Disassembling the Ship of Theseus... Again

Now that we’re over a week out from the WandaVision finale, I think it’s safe to say that most of us have finished binge-watching the entire season – if we weren’t staying up every Thursday night / Friday morning to catch the episode as it came out, that is… If you haven’t watched the finale yet, you’ve probably seen plenty of spoilers on Twitter in the form of Agatha Harkness memes and Ship of Theseus references.

Ah, the Ship of Theseus… When the finale first came out, this became a trending topic on Twitter – see here for some high quality memes. I’m sure many of us Marvel geeks have already looked for explanations online and discovered that the Ship of Theseus conversation between the two Visions is actually pulled from the comics. Marvel at it, once again. Ha ha. Some of us have also probably read an article or two on what the Ship of Theseus is really about, but let’s see if there are still some odd tidbits out there that you don’t know, shall we?

The Ship of Theseus might be known in popular culture for its relevance to WandaVision for some time to come, but Theseus’ paradox is actually one of the oldest questions in Western philosophy, having [first?] been recorded by Roman historian Plutarch in the late first century! Ancient philosophers from Plato to more recent (comparatively) big names like John Locke and Thomas Hobbes have all attempted to resolve the paradox.

The original thought experiment goes something like this: Theseus, the mythical king of Athens and slayer of the Minotaur, had a ship, and this ship was kept by the Athenians as a memorial. Over the course of several centuries, the ship was preserved through a gradual replacement of its rotting planks with new timber. Eventually, so much of the ship had been replaced that it became unclear how much of the original ship remained, giving rise to the philosophical question of whether it was still the same ship or not.

Centuries later, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes added a follow-up question: Suppose that the ship’s discarded planks were gathered and reassembled into a second ship – which of the two would be the Ship of Theseus, the one that was gradually replaced with new timber or the one recreated from old planks? Quite the head-scratcher eh?

Anyway, Wanda’s Westview Vision cleverly uses this exact follow-up to turn his superhero battle with Hayward’s White Vision into a philosophical debate. (As much as I love the flashy battle sequences, this was a real golden moment for my inner geek.) White Vision has a directive to kill Vision, but which of the two is “the Vision”?? Westview Vision who would identify as Vision but who retains none of the original material that once made up the synthezoid? Or White Vision, who is the pieces of the original Vision reassembled, who retains the material but does not identify as the original?

Ultimately, the show seems to conclude that the real Vision is the one who retains the memories. Upon regaining access to his blocked memory base, White Vision declares, "I am Vision." Clever Marvel – this would appear to be a nod to John Locke’s proposal that it is our memories and not bodies that make us the same person through time. For Locke, our bodies are constantly changing in appearance, so it is our minds that connect us to our past selves.

Except… there are some problems with this resolution as well. Let’s look at it from the non-human perspective first. White Vision may now have his memories back, but is he fully connected to them? Does he experience them as his and accept them as part of his identity? Where is the humanity that was so integral to Vision’s character?

I guess we’ll have to wait until the next Marvel installment to find out whether or not White Vision is truly the real Ship of Theseus.

Now, let’s look at Marvel’s (well, technically Locke’s) temporary resolution from the human perspective. Once we introduced Locke’s proposition on memories, we’ve started to deviate a bit from the original Theseus’ paradox into the realm of human identity. (After all, ships don’t have memories.) So, what makes us… us?

Locke is correct in suggesting that our physical bodies are not what maintains our sense of self over time. Not only are we changing in appearance as we grow older, but the average lifespans of our cells are about 7 to 10 years, meaning that most of our “old planks” are getting replaced by new material every so often.

But I’m not so sure that our memories or minds are that much better at establishing our identity. We aren’t carbon-based synthezoids, and unfortunately, we don’t have the ability to simply “reupload” our memories perfectly, at least, not yet. Because our brains don’t store memories as easily accessible, digital files, our memories are prone to all sorts of misattributions and mistakes.

Studies have shown that there is no perfect way of determining whether a memory is real or imagined. Memory attributions are based on simple heuristics, or rules of thumb – if an image is vivid and feels real, we generally believe it to be real. Further, if a memory falls into a particular bucket of experiences or schema, we are hyper-prone to generalizing and filling in gaps with existing knowledge.

So, how much of our identity is actually captured by our memories if those memories are subject to change and distortion over time? My recall of something that happened a year ago may be so poor in the present time that my mind is subject to self-doubt and false memory creation. Does the presence or absence of memories determine to some extent just how much of the original ship we are?

Were you hoping for an answer? Sorry, but I’ll leave resolving Theseus’ paradox to the big guys – if Hobbes and Locke couldn’t even propose satisfactory solutions to this thought experiment, I certainly won’t try. But I do love pondering these types of philosophical questions and throwing my brain into existential crisis mode, so I’ll leave you guys with a couple more questions:

• Does erasing data from one computer and uploading it to another identical one interchange their identities? Does it matter?
• Is someone with memory loss the same person?
• Another popular TV series, Westworld, explores the development of consciousness and identity. At what point do hosts in Westworld take on their own identities? Is that identity lost and replaced each time they are rebooted?

Now that we’ve covered some history, pop culture, and even cognitive science, I hope you were able to glean some bit of uncommon knowledge from this. If you haven’t, maybe you can expand your own thinking and knowledge by pondering through some of these questions. Good luck!