Latest / Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast / The Ship of Theseus

Transcript

The Ship of Theseus · Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast

0:01
Out of service, brought on by the separation.
0:04
The easiest forgot to voice in the white sails as his father
0:08
had requested King aegeus who was interesting, awaiting the
0:12
return of his beloved Son. Felt his heart.
0:15
Tremble. At the sight of the boat
0:17
returning with the Black Sails. This is plausibly live the
0:21
official podcast of the Dave Bowman show.
0:25
Well, good morning, good evening, or good afternoon,
0:27
wherever you are, whatever you do.
0:30
A lot of things happening in the world today most of them far
0:32
beyond our control, you might say.
0:35
So perhaps it's time we took a pause and thought about life and
0:39
thought about the laws of History, constitutions ships
0:44
planks, don't touch that dial. Just try to hear me out for a
0:48
little while. Thousands of years ago, we are
0:54
told that a man by the name of Theseus.
0:59
Defeated the Minotaur on the island of Crete.
1:01
Maybe you've heard this this story in the past, I had to go
1:07
back and try to reread a little bit.
1:11
So am I what we call today? Greek mythology?
1:16
But was in fact Greek history at one point.
1:22
Theseus is defeat of the Minotaur was remarkable for a
1:27
couple of things one because it's basically the plot to the
1:32
Hunger Games, right? He volunteers.
1:36
Has Tribune to go and probably be slaughtered by the Minotaur.
1:43
As a penalty. That, his nation is paying, but
1:47
he goes with a plan and of course what he gets there, the
1:52
daughter of the king falls in love with him.
1:56
She gives him a ball of string. Which in Greek, a clue is what
2:04
she gives him. And he is has that string to
2:07
plot his way through the maze where he defeats the Minotaur.
2:12
The curse is lifted and he gets back on the same ship, which
2:16
left is his hometown with Black Sails of morning. and he had
2:22
promised his father, That if he was alive when they returned,
2:27
they would change the sale color to white course and forgot to do
2:31
that because all Greek Legends come with a sense of tragedy.
2:37
And so here's your tragedy, the King kills himself.
2:44
Theseus, goes on to do many other things, including, by the
2:48
way, the founding of the city of Athens.
2:52
The ship. However, has a much more
2:55
extensive star. These yes, of course is man and
2:59
so he dies, but the ship is still there.
3:03
And we are told by no less than Plutarch in his various lives
3:08
book. That the Athenians maintained
3:12
the ship for hundreds of years. And that over the century.
3:19
They used the ship to sail to a nearby Island where there was a
3:24
shrine to the patron, God of Athens Apollo and they brought a
3:32
memorial offering for both Theseus and for what he had
3:36
accomplished for Athens and they presented it there and they
3:40
maintain the ship through the centuries for just this purpose.
3:44
Now remember we're talking about a wooden ship here.
3:47
And so Plutarch informs us that over the centuries.
3:53
The rotted and broken parts of the ship were regularly replaced
3:58
with quote, stronger planks, unquote.
4:05
Over the hundreds of years that this story was told and taught
4:11
and passed down to generation after generation of human
4:14
beings. Thomas, Hobbes the famous
4:18
philosopher. Started to ask a question and
4:23
this has become known as the Philosopher's question of the
4:30
ship of Theseus. And the question that you ask
4:35
yourself in the thought experiment that you perform is
4:39
at what point over the centuries that the Athenians maintained
4:43
this ship. Because we're told that they
4:47
regularly replace the rotting broken parts.
4:52
At what point is it no longer the ship of Theseus?
4:57
The ship that he sailed to and from Crete at what point has it
5:01
been completely and totally replaced with new parts and it's
5:09
Not the same ship anymore. It is a completely new ship in
5:14
somewhat. It's recognizable as the ship of
5:18
Theseus, looks the same. But is it what it once was?
5:25
And if everything on it has been changed.
5:28
Is it really what it once was. Now, through the history of this
5:34
argument, you'll be happy to know that.
5:38
Half of the philosophers that deal with this question seem to
5:41
regularly come to the answer of? Yes, it's the same ship.
5:46
While the other half come to the same conclusion, the opposite
5:48
conclusion, which is a No it's it's not the same ship anymore.
5:54
What does this have to do with anything for us today on
5:57
Constitution, Thursday? 236 years ago, the framers of
6:03
this nation, sailed the Constitution into Port having
6:07
returned from the convention and said, we've accomplished what we
6:11
set out to accomplish. and we have kept that ship for two and
6:18
a half centuries, and we will presumably keep it for more,
6:22
centuries to come and yet, Many of the planks of the
6:29
Constitution have been replaced, haven't they?
6:35
27 times. The Constitution has been
6:39
amended. And many of those planks that
6:44
have been replaced, many of those amendments made it a
6:47
stronger Constitution. They were as Plutarch wrote
6:51
stronger planks. But it also includes that 14th
6:57
Amendment which Professor Amar akhil Amar of the Yale law
7:01
school calls claims or says teaches created a new
7:08
constitution. In other words, it fundamentally
7:12
transformed. The Constitution into something
7:16
completely new. It was a strong in many ways.
7:20
The strongest plank of the Constitution today, but it
7:23
didn't exist in 1787. Or even 1789 on ratification. it
7:31
didn't come about until much later on and so the question is
7:35
is it really The sap looks the same.
7:43
Kind of, you know, I mean if you touch it it's the same paper.
7:46
But is it still the same? now, the reason we asked this
7:53
question with regards to the Constitution's, of course, the
7:55
American framers and the founders of this country.
8:00
As we've talked about over the last year, were strongly
8:03
influenced by the Greek city-states.
8:07
The Greek democracies They found in the Greek, democracies a
8:12
great deal of positive things that they really like.
8:17
They knew that there were negatives.
8:18
And in fact, Hamilton addresses this in in Federalist number
8:23
nine, he talks about the fact that they were unstable, they
8:25
were violent, but there were still positive things that we're
8:29
seeing one of which was Voting. We get our concept of voting
8:37
from the Greeks hitherto to that really hadn't been the situation
8:42
in the world. This idea that there were people
8:45
who would gather and express their opinion through their
8:50
votes on any given issue. it was and remains very Very intense to
9:01
us. It's something that we like and
9:03
it's something that the Greeks influence on the founders and
9:08
the framers, especially was important. the second thing that
9:13
the Greeks did that really influence the framers was the
9:17
idea and to a lesser degree the founders as well because they
9:20
had one too, we just don't talk about it, was this idea of a
9:23
written Constitution This idea that you write it down.
9:30
As so many people will say to you, if you didn't write it
9:32
down, it didn't happen. Well, we wrote down our
9:35
constitution. Now, we had done that before.
9:37
We have the Articles of Confederation but you know, they
9:41
weren't the same thing. They weren't quite as quite as
9:44
strong in a way, if you looked at the America, the United
9:49
States as the ship of Theseus, you could say we replace the
9:53
planks of the Articles of Confederation with the Tushin
9:57
could do that as well. but we wrote that Constitution down,
10:01
because this was something we had learned from the Greeks, the
10:06
written Constitution The important thing to keep in mind
10:10
here is that to the Americans of that era.
10:12
This was not mythology, this was not you know, fanciful Tales of
10:18
Hollywood or whatever this was Greek history and they had been
10:24
taught that history completely. They knew it so.
10:29
Well they could sit here and have discussions.
10:32
I mean, you'll see in that book right there.
10:33
You see the bookmark earlier today, I had to go look up the
10:37
story of Theseus. As I couldn't, I knew he killed
10:39
the Minotaur, but I couldn't remember why.
10:42
The founders and framers of this country knew exactly those
10:44
stories, and they knew them like the back of their hands.
10:48
They had learned it from childhood.
10:50
And they knew those stories very well and they influence them as
10:55
we talked about in the stories that we tell it, influence them
10:58
for the positive, good in creating a constitution that
11:03
even, they knew would be changed by Time, by Changed, by
11:07
Amendment Changed, by culture, to become stronger.
11:11
Even than it had originally bad. Now, when we consider the
11:16
constitution of today, Like the ship of Theseus, is it the
11:22
really the constitution of the framers?
11:25
If James Madison were here today, would he recognize the
11:30
Constitution? I think he would.
11:32
I think you'd look at it go. Yeah, I recognize that part and
11:36
I recognize the first twelve amendments but you've changed it
11:41
since that. And does it still function?
11:43
The same. Is it really the Constitution?
11:46
The framers I would say of course not I would be on that
11:49
side of the ship of Theseus that says no it's not the same ship
11:51
anymore nor did they intend for it to remain set in stone.
11:55
Known, they did not intend. That's why they put the
11:57
amendment thing in there. But what about the underlying
12:01
ideas of the Constitution? What about the underlying
12:04
principles? Are those principles are those
12:10
ideas? The same or have they been
12:14
replaced? This idea is these ideas of
12:21
originalism, these ideas of self-reliance.
12:26
These ideas of Liberty, do they still exist in the constitution
12:31
of today? Do they still?
12:33
Are they still there? Or have they have those planks
12:37
been replaced perhaps with stronger planks But maybe not.
12:45
A bigger question that I would ask is, how were those planks
12:47
replaced? How if they were there?
12:50
How have they been replaced in? The answer is a little more
12:55
concerning, I guess, in a way. How much Greek history do you
13:01
know today? And by Greek history.
13:04
I mean ancient Greek history. I don't necessarily mean, you
13:08
know, what happened in the Balkan Wars in 1912 and World
13:11
War 1? What were tied?
13:12
I get it. That's important.
13:14
But when it comes to the, into the history, understanding that,
13:17
the framers and Founders had how much of that do we know for that
13:22
matter? How much of this these stories?
13:26
Are ingrained in US much as they were in the framers.
13:30
If I hadn't told you that Theseus was the guy that killed
13:33
the Minotaur on the island of Crete.
13:36
Would you ever remember that? Would you even know that?
13:40
But these stories, these Legends this history in Greek, ancient
13:47
Greek history was very celebratory.
13:52
It's also very tragic because that's how the Greeks right
13:55
there. History, it's always has to have
13:56
a tragedy. But it's also very celebratory.
14:01
We celebrate Theseus and his accomplishment.
14:03
Not only do we celebrate his accomplishments.
14:05
We keep the ship around for hundreds of years and we keep
14:10
using the ship over and over again to remind ourselves of
14:15
what happened. Much, as we of the Jewish faith,
14:21
keep the Passover to remind ourselves of what happened.
14:25
It's part of what we say in the Seder.
14:27
As we, as we conduct that in the same way, the Greeks kept that
14:31
alive and they kept that alive. But that celebratory history has
14:36
now been, I don't know. Erased.
14:43
Is it even taught anymore? I took a Greek history course or
14:47
Greek. Myths course, when I was a
14:49
senior in high school, it wasn't my favorite class.
14:52
The teacher, basically handed us a book and said here, read this.
14:55
And it was, you know, the Greek myths, which of course I already
14:58
had read and felt like I knew intimately and then we took a
15:02
test, you know who was who and who did what and what island did
15:06
he go? It wasn't very much learning
15:07
involved with it, but these were stories that were very familiar
15:10
to me and hopefully they're familiar to you.
15:13
But a celebratory history. We need to keep in mind that
15:18
most tyrannies. I'm not talking about
15:21
dictatorships, I'm not talking about military junta's.
15:28
I'm talking about most tyrannies tend to delete celebratory
15:32
history whether that's actively and pulling down a statue or
15:38
perhaps passively by not. Encouraging the remembering of
15:44
that history by not sailing that ship across to that small island
15:48
to say. We remember what happened?
15:52
by not maintaining that ship and that's Monument as a monument,
15:58
it's not done anymore. And so as we lose more and more
16:03
of the planks of our constitution more and more, the
16:07
cons the planks of Liberty, the idea of what Liberty means and
16:14
what it requires of us, we got to ask ourselves that question.
16:21
Why don't we teach this stuff anymore?
16:23
Why is Greek mythology, really? It's not familiar to people, I
16:29
was so happy the other day. That Ben is reading some book
16:33
and I know it's not pure Greek mythology, Percy Percy,
16:39
something son, Jackson, Percy Jackson, and the amount of
16:44
lipids. And I know it's not Greek
16:46
mythology, but at least it's it's giving him those ideas and
16:50
I read through it. So I have some familiarity with
16:53
it. Because otherwise losing these
16:57
ideas, losing these stories, losing these Concepts losing.
17:03
These understand means that what the planks that we are replacing
17:09
on the constitution, on our constitutional ship of Theseus,
17:15
whatever you want to call. It means that every time we
17:19
replace one of those, we have to ask that question, is it's still
17:21
the same thing? Or has it become different
17:28
somehow and in that becoming different somehow?
17:35
Have we lost something or is it really?
17:41
Still the sand. Still the sand.