Theseus’s Paradox: A Puzzle for Posterity
A probe into what lies beyond the hull
In ancient Greece, there lived a mythical king named Theseus who was accredited with founding the city of Athens, its modern-day capital. Theseus was a born-conqueror and is said to have single-handedly slain a Minotaur (for the uninitiated, a Minotaur is a monster shaped half like a man and half like a bull). After Theseus’s death, the ship that sailed him to glory in his conquests was revered as ‘The Ship of Theseus’ to immortalize his heroic accomplishments. It was docked and maintained in the harbour of Athens in the years after his death.
However, over time, a few wooden planks of the ship started rotting away due to prolonged contact with water. To preserve the legacy of Theseus, the rotten planks were replaced with new ones. This went on for decades and at one point, no original part remained — all the original planks were replaced. This prompted Plutarch, a famed philosopher, to pose a mind-boggling question:
Does the ship fundamentally remain The Ship of Theseus?
The answer to this thought experiment essentially forks humanity: there’s one half that believes that the ship, after all the alterations, is indeed the Ship of Theseus; and then, there’s the remainder that staunchly opposes this train of thought.
If you think that this is an open-and-shut question and cannot see why it warrants contemplation, here are a couple of arguments supporting each of the two schools of thought that will make you ruminate and hopefully appreciate the complexity of this thought experiment.
It’s all the same!
If you belong to the group that maintains that no matter how drastic the changes get, the ship merits its lofty status as the Ship of Theseus, chew on this:
The planks of the ship are replaced with new ones and every time this change happens, the rotten plank is stored in the dockyard instead of being disposed of. After all the planks are replaced, if the stored parts are reassembled into a ship, which ship should be entitled to eminence? Wouldn’t the ‘replaced ship’ then become a mere copy of the original?
Also, the Ship of Theseus gets its tall standing solely because of, well…Theseus. The ship is hailed by the Greek only because it was of service to Theseus in his naval conquests. As for the ‘replaced ship’, Theseus is completely out of the equation. It is just as good as any other ship, devoid of a soaring status.
They’re definitely not the same.
Now, if you opine that the ship in question cannot be called the Ship of Theseus, here’s a little fact-check:
Although entirely mythical, there has been only one Ship of Theseus in the whole wide world. Agree? Agreed.
And it was berthed in Athens’s harbour centuries ago. Agree? Agreed.
So, what does one call a grand ship, identical in most respects to the Ship of Theseus, moored in Athens’s harbour? The Ship of Theseus! Agree? Agr-Wait!
If you still maintain that it is not the ship, where IS the Ship of Theseus? In a hypothetical scenario, if you were to ask the Greek where the Ship of Theseus was harboured, they would unanimously point in the direction of the ship: ‘replaced ship’ notwithstanding. So, the ship is still Theseus’s ship in spirit. As unfathomable as it gets, it still possesses the soul of the original, even though the two ships don’t have anything in common. Physically, that is.
Closer home, our college undergoes a complete change every four years in terms of the students studying in it (analogous to the planks of the ship). Ideally, the student community changes completely, with no commonalities whatsoever every four years. Does that make the college that you enrolled at different from the college that you graduate from? When you come back to visit your alma mater after years, decades perhaps, even the professors and policies would have changed, but you would still identify the place as your college, wouldn’t you?
According to studies, every cell in your body changes every seven years. Does this imply that you are not the same person you were seven years ago? Not just that, even your ideas change. Your thought process changes; your perception of the world evolves drastically.
*Identity Crisis Trigger Alert*
So, the entire argument here gravitates to the question of identity. (It’s funny how all philosophical paradoxes boil down to the primordial “Who am I?”). If your ideas and beliefs are ever-changing, do you even remain YOU? Chances are, you are not even the same person who sat down to read this article because you might have sided with one school of thought initially and then jumped ship (intended) to its polar opposite.
While we cannot answer any of these questions, we can definitely drive home a lesson — all it takes is an idea, a mere synapse in your nerves to change the very fundamental elements you’re made of.
As platitudinous as it may sound, if small changes in the ship can convince a huge chunk of the population into believing that the ship is not the same, then imagine how impactful seemingly small changes can be in steering a person’s lifestyle towards betterment.
After all, it doesn’t take a Theseus to sail the ship of life to fulfillment!
