Last time, we saw that Phos and her friends store memories in their bodies and, if they lose a part of their bodies, they lose the memories stored there as well. Then we asked, if all of the original body is replaced, and hence all their memories, can they be considered the same person?

Reader Marthaurion rose to the challenge and opined as follows:

this is an interesting idea.

Thanks, M!

personally, im generally convinced that every aspect that we associate with memory and consciousness can be linked to a product of the brain (so your Ancient Greek professor and i would likely disagree).

He’s passed away, now, so unfortunately I can’t ask him for any clarification. I agree with your general statement here, in part because “can be linked to” is a broad enough phrase to cover a multitude of views. Of course, we humans have organs and different biological systems; in that, we differ from Phos and her friends. As far as I can tell from the show, they don’t have any specialized systems: Their bodies are a generally homogenous crystal inhabited by microscopic creatures called “Inclusions”.

as far as identity goes, ive always liked the idea that you essentially inherit the same identity as you incrementally change throughout your life. as you grow, most of the aspects that you attribute to yourself tend to stay the same, so small changes to personality/appearance/behavior/etc would be inherited by that base identity. so while you can look at any two points in time and see completely different people, you maintain yourself as basically the same person because you’ve shuttled that identity throughout your life. amnesia becomes a special case because there’s a clear line after which all of these aspects change, so you could be considered an entirely different person.

I think this is a relatively common idea and in general correct. It’s important to clarify how exactly we are using these terms before delving into the nitty-gritty. People use them in different ways, so I’m going to spell out how I’m using them here. For that, prepare for a trip down the rabbit hole of metaphysics…

Some basic lingo

Form: What something is, like human or “jewel” (Phos’s people).

Matter: What it is made of. (Cells or crystal, in these cases.)

So Phos is a Jewel, made from Phosphophyllite and Inclusions. A ball is made from rubber. Communities are made of people, and the Number Line is made of numbers. Biology is made of our knowledge of living creatures.

Of course, people enter and leave communities, and our bodies replace their cells. And Phos loses limbs, which get replaced with cartilage and gold. The matter of something can undergo a change. So…

Does the form change if the matter changes?

There are different kinds of changes. Some change what something is and some don’t. Crumple a sheet of paper, and it is still a piece of paper; burn it, and it becomes ash. Plant a sapling, and it grows while remaining a tree, even as the cells get replaced over time; burn it, and it is no longer a tree (at least in the same sense that it was).

Ugh…

You know what? I wanted to finish this days ago, and have had too much going on at work and now I’m in bed with some nasty bug. (No, Honey, I didn’t mean you!) So I’m just gonna write. Can’t think clearly through the haze, so I take no responsibility if anything I say from here on doesn’t make any sense.

Prepare for…

The Rambles!

So the thing to remember about matter and form is that they aren’t things. Things, beings, are “substances” in plutosoply – speak. I mean, philosophy-speak. So it’s not like you’ve got your form on this shelf over here and your matter in the drawer over there, and you just glue them together. There’s nothing to put on the shelf without them already being united. A form without matter can exist, but it’d be something like a number: You can’t point to it, although you can recognize it. Matter without form can’t exist at all, because to exist it would have to have some qualities; and as soon as it has qualities it has taken on a particular form.

So there.

I mean, at least that was the idea until Descartes, who taught us moderns to speak about matter as a thing itself, and forms as only existing in the mind, “ideas”.

If you see five rocks, you know there’s five of them. What if there was no one to see them? Would there still be five? If yes, then forms can exist apart from the mind; if no, then they can’t. That’s the kind of really important question at stake here. I mean, those poor rocks! Now they’ll never know how many of them they are.

What were we talking about? Oh yeah, whether people can become different people if they change enough.

In pre-modern speak, they can’t: If “person” indicates one’s identity, and identity depends on form, then you as a person exist as long as your form does, no matter what changes take place. Lose your arms, lose your memories, you’re still you. The only way for you to stop being you is to lose your form, which would also mean you’d lose your very being!

Like being burned to a crisp. You are gone, as a person and as a being. This actually was a major problem for medieval Christians, who believed by faith that you exist past death, and that you would one day come to life again, even if your body were destroyed. They actually come up with some pretty cool answers, but that’s a conversation for another day.

But in modern, post- Descartes, terms, “form/idea” is only something you think with for convenience’s sake. They don’t really exist. “You” are a collection of pants, I mean parts, that for now act in some proximity to one another. So if those pants change enough, I mean parts, you might still exist but not as “you”. Being and identity no longer onalop. Overlap. Whatever.

So for us modems, I mean moderns, yeah: Phos could be considered a different person, but not for pre-moderns.

I could say a lot more on this, like how the medieval account of the resurrection from the dead parallels Phos’s power to make new things part of her body, but that’s enough for now. Who knows what I’ll say if I keep going?

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