Have you ever wondered if your favourite old jumper, battered by time and use, is still truly the same as the one you fell in love with at the shop many years ago? That seemingly silly question is one of philosophy’s oldest and most fascinating puzzles, known as the Ship of Theseus.
Plutarch, the ancient Greek writer and historian, presented us with a real head-scratcher with his tale of Theseus’ trireme.
Picture this: the Athenians, immensely proud of the ship that carried their hero Theseus to victory over the Minotaur, kept it docked for centuries. But as we all know, wood doesn’t last forever, as it can start to rot very quickly. So, whenever a plank rotted away or timber decayed significantly, the smart Athenians would meticulously replace it with a new one. Bit by bit, year after year, every single original piece of that ship was swapped out and replaced with brand-new wood.
Now, here’s the one-million-drachma question: was this still the Ship of Theseus? Or had it, piece by piece, become an entirely different vessel that had nothing to do with Theseus’ heroic journey? This was a profound thought experiment that kept brilliant minds confounded for millennia. It makes us wonder about identity and what makes something… something. Is it about what an object or a human is made of? Does it have to do with their materials? Their shape, maybe? What about their personal story? Or could it be something else entirely? This simple story by Plutarch prompts us to delve into what we mean when we say something is “the same.”
The brilliance of the Ship of Theseus story lies in its elegant illustration of the uncomfortable truth that everyone and everything, eventually, changes. Consider yourself as an example. Most of the cells in your body are replaced every few years. Are you, reading this right now, the same person you were a decade ago, even though practically all the biological components that constitute the physical you are new?
This is why the Ship of Theseus is a perfect example of this constant flow of renewal. It shows the tension between how we perceive something as permanent and its ever-changing physical reality.
And right when you think you understood the whole story, here comes a twist, often credited to Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher.
This twist is asking us what if, hypothetically, all those old, discarded planks from Theseus’ ship were gathered up and used to build a second ship? Which one, then, is the “true” Ship of Theseus? The one that has been continuously in the harbour, even with all new parts? Or the one made of all the original pieces, just reassembled to create a brand new ship? You can almost hear the ancient Athenians debating this topic, wondering which ship deserved the glory of their hero.
The deep implications of the Ship of Theseus go beyond the confines of ancient Greek mythology. They truly resonate in our modern world, where things are constantly being upgraded, recycled, and reinvented only to be presented as something brand new. Take your mobile phone, for example. With every software update, every component replaced, is it still the “same” phone you bought two years ago? What about a classic car that has been restored and fixed with love, often with hardly any original parts left? Is it still that iconic model, or a new creation in an old shell?
This paradox even touches on larger ideas, such as national identity. Countries evolve, populations shift, and cultures adapt. Are we, as a nation, the “same” as our ancestors from centuries past? Is the US truly a nation or just a creation of many smaller parts of people who came from distant lands to find a better future?
Is modern Greece truly the grandchild of ancient Greece? What about the Roman identity that became synonymous with the Greeks for more than a thousand years? The word ‘Romios,’ which is Greek for Roman, still defines the notion of Greekness. Thus, are Greeks a continuation of the ancient identity, or are they something new, composed of thousands of different ethnic and cultural components that migrated to their lands over time? We share history, language, and heritage, of course, but the actual people, the “material” of the nation, have changed countless times.
The Ship of Theseus tells us that identity–whether it’s ours, our nation’s, or even a beloved object’s is a fluid and ever-changing concept, rarely as straightforward as it seems.
