Who is Jack?

The problem to be addressed is as follows: There is a person called Jack who is

going to get his mind completely renovated. This means all his beleifs,
memories and experiences get replaced with new ones. The whole process last
1000 seconds. At every second a part of his brain is replaced. We are to
assume that Jack is mentally constructed to only have 1000 parts. Jack is in
Seat A. There is a backup made of Jacks brain for legal reasons. Now, consider
a second person, John, who sits in Seat B wanting the same procedure.
However, John's brain is accidentaly replaced with Jacks. The question is where
is Jack? Seat A, Seat B, both or neither. I will be arguing that the person who is
infact Jack is the person sitting in Seat B. Note that this question does not
address who is legally Jack moreso who is infact Jack.
Arguments are preseneted for both sides. The argument for Seat A is the
following: The person at second 0 in Seat A is clearly Jack. At second 1 a part of
Jack's brain has been replaced. Only changing one part of Jack would not alter
Jack's identity since the change is too small to make a difference. Therefore,
the person at second 1 is the same as the person at second 0 Jack. We can
follow this same logic from second 1 to second 2 to 3 to 4 etc. Therefore at the
end of the 1000 seconds the person sitting in Seat A is Jack. The argument for
Seat B argues the definition of what defines our identity. When a person needs
replacement parts e.g. Lungs, heart, kidney, it is not thought that a new person
has been created. Thereore one can surely conclude that a person's indentity
can be defined as their psycology, beleifs, desires and their memories. The
mental content of Jack has been transferred to John in Seat B. Therefore the
person in Seat B is now Jack.
I think there is a serious problem with the reasonging for Jack being in Seat A.

The argument has a absurd premise thus making it false. What follows from
this false premise is an invalid argument due to logical impossibility. I am
therefore compelled to agree with the argument for Jack being in Seat B whose
argument is sound.
For this to become clearer, let us first look at one of the premises for the
argument saying Jack is in Seat A. "A change to small to make a difference". I
define a change to have something different to it. Picture two tree's with 1000
dull dark green leaves. Now change one of the leaves on one of the tree's to
bright pink. If I were to ask any rational person if there is a difference between
the two tree's they would undoubtly say "Yes". It would be absurd to say "No".
In the case of Jacks brain being renovated there has also been a change a bit
of his brain has been replaced. Because there has been a change it must
therefore have a difference. Therefore to say there the change is too small to
make a difference is absurd.On these grounds the premise should be rejected.
Secondly, there is a major flaw that becomes apparent with the validity of
the argument for Jack being in Seat A. We have shown that making a change
does make a difference. To become aware of the arguments invalidity consider
Jack's brain to be a large red square split into 1000 smaller red sqaures. At
second 1 change one of the smaller squares to blue. Do this again at second 2
and so on. At second 1000 we now have a completely blue square. The
argument for Jack in Seat A would lead you to beleive that they are the same.
This is logically impossible due to it's self contradicting nature. A square that is
red all over cannot be blue all over. Therefore the argument as well as having a
false premise is invalid due to logical impossibility. It can be concluded that the
argument for Jack being in Seat A should be discounted due to it being
unsound.

As seen above the first argument is unsound. I will now look at the
argument for Jack in seat B. To accentuate it's soundness I would like to present
again the idea of the red square split into 1000 parts. The red colour represents
Jacks mental content (thoughts, memories etc) in Seat A. As stated in the
argument changing a body part such as a liver does not change who you are.
Therefore it is the mental content. Assume John as being a green circle with
1000 parts. At every second one part of the cirle changes to red the colour of
Jack's square. By the end of the process it is now completely red. Clearly, the
mental content of Jack has moved from the square to the circle. Therefore Jack
is now the circle. Because the mental content has moved the person who is
now Jack is sitting in Seat B.
There is a common objection to Jack being in Seat B. This is
through presenting the argument for Jack being in Seat A and re using it for
John in Seat B. Basically, at second 0 John is clearly John. At second 1 the
change is too small to make a difference and therefore still John. At the end of
the process the person in Seat B is John not Jack. We have clearly shown that
argument to being unsound due to logical impossibility and absurdity.
Therefore it should be rejected when reusing it for a different scenario. A
second common objection is to state the following: If the person in Seat A at
1000 seconds is not Jack, then whe does he stop becoming Jack? The argument
is that at the end of 1000 seconds the person is no longer Jack. Asking at what
point he is no longer Jack is irrelevant. Therefore this question is a tangent and
not relevant to the main argument. Thus, it should not be considered as
grounds to disprove the arguments soundness.
In conlusion, the question is whether Jack is in Seat A, Seat B,
neither or both. I have argued that Jack is in Seat B. The argument for Jack

being in Seat A not only relies on a false absurd premise but is also shown to be
logically impossible thus depicting it's invalidity. Thus the argument should be
rejected. The argument for Jack being in Seat B holds because of it's inherit
soundness. A common objection is through re using the argument for Seat A
which is proven to be unsound. Therefore it should not be considered.
Irrelevant questions such as when Jack in Seat A stops becoming Jack should
also be rejected. Therefore one must agree with the conclusion that Jack, when
both renovations have taken place, is now in Seat B.