The Human Brain and The Ship of Theseus

Forums: Philosophy, Brain, Cognitive Science, Greek Mythology
Email this Topic • Print this Page

wiki wrote:

According to Greek legend as reported by Plutarch,

The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned [from Crete] had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.
—Plutarch, Theseus[1]

Plutarch thus questions whether the ship would remain the same if it were entirely replaced, piece by piece. Centuries later, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes introduced a further puzzle, wondering: what would happen if the original planks were gathered up after they were replaced, and used to build a second ship.[2] Which ship, if either, is the original Ship of Theseus?

1) If our brain was slowly replaced cell by cell with an inorganic replacement, would we still be ourselves?

2) Being that our brains are replaced cell by cell thousands of times over in our life, what does this mean?

I am very interested in discussion on the human mind and what we describe as consciousness. Similarly, the relationship between the brain and the body and how this effects our emotions.

3a) If we instead replaced our body with a machine, how would this effect our residual self image?

3b) If we went under gene therapy and slowly changed our genetic architecture, how would this effect our residual self image?

4a) If we were able to fully image the brain and copy it into another vessel (like a large computer sever), how would interacting with a virtual copy of your brain effect your residual self image?

4b) If you could turn off a the server, and turn it back on, without data loss, would this be death? What defines death for a virtual brain?

I know there are a bunch of question here. I'm just fascinated by this. I listened to a very good episode of This American Life about testosterone and in it a man talks about how his view on "self" was challenged when his body stopped producing testosterone. In the same episode, a woman goes on hormone therapy and gets testosterone supplements and describes a similar revelation about her mind and her body.

Also, I listened to an episode of Radiolab about the afterlife and death, where the bit about the physical imaging of the human brain concept entered into this.

Discuss.

A
R
T

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Discussion • Score: 2 • Views: 3,869 • Replies: 12

No top replies

@failures art,

From the philosophical point of view "sameness" implies "functionality". The ship parable is based on the simplistic error of structure being synonymous with function. Further, Rorty for one, argues that the paradigm of " a self" possessing "a mind" is a Wittgensteinian "language game" originating with Plato and extrapolated by Descartes et al. From this point of view, so called "cognitive science" which looks for neural correlates of "elements of experience" might as well be looking for fairies. The conclusion is that most of the questions you ask above are about pseudo-problems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rorty

1 Reply

@failures art,

I've quoted your post below without direct reference to the wiki-quote. Please just take the quote as acknowledged.

failures art wrote:

1) If our brain was slowly replaced cell by cell with an inorganic replacement, would we still be ourselves?

2) Being that our brains are replaced cell by cell thousands of times over in our life, what does this mean?[/color]

I am very interested in discussion on the human mind and what we describe as consciousness. Similarly, the relationship between the brain and the body and how this effects our emotions.

3a) If we instead replaced our body with a machine, how would this effect our residual self image?

3b) If we went under gene therapy and slowly changed our genetic architecture, how would this effect our residual self image?

4a) If we were able to fully image the brain and copy it into another vessel (like a large computer sever), how would interacting with a virtual copy of your brain effect your residual self image?

4b) If you could turn off a the server, and turn it back on, without data loss, would this be death? What defines death for a virtual brain?

I know there are a bunch of question here. I'm just fascinated by this. I listened to a very good episode of This American Life about testosterone and in it a man talks about how his view on "self" was challenged when his body stopped producing testosterone. In the same episode, a woman goes on hormone therapy and gets testosterone supplements and describes a similar revelation about her mind and her body.

Also, I listened to an episode of Radiolab about the afterlife and death, where the bit about the physical imaging of the human brain concept entered into this.

Each answer below is made with a set of vaguely private references and opinions, so take them with the grain of salt with which they are offered. If you are interested enough in my responses feel free to ask for my explanations.

1.) If the inorganic substitutions functioned in the same way as the cells they were replacing, then yes.

2.) The brain's function depends upon neural pathways, not upon individual cells. And, likewise, "selves" are not reducible to brains -- but the latter is a necessary element to the constitution of the former. And the structural development of the latter contributes to the organization of the former.

3. a and b) "Residual self image" is kind of an ambiguous term. If you mean self-consciousness, then i think that a gradual replacement of our genetically generated biological material would affect us depending upon how it affected our sensory input. If by "residual self image" you were referring to our social role, it would depend if you were talking "Bionic Man", Robo-Cop", Mievilles' "Remades", or "Terminator 4", etc...

4. a) Again, this would depend upon how the virtual brain functioned. If it acted solely as the repository of a set of symbolic functions, then an encounter with a computer simulation of my own brain would be interesting but not disturbing. While it might yield some psychological insight into my own habits of thought, i don't believe that it's interactions with others would sufficiently replicate my own with enough fidelity to force me into an identity crisis.
4.b) The reason 4a) accurately reflects verifiable circumstance, takes into account my response to 4b). If a system is capable of environmental interruption without loss of "self", or systemic integrity, then it must consist solely of symbolic members. By definition, a system that integrates the symbolic with the physical environment could not withstand a complete separation of the two. Turning off a server that contains the totality of a single mind's content would not of itself constitute death, since death implies a heretofore unknown disassociation with one's environment. If complete functionality is recoverable, then "death" never occurred.

i don't know whether i have answered your questions at all, but i hope that my comments serve as a preliminary to a discussion if nothing else. I promise that I will hypocritically renege on any or all of my statements in this post if anyone writes something here to make me realize that i am being wrong-headed in this post.

1 Reply

@fresco,

What terms do you suggest I use so that I can get to the point where I have a clear question that can be answered Fresco?

I'm cool with going there, but I think we can bypass this; I think you know what I'm asking even if my language is not perfect.

I'm also not sure how the wiki article on Rorty answers my questions. Can you explain further?

e.g. - How does Rorty describe the interaction of a person with a virtual copy of their brain?

A
R
T

1 Reply

@Razzleg,

Thanks for the reply.

"Residual self image" is a phrase I heard a long time ago and as I understand it, it is the collection of ideas associated with yourself. This includes not only physical trait such as how you memorize your own appearance (height,facial image, sound of your own voice), but also the collection of traits you associate with yourself (kindness, humor, level of intelligence).

1) Yes, I did mean to imply that functionality would remain.

2) I was more interested in exploring the notion that we are like the ship being replaced timber by timber thousands of times over and yet we describe our state in a singular form.

Buckmeister Fuller had wonderful example of a this. He tied three types of string together and then slid a loose knot down it's full length. In the end he asked "What is the knot?" The know was not any of the specific materials (twine, cotton string, nylon cord). When the knot crossed from one region to the next on the combined rope, it did not become something new, it was still a knot.

3) I'm asking about the experience of seeing yourself in the mirror. How would our emotions change if that image was dramatically altered? Small changes in appearance (like haircuts) invoke emotions, and larger changes (like dramatic weight loss) perhaps to a larger extent. I think that the alteration of genetic features would have a large effect or in the case of being in a virtual space like a server (assuming a possible different degree of accessibility to normal means of perception like sight or hearing) would be perhaps the most dramatic.

4a) From your answer, can I correctly state that you believe that you would believe yourself superior to the copy? You mention it from your perspective, but could you imagine it from the other vantage point?

4b) Isn't turning something off a disconnecting something from it's environment? Isn't cellular degeneration the driver of the permanence of death not the definition of it? We have lots of people walking the earth who have been clinically dead before. In their case, they have been revived within a time frame in which no (or minimal) brain damage was caused by the loss of oxygen. If the brain's operation was not dependent on oxygen, and could be cycled on and off, couldn't death be a state that is experienced and reversed? Or do you believe that such a milestone in technology would drive a new view on death and possibly new language to describe the state of being off but not dead?

A
R
T

1 Reply

@failures art,

failures art wrote:

"Residual self image" is a phrase I heard a long time ago and as I understand it, it is the collection of ideas associated with yourself. This includes not only physical trait such as how you memorize your own appearance (height,facial image, sound of your own voice), but also the collection of traits you associate with yourself (kindness, humor, level of intelligence).

i love that Fuller "knot" metaphor, although i think i came across it in Hugh Kenner's writings first. i, personally, tend to agree with both Buckminster and Hugh in their use of the metaphor. If you are ever looking for fresh uses of the same you might look to Kenner's the Pound Era, or even Douglas Hofstadter's I am a Strange Loop. Perhaps you are already familiar with both.

failures art wrote:

3) I'm asking about the experience of seeing yourself in the mirror. How would our emotions change if that image was dramatically altered? Small changes in appearance (like haircuts) invoke emotions, and larger changes (like dramatic weight loss) perhaps to a larger extent. I think that the alteration of genetic features would have a large effect or in the case of being in a virtual space like a server (assuming a possible different degree of accessibility to normal means of perception like sight or hearing) would be perhaps the most dramatic.

i have to admit that i am having a bit of difficulty grasping the meaning of the alterations you are describing. When i was quite a bit younger, i took advantage of gazing at my own image in a mirror while on hallucinogenics. At the time, i perceived my facial features as "swimming" around on my "face". But my sense of "self" was left largely unaltered since i had a distinct memory of having eaten mushroom caps.

Years later, long after giving up ingesting psychotropic substances, i was involved in an accident and managed to break my cheek bone in several places that one should not normally damage such a thing. The repair to my face lead to some long-term nerve damage. A portion of my face no longer felt familiar nor responded to "normal" promptings. I have almost no memory of the physical event that lead to my breakage or reconstruction. Nonetheless, my sense of self goes on uninterrupted.

[quote="failures art"4a) From your answer, can I correctly state that you believe that you would believe yourself superior to the copy? You mention it from your perspective, but could you imagine it from the other vantage point?

4b) Isn't turning something off a disconnecting something from it's environment? Isn't cellular degeneration the driver of the permanence of death not the definition of it? We have lots of people walking the earth who have been clinically dead before. In their case, they have been revived within a time frame in which no (or minimal) brain damage was caused by the loss of oxygen. If the brain's operation was not dependent on oxygen, and could be cycled on and off, couldn't death be a state that is experienced and reversed? Or do you believe that such a milestone in technology would drive a new view on death and possibly new language to describe the state of being off but not dead?[/quote]

My knowledge of AI is extremely limited, and my familiarity with the industry is probably roughly 10 years old. So when i consider the topic of artificial intelligence, i am likely to be wrong. T

2 Replies

@Razzleg,

Here is my complete post: i somehow managed to cut myself off:

failures art wrote:

"Residual self image" is a phrase I heard a long time ago and as I understand it, it is the collection of ideas associated with yourself. This includes not only physical trait such as how you memorize your own appearance (height,facial image, sound of your own voice), but also the collection of traits you associate with yourself (kindness, humor, level of intelligence).

failures art wrote:

3) I'm asking about the experience of seeing yourself in the mirror. How would our emotions change if that image was dramatically altered? Small changes in appearance (like haircuts) invoke emotions, and larger changes (like dramatic weight loss) perhaps to a larger extent. I think that the alteration of genetic features would have a large effect or in the case of being in a virtual space like a server (assuming a possible different degree of accessibility to normal means of perception like sight or hearing) would be perhaps the most dramatic.

failures art wrote:

4a) From your answer, can I correctly state that you believe that you would believe yourself superior to the copy? You mention it from your perspective, but could you imagine it from the other vantage point?

4b) Isn't turning something off a disconnecting something from it's environment? Isn't cellular degeneration the driver of the permanence of death not the definition of it? We have lots of people walking the earth who have been clinically dead before. In their case, they have been revived within a time frame in which no (or minimal) brain damage was caused by the loss of oxygen. If the brain's operation was not dependent on oxygen, and could be cycled on and off, couldn't death be a state that is experienced and reversed? Or do you believe that such a milestone in technology would drive a new view on death and possibly new language to describe the state of being off but not dead?

4a) My knowledge of AI is extremely limited, and my familiarity with the industry is probably roughly 10 years old. So when i consider the topic of artificial intelligence, i am likely to be wrong. That being said, when i think of myself vs. an electronic duplicate, i tend to think of myself as superior. Most AI models with which i am familiar, tend to operate on a symbolic level. That is, they respond to symbolic commands that are fed into its database, and a response is formulated according to distinct algorithms. The interaction between the system and its environment is limited by the environment, and not otherwise. The meaning of the terms fed to it are subject to a filter, but the input is specific.

On the other hand, while the responses available to me may be limited, they are entirely self-regulated. The filter to outside influences is not a structure imposed from without, but a filter, a set of blinders perhaps, imposed by my own regulation.

4b.) I'm speaking from an extremely naive state. I have never undergone medical death. But when a server is unplugged, it "experiences" no memory degradation. When it is "replugged" it may register lost time, but it functions much the same as when it was briefly disconnected. If, as i hold, the biological individual "thinks" with their whole body, the same cannot be said for them when they experience a disconnect from their internal power source. A computer interacts with its environment much the same as it has always done, although errors may crops up as a consequence of its downtime, because it's interaction is solely symbolic. But a person interacts with its environment in radically different ways depending on its physical state., because it's interaction is the basis for its individuality. I have a feeling that i am expressing myself poorly here, but hopefully some of my intent is coming through. Perhaps I can better express what i am trying to say by saying that a server's environment is contingent to its function, while a biological entity's function is a vital part of its environment.

Does that make any sense at all?

0 Replies

@failures art,

The Brain and the Mind are different things, even though the mind results partially from the physical processes of the Brain.

People with brain injuries often have changes in personality even though the brain is mostly intact (same collection of cells). But damage to pathways between cells can change your mind, literally.

The same can be argued for chemicals and drugs that alter brain activity, those people's personalities often change.

0 Replies

@failures art,

According to Rorty, you can't ! Concepts of "self" or "mind" or "identity" are decided by social negotiation for particular purposes. E.g. ..consider the "mitigating circumstances" of the defence plea "he was not in his right mind" , or consider the multiple facets of one's own character, which some writers have seen as separate "selves" negotiating with one another. The point is that all attempts at isomorphism between "mental events" and "individual bodies" assume a hypothetical "metaobserver" interpretating "neural signals". ..but "signalling" for what purpose ? But Rorty and others, have pointed out that all such interpretations presuppose a social situation in which those interpretations are reported via language which is bound by social coherence, as opposed to correspondence to some "ultimate reality".Thus asking questions like "can machines think", or "does the soul survive the body" , necessarily implies that the things we might call "machines" or "souls" are members of the bona fide group of language using communicators with social needs like us ! If you are happy to proceed with such an axiom, good luck !

0 Replies

@failures art,

failures art wrote:

wiki wrote:
According to Greek legend as reported by Plutarch,

The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned [from Crete] had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.
—Plutarch, Theseus[1]

Plutarch thus questions whether the ship would remain the same if it were entirely replaced, piece by piece. Centuries later, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes introduced a further puzzle, wondering: what would happen if the original planks were gathered up after they were replaced, and used to build a second ship.[2] Which ship, if either, is the original Ship of Theseus?

1) If our brain was slowly replaced cell by cell with an inorganic replacement, would we still be ourselves?

2) Being that our brains are replaced cell by cell thousands of times over in our life, what does this mean?

I am very interested in discussion on the human mind and what we describe as consciousness. Similarly, the relationship between the brain and the body and how this effects our emotions.

3a) If we instead replaced our body with a machine, how would this effect our residual self image?

3b) If we went under gene therapy and slowly changed our genetic architecture, how would this effect our residual self image?

4a) If we were able to fully image the brain and copy it into another vessel (like a large computer sever), how would interacting with a virtual copy of your brain effect your residual self image?

4b) If you could turn off a the server, and turn it back on, without data loss, would this be death? What defines death for a virtual brain?

I know there are a bunch of question here. I'm just fascinated by this. I listened to a very good episode of This American Life about testosterone and in it a man talks about how his view on "self" was challenged when his body stopped producing testosterone. In the same episode, a woman goes on hormone therapy and gets testosterone supplements and describes a similar revelation about her mind and her body.

Also, I listened to an episode of Radiolab about the afterlife and death, where the bit about the physical imaging of the human brain concept entered into this.

Discuss.

A
R
T

The answer to this conundrum is that the ship of Theseus is the same ship even when all of its parts have been replaced, because the ship after the replacement is temporally-spatially continuous with the former manifestations. It is different if the brain is replaced with entirely different material, though. But it still may be a matter of whether the function performed by the old manifestation is the same function as that performed by the recent manifestation.

2 Replies

@kennethamy,

Quote:

But it still may be a matter of whether the function performed by the old manifestation is the same function as that performed by the recent manifestation.

Yes, this is the relevant issue at the core of what "selfwood" seams to be about...or to say that if the function or the set of functions remains the same, then selfwood should be the same weather we change the materials or not...

On the other hand we might well consider, at least up to a degree, that Selfwood is an illusion, given we in fact change everyday, but that, as we do it slowly, we tend to integrate as legitimate the rate of change by "normalising" the difference of states in the sequencing effect we experiment as we evolve.

...at this light Self is no more the the personnel comprehension of a continuous process of change formed upon the coherence experimented by the mind through time thus creating a sense of Identity...

0 Replies

@kennethamy,

Let's not try and be people with "answers" here. Let's just talk. Nobody here is an authority. Better to share ideas and just think.

So why do you think that the replacement with a new material would be different than the replacement by the same material? Couldn't we slowly rebuild Theseus's ship timber by timber with a different wood?

Also, yes, let us assume that the function of the replacement cells or virtual brain is the same. At least for now.

A
R
T

0 Replies

@Razzleg,

I'm not talking about AI here. I suppose I see an opportunity for overlap for the topics though.

A
R
T

0 Replies

The Human Brain and The Ship of Theseus

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know