Topics Existence

Question There is a child that is 5 years old, 4ft tall, likes toys, is of average intelligence, and believes in santa clause. 40 years pass and the child is now a man 45 years old, 6ft tall, doesn't like toys, is a physicist, and does not believe in santa clause. are the child and the man two distinct beings. or are they the same being? if they are two distinct beings then could the 5 year old child be classified as "dead" since he is now non existent (replaced by a completely different individual).

Accepted:
August 16, 2012

Comments

Good question, and space is of course too short for any serious arguments about it --BUT one classic line fo thought is that you decide whether entities x/y are identical by comparing their properties, and if they differ in properties they must be NON-identical ... This is the line you hint at in the way you frame your question: since the child and man are so different in their properties, they must be distinct. (Then whether the child must be declared 'dead' I don't address -- but that might just come down to how we choose to stipulate our use of the word 'dead'.) ... But now another line of thought, rather popular in recent years, is that we can think of an entity as having a set of time-indexed properties: i.e. it's not that you 'like toys', but that you 'like toys at time t'. On this view you can say that the child and the man are just two stages or parts of one entity, an entity who 'likes toys at age 5 and does not like toys at 45'. Note, this view need not quite identify 'man' and 'child', but could rather hold that they are distinct parts of one more encompassing entity (like your hand and foot are distinct parts of your one body). Or you might interpret this view AS identifying man and child, by recognizing that they are the same person (who timelessly has both time-indexed properties). This doesn't quite answer your question, but lays out the three main possible answers -- and then the arguments must begin as to which is the best answer ...hope this is a useful beginning ...