'Ship of Theseus' thought experiment.

[Cthulhu.Science]

I, farntfar, both exist and do not exist.
farntfar, as you know, is simply a label that I have attached to myself for the purposes of being able to interact with this forum.
When I am not interacting with this forum, I am not farntfar. I have another label, which, interestingly enough, is not entirely fixed either, but that's another story, and would only further confuse the issue.
For the purposes of this discussion, my "real" and external name is fixed, and was only changed at the moment of my marriage; which is where the confusion arises, for in France, my name did not change at that point, but remained constantly that I originally bore.

Further, as has been mentioned earlier, my cells are constantly being replaced. Different parts of me replace their cells at different rates apparently, and there are parts of me that do not get replaced at all.
So am I the same person that I was 60 years ago, when I bore most of my original planks?

I feel that I am the same person, though certainly with different memories and different experiences. I also definitely have different views about all sorts of things, including about my own permanence. But my memory lasts back to those early days in a very personal way, if imperfectly and I believe that I have not lost my original identity.

Does the ship have a similar feeling of permanence, despite so many partial replacements.
Certainly Trigger believes he has only ever had a single broom.

A lot of emphasis on your name.

But is the name the thing? And since everything has potentially as many or more names as there are languages what does that say about anything. Is a standard brick many things or is it just a that brick with many names. If someone is sentimental about that specific brick does that change the nature of that specific brick or just the nature of the person who is sentimental about it? Like this hunk of concrete, the size of a crab apple for sale for $30.

As for you, I'm becoming uncertain whether you really exist at all, let alone constantly replacing yourself. As for me, I'm with Douglas Adams on that subject. I'm probably just the figment of a deranged imagination.

 

[Harpo]

The characters in this meme were later replaced with Anakin and Amidala, but it’s the same meme.