Those who are familiar with the BBC comedy 'Only Fools and Horses' will know what I mean by 'Trigger's broom.'
The joke was along the lines of "He's had had the same broom for thirty years. It's had ten new handles and eight new brush-heads." So the philosophical argument is, 'Is it the same broom?' Most people would say 'no,' but now let's turn it around.
The human body is in a constant process of renewal, and scientists say that there will not be a single atom in your body that was part of you ten years ago, so are we the same people that we used to be? Or are we really just a new machine running to an old computer program (our brains)?
Similarly, I often used to puzzle about the science fiction scenario of 'teleportation'. The idea of this is that you step into the machine and it analyses you before destroying you and recreating an exact replica of you in a different location. If such a thing ever existed, I wonder if my consciousness would instantly transfer to the new me, or if I would simply cease to perceive anything while the new me seamlessly carries on with all my thoughts and memories and therefore no sense of being a new being. Funnily enough, I explored this quandary in one of my stories in 'The Kent-erbury Tales,' which can be tracked down on Amazon.co.uk - how's that for a seamless plug?
Changing the subject slightly, there seems to have been a marked rise in the glorification of war in recent years, so I was pleased to read a column in the local rag recently, highlighting the true human cost and that the only real winners are the arms manufacturers, who no doubt love a good war now and again to keep business ticking over. In short, we flog the weapons, and then when they get used we've got ourselves another war. I don't buy the argument that if we didn't make the weapons some other country would, as by this logic we may as well plough up the rape seed and start growing fields of opium!
Sadly most of our banks are instrumental in investing our money in the arms trade. We do have a choice though. The Co-op bank (although not completely white as we have seen) does not invest in this sector and neither do many building societies, so we can get our money out of arms if we choose to. If you want to see which accounts measure up when it comes to ethical investments visit http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/buyersguides/money for live updated rankings.
Sadly many of our politicians view the arms industry as important for jobs, when like many people I'd rather see the jobs shifted to creating a green revolution which would give young people real hope rather than the prospect of just more of the same (endless wars and a recession every 20 years, which will of course be somebody else's problem so short term savings and unsustainable 'solutions' seem to be the order of the day. Now that the plans for a huge hydroelectric dam across the mouth of the River Severn have been scrapped and 'fracking mania' has been given the go ahead, does that mean that the official line is that all the fears we had about global warming have just vaporised? Or has nobody read up on the 'greenhouse qualities' of natural gas? Joined up thinking hey, who needs it?!
