I’ve been thinking about something—what really makes us 'us'? Imagine if we could replace every part of our body with a mechanical part when something stops working. Over time, all of our body parts would be replaced. Would we still be the same person? Or would the real me be the mind, the consciousness, that remains?
This idea reminds me of the Ship of Theseus—a thought experiment where a ship gets its parts replaced one by one until nothing original is left. People argue whether it’s still the same ship or not. The same thing happens with our bodies. If every part is replaced, is it still us?
For example, let’s say a person’s leg is destroyed, and a new mechanical leg is attached. That person might ask, "Where is my leg?"—not, "Where is the synthetic leg the doctor gave me?" Over time, they’d accept it as part of their body and start acting in ways suited for that new leg. The same could happen if we slowly replaced parts of our body with mechanical ones. I believe that, just like the person with the new leg, we would accept and adjust to our new parts, and still see ourselves as the same person.
There’s also a reference from the Bhagavad Gita that says the body is just a shell, like clothes for the soul. The body can change, but the soul remains the same. Just as we change clothes every day but we remain the same person, the soul doesn't change with the body. And we know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed—it just transforms. So, we’re essentially just energy wearing a shell (our body), and if we can change that shell while keeping our soul intact, we’d still be us.
It’s not just about philosophy—it feels like something we’ll actually have to think about in the future with all the tech advancing. If we could replace all our organs and limbs, would we still feel the same, or would we be someone else? Maybe it's not about the body at all; it’s the mind and soul that truly matter.
So what do you think? If you could replace every part of your body, would you still be you? Or would it be a new version of you, just in a different shell?