Daily Reflection
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, 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.
— Plutarch, Theseus
Thank you Plutarch.
And just in case you missed that, here’s what’s going on.
Theseus is the mythical hero-god-king who founded and ruled Athens. There’s little evidence that Theseus ever existed. Rather, it was very common to mythologize the common history of a new nation or city or movement under the banner of a mythical hero.
These stories had a way of uniting disparate people and providing them a common sense of identity and thus political discourse.
Plutarch often wrote about such mythical figures—sometimes insisting they were real, and other times blatantly explaining they were clearly myths not to be taken seriously.
As for Theseus, he was a well known mythical figure which made his namesake rife for thought experiments like this one.
In the Myth of Theseus, at one point he returns to Athens to accept his rightfully earned station as King.
The ship he returns home in—according to legend—is immortalized in a museum of sorts.
Over time, like all things it decays and rots (Momento Mori!)
Therefore, plank by plank, bolt by bolt, the entire ship is slowly replaced over time.
Eventually, Athens owns two ships of Thesues—the original parts which remain though badly damaged and rotting, and a new ship which has emerged as each aging part was replaced.
There exists now in Athens a sharp divide over which ship is truly that of Theseus. The new one which as been replaced part by part, or the rotting ship no longer fit to be memorialized.
And so too, today there exists a sharp divide between what makes us, “us.”
This question has more-than-usual relevance in the age of cloud computing, memory, and strained concepts of self.
Am I my body? Am I my memories? Am I my senses?
If my senses and my memories were somehow downloaded onto a server somewhere, would I still be me? If I lost my memories but maintained my senses, would I still be me, or someone new?
And so, we return to our week’s theme: impermanence.
What makes us who we are in our short but deep experience of life? Can we continue on in other ways? Can we return to live again and again?
These are just a few of the questions that our constant companion of impermanence begs us to ask, especially in our age of technology and possibility.
And so I’ll leave it here for you, friends. What do you think? Are we just our memories, are we our bodies, are we an organic combination of it all? One day, can we “download” ourselves somewhere and “live” forever? Do we want to?
Let’s discuss!
Until tomorrow friends,
Matt
Make sure to share with a a friend you think might find this discussion interesting!
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theseus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus