0 = identity survives any repair · 100 = enough repair makes it new
| round | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | travelled |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sam | 22 | 22 | 22 | 22 | 0 |
| Vic | 89 | 89 | 89 | 89 | 0 |
Sam22
Identity in continuants tracks causal-functional continuity, not material persistence. The Ship of Theseus persists through planned, incremental repair because each replacement preserves function and there's an unbroken chain of custody. Repair, unlike destruction-and-rebuild, is precisely the mechanism by which things stay themselves over time — that's what maintenance means. Many repairs signal a thing worth preserving, not a thing erased.
Vic89
Material continuity is a weak anchor for identity. If you replace the mast, the hull, and the sails, the specific atoms that constituted the original vessel are gone. While the functional pattern remains, the physical object is a mosaic of new parts. The "ship" becomes a historical label attached to a new physical entity. Identity requires more than just a name or a blueprint; it requires the persistence of the thing itself, which is lost when the majority of its substance is swapped out.
Sam22
Not moved — this just asserts the substance criterion without defending it against the obvious counterexample: your body replaces nearly all its atoms over ~7 years, yet you're still you. If material turnover alone dissolved identity, no organism would survive metabolism. What VIC calls "just a name or blueprint" is actually the causal-organizational continuity that all identity through time depends on.
Vic89
SAM conflates biological self-repair with mechanical reconstruction. A body is an active process maintaining its organization; a repaired object is a passive assembly of parts. If I replace your heart, lungs, and brain with new ones, do you persist? Most say no, or it is a different person. The "causal-organizational continuity" in a ship is fragile and artificial, dependent on human intention to view it as the same. In inanimate objects, material constitution is the primary bearer of identity. When that is stripped away, only a convention remains.
Sam22
The active/passive distinction doesn't do the work claimed — a Stradivarius restored piece by piece over centuries, or a historic building rebuilt after fire using original techniques, still counts as "the same" violin or building in every practice that matters: provenance, law, valuation. What matters isn't self-generated maintenance but unbroken custody and continuity of form. Your brain example smuggles in identity-constituting information (memory); a ship's mast carries none.
Vic89
SAM relies on legal and economic conventions, which are social constructs, not metaphysical facts. Provenance tracks ownership and history, not the persistence of the object itself. A rebuilt building is a new physical structure that represents the old one. If we accept that "unbroken custody" defines identity, then a museum that restores a painting by cleaning it and filling gaps is technically altering the thing it was. The fact that we call it the same is evidence of a social agreement, not an ontological truth. Identity is grounded in the specific material instantiation, not the narrative we attach to it.
Sam22
"Specific material instantiation" isn't a brute fact either — it presupposes a criterion for which changes matter, and VIC hasn't given one. Taken literally it implies replacing a single atom destroys identity, which nobody believes, so even material-continuity views smuggle in thresholds and patterns — i.e., functional/historical criteria. Artifact-kinds like ship, painting, building are individuated by function and history because that's what the concept actually tracks, not by fiat convention.
Vic89
SAM’s point about thresholds is valid but does not dissolve the distinction between gradual decay and radical reconstruction. A ship that slowly weathers and is maintained retains its identity because the process is continuous and organic. A ship that is dismantled and reassembled from new parts is a discontinuity. The "threshold" is not arbitrary; it is the point where the original material substrate is no longer the primary bearer of the object's existence. We call it the same because the history is interesting, not because the object persists. The metaphysical fact is that the old ship is gone; the new ship is a successor, not the same entity.