This is just how wooden boats are, whether you do it bit by bit, or as a big project, eventually you replace just about all of it every 100 years or so.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg-_lYeV8hBnDSay7nmphUA

If you replace one specific part of the shit(Keel), it is by law a new ship. It needs to be accredited again if it is to be used commercially.

That's an interview I would like to listen to

That sounds more like insurance fraud, actually. Which you can also get sued for.

A lot of times the chain of custody and the history is what makes a boat valuable or interesting and government recognition of the new boat is the difference between the original and the replica in a lot of people's eyes because without that recognition there is one boat and with it there is two, a real one and a replica. Sometimes people just work done right and if the hassle of creating a "new" vessel in the eyes of the government can be reasonable avoided it will be (but this is rare reason, most of these people would rather buy a different boat, nobody does that kind of work on a boat that isn't historically interesting or of sentimental value).

It's common (as common as something can be in a niche part of a wealthy people's hobby) to have a boat in crap shape and park it in a shop, deconstruct it enough to take critical measurements and then rebuild it in the adjacent bay starting from the keel using all new material and then reinstall all the original fittings, hardware, etc, etc, off the original boat.

So yeah, you're "supposed" to re-title the boat with a new title in the same way that you're "supposed" to drive 55mph on a four lane interstate highway. In my observation the fraction of people who do what they're "supposed" to is about similar and those people tend to be motivated by special circumstances.

I assume commercial vessels follow the letter of the law but you don't exactly see a lot of commercial vessels getting keel repairs short of scrapping the vessel (or selling it overseas) and buying a new one.

Thank you for the link.

Either way -- whoa.

At one time I worked with a guy who had lost the index and middle fingers of his left hand. He used to raise it up and say "peace!" Then laugh and put a cigarette in between what remained. Great guy to work with but as you say -- whoa.

Imagine explaining that GE would make a thing called a “jet” engine that would let people fly between continents in a few hours. Or that they’d be building power plants that worked by splitting atoms. And then tell all the workers that all light bulbs they’re making will be made in China instead.

By this Ship of Theseus reasoning it would seem that GE is not the same company it was when they were making incandescent bulbs in 1920s Oakland.

But to me that feels different than saying that inventions where sufficiently small steps away from a general engineer's education that you could "simply" explain them and not be met with wonder.

The atom nucleus was discovered by counting how many alpha particles bounced off the nucleus of a piece of gold foil and how many simply passed through it. The bounce rate was incredibly low and therefore the nucleus must have been orders of magnitude smaller than the gap between the next nucleus.

Personally I think you could tell a GE engineer in 1912 that their company would be building a radiation-powered electrical plant and they'd be keen to find out how, not baffled at the very concept. No way of knowing for sure, of course. Just that, this was an era when radioactivity and (what became) nuclear research was very much something the educated were reading about in their monthly magazines.

On the one hand the idea for nuclear fission was still fairly far off in 1912, since even in the 30's many physicists were still skeptical that radioactive energy could be released more rapidly than it normally is in natural substances. On the other hand a couple of major factors leading to it were already known in 1912: the fact that radioactive decay released large amounts of energy and Einstein's discovery of mass-energy equivalence.

As for jet engines the situation is clearer since a pulsejet was already patented in 1906.

I think in 1912 these technologies would seem like semi-plausible science fiction, but not magic.

There really couldn't be much theory on this before 1900's anyway because of our understanding of the atom/nucleus.

Oh, and that the 21st century is a way of counting centuries of the west, that was just being invented around that time, that would be implemented in Japan about 4 centuries later

The first western style skyscraper was built in 1890 and demolished in 1923.

But Japan had pyramids long before that, there are speculations that the underwater pyramids of Yonaguni could be the remains of a civilization 5 thousands years old

As far as I'm aware, the all but universal consensus among archaeologists and scholars (and the Japanese government) is that the "underwater pyramids" of Yonaguni are entirely natural.

I was simply pointing out that megalithic structures have been part of ancient Japan either they were natural or not, skyscrapers definitely not.

In the west the business would get sold and merged. Only in Japan does the adoption make it a family or lineage thing.

No. Every culture worldwide accepts adoption. A child, grandchild, nephew, etc, continuing a business keeps the business in the family. Whether the child is adopted or not, and regardless of the age of adoption.

In Japan, the longevity of the thing has a value of its own, so much so that they’ve invented adult “adoptions”, simply to keep an old business going. The business could be mediocre and barely profitable, but if it’s 300 years old, they’ll find a way to keep that line going.

Maybe they exist, but I’m not aware of any other culture that has taken up the practice of adopting adult males to ensure that a family business remains “family”.

Tge street-level character of a city isn't magically preserved because the acquiring company chose to retain the name. Example: I live near a sushi restaurant that has changed hands six times in my life. Two times they kept the name. One time they kept the facade. Never did they keep the employees. Maybe a token "manager" but the character of the place always shifts.

I like the metaphor because it really does ask the question "how much must one replace to make something indistinguishable from its progenitor?"

Are adult adoptions common at all?

Note how often these adult men are being adopted along with marrying the daughter of the family. I dare say outside of Japan such an arrangement would be considered weird.

How does that work? They become both husband and brother to the same person?

In practice what it means is that the couple adopts the family name of the wife, not the husband, which is the name associated with the family business that he's taking over.

E.g. Fuller's (London brewer) now owned by Japanese conglomerate, Church (Northampton shoes, was still in the family) bought by Prada.

That is a wrong example/comparison. Even in the west rebuilding an heritage is not considered as a new building.

In Europe rebuilding after a catastrophic event like fire is sometimes a requirement. Would you consider restoring Notre Dame as new building? I would not think so. What about Sagrada Familia? They are still not finished with the building. What about the Cologne dom? They are still not finished with the building.

But I don't understand this view. I like the design of old buildings. Why can't we build them again? It's just putting rocks on rocks. Why is it less authentic then putting rocks on rocks according to an uglier, isolating design?

In any case, we're constantly maintaining old buildings. Who knows how many parts of the buildings have been removed and put back, so they can replace some weak part inside?

I think it's highly unlikely that they will be lies. I went to see some old buildings in Indonesia, and they very happily said "we needed to make this construction more stable and restore it, so we removed all the stones, rebuilt the foundations, and put them all back in place".

No-one is lying.

(And if there is some problem, the problem is that modern architects always want to abandon tradition and build ugly buildings that look tacky in 50 years. Humans are capable of showing creativity and following tradition.)

When the church falls over and needs a total repair it changes. Today we can build those same churches much quicker, cheaper and with higher accuracy. We can pump out those buildings in a decade that used to take 300yrs. Replacing the building with modern industry changes the meaning of the building to reflect how much a society can pour into maintaining the past. The original achievement fell apart when the bricks gave way.

People who say it still represents the same thing it did when it was built are not telling the full truth.

The last two are very modern buildings

Notre dame was rebuilt a few times, but never completely

We do "conservation of cultural heritage" in the west and we have been doing it for centuries

The "Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano" Is

> a 600-year-old organization that was established to supervise the construction of the Cathedral of Milan (the "Duomo"). The organization is still active and involved with the maintenance, preservation, and restoration of the cathedral.

Since I was in Trier after Christmas, and learnt they have the oldest university in Germany, except for all the times it didn't exist. It's not claimed "Trier had the first university in Germany", but "Trier has the oldest university in Germany".

Others dispute this claim, since they want the claim for the university their heart inclines towards, but Germans - surely a species of Westerner - are still capable of entertaining and uttering such claims of continuity-through-discontinuity.

I can add to Dresden and Nuremberg. Both of them where nearly destroyed and rebuild. But the rebuild is not an exact rebuild. It is new and modern buildings.

But there are exceptions like the Frauenkirche in Dresden and alike buildings here in Nuremberg. They are almost exactly rebuild in the name of conserving heritage. Yes, they are also rebuild or even retrofitted with new things like electric and plumbing. But that doesn't mean they are new buildings.

This attitude is reflected in their homes, also. (I'm talking about sub-urban or rural, not metropolitan) They tend to build their homes to last around 20-30 years, then they'll knock them down and rebuild them. But they would still refer to it as the same family home for [x] decades.

source: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusabl...

EDIT: Agreed, a few types of brain cells do not get replaced, but everything else does. My point still stands. Physically, we are not what we were a few months ago.

This is laughably false.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/life-span-of-human...

I was merely expecting a “this is false because of X”. Rather than “this is false”

I guess we all have our biases.

People were commenting that the idea that every cell is replaced in a living organism is 'laughable'. Brain cells and osteocytes were cited as examples of cells that are never replaced.

However, I still think, and more strongly than ever, that brain cells and osteocytes can be examples of unchanging cells if an only if it is proven beyond a shadow of doubt that every single atom constituting such cells remains intact during the lifetime of such cells.

Since the human body is subjected to a lot of physical stress and damage and repair is continuous, it is possible that damaged brain cells or osteocytes get replaced with new ones. Need to read more about this, though.

Adult neurogenesis or brain plasticity is a fact. Skin cells, blood cells and all types of cells have a finite lifespan - a few days to a few months.

Osteocytes in human bone can live up to 50 years.

"New neurons are made in just two parts of the brain—the hippocampus, involved in memory and navigation, and the olfactory bulb, involved in smell (and even then only until 18 months of age). Aside from that, your neurons are as old as you are and will last you for the rest of your life. They don’t divide, and there’s no turnover."

But while it applies to many cells over varied lengths of time (up to many years), it doesn't apply to all cells.

https://www.livescience.com/33179-does-human-body-replace-ce...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/does-body-replace-itself-s...

So the idea does apply but not exactly as you claim and it's definitely not absolute, even for atoms, let alone cells.

Classic comedy works on so many levels.

Interestingly enough, by that notion most churches (at least in towns) in the former Roman empire date back to Antiquity. But we usually only date the date of the main standing structure as the building's birthday.

To be honest, I dearly prefer their model of slow incremental adaptation compared to a gig economy, that is sadly established in many western nations to a larger degree. I would even go so far as to say that it could severely limit long term prosperity growth.

Some say Japan has some problems on that account. I think we should look at it 50 years later an see who is laughing.

At other times, including perhaps these last 2-3 decades, it is more valuable to try and mostly fail in the interest of discovery. The Long Tail, above the Bell Curve. At such times as these Japan generally just holds and waits. For instance, the Edo period lasted 250 years, with very little change. Meanwhile, from 1600, Europe and the New World were changing like gangbusters.

>> I think we should look at it 50 years later...

Fifty years is a fairly long time to make predictions, but I'd argue that you'll only see Japan having re-emerged as leader in 2070, should a clear new order have already become apparent. If not, they'll certainly still be waiting patiently with serious intent.

Thats only in Ise. Dont make generalizations. For about every other old building in Japan something burning down is a tragedy, even if they try to rebuild it afterwards. For example Osaka castle is technically standing now but nobody is fooled by the fact that its an empty shell compared to the original building. That is precisely why Himeji castle is so precious in comparison.

That generalization.

It's a shrine, not a temple, it's torn down, not burned down, and whether it's the oldest is a matter of whether you believe the legends.

Radio Yerevan answered: "In principle, yes. But first of all it was not Grigori Grigorievich Grigoriev, but Vassili Vassilievich Vassiliev; second, it was not at the All-Union Championship in Moscow, but at a Collective Farm Sports Festival in Smolensk; third, it was not a car, but a bicycle; and fourth he didn't win it, but rather it was stolen from him."

I suspect that there is a degree of translation loss in those quotes.

In general if you ask someone about this they'll indeed reply that their temple is 1,000 years old (example). Then if you ask whether this means that this building right here is 1,000 years old they'll may very naturally reply that no, they rebuild it every so often.

I'm thinking that the concept of e.g. 'temple' might be different than the actual buildings the temple is made of.

Now, sometimes the buildings really are hundreds of years old.

Every day, the product on the shelf is new. New customers go through the door. Even the product formula or process may change.

Generations pass, and entirely different people are standing in that building selling those (changed) products. The people may have some genetic similarity to those that stood there before. But any human would have substantially the same cell chemistry, which is many millions of times more in common than a particular strand of molecules. So won't any human be enough?

The definition of a 'business' is a human idea. Its not rooted in physics. So if we want to say a business is old or continuous, I guess go ahead.

This is often put out as something uniquely Japanese, and perhaps in modern times it is, but the Roman Empire used to to this pretty regularly as well: nominating heirs by adopting adult men.

Better example - well here but it's in Danish https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/kirke-tro/marmorkirkens-s%...

of course the principle is not universal, for example old St. Peter's Basilica and new st. Peter's Basilica are at the same location and of course are distinguished from each other by the descriptive old or new.