Bartmanhomer Evil Random Banter Thread #237

[Rater202]

Why? Its got new matter, it performs differently than it used to... where is the fundamental difference?

The fact that all of the orignal matter is still there and still has all of its orignal functions, regardless of the fact that it's performing the functions better or has picked up new ones?

Why is that so difficult to understand? The serum doesn't replace anything, it just fixes it and builds on top of what was present.

If I patch a crack in the foundation of my house and then build a new guesthouse in the back yard, is that the same as completly tearing down the house and building a new one on the same property?

It is not the same as a replacement because literally nothing has been replaced.

[Metastachydium]

A.) again, domestic cats killing animals is the fault of owners now keeping them spayed/neutered and indoors. You seem to detest indoor cats as well.

B. They remind me of their free-ranging murderous brethren and I know what they'd be capable of if their owners would fail to contain them for so much as a few hours. Also v. my comments on the captive killer and the empty gun.

(your editorial oozing aside)

Plant, not ooze.

Further, it seems as if we have contrasting studies, which makes your assertion-as-absolute-fact as anecdotal as mine.. If only I had said that I answered your anecdotal opinions with my anecdotal opinions a few posts ago, maybe we could have saved some time.

1. Why no, sir! It merely means that neither of our positions on this matter is purely anecdotal and instead both conform to valid scientific hypotheses. Yay to science!

[Keltest]

The fact that all of the orignal matter is still there and still has all of its orignal functions, regardless of the fact that it's performing the functions better or has picked up new ones?

Why is that so difficult to understand? The serum doesn't replace anything, it just fixes it and builds on top of what was present.

If I patch a crack in the foundation of my house and then build a new guesthouse in the back yard, is that the same as completly tearing down the house and building a new one on the same property?

It is not the same as a replacement because literally nothing has been replaced.

Your body is replacing cells all the time Rater, even without a magic syrum to make you grow beyond human capability.

If i take a bad version of the serum and grow a giant grotesque arm from my shoulder that has the original arm protruding from my new elbow, is it still the same arm, since it has all the original cells and functionality still incorporated?

[Form]

Why is that so difficult to understand? The serum doesn't replace anything, it just fixes it and builds on top of what was present.

You described the serum (we're still sort of on this, right?) as gene therapy a page back, correct? You do realize that changing your DNA so that it does different stuff requires, well, changing your DNA? I don't see how the serum can do anything without replacing something. It needs to interact with your body somehow and, in so doing, make changes, however infinitesimally and incrementally. For that matter, just as before I don't see why such changes matter so much.

[Rater202]

You described the serum (we're still sort of on this, right?) as gene therapy a page back, correct? You do realize that changing your DNA so that it does different stuff requires, well, changing your DNA? I don't see how the serum can do anything without replacing something. It needs to interact with your body somehow and, in so doing, make changes, however infinitesimally and incrementally. For that matter, just as before I don't see why such changes matter so much.

I've also described it as taking your body's natural functions and making them more efficient. In the case of DNA, it's taking your body's ability to repair damaged DNA and using it to remove genetic flaws. IT's not like someone took a needle and sucked out all your chromosomes, then injected new one wih a different needle to replace them with new ones.

Any loss of matter is being done by the same natural processes that would be happening anyway. Cells aren't being removed and replaced, they're just restructuring and dividing the way they would naturally, just with better results.

If the serum counts as replacing your body... Then Form? You're not the real Form. The real Form was slowly killed and replaced by a doppelganger who only thinks they're Form, who was then killed and replaced by another doppelganger, and so on and so forth ad infinitum in a process that takes seven years and begins as soon as the last iteration was completed.

Because every cell in your body will be replaced by natural functions within seven years, on average. The Serum doesn't destroy cells, it just alters them so that they function and arrange themselves better.

And regardless: This argument started because I said that replacing body parts ran the risk of causing bodily dysphoria and similar conditions and that's why I would prefer augmenting or altering my existing body to replacing it, unless I have the means of transferring my fundamental existence into a fully fabricated body without the usual "bran upload" issues.

Peelee chimed in that transforming or augmenting my body with the Super Soldier Serum, for example, would be fundamentally identical to replacing my body, and therefore would cause the same issues and...

I believe that to be factually wrong.

I fail to see how a drug that would cure my premature arthritis, help me lose weight, and help me get into better shape is in any way comparable to cutting my arms and legs off and replacing them with prosthetics. I fail to comprehend how making my current body healthier, even at an extreme adn rapid rate, could cause the kind of bodily dysphoria and phantom pain as an amputation.

That's what the argument is about.

[Keltest]

So if i take a Lego house, and completely take it apart, and indiscriminately mix in a bunch of new bricks, and them build a new, different house out of the total pile, its still the same house to you?

[LaZodiac]

Theseus's Ship meets an unmitigated desire for trans-humanism sure is a conversation to wake up to.

[Fyraltari]

Theseus's Ship meets an unmitigated desire for trans-humanism sure is a conversation to wake up to.

If Theseus had been a cyborg, this story could have ended very differently.

[Rater202]

So if i take a Lego house, and completely take it apart, and indiscriminately mix in a bunch of new bricks, and them build a new, different house out of the total pile, its still the same house to you?

It was never a house, to begin with. It's a set of legos that happened to be configured into a house-like shape.

Adding in more legos to the next configuration doesn't mean that the original set has been replaced

It's really not comparable to a discussion regarding the human body, and honestly only superficially resembles the topic at hand.

[Fyraltari]

If the serum counts as replacing your body... Then Form? You're not the real Form. The real Form was slowly killed and replaced by a doppelganger who only thinks they're Form, who was then killed and replaced by another doppelganger, and so on and so forth ad infinitum in a process that takes seven years and begins as soon as the last iteration was completed.

That's only true if you start with the premise that the "original" Form is more real than the "subsequent"* ones.

And in any case, the self is a fiction the brain tells it...self (funny that), so it's a moot point.

*It's not a discreet process.

Edit: Also Keltest totally stole my "rearranged ship" question that everybody breezed past.

[Keltest]

It was never a house, to begin with. It's a set of legos that happened to be configured into a house-like shape.

Adding in more legos to the next configuration doesn't mean that the original set has been replaced

It's really not comparable to a discussion regarding the human body, and honestly only superficially resembles the topic at hand.

Your arm was never an arm to begin with. Its a set of cells that happen to be configured into an arm-like shape.

I picked Legos for a reason.

[Rater202]

Your arm was never an arm to begin with. Its a set of cells that happen to be configured into an arm-like shape.

I picked Legos for a reason.

The cells in the arm are meant to be an arm. A muscle cell is always part of a muscle, a blood cell is always blood. Unless something goes horribly wrong.

A set of Legos is meant to be whatever the hell you want it to be, subject to your skill at assembling them.

Unless you're arguing that I'm made entirely out of non-differentiated stem cells, Keltest, Legos are a terrible metaphor for the human body.

...And even then, now that I think about it, non-differentiated stem cells would be more akin to the plastic that lego blocks are cast from rather than the blocks themselves.

[Peelee]

Plant, not ooze.

Apologies!

Why no, sir! It merely means that neither of our positions on this matter is purely anecdotal and instead both conform to valid scientific hypotheses. Yay to science!

Yay to science! Prost!

ETA: Who wants a new thread?

[Fyraltari]

ETA: Who wants a new thread?

If you feel like doing it, go ahead.

[Form]

If the serum counts as replacing your body... Then Form? You're not the real Form. The real Form was slowly killed and replaced by a doppelganger who only thinks they're Form, who was then killed and replaced by another doppelganger, and so on and so forth ad infinitum in a process that takes seven years and begins as soon as the last iteration was completed.

I hope y'all will treat new and future Form with the same courtesy as current Form nonetheless, if only because past Form would have wanted it that way.

@FutureForm: You owe me for this.

I fail to see how a drug that would cure my premature arthritis, help me lose weight, and help me get into better shape is in any way comparable to cutting my arms and legs off and replacing them with prosthetics. I fail to comprehend how making my current body healthier, even at an extreme adn rapid rate, could cause the kind of bodily dysphoria and phantom pain as an amputation.

That's what the argument is about.

I don't think that's the argument that was made. I think this is a strawman you've constructed somewhere along the way.

Anyway, whenever you bring this up you one hand express a desire to significantly change your body... whilst at the same time pretty much rejecting any big psychological and/or biological changes that would come with that. Suppose the serum works exactly the way you want it to and it transforms you into a Greek Adonis. I'm assuming that like the rest of us mortals in this thread you don't quite look like that, so how would that not still be a big change? Regardless of how you got there? Just ignore the metaphysics of the nature of the self for a moment.

Theseus's Ship meets an unmitigated desire for trans-humanism sure is a conversation to wake up to.

If only Captain Metaphysics were here to save the day.

[LaZodiac]

If only Captain Metaphysics were here to save the day.

I think the thing about the Ship of Theseus is that it's... solved, really. For as much as this sort of thing can be solved. The spirit is more important than the materials. I don't really see it NOT being this way.

[Fyraltari]

I hope y'all will treat new and future Form with the same courtesy as current Form nonetheless, if only because past Form would have wanted it that way.

@FutureForm: You owe me for this.

Somehow, I don't think FutureForm is going to pay you back.

I think the thing about the Ship of Theseus is that it's... solved, really. For as much as this sort of thing can be solved. The spirit is more important than the materials. I don't really see it NOT being this way.

I think that by "spirit" you mean structure or shape? Because a ship doesn't have a "spirit".

But yeah, ultimately all atoms are interchangeable with any atom of the same element, it's not what they are that counts, but how they're arranged.

[Keltest]

Somehow, I don't think FutureForm is going to pay you back.


I think that by "spirit" you mean structure or shape? Because a ship doesn't have a "spirit".

But yeah, ultimately all atoms are interchangeable with any atom of the same element, it's not what they are that counts, but how they're arranged.

I assume by spirit Zodi means something like "the significance we as people put to the idea of the thing rather than any intrinsic property of the physical materials."

[Rater202]

I don't think that's the argument that was made. I think this is a strawman you've constructed somewhere along the way.

I expressed that I am normally against needless replacement of flesh.

I was questioned on this based on previous comments.

I explained what the difference was and why I had such a preference.

Peelee replied to one of my posts saying that there was no difference.

I fail to see a straw man, but insisting that there is no difference one is insisting that altering my body with the serum would cause just as much dysphoria, dysmorphia, and phantom pain as

Anyway, whenever you bring this up you one hand express a desire to significantly change your body... whilst at the same time pretty much rejecting any big psychological and/or biological changes that would come with that. Suppose the serum works exactly the way you want it to and it transforms you into a Greek Adonis. I'm assuming that like the rest of us mortals in this thread you don't quite look like that, so how would that not still be a big change? Regardless of how you got there? Just ignore the metaphysics of the nature of the self for a moment.

I reject the idea that changing what I am changes who I am.

The idea that making myself healthier or even transforming myself into something inhuman would fundamentally alter my core identity, my values, or anything like that is, to me, absurd. If I make different decisions as a greek adonis, it would be because a healthier body gives me options I don't have currently.

It's also completely irrelevant to this discussion beyond the basic idea of changing the body. We're not talking about how having a healthier body might affect me mentally. We're arguing about whether or not magically becoming more fit and healthy is findementally the same as hacking off bits of yourself to replace with machinery and electronics.

[Mystic Muse]

The old thread is dead, long live the thread.

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...6#post25397656

Will update opening post when not stuck on phone.