part at a time, it's possible 0:57:46.400 --> 0:57:49.280 that might give you a feeling of continuous experience that 0:57:49.560 --> 0:57:51.960 the rest that the other process wouldn't. But I mean 0:57:52.240 --> 0:57:55.320 that depends on you know, they're all these different models 0:57:55.400 --> 0:58:00.400 of what's the physical substrate of consciousness? Right? Is consciousness? Uh? 0:58:00.800 --> 0:58:03.440 Is there some part of the brain that it's based in. 0:58:03.680 --> 0:58:05.240 If you go back to Daniel Dennet, who we were 0:58:05.240 --> 0:58:07.200 talking about a minute ago, he might say, well, actually, 0:58:07.680 --> 0:58:10.560 the idea that consciousness is a single thing is an illusion. 0:58:10.760 --> 0:58:14.440 You know, consciousness is a range of phenomena. Now this uh, 0:58:14.520 --> 0:58:17.880 this gradual replacement of neurons to upload consciousness. This, of course, 0:58:17.960 --> 0:58:21.240 is just another thought experiment in and of itself. For instance, 0:58:21.320 --> 0:58:24.640 cognitive scientists and philosopher David J. Chalmers wrote about it 0:58:24.680 --> 0:58:27.800 back in the nineties. Though I'm I'm unsure who first 0:58:27.840 --> 0:58:30.520 actually proposed the idea and if it occurred within the 0:58:30.560 --> 0:58:33.760 realm of philosophy, cognitive science, or science fiction. So many 0:58:33.840 --> 0:58:38.880 of these wonderful ideas actually emerge within the sci fi 0:58:39.080 --> 0:58:43.360 realm before they become you know, cognitive science, thought experience, 0:58:43.400 --> 0:58:47.240 etcetera swamp thing and swamp Man potentially being an example 0:58:47.320 --> 0:58:48.800 of this. I mean, this is one of the great 0:58:48.840 --> 0:58:50.880 things about science fiction, is it gives us space to 0:58:50.960 --> 0:58:55.520 explore these concepts before they're actually technologically feasible. Yeah. Uh, 0:58:55.880 --> 0:58:57.920 and you know it is it kind of gets into 0:58:57.960 --> 0:59:01.560 that whole Daniel Dennett situation too. Sometimes it's it's just 0:59:01.720 --> 0:59:03.920 there to amuse you and like, you know, twist your 0:59:03.960 --> 0:59:06.840 mind around. But if it twist your mind enough, you know, 0:59:06.960 --> 0:59:10.120 sometimes you end up it becomes this, uh, this pure 0:59:10.160 --> 0:59:13.720 thought experiment. Um. Well. Yeah, and along the same lines, 0:59:13.920 --> 0:59:16.080 I think maybe what you're getting at is that sometimes 0:59:16.640 --> 0:59:20.800 science fictional explorations of concepts can become the opposite of enlightening. 0:59:20.880 --> 0:59:24.200 They just become confusing, they become a bad road to take, 0:59:25.480 --> 0:59:27.520 or they just become art. You know. I think of 0:59:27.680 --> 0:59:30.760 like some of the Borhees stories where you have somebody 0:59:30.840 --> 0:59:34.360 that's dreaming within a dream, the circular ruins and all 0:59:34.480 --> 0:59:38.040 these there are elements to them that are similar to 0:59:38.120 --> 0:59:41.160 thought experiments. But I would never say that a Borhe's 0:59:41.200 --> 0:59:43.840 story is a thought experiment. I guess you could. I mean, 0:59:44.080 --> 0:59:46.200 I guess an interesting question in the story, I'd have 0:59:46.280 --> 0:59:48.080 to like go back and think story by story, But 0:59:48.160 --> 0:59:52.040 I'll library library of Babbel's kind of a thought experience. Yeah, yeah, 0:59:52.240 --> 0:59:54.440 I mean you could almost say it's a philosophy paper, 0:59:54.680 --> 0:59:57.680 you could. Yeah, alright, maybe I take all that back. 0:59:57.840 --> 1:00:00.480 Let's see, I need to reread to some bore Yes preaps. 1:00:00.720 --> 1:00:02.720 But but but you know what I'm saying, like it 1:00:02.800 --> 1:00:06.080 can become I feel like some of these ideas, it's 1:00:06.080 --> 1:00:08.200 almost like there's a crossroads likely right, where are you 1:00:08.240 --> 1:00:09.600 gonna push it? Are you gonna push it into this 1:00:09.680 --> 1:00:13.280 realm of of of sort of you know, boiled down 1:00:13.520 --> 1:00:17.440 thought experimentation or is it art? Is it meant to 1:00:18.600 --> 1:00:20.960 to make you think and explore new ideas, but not 1:00:21.040 --> 1:00:23.840 in like necessarily a you know, a regimented fashion is 1:00:23.960 --> 1:00:27.600 most sci fi, just like speculative meta ethics papers that 1:00:27.680 --> 1:00:31.160 are it's formulated in a way that people want to read. Well, 1:00:31.400 --> 1:00:33.680 it comes back to time COP. Time COP is not 1:00:33.800 --> 1:00:37.760 a thought experiment. And yet at the same time, when 1:00:37.800 --> 1:00:39.800 I first saw it as a kid, and in time 1:00:39.840 --> 1:00:41.760 and time over the years, I'll stop and I'll think, well, 1:00:41.800 --> 1:00:45.280 that part when when the two villains melt together, is 1:00:45.360 --> 1:00:48.280 that right? How would that work? Like? I'm it's you know, 1:00:48.360 --> 1:00:51.840 it's poorly constructed ultimately, but it does make me think 1:00:52.320 --> 1:00:55.400 like a lot of bad movies, do I guess? But 1:00:55.560 --> 1:00:59.160 but back to the gradual replacement of neurons and uploading 1:00:59.200 --> 1:01:02.080 them and all, um, yeah, it comes back to the 1:01:02.080 --> 1:01:05.600 ship of theseis idea during this replacement? Is gradual replacement? 1:01:05.960 --> 1:01:09.520 Does it at some point cease to be me? And 1:01:09.680 --> 1:01:12.240 And what if there is this dark point in the transition, 1:01:12.720 --> 1:01:15.480 the moment of unconsciousness, does that signal the end of 1:01:15.640 --> 1:01:18.760 your consciousness in the beginning of the next Uh? Is 1:01:18.840 --> 1:01:21.960 that which comes after not you? And if it's not, 1:01:22.280 --> 1:01:24.800 then again coming back to what you said earlier about anesthesia. 1:01:25.280 --> 1:01:28.120 How are we supposed to interpret that is that the 1:01:28.200 --> 1:01:33.960 individual before and after anesthesia are those ultimately separate uh entities. 1:01:34.200 --> 1:01:37.480 I mean, ultimately there's this slippery kind of concept in 1:01:37.560 --> 1:01:40.640 here that I feel like his key that that is 1:01:40.760 --> 1:01:43.560 causing a lot of the trouble, And it's the idea 1:01:43.600 --> 1:01:45.760 of I don't know if there's already a name for it, 1:01:45.840 --> 1:01:50.680 but I'd call it something like anticipatory continuity. So it's like, 1:01:50.920 --> 1:01:53.240 you think, if you can create a conscious robot and 1:01:53.320 --> 1:01:55.400 you could put your brain in there, you know, at 1:01:55.480 --> 1:01:58.720 least the conscious robot could have the experience of being 1:01:58.800 --> 1:02:03.120 continuously you. But what you don't want is the you 1:02:03.600 --> 1:02:08.560 that's about to transition, thinking I'm going to disappear and die. 1:02:08.840 --> 1:02:11.360 Though of course, you know, the you of every moment 1:02:11.640 --> 1:02:14.200 changes into the you of the future, and that you 1:02:14.360 --> 1:02:18.600 of the future remembers being past you, and the future 1:02:18.880 --> 1:02:21.120 you know, the current you doesn't really worry about the 1:02:21.200 --> 1:02:24.560 fact that present you won't exist a few seconds in 1:02:24.640 --> 1:02:28.080 the future. But there's there's some kind of distinction people 1:02:28.080 --> 1:02:31.320 are making mentally. They're right, they're saying, like, if wait, 1:02:31.400 --> 1:02:34.000 there's a way that I could die, and some other 1:02:34.160 --> 1:02:37.000 thing could go on being me, which would be different 1:02:37.080 --> 1:02:40.760 than just me being me a few seconds from now. Well, 1:02:40.800 --> 1:02:43.720 I just need a teleporter to edit that out before 1:02:43.800 --> 1:02:46.760 it recreates the enemy. Edit out the fear of death 1:02:46.800 --> 1:02:48.960 in the teleporter, and then I guess we'll be okay. 1:02:49.120 --> 1:02:51.080 But I mean, is it death? I mean, I guess 1:02:51.160 --> 1:02:53.520 that's actually a question to ask, like, if there's a 1:02:53.640 --> 1:02:56.360 version of you continuing, is there a way of saying 1:02:56.440 --> 1:03:00.160 that it's actually that it's not any different from you 1:03:00.440 --> 1:03:03.480 of three seconds from now continuing the existence of you 1:03:03.760 --> 1:03:06.240 right now? Well, I mean, because if we're talking about 1:03:06.280 --> 1:03:08.160 just the physical body, we also have to remember that 1:03:08.280 --> 1:03:11.919 the body does replace itself largely with a new set 1:03:11.960 --> 1:03:15.560 of cells every seven seven years to ten years, and 1:03:15.720 --> 1:03:19.120 some of the most important parts are revamped even more rapidly. 1:03:19.320 --> 1:03:22.320 But that's that's the more original ship of theseus idea. 1:03:22.400 --> 1:03:25.960 That's gradual replacement, and so we tend to be on 1:03:26.040 --> 1:03:29.080 board with that, right you know, I mean, I refuse, 1:03:29.280 --> 1:03:31.600 you refuse, I won't do it. There's some people who 1:03:31.880 --> 1:03:34.480 who who believe the body is just well, it makes 1:03:34.480 --> 1:03:37.040 me think of our old friend Connor McLeod, the Highlander. 1:03:37.720 --> 1:03:41.480 So in order to live like five centuries, is it 1:03:41.600 --> 1:03:43.560 just more or less like our body, Like everything is 1:03:43.640 --> 1:03:46.320 just you know, some cells are dying and being replaced 1:03:47.120 --> 1:03:49.840 or are his cells just super strong? Are they the 1:03:49.920 --> 1:03:53.440 same cells? Is he like also largely identical to the 1:03:53.480 --> 1:03:55.560 original Highlander except he had a haircut? Well, I mean 1:03:55.640 --> 1:03:59.080 this makes me think about our episode about neuroplasticity, about 1:03:59.120 --> 1:04:03.680 how neuroplasticity is a balancing act. Like, you want the 1:04:03.800 --> 1:04:06.480 brain to be able to change and adapt to a 1:04:06.560 --> 1:04:09.240 certain extent so it can adapt to new scenarios and 1:04:09.400 --> 1:04:12.120 learn and all that, But you also don't want the 1:04:12.200 --> 1:04:16.160 brain to be so radically open to change that it is. 1:04:16.400 --> 1:04:19.240 You know, it can just be ravaged by trauma and 1:04:19.600 --> 1:04:20.960 things like that. You know, you know what I mean. 1:04:21.400 --> 1:04:25.640 So there's weakness in being elastic, but there's also strength 1:04:25.720 --> 1:04:28.720 and being elastic. And I guess evolution tried to shape 1:04:28.760 --> 1:04:32.120 our our nervous systems to find that correct balance. But 1:04:32.240 --> 1:04:34.760 inherent in that tension is the idea that some amount 1:04:34.800 --> 1:04:38.120 of stability over time is preferable. That's like better for 1:04:38.320 --> 1:04:40.640 us as an organism. You don't want to be radically 1:04:40.760 --> 1:04:44.440 open to change all the time. Then again maybe that 1:04:44.680 --> 1:04:47.760 that only matters over long time scales. And then it's 1:04:47.800 --> 1:04:49.160 that I guess you could also want to it's the 1:04:49.200 --> 1:04:52.720 average person just going to be open to the appropriate 1:04:52.760 --> 1:04:56.440 amount of change. I think back to. Uh, this is 1:04:56.480 --> 1:04:59.680 a line from Terence McKenna that he said, um, if 1:04:59.720 --> 1:05:01.560 there's something that needs to be done, you will find 1:05:01.600 --> 1:05:04.320 yourself doing it, um, which is is one of those 1:05:04.360 --> 1:05:07.080 statements that seems kind of kind of obvious, but at 1:05:07.160 --> 1:05:10.880 the same time it's I keep coming back to and thinking, well, yeah, 1:05:10.920 --> 1:05:13.280 I guess I would like. Man, if you say, well, 1:05:13.640 --> 1:05:15.240 there's this thing I should have done and I didn't 1:05:15.240 --> 1:05:16.840 do it, well, maybe you didn't need to do that thing, 1:05:16.920 --> 1:05:20.120 and that's why you have reached this point where you're 1:05:20.160 --> 1:05:22.560 looking back on it like that. What does it mean 1:05:22.640 --> 1:05:26.280 to need to do something? Yeah? Wow, we've really gone 1:05:26.320 --> 1:05:30.240 all the way into the navel on this this episode. Um, 1:05:30.600 --> 1:05:33.320 lots of hands not touching themselves. All right. Well, on 1:05:33.400 --> 1:05:37.280 that note, I think we're gonna exit here. But before 1:05:37.320 --> 1:05:40.440 we do, well, we're not gonna have time to touch base. Uh. 1:05:41.280 --> 1:05:44.320 You know, on every example of the ship of Theseus, 1:05:44.400 --> 1:05:48.320 as it's been expressed in various works of art or fiction. 1:05:49.040 --> 1:05:50.960 But but I do want to pinpoint a couple of 1:05:51.000 --> 1:05:53.960 them here real quick for starters, the book blind Side 1:05:54.000 --> 1:05:57.200 by Peter Watts that we both read. I didn't realize 1:05:57.240 --> 1:05:59.200 until I started looking into this, or I didn't remember 1:05:59.320 --> 1:06:02.080 that the space ship that there on is the Theseus. 1:06:02.720 --> 1:06:05.040 That's kind and it is a joke, I guess, yeah, 1:06:05.040 --> 1:06:07.520 and it is capable of rebuilding itself. And then you 1:06:07.640 --> 1:06:10.280 also have a member of the crew who has had 1:06:10.360 --> 1:06:13.200 half his brain rebuilt. So there are a number of 1:06:14.320 --> 1:06:17.520 elements there well. Also, just generally in the works of 1:06:17.560 --> 1:06:21.960 Peter Watts, characters are very much Ship of THESEUS style brains. 1:06:22.080 --> 1:06:24.560 Maybe we've had lots of neural augmentation and all that. 1:06:24.800 --> 1:06:28.640 Now the teleporter problem variant that we talked about, that's 1:06:28.640 --> 1:06:31.880 been explored on The Outer Limits and to a large 1:06:31.920 --> 1:06:35.360 extent the Christopher Nolan film The Prestige. There was a 1:06:35.480 --> 1:06:39.520 character on Star Trek Deep Space nine named Antos who 1:06:39.600 --> 1:06:42.080 was a Bajor and spiritual leader who had to have 1:06:42.200 --> 1:06:45.680 his brain gradually replaced with cybernetics, and this eroded his 1:06:45.760 --> 1:06:48.080 previous sense of self and this had a negative impact 1:06:48.160 --> 1:06:51.600 on his relationship with Kira, the Joran character on that 1:06:51.680 --> 1:06:54.440 show I must. I've never watched Deep Space, but it's 1:06:54.440 --> 1:06:56.280 pretty great. I didn't. I have to say, I do 1:06:56.400 --> 1:06:59.200 not specifically remember this episode, but I used to watch 1:06:59.240 --> 1:07:01.880 it all the time, like every evening at like nine 1:07:01.920 --> 1:07:05.160 pm or something in syndication. Our producer Alex has often 1:07:05.280 --> 1:07:07.840 schooled me on to Space nine. We're gonna get an 1:07:07.840 --> 1:07:10.640 email on this one, for sure. Uh. There's an episode 1:07:10.640 --> 1:07:15.320 of Futurama titled The six Million Dollar Man, in which Hermes, 1:07:15.640 --> 1:07:18.080 one of the characters, gradually replaces his entire body with 1:07:18.120 --> 1:07:23.000 the robotic parts, while Zoidberg, the you know, crustacean alien doctor. 1:07:23.480 --> 1:07:27.360 He's been stitching the discarded parts together into little Hermes 1:07:27.600 --> 1:07:31.360 of introlcos dummy. Oh no. And so there, you know, 1:07:31.400 --> 1:07:33.720 you're left to wonder, well, which one is the original? 1:07:33.800 --> 1:07:35.800 Which one is Hermes? Is that this the robot or 1:07:35.920 --> 1:07:41.480 this grotesque meat puppet? And then one of the examples 1:07:41.520 --> 1:07:43.280 that I was most impressed we have mainly because I 1:07:43.360 --> 1:07:45.320 just had no idea about the depth here on this, 1:07:45.760 --> 1:07:48.120 but the tin Woodman from the Wizard of Oz books, 1:07:48.200 --> 1:07:51.080 the books by L. Frank Baum. Oh, I've never read 1:07:51.120 --> 1:07:53.760 the books. I have not either, but when I started 1:07:53.800 --> 1:07:57.080 looking into this. Yeah, there's this whole narrative about the 1:07:57.120 --> 1:08:00.080 tin Man, how the tin Man has a like his 1:08:00.160 --> 1:08:04.160 ax was was cursed by the wicked witch and then 1:08:04.240 --> 1:08:07.280 he like accidentally like chopped away, you know, part of 1:08:07.360 --> 1:08:11.120 his body, and then then it was replaced with tin. 1:08:11.520 --> 1:08:13.200 And then he ends up chopping away another part of 1:08:13.280 --> 1:08:15.400 his body and it's replaced with tin. And he just 1:08:15.560 --> 1:08:18.639 keeps losing pieces upon pieces of his body until he's 1:08:18.680 --> 1:08:21.080 all ten except for his heart. And then one day 1:08:21.080 --> 1:08:23.519 he cuts himself in half, I believe. And so now 1:08:23.800 --> 1:08:26.519 now his heart has been bisected, and that's why he 1:08:26.560 --> 1:08:29.120 needs the the heart he has to reclaim like this, 1:08:29.640 --> 1:08:33.000 this this portion of his humanity that has been lost 1:08:33.120 --> 1:08:37.360 in this gradual replacement essentially a cybernetic replacement of itself. 1:08:37.680 --> 1:08:41.120 Oh wow, I never thought of Frank Baum getting into cybernetics. Yeah, 1:08:41.280 --> 1:08:43.679 he's essentially transhumanist. Right. Are you one of the people 1:08:43.720 --> 1:08:45.720 who's a big fan of Return to Oz? I know 1:08:45.840 --> 1:08:48.320 people who are into that. I've never seen it, but 1:08:48.360 --> 1:08:50.960 I remember seeing the trailer as a kid, being like 1:08:51.040 --> 1:08:54.960 a little freaked out by those people with wheels for hands, 1:08:55.920 --> 1:08:58.200 so I should see it. It sounds exactly like the 1:08:58.280 --> 1:09:00.600 thing i'd be into. We should do a science of 1:09:00.760 --> 1:09:05.000 return to OZ episode. Well, let's not commit until we 1:09:05.040 --> 1:09:07.600 know we're getting into. Okay, Now, there are just a 1:09:07.640 --> 1:09:10.840 few fictional examples of the Ship of Theseus. I'm sure 1:09:11.120 --> 1:09:13.519 all of you listening out there you have examples you'd 1:09:13.560 --> 1:09:16.559 like to bring up as well. Um, so we would 1:09:16.600 --> 1:09:19.120 love to hear from you. In the meantime, be sure 1:09:19.160 --> 1:09:20.680 to check out stuff to all your mind. That is 1:09:20.720 --> 1:09:23.439 where you will find all the episodes of the podcast. 1:09:23.800 --> 1:09:26.040 You'll find links out to your various social media accounts. 1:09:26.080 --> 1:09:27.840 You'll find a link there at the top for our 1:09:27.960 --> 1:09:31.000 store where you'll get to check out some some shirts, 1:09:31.080 --> 1:09:34.000 some merch. Another wonderful way to support the show and uh, 1:09:34.080 --> 1:09:36.360 of course, if you want to support the show, an 1:09:36.479 --> 1:09:39.519 easy freeway to do it is to simply rate and 1:09:39.640 --> 1:09:41.760 review us wherever you have the power to do that. 1:09:42.040 --> 1:09:44.599 Thank you so much as always to our wonderful audio 1:09:44.680 --> 1:09:47.880 producers Alex Williams and Tarry Harrison. If you would like 1:09:47.960 --> 1:09:49.760 to get in touch with us directly to let us 1:09:49.800 --> 1:09:52.040 know feedback on this episode or any other, to share 1:09:52.080 --> 1:09:54.120 your own thoughts about the Ship of Theseus and how 1:09:54.160 --> 1:09:56.960 that applies to the human mind, the human brain and consciousness. 1:09:57.320 --> 1:09:59.880 To suggest a topic for a future episode, or just 1:10:00.040 --> 1:10:02.240 to say hi, you can email us at Blow the 1:10:02.360 --> 1:10:14.080 Mind at how staff works dot com for more on 1:10:14.200 --> 1:10:16.679 this and thousands of other topics. Does it How stuff 1:10:16.680 --> 1:10:28.920 works dot com. The big