Becoming Through Change: How Many Lives Fit into One?

The Tale of the Ship of Theseus

Theseus is a shipowner who travels all around the world. Gradually, the ship ages, and Theseus notes that some of the planks need to be replaced. He employs a ship repairman who replaces one plank every month, and, after 10 years, the ship has no traces of its old parts. Meanwhile, during this time, the repairman has collected the old parts of the ship to build another ship. This meant that whilst Theseus’s ship was being reconstructed, its old parts were being used to create something new. 

This Greek tale (c.75 CE) is used to study the nature of identity, and how change can significantly affect something over time. The question that arises is which ship, if any, is Theseus’s original ship: is it the reconstructed one, or the one that was built from the old parts?

The Self = More Than One

This is more than just a story about objects and persistence; it is a story about how, in one lifetime, we can live through many versions of ourselves and yet still be ‘ourselves’. When we go through old pictures of ourselves, it’s natural to feel both a sense of affection and alienation. You can acknowledge your old self in a picture and feel a sense of closeness to the version that is smiling back at you, and you can think of the memories and ideas connected to that past self. But there is also an alienation that is created in the disconnect that you have from that person, because that is not you anymore. 

This feeling does not come from looking at your physical changes, but is attached to space and time: it is connected to your old habits, beliefs, or certain tastes in music or movies, or certain styles that you used to wear but don’t identify with anymore. It’s almost as if the person in the picture feels like they belong to someone else’s memory, because that person believed in different things, feared different monsters, and loved different heroes. In relation to Theseus’s ship, the self is the ship that, over time, has swapped out so many planks: goals, political views, habits, and so on. It is thus natural to ask ourselves:  am I still the same person? 

What we learn as we age is that the self is a constant project that needs growth and change to continue. This aligns with Heraclitus (ca. 535–475 BCE) when he says, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” This means that we should think of change in a good way and find comfort in the unknown. 

Philosophy of the Planks

In the case of memories, the ship is the self, and the planks are the components that make up the self. John Locke, in his essay Concerning Human Understanding (1975), advocates for memory being the necessary medium that “constitutes personal identity,” and so, if you remember doing something, then you are the same person who did it (Locke 1975, 93). He claims that our ideas are derived from our experiences and interactions with the external world, and that the mind is a blank slate at birth upon which knowledge is built through our senses and reflections. One could argue that we don’t remember every experience – so does that mean we still have our memories? Troublingly, Locke’s theory would suggest no, but Derek Parfit could bring some solace when he explains that personal identity is linked to psychology. In Reasons and Persons (1984), he writes that psychological connectedness is having memories and personality traits that make us the same person. For Parfit, the idea that we are separated from our past selves is a “great illusion.” The degree of psychological connection to our past selves is more than enough. Parfit found this view liberating (Parfit 1984, 297):

When I believed that my existence was such a further fact, I seemed imprisoned in myself. My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness. When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air.

This means that when you think of the self, the constant analysis of the self as being tied to one identity is wrong. We can avoid anxiety by acknowledging that we are made up of many versions of ourselves, and recognising that our older parts are what carry us through.

The Complexity of Real Life

Life is to be understood as a collection of narratives. Paul Ricoeur in Time and Narrative (2024) explains that identity is to be defined as a “narrative identity.” The self is created through stories where we are simultaneously the author and the protagonist, constantly working to understand the different changes that take place in our lives. This works well with understanding the relationship that we have in our lives. Here, a Theseus ship paradox can be identified because, as years go on, people change, and so different ships go in opposite directions. This is a result of many planks (identity) no longer identifying with the other ship’s planks. But this does not mean that just because the planks are different, the self is not the same, as a person can change the way they speak, dress, act, or think, but that does not mean that they are completely different. 

Conclusion: One Lifetime, A Million Lives Lived

When it comes to being an active participant in existence, change is inevitable, and so Theseus’s Paradox can teach us that both the ship that was and the ship that is becoming can be the same. To fully understand this, we are no longer to see the story as a puzzle, but more as a mirror to our lives, where we allow room for change, leading to the construction of an identity narrative. We can outgrow ourselves as many times as possible.

Works Cited

Locke, J. 1975. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Parfit, D. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Plutarch. c.75 CE. Life of Theseus. In: Parallel Lives. (Trans. by B. Perrin). London: Loeb Classical Library.

Ricoeur, P. 2024. Time and Narrative. Volume 3. (Trans. by K. Blamey and D. Pellauer). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.