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Rather than considering a ship changing parts, let us instead think of a human body and cyborg augmentation.
One might replace a leg and, still, would be considered the same person, just with alterations.
One might replace all four limbs to the same effect.
Replacing the skeleton also does not cross into becoming a different person.
Replacing organs in the gut and respiratory system with machines would not disqualify the person from being considered the same person.
The reason that changing these elements have not crossed a line is that, presumably, we would expect their cognitive reactions to external input to represent the entity the same way before and after augmentation, just with different response capability. Presumably, if the pre-augmented individual had the physical capacity of the augmentations before surgery, they would act in the way that they do post-surgery.
Change the brain with a robot, and the distinction of who the person is, is no longer clear. While the brain may operate similarly, the new mind that makes decisions can be credibly called a different actor.
Taking each body part (of person A) and recreating person A’s original body, should you put another person’s brain in that body (person B), it would not be a stretch --- in the same way the cyborg with just person A’s brain in it is still person A --- to consider the human body of person A with person B’s brain in it to be conclusively person B.
Should we, however, perfectly clone the brain and mind of person A out of human flesh, and place that in person A’s body with an absolutely in-sync state of being between cyborg and human person A when done (imagine the cyborg surgery receiving the original brain and the old body the copied one at the same time during a surgery), at the moment of awakening, both people may be considered to be person A. However, one changes their response to external input after adapting over time. Therefore, they are both only the same person for the exact moment that they awaken, and diverge from there becoming two unique individuals after that moment.
This means that in the Star Trek teleportation example, disintegrating and recreating a person does not kill them, because they remain the same person at the moment of disintegration and recreation, however, should you create a copy without prior or simultaneously disintegrating, as soon as the moment in time has passed, disintegrating the old version would be to kill a living entity.
Returning to the ship example, a ship has no part similar to a brain that defines its identity (a captain may be the brain, but the captain is not part of the physical being of the ship). Its identity and expected reactions to external stimulus rely purely on the physical conditions of its parts. We might then proceed to call the ship by the same name with the understanding that each change done to it might be labeled as a version number (v1.0, v1.01… v1.99, v2). In this case, after all parts are fully replaced, the ship has reached its named identity v2. If you then reassemble all the parts from v1, it can be correctly identified as the ship’s name v1. Both ships may simultaneously share the same name, but recognize their different version identities.
Rather than considering a ship changing parts, let us instead think of a human body and cyborg augmentation.
One might replace a leg and, still, would be considered the same person, just with alterations.
One might replace all four limbs to the same effect.
Replacing the skeleton also does not cross into becoming a different person.
Replacing organs in the gut and respiratory system with machines would not disqualify the person from being considered the same person.
The reason that changing these elements have not crossed a line is that, presumably, we would expect their cognitive reactions to external input to represent the entity the same way before and after augmentation, just with different response capability. Presumably, if the pre-augmented individual had the physical capacity of the augmentations before surgery, they would act in the way that they do post-surgery.
Change the brain with a robot, and the distinction of who the person is, is no longer clear. While the brain may operate similarly, the new mind that makes decisions can be credibly called a different actor.
Taking each body part (of person A) and recreating person A’s original body, should you put another person’s brain in that body (person B), it would not be a stretch --- in the same way the cyborg with just person A’s brain in it is still person A --- to consider the human body of person A with person B’s brain in it to be conclusively person B.
Should we, however, perfectly clone the brain and mind of person A out of human flesh, and place that in person A’s body with an absolutely in-sync state of being between cyborg and human person A when done (imagine the cyborg surgery receiving the original brain and the old body the copied one at the same time during a surgery), at the moment of awakening, both people may be considered to be person A. However, one changes their response to external input after adapting over time. Therefore, they are both only the same person for the exact moment that they awaken, and diverge from there becoming two unique individuals after that moment.
This means that in the Star Trek teleportation example, disintegrating and recreating a person does not kill them, because they remain the same person at the moment of disintegration and recreation, however, should you create a copy without prior or simultaneously disintegrating, as soon as the moment in time has passed, disintegrating the old version would be to kill a living entity.
Returning to the ship example, a ship has no part similar to a brain that defines its identity (a captain may be the brain, but the captain is not part of the physical being of the ship). Its identity and expected reactions to external stimulus rely purely on the physical conditions of its parts. We might then proceed to call the ship by the same name with the understanding that each change done to it might be labeled as a version number (v1.0, v1.01… v1.99, v2). In this case, after all parts are fully replaced, the ship has reached its named identity v2. If you then reassemble all the parts from v1, it can be correctly identified as the ship’s name v1. Both ships may simultaneously share the same name, but recognize their different version identities.