16
Sep
When Are Two Things The Same?
A classic philosophical puzzle goes something like this.
You have a boat. Then someone replaces a part of this boat with another, similar part. Your boat it still the same boat, right? It’s not like you have a new boat if you change a floor board. But then, one by one all the parts of the boat is replaced in this way. Is it then still the same? If not – when did it become a new boat? If it still is the same boat – what if someone used the parts removed from the boat to build a whole new(?) boat?
