The Ship of Theseus – a thought experiment on being and identity
November 15, 2018
This is one of the oldest thought experiments, which originated in the writings of Plutarch. It takes the form of a paradox or dilemma about a ship that remained seaworthy for hundreds of years thanks to constant repairs. As soon as one plank became old and rotted, it would be replaced, and so on until every working part of the ship was no longer original to it. The question is whether this end product is still the same ship of Theseus, or something completely new and different. If it’s not, at what point did it stop being the same ship?
Thomas Hobbes would later take the problem further, to ask – if one were to take all the old parts removed from the ship and build a new one, then which of the two vessels is the real Ship of Theseus?
First-year students in Liberal Studies discuss what this experiment suggests about the nature of being and identity.
Please click here to read all students’ responses.
From my point of view, there is a dilemma for the ship of Theseus. It can be discussable from two points of view, first, the ship is the same because fixing the ship does not mean it’s no longer a ship whereas when all the old parts removed from the ship and build a new one, it refers to having a new ship, nothing remained same and you can do this buying a new one. The authenticity of the ship was removed.
Buildings, cars, people and many other things can change, take new shapes or are fixable. They can evolve and sometimes need care to improve their conditions. An identity consists of multiple ingredients such as wants, desires, fears, feelings and demands. They can change over time because life does not remain the same itself. However, when these changes happen, it does not mean a human is no longer human likewise repaint a building only changes its appearance other than this. Identity can be the only thing that can experience greater changes throughout life. A ship can be repaired however it is still what it is and it can still float.
On the other hand, I believe that the end product is not still the same ship of Theseus. I partially support this claim because this ship has no soul and its renovated appearance is an obstacle to recognize by people who already saw it. The originality and/or authenticity of the ship may be removed although the purpose of usage was the same. Buying a new ship also served the same purpose.
Lastly, removing all the old parts from the ship and building a new one does not provide either the former one or the new ship for the real ship of Theseus. There was a complementary unity between the skeleton of the ship and its parts, distributing their parts to others or integrating new materials that do not refer to the real ship of Theseus.
I believe the end product is still the ship of Theseus, although I am surprising myself by writing this conclusion. Identity is everchanging and non-stagnant; functional or aesthetic modifications do not delimit it. The ship continues to have its history and purpose, and throughout the centuries of repairs, the "new" parts have gained their genuineness.
If we think about who we were ten years ago, we may look completely different, most of our cells have been completely replaced; still, we are the same person. The ship and our bodies are simple vessels for identity, although defining what identity is may be more complicated than defining what it is not. That being said, I do not believe the reconstructed ship with the original parts stands a chance against the modified ship, as I think defining something only by its concrete components is a superficial mistake. This statement seems odd even to me as I write, as it almost implies that the ship has a "soul." Still, I believe this is the point, identity is, at least to me, indescribable, and terms like "soul" are often used devoid of its original religious connotation as a word to depict something so abstract… I think history plays a big part in defining identity, and that is my takeaway from this paradox, that the ship does not remain the same despite the changes but because of it. However, there is still a more abstract element to identity that I cannot verbalize.
This dilemma makes me associate an issue of human body transformation. In a SF story often human being is replaced into a robot body another words ‘cyborg’, and it is no longer fantasy and will be a massive question in the future. I believe human is a living creature formed as human and having a soul, which make individual unique and different. If somebody replaced most of parts of human body to machine, but still the shape is in a human being and there is a brain remaining, this person should be still a ‘human’. The remained brain emphasizes this person still have emotion and soul to feel something and possibly being emotional. Same as the dilemma of Theseus Ship, even if all parts are replaced completely, there is no change in a past that this ship was ‘that ship’. Nobody is able to change the past or history that the new reformed ship was the old ship. Therefore if something or somebody changed their looking, there is no change in their nature. It is impossible to change the essence of either human being or objects, only we can say there is ‘a change’ as ‘a reform’. Same as a major issue of plastic surgery in the present, there is no change in human nature with changing an appearance.
In additional point of view, there is no such a ‘new’ thing in the world and most of them are just ‘reformed’ and not created newly. Only one thing truly meant ‘new’ is a living creature. Amazingly we all have something similar characteristics, parts, hobbies, thinking ways…etc, however we are all different. It can be applied to animals as well. Each species live together, eat, drink, feel something and follow their instinctive. Each of them must be unique. Therefore I strongly believe ‘new’ means ‘unique’, it means we, living creatures are all new and every time when we feel something, it makes us new.