The Blueprint is the Real Thing

What determines what is “authentic”?

I have epilepsy, so I take medication. The way my brain functions changes depending on whether I’ve taken it or not. In that case, which one is the real me? It feels like both are.

I want to think about what authenticity actually is. I’ll lay out a ship, a thought experiment, and medication.

I. The Ship with Every Plank Replaced

There is the story of the Ship of Theseus.

Originally, this wasn’t a thought experiment, but a story about an actual ship. According to Plutarch, the people of ancient Athens preserved in their harbor the ship that the hero Theseus had sailed home in. Because it was made of wood, it rotted. As planks decayed, they were removed and replaced with new ones. This continued for hundreds of years.

While intending to preserve the ship, the materials were gradually swapped out. Eventually, a day came when not a single original plank remained. Is this still the Ship of Theseus?

Over a thousand years later, Hobbes added a malicious twist. What if you kept all the old planks that were removed and used them to rebuild another ship? Now there are two ships before you. The one made of the original materials is this one.

Philosophers have continued to argue over this, but reality decided long ago.

The Ise Grand Shrine is rebuilt every twenty years. It has continued for 1,300 years, and naturally, not a single piece of wood from its founding remains. Yet, it is the same shrine. Companies are the same. Even if every single employee is replaced and the business and office buildings change, as a legal entity, it continues to bear contracts as the same company. Your body is the same; even as cells are replaced, your family registry and your debts are carried over.

Not a single piece of material needs to remain. As long as the method of construction remains, it is treated as the same thing.

II. The Man from the Swamp

There is a story called the Swampman, proposed by philosopher Donald Davidson in 1987.

The underlying question is: what determines the contents of the mind? Is it determined solely by the state inside the head? Or is it not determined unless you include the relationship with the outside world? Davidson argued for the latter, and to prove it, he created an extreme example.

A man is walking by a swamp when he is struck by lightning and dies. At that exact same moment, in the adjacent swamp, a coincidental chemical reaction occurs. It is an impossible coincidence, but a body is formed with a molecular arrangement identical to the man who just died.

This body stands up and goes home. He greets his wife, sits in his usual seat, and continues a conversation from yesterday. Because even the state of the brain is identical, nothing feels different from the inside—the memories, the mannerisms, the feelings toward family. From the outside, no one notices.

Davidson argues that this is a different person. His reasoning is unique: he claims the man’s words mean nothing.

When he says “my wife,” that word refers to no one. This is because he has never actually met that person. Words mean something because there is an accumulation of past interactions between the word and the object; for a man who has existed for only a few seconds, that accumulation does not exist. Memories are the same. Even if there are recollections in his head, they are not “memories.” A memory is a trace of something that actually happened; what exists within him is merely a pattern in the shape of a trace.

The logic is consistent. However, that standard is not implemented anywhere in reality.

How do we verify that the person we meet every morning is the same person as yesterday? We judge by their face, how the conversation continues, and what they remember. No one has ever verified where the molecules came from. We don’t treat people who lose their memories in an accident as different people. Conversely, we judge twins to be different people not because their histories differ, but because their internal contents differ.

History can be zero. If the same information is present, it is treated as authentic.

III. The Me Who Takes Meds and the Me Who Doesn’t

I’ll apply this to my own case.

I take a drug called valproic acid. It’s an anti-epileptic drug, also used as a mood stabilizer.

It increases the substances in the brain that suppress excitation, dulling the pathways through which neural signals fire. Beyond that, it is known to affect the way genes themselves are read. This means the very wiring of the nerves is being altered.

And here is the troublesome part: I cannot see this happening.

From the inside, I am my usual self. I find the same things interesting; I remember the same things. I have no sense that I have changed. But science tells me it is a drug that affects mood. If it’s working, some part of my personality must be shifting. It’s just that the “me” who has shifted doesn’t feel like I’ve shifted.

A ship cannot notice when a single plank is replaced.

The materials are shifting. The continuity is broken every night by sleep. Even so, I don’t think of myself as a different person the next morning, nor do those around me treat me as such. This is because the blueprint continues.

The difference between this and the Swampman is that in my case, a conclusion must be reached. The Swampman exists within a paper. I have to decide whether or not to take my medication again next week.

All Three are Saying the Same Thing

The ship was authentic even after all its materials were replaced. The Swampman is treated as authentic even with zero history. I am still myself, even though my materials and continuity are shifting.

Only one thing remains: the blueprint.

This is what medicine does every day. Whether it’s surgery, medication, or rehabilitation, it intervenes in the body or brain to make a person slightly different than they were before. If we called that “fake,” medicine would be entirely negated. No one treats it that way. We operate on the premise that as long as the blueprint continues, it is authentic.

That is why I, too, treat the blueprint as my true self.