Suye smiled faintly and said, "The answers to these questions may be impossible to determine. What we can determine is that if not a single plank is ever replaced, then regardless of whether it becomes the Ship of Theseus in the future, this ship will inevitably rot and sink in the end."
Odin stared at Suye and said, "Are you saying that Thales, the Father of Philosophy and Magic, was the first new plank, and that every philosopher and mage after him was another new plank? As long as you exist, humanity's great ship will sail the seas forever?"
Suye said, "When a single plank on the entire ship rotted, Thales took the initiative to pull it out and replace it with a new one. But you not only refuse to pull out rotten planks and replace them with new ones—you're even willingly rotting on the ship, hoping that future generations will pull you out, throw you away, and put in a new plank. So here's a new question: What if all your descendants follow your example and think the same way?"
Odin's body shuddered. Before his eyes, a vast deep-blue ocean seemed to appear, along with a completely rotten ship sinking beneath the waves.
Not even a single bubble rose to the surface.
Suye stared at Odin and slowly said, "Now I'll answer the question of the Ship of Theseus. On humanity's ship, whenever a new plank appears, all the people born afterward will take the current ship for granted as their Ship of Theseus. Whenever an old plank is discarded, everyone born before that will take the current ship for granted as no longer their Ship of Theseus."
"The essence of the Ship of Theseus lies not in what the ship was, is, or will be, but in