An odd thought occurred to me this morning. Is the human body a Ship of Theseus? Our cells are replacing themselves by countless numbers every second of every minute of every hour of every day. If that is so what really makes us who we are? Are we the same person we were at birth? I suspect not. It turns out it’s not the physical form that makes us who we are. We are indeed that Theseus ship.
I’m certain when parts were replaced on the ship they weren’t replaced with parts exactly identical. A deck plank might have a slight warp the one before it did not, etc. So does that happen with us? Does one regenerated cell that is slightly misshapen from its predecessor change the others and down the line change our physical form slightly? The “infrastructure” that helped to create and contain our “essence” is being replaced daily, but the essence remains. This is one I’ll be pondering for a while.
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