Would someone recieving a bionic transplant still be the same person?

[Zone]

This is based on a very stange dream I've just had about a friend of mine who was involved in some kind of accident that severly damaged their head and brain. The doctor was showing these X-ray images of the extent of injuries and explained how they were to operate to remove the whole head and replace it all with a bionic replica, this apparently being the future or something like that. So after the operation I see him there with his new head, the same as the old one only with the skin and eye colour of Data from Star Trek. I said something to him like "It must feel a bit strange having a new head" so I was just taking it for granted that this was the same guy as before. I only realised there was something a funny about this once I woke up though I found it difficult to explain what the problem would be if the head was an exact replica of the original bar the colour.

[Angrboda]

This question has its classical expression in the Ship of Theseus paradox, and comes up in such diverse environments as philosophy of mind having to do with the self, and Buddhist doctrine in the form of Anatta, or the doctrine of 'no self' which suggests that there is no persistent 'thing' there that could make sense of the idea of self.

"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

The ship of Theseus, also known as Theseus' paradox, is a paradox that raises the question of whether an object which has had all its component parts replaced remains fundamentally the same object. The paradox is most notably recorded by Plutarch in Life of Theseus from the late 1st century. Plutarch asked whether a ship which was restored by replacing all its wooden parts, remained the same ship.

The paradox had been discussed by more ancient philosophers such as Heraclitus, Socrates, and Plato prior to Plutarch's writings; and more recently by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. There are several variants, notably "grandfather's axe", and in the UK "Trigger's Broom". This thought experiment is "a model for the philosophers"; some say, "it remained the same," some saying, "it did not remain the same".

I personally hold that the self does exist and that the paradox has a resolution, but explaining my views would require bringing too much from my own philosophy and neuroscience and such that I think it's best not to go there, to avoid derailing the thread.

[Zone]

If he was the person then I would see two ways of doing it. Either there would be some kind of an immaterial soul that would use transfer over to the new head, or the new head would generate the same consciousness as the original now dead head by replacating every function of the orginal brain material to every last minute detail. I don't really understand what Buddhists believe all that well but that would probably be first scenario seeing as generally believe in rebirth and transmigration, it would be a transmigration into the new head. If it's the form of Buddhism that is essentially materialism/naturalism then you would just have to organise the mater to replicate the same effect within the universe that being the original conscious produced by that specific brain. It would have to be the same consciousness rather than an exact copy of it but the question is whether anyone could tell the difference. If it's a product of a purely material and physical process then it ought to be possible to transfer it.

[Dee Dee Ramone]

Is someone with Alzheimer's disease still the same person then?

[Zone]

Is someone with Alzheimer's disease still the same person then?

If you were to wipe someone completely clean of everything they ever learned or experienced in life then they would be in the same state as the day they were born, so yes and no. Reincarnation/rebirth would be a complete memory wipe with a new brain. Though apparently some people can recall past lives past lives somehow.

[Angrboda]

Is someone with Alzheimer's disease still the same person then?

If you were to wipe someone completely clean of everything they ever learned or experienced in life then they would be in the same state as the day they were born, so yes and no. Reincarnation/rebirth would be a complete memory wipe with a new brain. Though apparently some people can recall past lives past lives somehow.

Steven Sich gives a hypothetical in the book From Folk Psychology To Cognitive Science of a woman who is experiencing progressive damage to her brain which is primarily affecting her memory. She remembers the fact that "McKinley was assassinated," and at first understands that to be assassinated means to be killed. However, over time, her memory of what it means to be assassinated deteriorates to the point that all she remembers about assassination is that it is something very bad and frightening; she no longer remembers its connection to death and being killed. However, she still remembers the fact that "McKinley was assasinated." The question then becomes, does she believe that McKinley was assassinated even though she no longer has a sense of what being assassinated refers to?


The Buddhist point doesn't require going into reincarnation and such, and is, to my understanding, framed in terms of the doctrine of dependent origination (which you don't need to know either). The primary part of what Buddhists are saying with Anatta, or no self, is that no matter where you look in consciousness, there is nothing stable, coherent and permanent that can be recognized as a persistent self, or sense of self. Thoughts change and blend into one another, as do feelings, and reactions: nothing seems to serve as a likely candidate for an enduring ground or base that one would call 'self'. Only continual change from moment to moment. (Thich Nhat Hanh does a better job of explaining it. Maybe I'll scan something later.)

[Ryantology]

Physically, it's worth noting that the vast majority of the cells of which we are made are recycled frequently throughout our lives. With the exception of a few select kinds, a person who dies of old age will have none of the cells they were born with. So, in that sense, nothing about cybernetic implants makes one a different person.

[The Grand Nudger]

Wouldn't it be so simple to say Apo, that the very nature of whatever it is that we call "self" appears to involve change. Nothing too complicated or heady about that. This removes the objection that if "self" changes it is no longer the same "self". Of course it wouldn't be the -same- "self", but it -is- still the "self". Who doesn't expect change to arise from interaction eh? Redefine the word to form a more sensible concept.