The Ship of Theseus
Categories : Philosophy |
This is an interesting line of thought :
“Some ancient Greeks were exercised by the old problem of the ship of Theseus: This ship, composed of many planks, sails around from port to port. When in each port, some few of its planks are replaced by highly similar planks. After they are replaced, nothing very interesting ever happens with any of the old planks; they might even be allowed to rot. By the end of a year, say, after calling on many ports, all of the original planks have been replaced. . . . Even with all new planks and all new matter, it will be the same ship.
It was Hobbes, I think, who proposed a more difficult variation on this old and rather easy problem. On the variation, when a plank is replaced it is saved, perhaps by being put in a certain storehouse. At the end of the year, all of the original planks are in the storehouse. The planks may all have been tagged with numbers. Following the order of the numbers, these planks may be intentionally reassembled into their original arrangement. Then, just as at the beginning of the year, these planks certainly compose a ship. Do they compose the original ship? Or, do the planks that replaced them compose the original ship? Or, is neither of these the original ship, that ship having passed out of existence in favor of two intimate descendants, each with its own distinctive route of descent. Or, do none of the previous three questions have determinate answers?
But now suppose we shift our gaze to ourselves. We too are composites: large complex animals with particular combination of abilities, psychological histories, desires and beliefs. As we look to our own pasts and futures, we see how elements of the complex change: I do not have just the same body I had ten years ago, nor have I had just the same experiences. But it was still me. This feels like a substantial truth, and as we think in first-person terms, we find all the difference in the world between contemplating a situation in which we will be present, from one in which we wil not.”
~ Peter Unger
