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[PyroDesu]

True, but you died in bits and pieces.  You never ceased to be.

If what makes you is the collection of atoms or whatever that make up your body, then you're dying bit by bit.
Look at it this way: If you take apart a car bit by bit, and replace every part with a piece that is fundamentally different, do you have a car made from different parts?

I don't mind the philosophy, but you've just tried to bring up a paradox (Theseus's paradox) to prove a point. Depending on how one resolves it, you either offered a counterpoint or strengthened his argument.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I never asked if it was a different car, I asked if it was made of different parts. And since Kriyella's claim was basically "The clone is made of different parts, so it isn't me," Theseus's paradox applies. Regardless of the exact transition point, by the end the car is made of different parts, and by Kriyella's argument is different. Since the human body also replaces its parts, Kri's argument means that you die several times in your life.

Basically...context is key. As are the last few words.

[PyroDesu]

I never asked if it was a different car, I asked if it was made of different parts. And since Kriyella's claim was basically "The clone is made of different parts, so it isn't me," Theseus's paradox applies. Regardless of the exact transition point, by the end the car is made of different parts, and by Kriyella's argument is different. Since the human body also replaces its parts, Kri's argument means that you die several times in your life.

Basically...context is key. As are the last few words.

And chalk that up to a reading comprehension failure on my part. In my defense, it is a Theseus's paradox until the last... 4 words.

[TCM]

So Grate's brain is a car now. This is some fascinating stuff.

[Xantalos]

So Grate's brain is a car now. This is some fascinating stuff.

Indeed.
If we're talking about immortality, Xan's biologically immortal.

[Xanmyral]

How in the world did someone gain reflexive reincarnation anyhow?

[GreatWyrmGold]

I never asked if it was a different car, I asked if it was made of different parts. And since Kriyella's claim was basically "The clone is made of different parts, so it isn't me," Theseus's paradox applies. Regardless of the exact transition point, by the end the car is made of different parts, and by Kriyella's argument is different. Since the human body also replaces its parts, Kri's argument means that you die several times in your life.

Basically...context is key. As are the last few words.

And chalk that up to a reading comprehension failure on my part. In my defense, it is a Theseus's paradox until the last... 4 words.

I told you those words were key.
And yeah, I was trying to evoke that kind of argument, to point out that Kriyella's argument implies said paradox pretty heavily.

So Grate's brain is a car now. This is some fascinating stuff.

It's an analogy.
The car, not the brain.

How in the world did someone gain reflexive reincarnation anyhow?

Well, Grate got squished under a rock, and someone came up with the idea to use vaguely-undefined quantum stuff STEPHEN HAWKING can do to revive him. piecewise said it would work on a five, and that...other things would happen on a 1 or a 6. We rolled a six.
Eventually, I got control of Grate back.

[Kriellya]

How in the world did someone gain reflexive reincarnation anyhow?

STEPHEN HAWKING. Yes, all caps are necessary.

For the long version, during the tail end of the assault mission, they attempted to kill a strong amp user. During this, a massive explosion occurred and two things of import happened.

1) STEPHEN HAWKING rolled extremely well on his END roll as a fresh character. This resulted in him surviving something that he honestly had no right surviving. In the flavor text describing this, PW said that STEPHEN HAWKING just stood there, in absolutely no cover, and all the debris and flames flew past him without doing any damage. Someone else actually used STEPHEN HAWKING as cover and *also* took no damage. This essentially established STEPHEN HAWKING as, (somewhat) appropriately, a walking quantum mechanical anomaly.

2) Grate, the child character GWG made that had been the center of some interesting roleplay with the veterans, was crushed completely by a falling boulder. This made everyone sad. Because the feels.

So after this event, people lit on trying to leverage STEPHEN HAWKING's unexplored control of some bizarre understanding of quantum mechanics to attempt to revive Grate. After all, no one has observed him being dead yet! So quantum mechanics (or the bizarre variant that the entity known as STEPHEN HAWKING uses) clearly says that we do not yet know whether he is alive or dead.

PW, being a lover of unintended consequences, gave us the okay, and so STEPHEN HAWKING acted as The Observer as the rest of the team lifted the rock... and rolled a 6.

And so was born Grate Mk2, standing over the greasy smear of Grate Mk1.

Of course, someone immediately shot him, and so Grate Mk3 popped into existence as well over the corpse of Grate Mk2.

If I remember correctly, we are now up to Grate Mk5. At least, as judging from the year long time-skip, he may have died a few more times during that, since it is mentioned that he discovered something about the effect. Grate Mk3 ate a manipulator battery and became an overload, and Grate Mk4 got chopped into bits by a reactor cooling fan.

[GreatWyrmGold]

*whistles innocently*

[Xanmyral]

Dang, sounds awesome. So STEPHEN HAWKING was a character of a player (you called him a 'fresh character') and he managed to do all that awesome stuff? Shit, what's he doing now?

[Xantalos]

Hanging around on the ship somewhere since BFEL (the player) hasn't been online in a bit.

[Unholy_Pariah]

*whistles innocently*

To hell with waitung for radio, if i stumble across grate on my ship im gonna flush him out an airlock.

[SeriousConcentrate]

I'll allow it.

[Xantalos]

I'll allow it.

HAHAHAHA
AHAHAHAHAHA
I TOLD YOU
I TOLD YOU SO
IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR MONTHS
EEHEHEHEHEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEEE

[syvarris]

If what makes you is the collection of atoms or whatever that make up your body, then you're dying bit by bit.Look at it this way: If you take apart a car bit by bit, and replace every part with a piece that is fundamentally different, do you have a car made from different parts?

Eeehehehe.  You've missed the fundamental part of the argument.  The answer is yes!

The answer is also irrelevant.  The thing that defines the person as that person is the idea that they have been unceasingly concious, not that they have a particular set of cells or parts.

At least, that's my opinion.  Kri might be different.  I am kinda arguing in their place.

You're not exactly arguing against the need to find a term...

I'm not?  The fact that I used three different terms to describe the same thing, without any confusion, doesn't illustrate the point that a single agreed upon term is not required?  Huh.

And why is that? What makes you you? Why do the clones' changes make it not-you, but your changes--which are not inherently more or less changing than the clone's--leave you you?

Hmm.  I'm pretty sure this has been stated every possible way by now.  I'm beginning to think our minds simply work differently.

Actually, there's one more way to put it: the idea is, a creature 'dying' (brain completely ceasing to function) causes it to no longer be that creaure.  It has ended.  Died.  You can make a copy, but it isn't the same creature.  It's a different thing experiencing stuff.

I'll say again, for all logical intents and purposes, there is no difference between the critters.  They are the same thing.  But from an emotional/philosophical PoV, the first has died, and the second is a mimic.

And yes, I consider people who have suffered brain damage to be different people than they used to be.  Usually they're pretty similar, but they are different people.

...Which is?

Because the clones still die.  They're just replaced by a different clone.  A clone which is a clone of the original branch no less, so this argument is irrelevant to whether or not he's immortal.

Arguably, the particular snapshot of Grate that is cloned is immortal, but every time it respawns it diverges from that snapshot and promptly becomes mortal.  Considering we can't interact or view that snapshot Grate, I don't think his immortality status is more relevant than that of all his derivative clones.