Sunday, June 2, 2013

If we change are we really still the same?

 Not to be confused with the quote "the more things change the more they stay the same." I mean that as time goes on we do in fact change. Where as the quote suggests change becomes harder over time and thus happens less often, or by some interpretation can also mean that change is irrelevant in the face of time, it could be said that we never really change at heart. Recent studies even show how from a young age people don't really change so much, that the core of our character is always the same. Then there's the fact we all accept that we get older and yet even so we still identify someone as though they haven't changed, that it's somehow still them. To a degree that's certainly true even if nothing about them is the same as before.

Consider however that after 7 years every cell in your body has been replaced. Consider the potential for complete and total organ transfers across the board, even entirely different bodies. What if you didn't have a body anymore and your mind existed in something more mechanical like a robot for example. Though you may technically be a cyborg at that point... Either way if truly nothing about you is the same anymore, can it really be said that's it's still you? Even if you identify yourself as who you believe you are, is it really the truth?

Consider this line from the movie "john dies at the end"
you use an axe to kill a man and the handle breaks, you replace the handle, you then use it to dismember the body chipping the axe head and breaking it, you then replace the head of the axe, later the man you killed and dismembered comes back as a zombie and sees you wielding the axe and says "that is the axe you used to kill and dismember me" is he right?

By sequence you have replaced all the parts. Is there some essence that still remains? Is it the sequence part that has somehow preserved the symbol of the original? How can you truly claim to be the same if you have changed which by very definition means you are no longer the same? We are all versions of ourselves constantly changing and yet somehow we identify to a single concept of identity, what is it that we truly call ourselves if it's not who we are? Or perhaps we're all chasing what was in the hopes that not all is lost as we find ourselves misplaced in our own world, in our own mind, in our own life.

1 comment:

  1. given change as a constant the concept of being the same is merely accepting and incorporating change relative to previously accepted definitions of a given entity

    thus if you can still identify yourself or can be readily identified by others then you are in fact the same entity existing outside contextual change

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