Ships of Theseus

Worse yet

The Athenians celebrate king Theseus’ victory over, and escape from, the Minotaur, by taking his ship on a pilgrimage each year. Over time, the ships needs to be repaired to remain seaworthy, more and more of its parts getting replaced.

Suddenly, some wicked philosophers appear, and begin:

I.

If the ship today contains no pieces of the original ship, is it still the same ship? If it is not, when precisely did it become a different ship? Was it when the very last piece was replaced? Did that one piece of lumber contain the essence of Theseus? Was the ship only 1% Theseus’ when the last part was still attached?

II.

Worse yet, suppose the old pieces of the ship were saved up, and put back together. Which ship is now of Theseus? The new one, still used for the pilgrimage, or the old one, on display at the museum?

III.

Worse yet, suppose sneaky philosopher-carpenters replaced the pieces of the ship without telling anyone, the ship somehow magically up to snuff each year, presumably by the blessing of Apollo. One day, the same philosopher-carpenters reassemble the old pieces into a ship, and parade it around town as an Imitation Ship of Theseus, laughing to themselves the whole way.

In the middle of town, Theseus runs up to them, and says the Real Ship of Theseus was just sunk in a freak Kraken attack, and the Imitation Ship of Theseus is being recruited to take its place. Everyone agrees it’s quite beat up and perhaps not that sea-worthy, but they agree it at least looks sort of like the Real Ship of Theseus.

The philosopher-carpenters faint from the joy they feel towards the philosophical situation they find themselves in.

IV

Worse yet, suppose that the day before that last pilgrimage, when no one was looking, bandit–philosophers stole the Real Ship of Theseus, and secretly replaced it with an identical copy, down to the last scratch. That’s the one the Kraken ate, but the bandit–philosophers still have the original one, which they present to the townsfolk as a worthier replacement for the beat up old boat they were using as a replacement.

The townsfolk are suspicious of the ship-making abilities of random philosophers with side-gigs, but agree that this new ship was indeed more seaworthy than their current replacement, and it even reminded them more of the Real Ship of Theseus.

The bandit–philosophers can’t believe their luck, and consider using their earnings to buy Ancient Greek lottery tickets.

V

Worse yet, suppose an intrepid hero learns that one can go to World’s End, the place where the Kraken-consumed ship ended up after being eaten, and manages to mount a daring escape, somehow ending up in Athens with his newly resurrected ship.

The Athenians, well versed in tales of the supernatural, believe the hero, clearly seeing the Kraken marks on the ship, and pay a handsome fee for their Resurrected Real Ship of Theseus.

The various side-gig laden philosophers are both horrified and ecstatic at the ever-complicating situation.

VI

Worse yet, suppose a magician–philosopher appears the very next day, and gifts the Athenias the gift of magically repairing all their boats to their pristine shape. Before the Athenians have time to say no, their now three Ships of Theseus all swirl in a blue mist and as it clears, they stand as beautiful as the day they were made, and thus, look identical to each other.

Everyone agrees the new tradition should be to take all three on the pilgrimage each year, but to crown the Resurrected Real Ship of Theseus as the Actual Real Ship of Theseus, to avoid confusing people even more.

VII

Worse yet, suppose the magician–philosopher comes back after the pilgrimage, and reveals to all the Athenians that when he repaired the three ships, he also had them magically switch places, and now only he knows which ship is which.

The side-gig laden philosophers of Athens band together, call foul, and promptly execute the magician–philospher, and decide to reorder their three ships randomly, and pretend this chapter of the story never happened.

VIII

Worse yet, suppose a mathematician-philosopher emerges from the Athenian ranks, invokes the Banach–Tarski paradox, and creates two Actual Real Ships of Theseus from the original one, confounding everyone.

The Athenians have no idea what to do, but, not needing the axiom of choice, pick one of the new boats to use as lumber for other construction projects.

IX

Worse yet, suppose a future–philospher travels through time to come to Ancient Athens, and secretly gives everyone undetectable Augmented Reality contact lenses while they’re sleeping. The contacts make everyone see the wrong ship as the Actual Real Ship of Theseus.

The future–philosopher jumps forward through time 10 years, only to see that society still seems to be going through the motions of tradition, but for the wrong ship. He is confused, thinking that someone must have run their hands over the nameplates on the ship and noticed they’re not what they appear to be…

Investigating, he notices that the fake boat has in fact had its nameplates replaced to spell Actual Real Ship of Theseus, and vice-versa. As his mind spins with confusion, and he goes closer to look, a trap springs, and he is captured by the Philosophers-with-side-gigs Guild. They noticed the illusion during their regular repair jobs, and knew it must be a rogue philosopher doing an experiment, so they decided to capture him.

After he reveals the nature of the illusion, they make him remove everyone’s contacts, and make him promise never to do that again, but that they totally respect his spunk.

They promptly repair the ships to be as they were meant to be.

X

Worse yet, what if before the repair job revealed the illusion, a blind-philosopher was given sight by Divine Intervention, and, not having been given contacts due to not having eyes, he is the only one that can clearly see the boats are being mislabelled.

Ambitious with his newfound sight, he recruits a cousin of the magician-philosopher to determine the nature of the illusion, and, after discovering it is in the eyes of all Athenians, they construct and cast a spell to rotate the illusion once more, shifting the boat designations one more time for the entire population to wrongly see.