On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 12:35:44AM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > This is > literally true, given that from moment to moment, even in the absence of > teleportation > etc., the atoms in your body turn over such that after a certain time none of > the > matter in your body is the "same", and before this time the fact that some of > the > matter in your body is the "same" is accidental and makes no difference to > your > conscious experience. >
We _really_ need to dispell this myth. It turns out that A bomb tests prior to the partial test ban treaty provides a unique clock that allows one to measure when a particular cell was born. It turns out that whilst this statement is true of various organs (eg the gut in particular), neurons turn out to have an average age just two years less than the age of the person (as measured in cadavers), ie most are born during the rapid brain expansion that occurs during the first two years of life. This is crucial, because I would suspect that neurons have far more relevance to one's person, than do gut cells. I posted on this before - it was reported in a recent New Scientist. I can dig out the reference if people are interested. -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
