Ship of Theseus

Time you got around to sponsoring a child

The Ship of Theseus is a replacement paradox also known as Theseus' Paradox.

According to Greek legend as reported by Plutarch,

"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 place, insomuch 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."

There is also an additional question: if the replaced parts were stored in a warehouse and later used to reconstruct the ship, which--if either--would be the original ship of Theseus?

Table of contents

1 A modern embellishment
2 George Washington's axe
3 The Tin Woodman's story
4 See also

A modern embellishment

If Theseus paid a nontransferable fee, allowed to be used for only one ship, for the privilege of docking in a particular harbor, would he violate the non-transferability of his license if repeated replacement of boards eventually had the result described above?

George Washington's axe

A similar story is told about George Washington's axe, with which the young George Washington is supposed, in an apocryphal story, to have cut down his father's cherry tree. The axe is supposedly on display in an (unverifiable) American museum, although, having had both its handle and its head replaced several times, no part of the original axe remains.

The Tin Woodman's story

L. Frank Baum played with this paradox in The Wizard of Oz. At one point the book tells the story of a lumberjack named Nick Chopper. One day a witch cast a spell on Nick's ax, and it cut off his leg. He proceded to get the leg replaced with a tin prosthetic leg, only to have the enchanted ax chop off the other. He then replaced that missing leg with a tin prosthetic, only to have the process repeat itself with both his arms, torso, and eventually head. By the end of the ordeal, Nick was entirely made out of tin replacements, yet still living, and had become the Tin Man. In a later book, the paradox is further satirized when the Tin Man meets his old flesh body parts, which have been re-assembled with magic glue. Nick's former girlfriend is not sure whom to love.