Plato, Plutarch, and Paul

No, not the Apostle, or even the Beatle this time… Paul the guy I live with. But more on that to come…


My right Trapezius muscle hurts like one would not believe. I was going to go back to work for Ray today, but I suppose that is not going to happen after all. Perhaps tomorrow.

Today was a fairly wasted day in my opinion. Not being able to move as much as I’d like to. I finally asked Jan for some pain killer. After that, I was able to take a nap. After said nap, I managed to do some clearing in the kitchen in prep for cooking dinner tonight.

Post dinner, Paul logged onto Facebook and Jan gave him a tutorial. Then my blog was brought up, and I asked Jan what she thought of “A Whole New You”, her reply, “I gave up!” Paul was curious as to what was going on, and as I began to explain what the topic was about, Jan decided to cut in and explain it simply as, “he tried to baffle them with bulls#!t”.

So… what do Plato…


Plutarch…


And Paul…


…have in common?

Well… quite obviously… bitchin awesome beards to start with…

2ndly: Truly great philosophers.

You see… after Jan’s explanation, I continued to explain what my blog was about, and we began to talk about the Ship of Theseus Paradox.

Theseus was one of the early heroes of Athens who defeated the half-man/half-bull Minotaur of Crete.



After Theseus’s successful return to Athens, the Athenians kept his ship in the Athenian harbor as a memorial for many centuries.
“The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned 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 place…”


The ship was used every year for the Festival of Apollo at Delos, and so, needed to maintain seaworthiness.


Here is what makes it a Paradox:

“As the wood of the ship wore out or rotted and was replaced, it was unclear to philosophers how much of the original ship was actually remained, giving rise to the philosophical question whether it should be considered “the same” ship or not. Such philosophical questions about the nature of identity are sometimes referred to as the Ship of Theseus Paradox.”

If one then was to take the wood taken away, and was to make a replica with the original timber over the years, which one would be the actual ship of Theseus? Would it be the one taken every year to the festival of Apollo? OR would it be the one re-assembled with the same wood that returned from Crete with Theseus?

So as I was talking about how yesterday’s blog of “A Whole New You” was in some ways a discussion on the Ship of Theseus. When I posed the question to Adam and Paul to see which they felt was the actual ship.

Paul’s response:
“If these boards had to be replaced because something was wrong with them and they were all furry and maggoty, and then you took all the boards and made a boat out of them… that thing must be quite a bucket of shit… so I think I’ll stick with the one with the new boards.”


I’m going to miss his wisdom on a regular basis.