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"Think of an experience from your childhood. Something you remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even smell, as if you were really there. After all you really were there at the time, weren't you? How else could you remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren't there. Not a single atom that is in your body today was there when that event took place. Every bit of you has been replaced many times over (which is why you eat, of course). You are not even the same shape as you were then. The point is that you are like a cloud: something that persists over long periods, while simultaneously being in flux. Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of which you are made. If that does not make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does, because it is important."
So what are we really? Is "our self" really just an illusion?
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stop me if I'm wrong, but i heard somewhere that every year the atoms of our body are completely renewed. So you can do your philosophy for much closer events.
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>>8309418
>The point is that you are like a cloud: something that persists over long periods, while simultaneously being in flux
'You' do not persist through time because you are part of reality, which is just flux. If you hold an image of yourself you will find that it is not of the 'you' that appears in the present moment - the only moment that you can appear.
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>>8309418
>Every bit of you has been replaced many times over (which is why you eat, of course). You are not even the same shape as you were then.
Not true. the number of cells in your brain, or better, your neurons, are the same as in your childhood. If this wasn't the case you had to relearn a lot more.
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>>8309474
So, in this case, yes, you are the same person.
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>>8309474
Could it be possible for the same number of cells exist, yet the cells have been replicated?
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>>8309478
In some cases it might, but I think it is uncommon.
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>>8309418
Information duplication before the brain cells die onto the new ones.Errors can cause cancer \thread
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>>8309478
I'm not sure there but aren't some cells like brain cells unreplenishable?
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>>8309530
I'm not sure, my post was intended just to provoke thought - I don't hold the assumption stated in my post
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>>8309474
>Considerably smaller heads and therefore brains
>Same number of cells
What retains is the relationship between cells, not the cells themselves
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>>8309418
We're a small cluster in a grand mechanical waterfall. Self is about macro state, not exact constituent parts.
Also:
>How else could you remember it?
Memory is not proof of itself and its own accuracy. You often have no way to prove the past happened as you recall it in the present, or if it even happened at all. It's not just distortion, people create completely false memories all the time, sometimes deliberately.
so
>implying
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>Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of which you are made.
Yes, that is correct. I am a certain *pattern* of matter; it's the pattern that makes up "me", not the individual pieces. Just like a lego car should be identified with the design rather than any of the individual lego pieces making up the car, so am I a pattern of atoms rather than a set of atoms itself, and a different collection of atoms forming the same exact pattern (if that is even a physically meaningful concept) is still me.
>If that does not make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does, because it is important.
Why should it?
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>>8309685
>Why should it?
This.
People have this weird "wow it's the real underlying truth of existence very hazy and spooky. If it isn't you just don't get it" deal going on, and it's just nonsense.
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