Theseus' Paradox

[my_scatterheart]

The Ship of Theseus paradox, also known as Theseus's paradox, is a paradox that raises the question of whether an object which has had all its component parts replaced remains fundamentally the same object.

How dyou feel about this?
Is it merely dependent on the object in question?
Parts of a car?
A human?

[farmergiles]

I think it`s still the same ship. There`s something in the idea and name of a ship.

[my_scatterheart]

Rose by any other name style.
See that's what's been bothering me about this. That's generally how I believe I feel about it, but there always seems to be random exceptions.

[Lord X]

I like it. But ti is the same. What would make it different? An object is simply what we assign it. Its components are nothing.

Plus your body constantly alters itself, and it doesn't change that it is you.

[Mafoo]

i think this is fundamentally a paradox of language.
when we envision a ship we think of it as a whole ship, which includes all components. changing one of the components doesnt make it an entirely different object, so we still think of it as the same ship. if we change all of the components its still a ship in name, but different in its composition.

i think yes, its still a ship or human or w/e. although the debate over replacing human components would likely introduce many many more ideas about living things and what defines particular living things.
cool idea, its got my brain going

[my_scatterheart]

I dunno. It's just kind of tricky, and I like to think about it sometimes.
Like one example that has presented itself is : an axe used by a man for a decade has been in need of repair. He changes the head several times over the course of the years, and does the same with the handle when it splits.
For what it is, the axe is not the same axe at all. It is comprised of completely different pieces than it was originally made of. But to the man it is still the same axe. His axe.

[Grieves]

there is no absolute...

[Mafoo]

I dunno. It's just kind of tricky, and I like to think about it sometimes.
Like one example that has presented itself is : an axe used by a man for a decade has been in need of repair. He changes the head several times over the course of the years, and does the same with the handle when it splits.
For what it is, the axe is not the same axe at all. It is comprised of completely different pieces than it was originally made of. But to the man it is still the same axe. His axe.

to me this highlights the futility of our language system. his possesion of the axe has not changed but the axe is a completely different axe (component wise) so i dont know how to call that one.

again, good thought provoking thread

[Parallax]

when a part breaks and is replaced, the new part becomes part of the ship, therefore the ship is still the same ship even if one by one the components are swapped out.

[my_scatterheart]

^.

But sometimes my mind just isn't havin that

[Grieves]

there is no absolute...

.

[my_scatterheart]

.

.

[SageTree]

Are objects only objects because we compare them to another thing that has been named because of a comparison to something else?

Everything is dependant on something else to make it so, it's always comparing.

It's a ship compared to what?

Would we know the sky is the sky if we couldn't see clouds on the ground?

Inuits don't have a word for ice,where the European mindset would dictate there is nothing BUT ice. It's not worth comparing it to something else make a definition appearently, or perhaps there is nothing to comapare it to, to create a name for it?

Gotta love philosphy....

[Mull D]

to me this highlights the futility of our language system.

agreed, it's a language thing. The word "same" seems to be the stickler here, how do we want to define it? You could make the case that nothing is ever exactly the same from one instant to the next.

[verklingen]

what about if you give the ship a new paint job?

it depends on your definition of object really. i like farmergiles' answer. to me, the idea or concept behind an object is more real than the object. the object is just a representation of what is in my mind, and what it represents to me is particular to my mind. you might say it exists only in my mind, because others will see within the same object a different representation. so to me an object and it's components are, strangely enough, immaterial.

what about location? is the location of an object part of what defines it? most of us don't think so, because objects appear the same through movement. but what about an ice cube? by simply moving from one place to another it can remarkably change its characteristics.

things do not only move spatially, they also move through time. are you the same person you were last year? not physically. you've shed a few trillion skin cells, bone calcium has been replaced, etc. every few years most of the cells in your body have died and been replaced. even your dna is different! with every replication the telomeres at the end of your chromosomes shorten.

in the face of all this i can't logically consider anything to ever be the "same" object. even what objects represent to me changes and evolves along with myself.

[SageTree]

it depends on your definition of object really. i like farmergiles' answer. to me, the idea or concept behind an object is more real than the object. the object is just a representation of what is in my mind, and what it represents to me is particular to my mind. you might say it exists only in my mind, because others will see within the same object a different representation. so to me an object and it's components are, strangely enough, immaterial.

in the face of all this i can't logically consider anything to ever be the "same" object. even what objects represent to me changes and evolves along with myself.

Oh Verk, you put my Philosophy into such well spoken words. I am totally answering this one with the Ulitimate Reality, in Buddhist terms. Everything broken down is all made of essentially the same matter. I agree the words are more real than the objects as well. I love the suttras where Buddha says, Hey I'm only using these words so we can talk about things, because the words are impermenant ways of describing the impermenant comparison between perceived impermenant objects and ideas. Getting to core of what Perceived Reality really is.

I love reading your posts man. Thanks for 'being' you as I perceive you to 'be' right now Brother.