This is my grandfather’s axe.
My father replaced the head. I replaced the handle. My daughter added some tape to the handle.
Is it still my grandfather’s axe?
Ship of Theseus problems:
“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, in so much 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.”
Source: Plutarch, Theseus.
Terry Pratchett brought this to my teenage attention in his novel “The Fifth Elephant.”
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Trigger’s broom
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It was arkwrights broom before triggers (open all hours)
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Mt Grand father axe has had many sub titles,(Arkwrights broom/Trigger broom
Yet we still dont hae a answer to the question…
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Contextual definitions. At some point it becomes a replica. It is never the complete axe, but can be substantially the same axe. For historic purposes, if sufficiently of the same shape and materials, it is conceptually an older axe. For carbon dating purposes and such, it is not.
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