My grandfather has had a hip replacement, three surgeries on his back, his gallbladder removed, and several other operations over the course of his 78 year life. For my entire life he has been my grandfather, Rachel Simon’s grandfather. Just because he has had some alterations to his anatomy over time, does that no longer make him my grandfather? Of course not. He has not stopped being my grandfather throughout my life, even though every now and then he receives a modification of sorts.
In a similar fashion, Vern’s Volvo is the car Vern has been driving continuously for twenty years. With emphasis on ownership as well as the proper functioning of a car, Vern’s Volvo is the Volvo Vern is driving at the present time, not the heap of parts Grace has in the corner. One can argue that those parts were once the original parts of Vern’s original Volvo, however Vern made the decision to pay for those parts to be removed. His hard work allowed him to make the money necessary to purchase the parts that he willingly had replaced.
If Grace were to reassemble the parts she had taken out of Vern’s Volvo, Vern’s Volvo would still be the car he drives. Similarly, if my grandfather were to have every single bone in his body replaced, every organ transplanted, plastic surgery on every surface of his body such that he was unrecognizable, he would still be my grandfather. The reason for this is that my grandfather remains my grandfather because the one aspect of his being that cannot be changed is his “essence.” The “essence” of my grandfather, his heart (figuratively) and soul, as I see them, do not change with various anatomical procedures, and furthermore, I do not stop being my grandfather’s granddaughter. He remains my grandfather. The essence of Vern’s Volvo lies with Vern himself. Grace changes out every part of Vern’s Volvo except the Volvo’s driver: Vern. Therefore, because Vern’s relationship to the car does not change, one cannot say Grace’s reassembly of Vern’s old parts is Vern’s Volvo.
The old parts stopped being Vern’s parts the moment they were taken out of Vern’s Volvo. In fact, those parts were only “Vern’s parts” while they resided in Vern’s vehicle. Let’s take a look at the journey these parts have made. While those parts were being manufactured, they were not even a part of any car. Then, they found their place in a Volvo that would be sent to a dealer. Vern bought the Volvo from the dealer and for a while all of those parts could, in truth, be labeled the parts of “Vern’s Volvo” because they resided in the car Vern drove. However, as Grace replaced each part, the parts said goodbye to their temporary possessor, and now are no longer a part of Vern’s car.
Note that the parts of something do not define the whole: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So long as Vern is driving a Volvo, Vern’s Volvo exists. The parts lose their identity as “Vern’s Volvo’s parts” the moment they are removed. But, because Vern’s Volvo never stopped existing while these parts were exchanged, Vern’s Volvo is the car he has been driving for twenty years.
In biology we learn that there are various levels of complexity to living things from smallest to largest. They go in this hierarchical order: cell, tissue, organ, organ system, organism. With each level, there are emergent properties, meaning the level below does not contain the current level’s properties. In addition, when a tissue is disassembled, it no longer retains the property of a tissue, but rather that of a cell. When a cell is disassembled, the matter is no longer termed living. This concept corresponds to the Vern’s Volvo situation on two levels. First, that Vern’s Volvo as a whole, the equivalent of an organism (highest level of organization) retains properties that the level below (parts) cannot express. Second, Vern’s Volvo was never disassembled all at once, therefore, it maintains, for argument’s sake, organism-level status. And thirdly, this concept proves that the heap of parts simply cannot be Vern’s Volvo because they cannot even be considered a functioning vehicle. As mentioned earlier, even if Grace were to reassemble them, the reassembled car would still not be Vern’s because Vern does not drive it.
The question is not “which is the the Volvo Vern bought?” If that were the question, the answer would be more difficult to answer, because the original parts of Vern’s car could be arguably the only plausible parts of the original Volvo, yet some might argue that considering Vern bought the car and it was never demolished entirely, the car he drives is the car he bought. A similar situation would even be if I were to make a clone of my sister, Kimberly, such that she would be genetically identical, which would be the real Kimberly? Without some kind of definition of Kimberly, we cannot say. So what defines us? Our relationships with other people and things define who we are. Thus, because the question is which is Vern’s Volvo, so long as Vern drives his current Volvo, he is driving Vern’s Volvo.
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