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There’s a point in your intestines where on one side it’s food and the other it’s poop (piefed.social)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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[–] 4 points 1 month ago (4 children)

It's like a Food of Theseus.

Bit by bit the food is replaced with a bit of poop, at which point does it cease being food?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    No that's mixing metaphors in a pretty crazy way.

    This is more like the Sorites Food

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    Unlike children, and some adults, I don't eat sand, be it in a heap or not, so I'm not entirely convinced that's the right model either.

    Interesting "paradox" though, as the initial premise of one million grains of sand being a heap falls over as it doesn't specify the structure of the sand: which is what defines a heap of anything.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    You think that's a worse fit than: If I replace parts of a thing with SOMETHING ELSE is it still the same thing? The ship of theseus is more well known, but you would need to eat sand to think it's a good fit IMO.

    As an aside, the structure of the heap has nothing to do with it. The point is simply "when does a heap stop being a heap if I remove one grain at a time?" That is the same is the same as when does food stop being food if you make it poop one bit at a time. If you don't like "heap" you can call it a pile WLOG.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    If I spread a million grain heap of sand out evenly over a plane such that the grains are still touching it's no longer a heap. Therefore the heap is a structure not a numeric quantity.

    You think that’s a worse fit than...

    I said no such thing.

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