Shaggy post alert...
Like shanks (sort of) said, I think it would be expecting too much, for us NOT to do it
In fact, I suspect my attitude is more one of - it would be too much to expect us to do it, and still be the same people/board.
This notion then (shades of Joyce, or was it Proust?) set me thinking about the nature of identity - thence to my favourite philosophical play, Beckett's Krapp's Last tape which, if I remember rightly (student days, alas, how long ago they now seem, although some of my hell-raising friends from that period are now meeting in Bombay and reliving the experience of the inter-lecture dash to Apoorva bar, the quick beer, and the race back to the lecture theatre...) was based upon the conceit of Krapp listening to tapes he had made earlier in his life, recounting his feelings and attitudes, and the fact that the earlier tapes seem to have been made by a different person altogether.
The question of identity, and its stability over time, is a much vexed one in philosophy, with different thinkers coming up with different notions. A smattering:
1. There ain't no such thing. Personal identity is an illusion. See the Buddha.
2. Identity is memory. As long as you can remember who you were, or being that person, you're the same person. Locke et al.
3. Identity is absolute. You are given a 'soul' and it's the same thing throughout. See any decent Christian apologist.
4. Identity is genes. Similar to the Christian view - you are given this one thing, prior to birth, and nought else is allowed. Popular amongst racists and fascists, funnilly enough.
5. Tabula rasa. You are the experiences you have had. Locke again, but more popular amongst modern social scientists who cannot stand the notion of a position of 'privilege'.
For me (circuitously leading back to the notional topic of my post, if not of this thread), the Buddha (with a touch of Locke) seems to have it about right - we seem to be an ever-shifting congeries of qualia with the possibility of tracing some causal connections between one set and a preceding one, but no guarantee of being able to do so; the point being that this might be a perfect analogy for this Board as well: AWADtalk is both an entity and a collection of independent entities, its identity depending not just upon the formal url or title or statement of intent but also upon the interaction between the various elements, their comings and goings, their shifting areas of influence, and the self-referential nature of their activities - all of which means that AWADtalk today is not what it was yesterday, nor exactly what it was a year ago when it began, and yet it seems to retain a hint, an element, a soupcon (pardon the lack of cedilla) of integrity as regards its identity that is, to regulars, something to be cherished and will ever form the basis of the dynamic tension between elements that desire variation within a particular set of constraints that appear, to them, to define the identity of this board, and those who are desirous of changing the constraints themselves.
And who is to say which group is right?
cheer
the sunshine warrior
ps. 228 words in that sentence - but was it coherent? Hmmm.... [stroking beard emoticon]
