OK I need some help.
I don't know how many people have heard of the Ship of Theseus, otherwise known as the Theseus' paradox, but it's got me going in circles all afternoon. It goes like this:
"The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, in so much that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same."
— Plutarch, Theseus
Plutarch then questions whether the ship would remain the same if it were entirely replaced, piece by piece. Centuries later, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes introduced a further puzzle, wondering what would happen if the original planks were gathered up after they were replaced, and used to build a second ship. Hobbes asked which ship, if either, would be the original Ship of Theseus.
So basically, my question is this.
1) Do you think that when the wood of the ship is replaced, it stays the original ship or is it a new ship
2) If another ship is built from the old wood, is this ship then considered to original, or is the other ship the original?
