Steve Grand, in his book, Creation: Life and How to Make It, invites his readers to “think of an experience you clearly remember, something you can see, feel, maybe even smell, as if you are really there. After all, you really were there at the time, weren’t you? How else would you remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren’t there. Not a single atom that is in your body today was there when that event took place….Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of which you are made. If that doesn’t make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does, because it is important.”
So when I say my wife is a different person from the one I married………….
(just joking!)
Isn’t this a rif on Heraclitus? You can’t step in the same river twice, he is alleged to have said, because both you and the river are made up of different molucules the microsecond after you step into it.
But there’s a still “you” to discuss your changing cells, and she of the changing cells is still your “wife,” and there’s still a “river” to contain the ever-changing waters.
But here’s a anothe read on this problem of continua.
From: http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/heraclit.htm#H3
“What Heraclitus actually says is the following:
On those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow. (DK22B12)
The sentence says that different waters flow in rivers staying the same. In other words, though the waters are always changing, the rivers stay the same. Indeed, it must be precisely because the waters are always changing that there are rivers at all, rather than lakes or ponds. The message is that rivers can stay the same over time even though, or indeed because, the waters change. The point, then, is not that everything is changing, but that the fact that some things change makes possible the continued existence of other things. Perhaps more generally, the change in elements or constituents supports the constancy of higher-level structures.” (DK22B67).
SO, I’d spread that good news to Mrs. Robert.
I was amazed (some years ago) to learn that one’s body is constantly re-building itself. Cells just don’t live very long, it seems. Thus, the critical role of one’s personal genome, or DNA strands, in assuring that proper cells are constantly and consistently built to replace the ones that die. This helped me understand, a little better anyhow, things like cancer and other medical issues. It also helped me understand what I’d heard once upon a time about the mystery of aging. A person dying of “old age” is made entirely of cells that are practically brand new! So how does a collection of brand new cells make an “old” body? Maybe it’s like making a copy of a copy of a copy… It keeps getting worse to the point of illegibility. It does seem to raise immortality from pure fiction to the realm of possibility – just find the design “flaw” and fix it. Strangely, when I ponder the question of whether there’s “divine intelligence” behind existence, I find this to be the strongest evidence in support thereof. Some people point to the wondrous beauty and complexity of creation as proof of “intelligent design”, arguing it’s beyond the possibilties of random combination of atoms and molecules over time. Personally, I find it hard to believe any intelligence, however omnipotent, could accomplish such a feat as creation of the universe. But, I find no good reason for aging (an inevitable death) other than intentional design. On the other hand, maybe I got that stuff about cells all wrong. My memory ain’t so good as it used to be.
This is a quotation from an article by Philip Hunter the January 2007 edition of “Prospect” magazine (an excellent British magazine, incidentally, recommended to all who like to think for themselves, rather than have their thinking done for them):
It turns out that a low-calorie diet is not the only way to extend the lifespan of a mouse. The same effect can be obtained on a diet with normal calories but reduced protein. Moreover, it seems that it is not the protein that matters, but one specific component: the amino acid methionine. The finding is surprising because methionine is one of the nine essential amino acids. A diet totally deficient in methionine would kill a mouse in a few weeks. Yet the optimum level for longevity seems to be lower than is taken in a normal diet.
It is not known exactly how methionine restriction extends lifespan, but the answer could be linked to the oxidative or free radical theory of ageing. This states that the primary cause of ageing lies in the toxic by-products of energy metabolism within our mitochondria (the sub-units of the cell that produce energy). These by-products—chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide—oxidise parts of nearby cellular components, in particular proteins and DNA. The process is akin to the rusting of metals upon exposure to air. Many of these toxic, oxidising substances are called free radicals because they are electrically neutral and therefore stable, but also highly reactive because they have an unpaired electron seeking a mate from any neighbouring molecule.
Methionine happens to be the amino acid most prone to losing electrons through oxidation, and so perhaps in some way restricting it within the diet persuades the organism to use another amino acid where possible, thus reducing its overall susceptibility to oxidation. Whether this is true or not, a recent Spanish study found that methionine restriction definitely decreases oxidative damage to crucial mitochondrial DNA and proteins.