Ship of Theseus

[Fixed_Cross]

The ship of Theseus, also known as Theseus’ paradox, is a thought experiment that raises the question of whether an object which has had all its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object. The paradox is most notably recorded by Plutarch in Life of Theseus from the late 1st century. Plutarch asked whether a ship which was restored by replacing each and every one of its wooden parts remained the same ship.

“The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, in so much that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.”

It is the same ship. It is being valued in precisely the same way, thus it responds to its environment in precisely the same way. Its components are equal to each other as this A is equal to this A, and this you to this you.

The same question and answer can be applied to a human or any living body. Both the context and the components change - but the Idea of it remains. The executed functionality of the ship, the glue between its abstract existence in the minds of the men and its becoming along with the men and the sea, this is also what drives us to do what we do, and for all intents and purpose defines us.

That is to say that when Theseus decides to use a plank from the ship to pierce a monsters eye, it is no longer the same ship.