Thesius Problem

a. The Ship of Thesius problem is a problem that is related to the identity through time branch of metaphysics. The problem goes like this: the ship of Thesius was being stored and preserved in Athens and one day a plank got rotten and began to crumble away the plank was then replaced with a new stronger plank. At this point there is no doubt that the ship even with the new plank is still the ship of Thesius. However, over time more planks rot away and are replaced until some years later there are only the new plan ks and none of the old are left. Is this still the ship of Thesius? If so how can it be if none of the original parts are there and what makes it the ship of Thesius? Or if it is no longer the ship of Thesius what is it and at what point did it cease to be the ship of Thesius? These questions raise bigger questions about general identity. For people and things what makes them what they are
A universal is a quality or property that is shared by several things. The best theory regarding universals in my opinion is conceptualism. Conceptualism is a philosophical theory that explains universality of particulars as concepts just in the mind but not in reality. Conceptualism attempts to occupy a middle ground between realism and nominalism. In conceptualism a general thing or universal is simply a concept in our minds. Multiple things can fit into these concepts. An example of this are colors. Many things share the property of being blue. But, blue is a concept in our mind. The problem however arises in applying said concepts. What makes one thing blue and another thing not blue? Why a football is called brown but a baseball is called white? Conceptualists say that what makes things fit into a concept is because they possess a certain quality or property and other objects do not. However this does not help it only restates the problem. While the theory of conceptualism is not perfect it works best because then we do not need to find the physical