The ship of Theseus
The ship of Theseus paradox
The Ship of Theseus paradox is an intriguing thought experiment first recorded by Greek philosopher Plutarch in his recordings about Theseus.
The paradox is as follows: Theseus had a battle-worn ship. He docked it at the port and realized that some of the planks were rotten. Thus, he replaced the rotten planks with brand new ones. But during the process, some of the older planks rot too, he tried to replace those, and more old planks rot. This cycle continued until all of the old planks were replaced with new ones and all of the old parts replaced with new ones. The interesting question which arises now is that is the newly restored ship now the same ship?
There is also a variation of this paradox, which is easier to understand, called the grandfather’s axe. In this variation, there is an axe, its handle rots one day, so it gets replaced with a different handle. After some more time has passed, the head also rusts and is changed, making both parts of the axe brand new. Is it still the same axe?
These are very puzzling questions that have been taken on with different approaches. Let us analyze this with an example. A well-known statistic says that all the cells in your body get replaced every 7–10 years, although this is not entirely correct. If we assume it is, does that mean you are not who you were ten years ago? This question has a pretty straightforward answer for most people that they are still the same. But how do they determine this? They do it by knowing that their consciousness is the same. You see, even though their cells change, their consciousness and identity are the same. If we substitute this into the paradox, the ship is still the same. It gets called by the same name and has the same structure, and is identity-wise the same or has the same identity.
A person’s conscience is their identity. An object’s identity, however, is determined through a few parameters:
- Firstly, its structure. A structure of an object includes its shape, the placement of its parts, and overall structure.
- Then we have the objects namesake, not literally. An object will have a name, for example, Theseus’ ship is Argo. Once Argo was replaced, it was called the same name and remained the same ship (in the context of referring).
- And finally, its parts. Although not the exact same parts but what kind of parts it uses (in context of material), what they are made of, and the types of parts themselves.
Using these parameters, we can assume that Theseus’ ship is the same as before and only changed physically. A conclusion which we can draw is that any object or being is divided into two parts, their physical being, and their identity. Identity is more dominating of the two because it determines the purpose or traits of an object, or an individual’s personality, which usually is hard to change.
Even though the ship/axe is entirely replaced physically, its identity stays the same. It is the same ship/axe. Although this is a very amateur analysis the conclusion drawn from it is that a person’s or object’s identity is more important than its physical being.
Although this conclusion does raise some interesting questions, for the purposes of this paradox, this analysis can work.
Albeit the parts replaced, the ship and the axe predominantly stay the same.
Have a great day, and thank you for reading!