originally posted by Steven Spielmann:
In fact, if I replace every single piece, so that not one atom of the original car is still in use, it is still "my car".
What if your mechanic has been painstakingly collecting each piece as you replace it and then reassembles the original pieces together in exactly the same structure? Is 'your car' the one composed of the original parts or the one unified by the ongoing use-relationship over time?
Enquiring minds want to know.
It's really bizarre that, in my first post ever on Wine Disorder, I'd be writing about this. I almost posted last night, but you've worn me down. I can't help myself.
An Indian Buddhist monk and a Bactrian Greek king had this same debate (sort of, more-or-less) a couple of millennia ago. The monk, Nagasena used the metaphor of the chariot (instead of the car; they didn't have cars then) to talk about Buddhist doctrine and came down squarely on the side of use-relationship all the way.
And here I thought, what with the cynics and skeptics and all, that Wine Diisorder would be a Buddhism-free zone. I have to teach this stuff to undergrads tomorrow.
Another thought, from a devotional poet of India: I don't want to be sugar, I want to taste sugar. He was talking about Krishna, I think, but I'll go with that.
My name's Doug. I live in DC. I like wine.
From The Questions of King Milinda:
Nagasena: As a king you have been brought up in great refinement and you avoid roughness of any kind. If you would walk at midday on this hot, burning, and sandy ground, then your feet would have to tread on the rough and gritty gravel and pebbles, and they would hurt you, your body would get tired, your mind impaired, and your awareness of your body would be associated with pain. How, then did you come: on foot, or on a mount?
Milinda: I did not come, Sir, on foot, but on a chariot.
Nagasena: If you have come on a chariot, then please explain to me what a chariot is. Is the pole the chariot?
Milinda: No, reverend Sir!
Nagasena: Is then the axle the chariot?
Milinda: No, reverend Sir!
Nagasena: Is it then the wheels, or the framework, or the flag-staff, or the yoke, or the reins, or the goadstick?
Milinda: No, reverend Sir!
Nagasena: Then is it the combination of pole, axle, wheels, framework, flag-staff, yoke, reins, and goad?
Milinda: No, reverend Sir!
Nagasena: Then is this chariot outside the combination of pole, axle, wheels, framework, flag-staff, yoke, reins, and goad?
Milinda: No, reverend Sir!
Nagasena: Then, ask as I may, I can discover no chariot at all. Just a mere sound is this chariot. But what is the real chariot? Your Majesty has told a lie, has spoken a falsehood! There really is no chariot! Your Majesty is the greatest king in the whole of India. Of whom then are you afraid, that you do not speak the truth?
(To Assembly) Now listen, you 500 Greeks, and 80,000 monks, this king Milinda tells me he has come in a chariot. But when asked to explain to me what a chariot is, he cannot establish its existence. How can one possibly approve of that?
The five hundred Greeks thereupon applauded the Venerable Nagasena and said to King Milinda: Now let your Majesty get out of this if you can!
Milinda: I have not, Nagasena, spoken a falsehood. For it is in dependence on the pole, the axle, the wheels, the framework, the flag-staff, etc., that there takes place this denomination chariot, this designation, this conceptual term, a current appellation, and a mere name.
Nagasena: Your Majesty has spoken well about the chariot.
