"What we see is not what we are, we all know it and yet we simply despise it. "
The post 4th in the order and yet so much the first seemingly matching the title of the blog that it represents on purpose. Blog talks of change, but what is change? To start with an example, When a baby girl is born, she is X. She grows and becomes a teenager and then into a old woman. During the process, as we generally say that X changes a lot physically, mentally, spiritually. But despite all these changes she remains X as we call her. Then She stops breathing and we no longer say that she has changed but rather we say that she has died. From her birth till her death, She changes and then in a moment she is no more. What defines 'X' and what defines changes undergone and what change exactly resulted in destruction of X? This has always been a question and has time and again been critically examined. This is similar to 'Ship of Theseus Paradox' which is as follows:
Suppose, We have a wooden ship and with time due to deterioration of it's planks we keep changing planks time to time until all the planks it was made up of are completely replaced. Now the question is whether it still remains the same wooden ship which it was originally?
Let us twist it a bit further. With all the older planks of the original ship, we try and make a ship looking exactly the same as the original one. And we also have this ship which has been transformed plank by plank into the present condition. Out of these two ships, which is the actual wooden ship we originally started with?
And if the answer is that none of the both ships is the original wooden ship, then the underlying question is at what exact moment the ship went from existence to destruction?
This Ship of Theseus actually represents us. The real problem is about what makes us who we are. Is it about the material that makes us, or is it about our form/structure, or is it because of our thoughts, feelings and the soul. Even the thoughts and feelings can wipe out with a loss of memories and yet we remain the same or do we not?
Now think again that if you could be duplicated, Will you remain the same or will you have an existential twin or will you cease to be?
Such all types of questions form part of the puzzle that exists. I am equally puzzled and really have no idea how to go about it possibly. May with time, the answer comes from within.
