xkcd.com

This comic seems to say something about identity and permanence, using lego and constructions as an analogy to body parts and people.
What do you think?
Is the lego house really just gone?
What about Grandpa?

well i duno about your family.. but my grandmother wanted to be creamated so she can go under her roses.. hahaa.. and thats where shes at to this day haha

Indeed.
Although the thread is misleadingly titled, the image does hit on some central epistemological questions.
In particular, the comic reminds me of the 'ship - repair' problem: constantly at sea, a ship regularly has maintenance crews replace parts as they wear out. After some time, eventually every original part of the ship is replaced. Is this ship the same as the original ship?

Ship of Theseus


:-)

very true, it makes you think

I personaly have said ok to being a doner when I was 16.. always knew that after I die, I am sure that there is someone else who needs my parts more then I do!! pluss, after I am done with my eyes, someone else deserves complements more then I will need them

If grandpa is what we would usually call 'alive' then the title makes some sense, but if he is dead the question is more about an afterlife than the kinds of issues the comic is raising...
because
in fact
we are all like that lego house
(or repaired ship in Glaucon's example)
with our little lego blocks being replaced all the time.

Unless you think the scientific model is misleading and it is more like we are fields which attract lego blocks and it is in the field we have identity, or something else. But if our identity is in the blocks, we don't have one.

What I see the comic saying is that the girl thought lego pieces can be used in organ donation, because the older character told her that it is all in the arrangement of the pieces, and that those same pieces can become spaceships or trains. So why not arrange them for some useful and urgent purpose - like into hearts and kidneys and such.

The way I see it, the comic makes two points:

1. Concepts do not adequately translate from one field of application to another one, ie. a lego house is not exactly a house, nor can legos be used to make organs for donation. So the question is how useful is it to use toys (metaphors) in teaching/understanding concepts.

2. Based on 1., we develop notions of identity and permanence that are not necessarily realistic/adequate.

kind of like the human body

Mutation accumulation

but "grandpa is alive in you"

is the correct answer

Pete, have you been reading much about entropy laws, seems you have.

Further, why wait until death. If we can use granpa's organ's now to save two people - or more - why not harvest now? If organs are like lego pieces and we use ends justify means calculations already when it comes to lives. Two kidneys, a liver, a heart, lungs....
a little luck and a small crowd can be saved if we put grandpa down now.

I should perhaps have said that the title of the thread came from the comic's 'alt-text'. An xkcd hallmark is that hovering the mouse cursor over the comic reveals an extra tidbit, a line of text that adds a little something. In this case, the text is "Dad, where is Grandpa right now?"

A classic problem in moral philosophy. See Judith Jarvis Thomson, 1985.