- #1
pivoxa15
- 2,255
- 1
This is the story:
Theseus is famous in Greek mythology as the slayer of the Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull monster who lived in the Labyrinth in the island of Crete. According to Plutarch, the ship in which Theseus sailed back to Athens was preserved for many generations, its old planks being replaced by new ones as they decayed.
Now suppose that a few hundred years later, all the original parts of the ship had been replaced, one by one, so that none of the original ship remained. Is the preserved ship still Theseus' ship? Or is it a copy? And if the latter, then at what point did it cease to be Theseus' ship?
This problem involves the notion of identity, of what we mean by something being the "same" object. Suppose that we regard the final ship as Theseus' ship. What if all the old planks, nails, etc., had been stored in a warehouse and someone put them back together again. Would there then be two Theseus' ships?
What is your view?
Theseus is famous in Greek mythology as the slayer of the Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull monster who lived in the Labyrinth in the island of Crete. According to Plutarch, the ship in which Theseus sailed back to Athens was preserved for many generations, its old planks being replaced by new ones as they decayed.
Now suppose that a few hundred years later, all the original parts of the ship had been replaced, one by one, so that none of the original ship remained. Is the preserved ship still Theseus' ship? Or is it a copy? And if the latter, then at what point did it cease to be Theseus' ship?
This problem involves the notion of identity, of what we mean by something being the "same" object. Suppose that we regard the final ship as Theseus' ship. What if all the old planks, nails, etc., had been stored in a warehouse and someone put them back together again. Would there then be two Theseus' ships?
What is your view?