#now if we develop teleportation technology a la star trek then this question gets a lot more interesting | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

iamat0m · 30 days ago

Text

I think the important part is that they feel it's 'theirs' in between changes, because that resets what makes up the ring each time. The material makeup can slowly change, but the logical construct of 'their thing' is both immaterial and maintains continuity.

When working at the jewelry store I referenced the ship of Theseus all the time without actually being able to reference the ship of Theseus.

People would get emotional about needing to swap out gems or work on the metal. I’d say, “If you had a violin and had to change the strings it’s still the same violin, right? If you have to put new tires on your car it’s still your car. Your ring will still be yours even if we change a small component of it.”

This generally worked extremely well in overcoming the emotional component because they couldn’t deny that it would in fact still be their ring.

Ship of Theseus solved by mass consensus.

#maybe I'm just a particular flavor of weird #but the concept of possession or title being applied to a particular pile of atoms doesn't really care if the individual atoms are exchanged #you're still you even though basically none of the cells you started with still live #and the material that makes up your body has been slowly changing the entire time you've been alive #why would that be any different with a ship or a broom or a ring #now if we develop teleportation technology a la star trek then this question gets a lot more interesting #because then its all gone all at once #but your consciousness maintains continuity the same way it ignores visual input during saccadic eye movement #your eye still saw everything in-between the two positions it occupied #but your brain is like 'nah bro none of that shit happened'#this has been a post #and far too many tags #hi #bye #thank you for reading

3K notes · View notes