"This is my grandfather's ax," Americans care to tell sometimes. "Her head was indeed replaced three times and its handle four times, but it's still the same good old ax of my grandfather." This tongue in cheek sentiment is a good introduction to the problem of identity. What do we mean when we say "the same"? And what you have to change so that "the same" is merely "the same"? An older, slightly more civilized version of the question is, among many other metaphors the so-called ship of Theseus been disclosed in a Work of Thomas Hobbes, but probably already thought of Plutarch. Suppose there is a ship sails from port A. While it is sailing, rotting planks, and eventually all, of which it consists. However, they are then immediately replaced by new ones. When the ship arrives in port B, there is a ship not a single "original plank", since all have now been replaced by new ones. - Is it still the "same boat"? If they had built from new components right at the beginning of a second ship, we would certainly say - no, it was not the same boat, only an identical. But if the planks are built gradually in the old ship, as in our example, then most tend to say, the incoming ship in port B is the same. Why? - It has the same identity, same story. tell Why all this? - Because it fits well on us people. "I" is one of the most used words in our language, but what we really mean by that? We all are ships of Theseus, which sail through the ocean of life. Although this statement seems to come from a penny dreadful, they are absolutely right for a closer look. Because what makes our identity? What led us to predict, we are "the same person as last year? Our body? - Not determined. For as the ship of Theseus, our "building material" changed regularly - old cells die, resulting in new their body looks the same and perform exactly the same function - as the boards of the ship. Our body - and that's the good news for people who do not want to age - is never older than 7 - 10 years . Only a few nerve cells in the brain are always the old one. Statistically, however, they are negligible. And even in this "change resistant" cells are the building blocks - organic molecules - replaced again and again. A constant physicality would chase us so vain - that does not exist. Someone once used the image of a dune, the wind drives away in the desert sand - the form remains, but the sand grains are always others.
So if our body is, the basis of our uniqueness, what then? You'd think it would be the memories, the entire wealth of life experience we have accumulated, the path traveled by us, as the ship of Theseus. Or our character traits that make up our personality? Both are not convinced. Our memories of the past disappear, the more we will get around to our way of life. On special experiences we can remember more, but the rest we forget. Only the current events are still halfway present. Or you can still remember what you made before 8, 18, 28 years, so what was important to you, what you has hung around? - Than in very broad strokes. Even our character changes. Now feel and behave most of us, but significantly different than at puberty. What remains? What ever the word "I" when neither the body nor the mind remains the same? Perhaps this - perhaps unconscious - longing for constants in an ever-changing self-image and self-understanding what has led our ancestors to believe that there is some mysterious "soul", which always remains the same, in spite of all external and internal changes are .
The adoption of a "soul" but answered nothing but - as well as the concept of a God - a joker card without proper meaning. We are now again - and at this thought it is a bit fishy to me - just not constant, not identical but somewhat diffuse, constantly changing, adaptive and evolving - even most like life.
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