Ship of Theseus(en.wikipedia.org)
en.wikipedia.org
Ship of Theseus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
8 comments
This was discussed here today with Atari https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33905910 and probably the inspiration for posting the WP article.
I’ve thought this about sports teams too. You’ll meet diehard, lifelong fans of a team even though the players and coaches have completely turned over a few times in their lifetime. What exactly is the team they love?
I don’t point this out to my friends obviously, for fear of being rude.
I don’t point this out to my friends obviously, for fear of being rude.
Loyalty to any one sports team is pretty hard to justify, because the players are always changing, the team can move to another city. You're actually rooting for the clothes, when you get right down to it. You know what I mean? You are standing and cheering and yelling for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city. Fans will be so in love with a player, but if he goes to another team, they boo him. This is the same human being in a different shirt; they hate him now. Boo! Different shirt! Boo!
- Jerry Seinfeld
- Jerry Seinfeld
I think that while the original composition of the team changes the traditions, attitudes and strategy definitely translates across the different generations of players, coaches and staff. It’d be different if a team was completely cycled through to a new set of members every period of time.
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I find a satisfying enough solution to problems like this is only to acknowledge that common language does not extend itself to very deep analysis. A ship simply cannot be thought of a rigorous object, as it is in the end a gross linguistic abstraction of many physical objects, human concepts and ideas etc. In the end, the problem boils down to which way you want to handle the abstraction, and thus you can solve it as you please.
Related, sometimes I wonder if for instance some products I buy today have exactly the same taste today then in the past or if it slowly changed without I was able to discern it. For instance I wonder if a KitKat or Snickers has the same taste today then, say in 1980, given methods, norms, factories, productions,... have certainly evolved. Or how to keep something the same when everything changes.
Also see the novel “S” about the fictional book “Ship of Theseus”, written as dialogue in the margins of said book. Comes with postcards and maps laid in between the pages. Elicited a feel of “Escape Game” in me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._(Dorst_novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._(Dorst_novel)
I was amused to read a sports writer (I've long since lost the link and writer's name) refer to Madison Square Gardens as a ''Ship of Theseus'', given its many rebuilds and updates.
Since Hacker News doesn't have spoiler tags, ROT13 (rot13.com if you need it): va 'Jnaqnivfvba', gurl fhoireg sbe gur zbfg cneg na rkcrpgrq pbasyvpg orgjrra gur 'qernz' Ivfvba naq gur arjyl pbafgehpgrq Juvgr Ivfvba ol gurz univat n qvfphffvba nobhg guvf irel fhowrpg, gelvat gb qrpvqr jurgure gurl ner vqragvpny rkprcg sbe gur nofrapr bs zrzbevrf. Vg jnf na nzhfvat vagryyrpghny fhoirefvba bs gur pbafgehpgrq 'grzcyngr' gung gur Zneiry Pvarzngvp Havirefr unq srngherq guhf sne va vgf svyzf.
This is literally the first thing I asked chatgpt when I started using it last week "what happens if you replace every part in a ship, is it the same ship". The second question was what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, both replies with the reasoning were pretty good imo. For the former it said it would be a new object as well.
i_am_toaster(2)
I'd be interested in an article comparing companies to the Ship of Theseus, is Apple of 2022 still the same Apple of 2010 or 2000? What makes a company a company? What gives a company its identity? The people, the values? What happens when 100% of the original people are no longer there, is it still the same company?