Voldemort and the "Tin Woodman Paradox" (was: Nagini/basilisk/snake ramblings)

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 542

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Dave Hardenbrook wrote:
> (I call this the "Tin Woodman Paradox", because a similar problem
> exists in the Oz books when the Tin Woodman encounters his own
> severed head and has a conversation with it -- If his tin self and
> flesh self are both still sentient, then which of them is *really*
> the original guy?)

Oz is heavy into questions/paradoxes of identity: Martin Gardner 
wrote an essay about it.

In HP, the paradox I keep brooding about is, when they Transfigure 
teacups into rats and teapouts into tortoises, are they creating a 
life, and when they Transfigure mice in snuffboxes and hedgehogs 
into pincushions, are they destroying a life?