brad@ut-sally.UUCP (Brad Blumenthal) (05/21/84)
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Just thought I'd throw more murk in the waters.
Considering the ship that is replaced one board at a time:
using terminology previously devised for this argument, call
the original ship X, the ship with all new boards Y and
the ship remade from the old boards Z, Robert Nozick
would claim that Y is clearly the better candidate for "X-hood"
as it is the "closest continuer." The idea here is that
we consider a thing to be the same as another thing when
1) It bears an arbitrary "close enough" relation
(a desk that has been vaporized just can't be pointed to as
the 'same desk'). and
2) It is, compared to all other candidates for the
title of 'the same as X', the one which represents the most
continuous existence of X.
To be a little less hand wavy: If one considers Z rather
than Y to be the same as X then there is a gap of time in which
X ceased to exist as a ship, and only existed as a heap of lumber
or as a partially built ship. Whereas if Y is considered to be the
same as X there is no such gap.
Disclaimers: 1) The idea of "closest continuer" is Nozick's, the
(probably erroneous) presentation is my own.
2) I consider the whole notion to be somewhere be-
tween Rand and Rosenberg; i.e. it's not the best comment I've seen
on the subject, but it is another poin-of-view.
--
Brad Blumenthal {No reasonable request refused}
{ihnp4,ctvax,seismo}!brad@ut-sally