So when we studied this, I admit youthful skepticism to post-modernist mentality made me a bit haughty with my addressing of the thought exercise and intellectual paradox. I had the answer immediately. It’s not his ship. But something dawned on me that melted my brain and thrust me back into my internal argument.
Here’s the background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
There’s a ship. The ship rots. You repair the ship until the last piece of wood from the original ship is replaced, making the ship identical to Theseus’ ship, but not the original ship. Is the ship still Theseus’ ship?
To my mind, it’s needlessly sophomoric, and one of those “profound” realizations in the lens of history that’s really just a stoned 3am dorm room conversation. A lot like Christopher Nolan’s films. Ha. I thought objectively… this is not Theseus’ ship anymore. None of it. So problem solved, right?
Well… then I ask you:
If Theseus returned to the harbor and saw his ship, would he doubt that it was his? If he boarded the ship, would he be confused by it or would it feel like home? If he sailed that ship into battle, would he know it like an extension of himself? If the answer is yes, then it shall always be Theseus’ ship.
This isn’t postmodernism. This is the notion of what it means to trust existence, and how we process it. I do like Chomsky’s Cognitive Science take most of all, that it calls into question how we even process reality. It’s namely the choice of how we experience the human condition. I think my younger self was trying to quickly answer the question just as my older self might speculate that people with the time to consider this deeply are lost to the profound existential tumult of existence.
To me, it was always never the Ship of Theseus.
Then, in my age, I realized it will always be his ship. Forever. And that is how I choose to process the experience of existence… with a little trust, and a lot of assumption. Otherwise there is nothing but doubt.