Hi Castiel I have a question for you:
There is a very well-used boat. During the life of a ship, parts break down and are replaced. The mast, for instance, is lost in a storm and so they get a new one, some of the wood rots and is replaced with fresh timber, and the bolts and nails holding it together rust away and replaced with fresh nails. Eventually, none of the original materials that made up the ship are there. Yet, the boat still sails, same as ever. Is this the same boat or a different boat now? And if the old pieces of the boat were retrieved and used to make a new boat would the two boats be the same boat?
Is there one right answer? I never did quite understand riddles, so I shall answer my own opinion.
I think logistically, the ship would not be considered the same. I know some very haughty beings who would argue that the ship is completely a completely different vessel now.
However, is the crew that pirates her still the same? Is her same name painted across her hull in neat cursive? Then she is still the same. Her history, her past pushes her onwards into the future, into time. Human skin sheds so much that in seven years time, your body will contain none of your original cells, because that is simply how it is necessary for you to continue. But you are still you, with your same memories and thoughts and identity. Now, obviously a ship will not have this sentient thought, however her history will still be known, by her crew, by her name in ledgers at every port. She is the same ship, simply with different parts.
Years down the line, it is not worth it to replace her parts anymore. She is scrapped, her crew is scattered or dead of old age, but her mast is a sturdy oak and should not go to waste, so they give it to another ship.
I believe that even if no one is around to tell a story, a tale of something that occurred, that does not mean it didn't occur. Her name is scraped off the hull and a new name is painted over. A new ship, with fresh timber. And her mast.
It is a new ship, with bits of someone else's history built in. Even if no one knows this, no one knows this history, that does not rid it of it's existence.
This new ship is her past. It is the past of the tree whose lumber now makes up the floor the crew walks upon. It is the past of the nails, whose iron holds the ship together. It is the past of each crew member, whose families sent them off with a kiss, whose boots will now wear down the planks for years and years to come.
And it is also new. There is a new future to be made, fresh cargo to be delivered, jokes to be made, a new name, an old mast, an unknown future.
To answer your questions simply, 1) She is the same ship, despite her new wood, her new cells. 2) They are the same ship and they are different ships, with a future ahead.
We are the product of our environment. We are the people we shake hands with on the subway, the people we love, the people we hate, our bosses, ones we pass by in the streets. We are our fathers and we are the food we eat.
We will always be different and we will always be the same. Our past makes us, whether we like it or not and it will always be with us. Our collection of parts and pieces from everyone else is what spurs us onwards, the sail that pushes us away from port and into the unknown abyss of the ocean.
That ship will always be the same ship and she will always be different.
This is largely metaphorical to me. Move forward and be at peace with your past. Simply because no one tells a history, does not mean that that history did not happen.
