29th April 2017, 12:45 PM
The computer you're using is still your computer. For all intents and purposes, you bought it and used it for its task. Any time you swap out a part, certainly it replaces an old one, but the overall object is still your computer. But I also think the degree to which you did this mattered. Since you did it little by little, each new part became "appropriated" and became a part of your new computer. One by one, the old parts were no longer relevant, just sad little orphan electronics to be discarded into a drawer and forgotten, so lonely and sad that they didn't even mind being eventually taken out to endure the indignity of getting recycled into an unimportant second-hand computer, forever a shadow of their former selves.
The "new" computer you build with the old parts is still a "new" computer, but really a "new old" computer, uh, or something. Part of what makes an object is its role and function, and since you were no longer using those parts, none of them are "your" computer any more. Just demoted to running solitaire for old folks, and occasionally pulling up facebook to let their owners embarass their grandchildren.
...Thesus?
The "new" computer you build with the old parts is still a "new" computer, but really a "new old" computer, uh, or something. Part of what makes an object is its role and function, and since you were no longer using those parts, none of them are "your" computer any more. Just demoted to running solitaire for old folks, and occasionally pulling up facebook to let their owners embarass their grandchildren.
...Thesus?