Shower Philosophy Thoughts

Hello fellow Jedi,

This morning for some reason, I was thinking about the philosophical debate about what defines identity, most notably through the Ship of Theseus.
- For any who may not be familiar with the idea, a ship is constructed brand new in the port of Theseus and has a long career for several years. During this time, the ship has to be repaired or replaced every so often until eventually, not a single original piece of the ship (no plank, nail, cut of sail, or piece of rope) is still in use. Is this still then the Ship of Theseus?

This thought expanded in my mind, what would happen if you could find every original piece of the ship, refurbish it, and put it back together? Is this newly built restoration the Ship of Theseus? What might that make the other ship of replacement parts? Are they both the Ship of Theseus?

This is also somewhat brought up in the videogame Soma (shortened to the essential philosophy argument), in which humanity has found a way to scan a brain and get an accurate capture of the consciousness of a person. This digital mind is then put into something like a simulation or a synthetic body. What happens if you put a scan of a person into another body while the original is still alive? Are you both the same person? What if you kill the original the moment the scan is completed - is your consciousness transferred to the scan, like a digital soul?

These are ultimately just some thoughts I had earlier and thought they might be interesting to share. Hopefully, this can get some neat ideas from the community for a good conversation.

This is definitely a thought provoking idea. To me the idea of self is taking ownership of ones self. If I lose a finger, am I not myself? I am still my self in my conscious form. I will always be me, but now I have learned where not to stick my finger. I would contend that my consciousness determines my identity. People talk about the soldiers who go through horrific ordeals and come home a shell of their former self. I would contend that while they are still themselves, they are not who they once were. They have to come to grips with who they have now become to regain that identity of self. 

If I give my daughter my old car, is it still my car? When she puts stickers and fuzzy dice on the mirror or LED lights under it, it then takes on a new identity given to it by my child and has therefore become her car. It still retains the fact that it was my car, but with her taking ownership of it and giving it part of her personality, it is now her car. 

While people change over time into better or worse people, the essence of you is still the same. You have evolved and learned and therefore the essence that was you has also changed. Your original source code that created you is still there but now you have upgrades and software patches that have influenced your current self. Too many people try to take ownership of personalities that are not themselves. They change personalities like people change phone cases or outfits for a night out. Every night out is a different personality pending on who you are going out with or where you are going. Sometimes that's necessary, but we tend to lose sight of who we are as an individual and focus more on who we are in the group. It's difficult to find your place in a group when you don't even understand or accept who you truly are as a person. Your identity is what you take ownership of. 

For instance I have a lot of pent up anger and resentment in me from my adolescent years. A lot of that stems from my parents who showed me a much harder time than any of my siblings and now constantly judge me for my life choices. A few years ago, I stopped letting them decide who I was and I went on a journey, in part thanks to the Temple, and I went to find me. TikTok, and my wife, and my kids all helped me figure out who I was as a person, a father, and as a husband. My cognitive anchors that made me the way I used to be melted away and I replaced the parts of my ship that were broken to create a better ship to sail in. 

In short, your focus determines your reality. What you focus on in life will show everyone what your values are in life. Everyone changes, everyone learns, everyone grows in some way shape or form. If we consume ourselves with who we used to be, our growth will be stifled and we won't learn how to grow past our own past. We all have that Ex significant other that we think about here and there. If we focus on that person too much, how are we ever supposed to love and cherish the current person in our life or move on so that we can find someone else who will love us in return? Our focus needs to be on improving ourselves, loving ourselves, and learning to love others in ways that are healthy to both them and us. Giving a homeless person a meal is us showing love to another person in a healthy way. Buying a spouse flowers or something that they like is us showing love in a healthy way, but so is sitting on the couch and listening to them discuss the hardships of their day. If our focus is on the person from our past, we'll never be able to truly listen to our new love without comparing them to our past. If our focus is on our past self, we will never be able to become who we want to become because we won't know where to go to grow. If you keep looking in the rearview mirror, you'll never see what's right in front of you. You might be able to keep the car on the road, but you'll miss the important parts of how you got to where you're going. 

In the end, your repaired ship that you are now captaining is you. You have to claim the ownership of who you are now to understand your identity. You could keep looking in the past and you could try to repair your ship from the broken and refurbished pieces, but you'll only be a shell of your former self, trying to fit in where ultimately you don't belong anymore. For many of us, who we were five years ago or ten or twenty years ago, is not someone that we would want to be today. We have healed from our battles and voyages to become the new version of ourselves just waiting to set sail on our next adventure. 

This gets to the fundamental nature of identity. It's like the borders of a country - they are purely imaginary and yet they make major differences in our lives. Identity is "true" but it's also illusory. It is constructed in our minds and the ship of Theseus illustrates one of the limitations of human understanding. It works for us to go along with this limited view of reality most of the time, but it can be illuminating to see things from another point of view.

I spent some time aboard the WMEC624 US Coast Guard Cutter Dauntless. It's Keel was laid on 15 May 1965. It was launched for the first time on 21 October 1967. It was commissioned on 10 June 1968. The ship I was on, was not the original Dauntless and the one in the present moment is not the one I was on. Yet, the spirit and the mission grow and continue. It is still the Dauntless over the years, every ship. What happens when it becomes or bodies? One of the main themes we share is the value of the technology in our own paths. What do you rely on and for what? What level of dependency do I have with technology?  I am the Pastor of a online Church. See what I mean? The need for a balance is always present. What happens when we become fewer original pieces or more additions that original parts? What happens when we reach our limits with technology? Do we get left behind? These are some of the thoughts I get when watching the sagas. How much tech is too much tech for a body? How many times can you replace everything before you just forget or do you? I mean, as you said, for fun. Issac has some fun ideas of robots and them becoming holders or savers for our minds in many different stories he wrote. The biggest questions humans can face is what happens if/when the machines or AI have a change of heart from their original programming? What happens when they think on their own? What happens if our parts don't work anymore? I don't know. It does sound intriguing to say the least. We are thought, feeling and will. When and where does the line get drawn between the balance of technology with these three? Do they affect them at all and in what way? I say, this is worthy of time. Definity journal worthy. 

I didn’t know you were a sailor before, Pastor. But, I’m glad to see something of mine has been viewed by the community with as much interest and thought as it has so far. Honestly, I fully expected this to have almost zero replies after a time, so this is still a really cool thing to experience and talk about with others in this group. Thank you to everyone who has viewed or replied, and hopefully everyone will continue to have great times here among the temple.