Something...else

When do things cease to be what they are?

When does something cease to be that particular something and become something else?

For instance, when does Sammy, the cat in this blog, cease to be Sammy? Obviously, earlier in the day when Sammy was rubbing up on its family's ankles, possibly lapping up some left-over cereal-milk, Sammy was what the family knew as "Sammy." But after Sammy got squashed by Strangeloop's car, was it still "Sammy"? Strangeloop states that "the cat was pretty tore up and it was quite the ugly sight." But does is the cat still a cat, albeit lacking the life-energy that constituted the cat being alive and making up the "personality" that family had come to use to distinguish "Sammy" from other cats, even if they were identical in appearance.

I suppose this begs two distinct questions, both of which merit further examination. 1. What exactly constitutes the cat being "Sammy"? And 2. What exactly constitutes the cat being "a cat"?

I suppose the first question has already been somewhat answered. Sammy had a personality that the family was intimately familiar with that made Sammy the family cat that they all loved. That personality would have helped the family distinguish that particular cat from other, visually identical cats. Certainly, that personality, at least to some degree, made Sammy well, "Sammy." But obviously that wasn't the only thing that made it "Sammy."

So that brings us to the point of the family discovering the cat laying where Strangeloop left it on the porch, "pretty tore up and quite the ugly sight." Whoever discovered it laying there would have recognized it visually as Sammy. But was it still "Sammy" since the life-energy and personality existed no longer? One could possibly make the claim that the cat was no longer "Sammy" and was instead a visually-recognizable conglomeration of flesh, fur, and biomass. What the family would mourn over would be the memory of Sammy's personality and the memories of the past interactions they had with the cat when it still possessed the life-energy. I would have to contend that post-death, the cat is would cease to be "Sammy" though that would certainly be of little consolation to the family.

So then when does the cat cease to be "a cat"? I would have to say that even a dead cat is still a cat. It still possesses all the necessary ingredients to be a cat - DNA, specialized cells, body structure, appearance. If some scientists were to extract some of the cat's DNA, even after death, they would be able to re-create a cat and nothing else.

So what has to happen for a cat to no longer be a cat? If you chopped it up into little pieces, it would still be "a cat," just in a whole bunch of little pieces, wouldn't it? Maybe not. It would definitely possess the DNA, and the cells, but not the right arrangement or appearance. The cells wouldn't even be in the correct juxtaposition to - say, after re-injecting it with the now-missing life energy - function the way they did before, making it a fully functioning cat. Granted, one could make the claim that a cat missing a leg or needing a pacemaker is still a cat so some function can be sacrificed and still maintain the actual organism. But at some point, enough functionality is lost to prevent the pile of pieces from being considered "a cat" though I don't know where that is.

What if you took the cat and put it in a chemical bath that broke down all the cell walls and dissolved the biomass into its molecular components. Say you were able to then completely extract the original chemical from the solution and be left with a pile of molecules or chemicals of some sort. I don't think anyone would say that what remains is in any way "a cat". They would call it something else - a pile of chemicals, a solution, whatever. But maybe the family would still consider it "Sammy" just like they would if Sammy were cremated and they possessed the ashes. However I would refer back to my discussion above and claim that they are not assuming the chemical pile or the ashes are actually "Sammy" but the memories they invoke are what they are clinging to. The other stuff is simply the physical reminder, much like a headstone would be at a loved one's cemetery sight.

Though this far from settles the issue - it may well actually only lead to further debate - it brings about a very interesting concept that may well close the debate. Something ceases to be "something" when it becomes something else. A cat is no longer a cat when it becomes a pile of ashes or a pile of chemicals. The actual existence of something may cease and its components may constitute something else from there after, but the memory of that particular thing will endure as long as there are those still available to remember it. That is what blurs the lines between something being one thing and being something else. If there are no anthropogenic attachments, there is little debate. That is precisely why humans have such a hard time with matters such as these. Only in the complete absence of emotion can one fully understand things.