@WRW posted:C’mon, if my Papa broke the handle on his small axe, he would have replaced the handle. Isn’t it still his axe if you did the same?
Reminds me of that old joke, I have an axe Abe Lincoln used to split rails before he became a lawyer, the handle has been replaced 3 times and the head twice!
There actually is a philosophical argument called The Ship Of Theseus.
It is supposed that the famous ship sailed by the hero Theseus in a great battle was kept in a harbor as a museum piece, and as the years went by some of the wooden parts began to rot and were replaced by new ones; then, after a century or so, every part had been replaced. The question then is whether the "restored" ship is still the same object as the original.
If it is, then suppose the removed pieces were stored in a warehouse, and after the century, technology was developed that cured their rot and enabled them to be reassembled into a ship. Is this "reconstructed" ship the original ship? If it is, then what about the restored ship in the harbor still being the original ship as well?[
If over the course of time all the parts of a ship are replaced because of wear or damage, is it still the same ship? Are we still the same person today even tho all of our cells are replaced every few years that we were 10 years ago?
Jerry