this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I was not proficient with this topic, so had to look it up:

The Ship of Theseus, also known as Theseus's Paradox, is a paradox and a common thought experiment about whether an object is the same object after having all of its original components replaced over time, typically one after the other.

In Greek mythology, Theseus, the mythical king of the city of Athens, rescued the children of Athens from King Minos after slaying the minotaur and then escaped onto a ship going to Delos. Each year, the Athenians would commemorate this by taking the ship on a pilgrimage to Delos to honour Apollo. A question was raised by ancient philosophers: After several hundreds of years of maintenance, if each individual piece of the Ship of Theseus were replaced, one after the other, was it still the same ship?

[–] HootinNHollerin 49 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It’s like how ‘Lynyrd Skynyrd’ is still touring with zero original members

Thanks for explanation

[–] AFKBRBChocolate 35 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I like the answer by some philosopher that we have a sense of object permanence. If your neighbor replaced different parts of his house over several years until they all were replaced, you'd likely say it was the same house because at every point in time, it was there. But if one day he knocked the whole things down and rebuilt it exactly the same as it had been, you'd say it was a different house because there was that moment when it wasn't there.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I like calling this the 'continuity' answer, and it's my thinking as well

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Britons of a certain age refer to this as the "Trigger's Broom Paradox", after a character from a comedy TV Series "Only Fools and Horses".

Trigger, who worked as a street sweeper, got an award from the City Council for maintaining the same sweeping brush for twenty years (though the broom has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles).

Trigger's Broom (Youtube Link)

[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot 4 points 1 month ago

And I'm still using the same 386 that my family bought when I was a kid. Every time I've upgraded it I've kept at least one part from the previous configuration.

[–] 9point6 34 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Lotta greek mythology/philosophy on lemmy this week...

What's going on

[–] Luvs2Spuj 29 points 1 month ago (3 children)
[–] JargonWagon 16 points 1 month ago

Did we, though?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well, that's good, we wouldn't want Pythagoras to get hurt.

[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot 2 points 1 month ago

Every triangle's a love triangle if you really love triangles.

[–] BugleFingers 5 points 1 month ago

What is going on? Or Why is it going on? For this is what we shall ponder

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Wait

Helen of Troy? Is this a crossover?

[–] chonglibloodsport 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Theseus is the guy who kidnapped Helen of Troy! Or that’s what the stories tell us. Maybe it was the ship’s fault!

[–] ohwhatfollyisman 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

oh, so when they say she has a face that launched a thousand ships, they were all just that one boat with a thousand makeovers?!

[–] chonglibloodsport 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes! Something about her face really attracts boats for some reason!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Massive overbite. Great for scraping off barnacles.

(In before the reinterpretation of that last word as a Greek name.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

That was after eloping from the second kidnapping/"rescue".