>From: Harvey Newstrom <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>To: extropians@extropy.org
>Subject: Re: Philosophy: It doesn't suck so bad we can't ignore it
>Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 00:07:31 -0500
>
>>From: "zeb haradon" <zebharadon@hotmail.com>
>> > Is it still Thesius's ship? If no, at what point
>> > was it no longer that ship? When did it lose it's "Thesius's
>>ship"-ness?
>>
>>It is still Thesius' ship. If you want to know how, observe the workers
>>replacing the decayed boards with fresh boards. If you want to know when
>>and
>>where, pay attention to these details. If you want to know whose ship it
>>is,
>>find Thesius' descendents and heirs. If you want to know why, you're a
>>philosopher, and Thesius probably wouldn't want you on the ship.
>
>I disagree totally. I think the philosphers are asking the exact
>right question.
>
>Is it still Thesius' ship? There is no right answer. The label of
>"Thesius' ship" denotes an ownership relationship that is not
>empirically provable. The concept of ownership is philosophical. It
>exists, not in reality or by science. It exists by cultural
>agreement, by legal agreement, by linguistic terminology, or by other
>reference systems that we use for interaction between humans.
>
>In law, for instance, we would have to determine what the contractual
>agreement was for the workers to do all this work, and what they
>agreed to return to Thesius. In all probability, the rebuilt ship
>was returned to Thesius as his property and the rotting ship was left
>with the workers as spare parts. Can this be empirically measured?
>No. Is there a chemical test we can perform, such as DNA matching,
>to see which is Thesius' ship? No. The question of nomenclature is
>merely a linguistic reference system that we use for communications.
>The question of ownership cannot be measured by science. It must be
>logically deduced by linguists, lawyers, judges, and psychologists.
>Whatever we end up deciding becomes the right answer. There is no
>objective measurable ownership particles that will lead us to the
>right answer.
>--
>Harvey Newstrom <HarveyNewstrom.com>
Yes, you're exactly right about the answer. The reason it is the wrong
question though, is because the person giving this talk, when members of the
audience made the point that you just made, would respond with something
like "yes, but which one is *really* Thesius's ship?", this is the wrong
question but he thought it made sense. He was implicitly subscribing to a
belief known as "essentialism", that there is something about this ship that
give it its "Thesius's ship"-ness as an object, something which is seperate
from any cultural considerations.
---------------------------------------------------
Zeb Haradon (zebharadon@hotmail.com)
My personal webpage:
http://www.inconnect.com/~zharadon/ubunix
A movie I'm directing:
http://www.elevatormovie.com
"Fish fuck in it." - W. C. Fields answer to why he never drank water.
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