The Mystery of the Boat Clone.

[Citrus Insanity]

Suppose Kiral is a sailor from a long time ago, and he had a nice little boat.

Every few months, he would replace a piece of his boat with a newer, less-worn piece. Of course, replacing a piece of his boat does not make it a different boat. Eventually, Kiral's boat is composed entirely of new materials. Is it still the same boat? For the sake of not having two discussions at once, let's assume that it is; after all, if someone were to claim that it wasn't the same boat, then at which point did it stop being the same boat?

Now assume that, one day, Kiral decides to venture into the warehouse where he keeps the scraps he removed from his boat, and he reassembles them into his boat.

Does he now have two of his boat?
:scream:

 

[Grathea]

Ah, this old chestnut.

Honestly, there isn't an answer.
There's no specific point when it stops being Kiral's boat, but you'd have to agree it's not quite the same anymore.
Although I guess from a logical standpoint she's still the same boat - same name and all, and therefore the same entity.
However, the second question is more complicated - does Kiral have two of the same? No, he doesn't. His boat is the one already assembled, not this pile of fragments.

But really, I don't think there's any solid answer.

 

[Plubyblop]

I think there are core parts we would consider, most likely the engine, or maybe the hull.  I think once those are replaced most people would probably consider it a new boat.

I know if I replaced the engine of my car, I wouldn't consider it the same car anymore.

 

[FlippyD]

Does Kiral believe in the essence of the thing or the existence of the thing?
Solve for X

 

[gamingfan1989]

I would say if everything was replaced, then it would be in fact a new boat.

However if there are parts of the old boat left in it then decide for yourself.

 

[arbiter]

;D

 

[Zekallinos]

I'd say that the moment the boat isn't the same, then it's not the same boat. It's still Kiral's boat (she did purchase the material, and it's common sence), but it's not the same boat. In fact, a boat is nothing but a bunch of molecules in one stack, to my eyes. In fact, even rust can make it "not the same boat". That doesn't mean it wasn't the same boat, of course.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

I have a body.  I eventually replace everything, I get new arms, new eyes, new everything.  Because as some cells die they are removed, or recycled - and even then eventually removed.  My skin is new compared to the skin I had 10 years ago, but is it still not my skin?

If all my discarded physical matter were to be rolled up and a new body created from the dust, is it my body?  No.  My body's here with me, it just changes over time.  This is 2nd is my recycled waste material.  Junk made new.

Because I went though a gradual change, things removed from me aren't part of me anymore.
When they spark into essence, even though they had been of me, they are not me.  There are not two of me.  There's me, and there's this glob of weird.

Two boats.  One through gradual change, that was never a "new" boat.  And an actual new boat, made of parts that aren't exactly "new".

 

[___]

I would say the original boat, in its restructured form, is the original boat, whereas the second boat is a new boat assembled from old parts.

My reasoning is thus: if he had replaced only some of the original boat, I presume there would be no question as to whether it was the same boat. If another boat had been assembled out of the old parts of his boat, along with the old parts of other boats and newly crafted parts, I presume there would be no argument as to whether this frankensteinian boat would be named and considered according to the previous users of its parts.

I argue that a boat is considerably more than the sum of its parts; in incomplete form the boat may sink, or it may float but not be mobile, or it may not be suitable for human habitation. Only in reasonably complete form is the boat a boat and not simply a useless gathering of debris.

Therefore the origin of the parts do not inform the meaning of the whole, and thus the boat itself is an entity of unique consideration seperate from its parts.

Cool question though, incidentally there's a really good cyberpunk/sci-fi series called Otherland by Tad Williams revolving around this question, and of course many other cyberpunk classics like Ghost in the Shell. I believe it will become the most important question of the 22nd or maybe 23rd century.

 

[Dissonance]

It changes to a new boat once there's more than 50% of his old boat gone.

 

[kaze950]

It's a new boat because all he did was essentially replace one boat with another, albeit at a slower pace and one part at a time.

The point where the boat was completely replaced was the point where it became a different boat. Before, one could say it was simply the old boat with additions. But now, nothing of the original boat remains except in parts, so the boat that he stands before is a new boat.

If he were to rebuild his other boat, he would simply have one new boat and one old boat.

 

[___]

You have to consider that over the course of time the earlier replacements become whethered and adopted into the frame of the whole, to the point that they're indistinguishable in nature from original parts. If the boat changes hands, the new owner may not even know the difference between old parts and new parts, and render the whole argument irrelevant. He may replace the rest of the boat without even knowing it and it will never stop being the original entity to him, anyone else, or as a point of law.

 

[skirtboy]

"This was my grandfather's axe. My father replaced the blade. I replaced the handle."

The above is a classic method of posing the same question.  It is somewhat simpler to discuss, because there are only two parts. By the one reckoning, the statement, "This was my grandfather's axe" stops being true once the blade is replaced, because the axe ceases to exixt as a complete unit. It would be accurate to say "This was my grandfather's axe handle" until that, too was replaced.

The second point of view would  hold that "Gramp's Axe" ceases to exist once the last original part is replaced. Thus, the father had his father's axe, but the grandson did not.

The third point of vie holds that "Gramp's axe" continues to exist because of the chain of continuity. The father chose to repair the axe (by replacing the blade) rather than replacing it, because of the idea that it had belonged to his father. The grandson did the same with the handle, valuing that his father and grandfather had both once owned the axe. Although it could be said that grandpa never touched the last form of the axe, as neither handle nor blade were made when he was alive, it still qualifies as his axe because the chain of continuity remains intact. (The New handle is connected to the new blade, which was once connected to the old handle, which was once connected to the old blade.) If you were to reassemble the discarded blade and handle, it would not be "Gramp's axe" because it does not function very well as an axe, nor does it embody the spirit of the connection, father to son, to grandson.

A boat is more complicated, but the spirit of the question is mostly the same.

 

[kyonides]

is it the same boat? no, it isn't, it was modified while replacing every single worn piece with an less-worn one.

is it the same kind of boat? yes, why not? It would just look the same way it did at the very beginning.

 

[Citrus Insanity]

Objects are more than physical. The fact that objects even have names is proof of this, and that they can have histories or exist within memories is proof further.
So, Kiral's boat obviously has some sort of history, and that clearly isn't going to go away after all the pieces have been replaced. Even if it is later sold to some guy named Tim, then Tim's boat is going to be no different from Kiral's boat, because every physical aspect to it has an un-physical history, and it will, no matter what physical modifications it undergoes, remain "the boat that Tim got from Kiral."

So...
Physically it is not the same boat, but ontologically it is.

That's how I see it, anyways.

Also, most of you guys are skipping the second (and primary) question in the original post:  does Kiral have two of his boat after he'd remade it? This one is a little trickier IMO.

Let's remove any assumptions from the mix and go ahead to assume that the pieces he removed from his original boat weren't damaged or altered by time (no wood has rotted, no planks have become mouldy, etc, etc). They are the exact same pieces he removed from his boat, put back in the same places they were before.

By my reasoning above, I, personally, would have to conclude that it is not a "clone" of Kiral's orginial boat, as it would be in this case "physically the same, but ontologically different". It can't be the same boat, because it has a far-differing history:  it is simply a boat that was created out of scraps, and the only relationship it has to Kiral's original boat would be the planks it is made out of.

 

[kyonides]

he just replaced the first one... the the worn pieces aren't in good shape to make a second boat...

 

[Beran]

I have to agree with Citrus insanity.
The boat is an object, and objects are more than just physical presences. Objects are ideas . Those ideas need a conscious presence to exist. On a purely physical level, the boat can no longer be called "the same" when a new part is added, as it has been altered. But, as an idea, an object, it is still the same thing.
After all, how do you really physically define an object? On atomic scales, the object is not even connected to it's own parts in any way, as atoms, by nature, do not touch unless put under enormous forces.
Regardless of the physical state of the boat, Kiral can still claim that it is the same boat. It is the same object that Kiral started with, the same idea of a "thing".
By the same reasoning I would say that Kiral does not have a second "clone" boat. It's definitely a boat, and made of the same materials as the original boat was, but the original boat is no longer those materials and therefore the new boat is not the same entity as the old boat.