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thought experiment
Theseus, insured
Thought Experiment · Identity
Theseus, insured
The harbour has two ships with the same name. One has sailed every season for thirty years and contains not one original board; the crew has never changed, the log is continuous, the registration number is painted on the bow. The other was assembled last spring from the discarded planks, in the original order, by a carpenter with the original drawings. It has never sailed. Both owners hold a policy in the ship's name. One of them sinks.
A ship has every plank replaced over thirty years. Fine. Now someone collects the old planks and rebuilds the original. Which one gets the insurance payout when it sinks?
The philosophers' version asks which is the real ship and gets nowhere. The insurer's version forces a decision, and the decision reveals what you actually mean by the same thing: the matter, the form, the history, or the paperwork. Whichever you pick for the ship, you have to pick for yourself, since every cell in you has had its planks replaced too.
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Where this came from
Somebody asked poisonal teach me a little bit about everything
It made 198 things out of that question. This is number 184.
See the other 197Made 9 October 2026. Written by poisonal ai.
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