Quote Originally Posted by English assassin
No need to postulate an accident. Are you the "same" person as you were when you were aged 5? Will you be the "same" person as you are now when you are aged 75 ?
There's some differences though. That 5 year old will slowly evolve into whatever person he/his is today and will become in the future. Most would agree that it's still the same person. The accident would cause a kind of rupture in this evolving.

But both things still stems down to how much a person can change, until they become something other than themself?

Quote Originally Posted by Big King Sanctaphrax
Been watching Robo-Cop?
No, that one came from an article about philosophical aspects of cybernetics on the brain (although differently formulated).

No wonder that I felt I've seen sopmething simular to EA:s comments in that article, as it did refer to John Searle, about the "zombification" of a person, if you replace the actual brain with a mechanic replica, that makes you function exactly the same. According to him you're lost your soul on the way.
Agrees with EA on this one. If none can ever see the difference, does it matter?
And as this is highly interlinked with what BG asked about in the initial post, it becomes the same answer on that one. Or to put it more general, is your mind and soul "trapped" in your body or can it be moved around freely?

The interesting stuff is IMO on how much you can change before you stops being you and how much you can be allowed to change a person before they even became an induvidual, especially is the modified human doesn't really suffer afterwards.
My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?
Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Essays on Mind and Matter"