Let’s say you have an ax. Just a cheap one, from Home Depot. On one bitter winter day, you use said ax to behead a man. Don’t worry, the man was already dead. Or maybe you should worry, because you’re the one who shot him.
He had been a big, twitchy guy with veiny skin stretched over swollen biceps, a tattoo of a swastika on his tongue. Teeth filed into razor-sharp fangs—you know the type. And you’re chopping off his head because, even with eight bullet holes in him, you’re pretty sure he’s about to spring back to his feet and eat the look of terror right off your face.
On the follow-through of the last swing, though, the handle of the ax snaps in a spray of splinters. You now have a broken ax. So, after a long night of looking for a place to dump the man and his head, you take a trip into town with your ax. You go to the hardware store, explaining away the dark reddish stains on the broken handle as barbecue sauce. You walk out with a brand-new handle for your ax.
The repaired ax sits undisturbed in your garage until the spring when, on one rainy morning, you find in your kitchen a creature that appears to be a foot-long slug with a bulging egg sac on its tail. Its jaws bite one of your forks in half with what seems like very little effort. You grab your trusty ax and chop the thing into several pieces. On the last blow, however, the ax strikes a metal leg of the overturned kitchen table and chips out a notch right in the middle of the blade.
Of course, a chipped head means yet another trip to the hardware store. They sell you a brand-new head for your ax. As soon as you get home, you meet the reanimated body of the guy you beheaded earlier. He’s also got a new head, stitched on with what looks like plastic weed-trimmer line, and it’s wearing that unique expression of “you’re the man who killed me last winter” resentment that one so rarely encounters in everyday life.
You brandish your ax. The guy takes a long look at the weapon with his squishy, rotting eyes and in a gargly voice he screams, “That’s the same ax that beheaded me!”
It is simultaneously the same axe and not the same axe. In a strict material sense, the final axe bears no relationship to the OG axe but in the figurative sense it is the same axe.
We must accept this paradox in the same way we must accept that our bodies are in a constant state of renewal and the person we were seven years ago has been completely renewed at a cellular level (maybe bones are exempt but brain cells don’t last forever). We tend to think of ourselves as a continuous process and our identity persists and is stable. On the other hand, it’s easy to argue that we are not the same person as we were seven years ago, we have grown and changed physically and spiritually. Only our identity documents contend that our identity is static. We seek stability and certainty everywhere and find it nowhere. If we can accept the ever changing nature of the universe at large we can find solace in constant change because that’s how it will always be.
Aww, man, you’ve really got to read the book. From that comment alone I am 100% certain you’d love it for nothing more than the chewy thoughts with long lasting flavor that it has to offer on that precise level.
You brandish your ax. The guy takes a long look at the weapon with his squishy, rotting eyes and in a gargly voice he screams, “That’s the same ax that beheaded me!”
Is he right?
Does that grant it some additional symbolic power over him? Then, yes, I’ll gladly concede the point and chop him down again with “the same ax”.
I should really read that if it’s the first part. I knew it existed but nothing else till now. Do enjoy the Dune novels for their philosophy bits (mostly as intro to a chapter as an idea but you can see the ideas used in the actual story sometimes or perhaps all the time and I missed some)
You really should, Jason Pargin just in general is a blast to read. All of his stuff is top drawer. The ship of Theseus theme does tie into the story in a heavy way, but that’s all I will say about it. Of his books the John Dies series are my favorites just because it opened me up to the gonzo Lovecraftian genre for the first time and satisfied a longing for the type of story telling I had always craved in my bones but had never known existed before that book and has lead me to many more great books in the genre (fucking read Skullcrack City, holy shit, it’s so good!) but the Zoe Ashe books are just as good and hit that same nail but with a Blade Runner on meth kind of feel, and I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom is a standalone story in a real world setting that still manages to go so god damned far off the rails.
Also, the movie is a lot of fun, but watch it before reading the book or you’ll hate it. It doesn’t spoil anything from the book, they only managed to get maybe 15% of the story in there, and it doesn’t at all touch on the core theme of the book and the scenes and setup are not the same as what you get from the book, but it was made with genuine love of the source material and they did the best they could with what they had to work with.
Are they evil, or are they just functioning on a different level of reality than us and doing what is required of them for their basic survival? The spider is evil to the fly, a brutal and savage monster, but to the spider it is simply and purely survival, no more and no less.
I’d say yes, you’d need a lot more overhaul to hit ship of Theseus levels, I think a head replacement counts as a simple repair, you know, like changing out an air filter.
Let’s say you have an ax. Just a cheap one, from Home Depot. On one bitter winter day, you use said ax to behead a man. Don’t worry, the man was already dead. Or maybe you should worry, because you’re the one who shot him.
He had been a big, twitchy guy with veiny skin stretched over swollen biceps, a tattoo of a swastika on his tongue. Teeth filed into razor-sharp fangs—you know the type. And you’re chopping off his head because, even with eight bullet holes in him, you’re pretty sure he’s about to spring back to his feet and eat the look of terror right off your face.
On the follow-through of the last swing, though, the handle of the ax snaps in a spray of splinters. You now have a broken ax. So, after a long night of looking for a place to dump the man and his head, you take a trip into town with your ax. You go to the hardware store, explaining away the dark reddish stains on the broken handle as barbecue sauce. You walk out with a brand-new handle for your ax.
The repaired ax sits undisturbed in your garage until the spring when, on one rainy morning, you find in your kitchen a creature that appears to be a foot-long slug with a bulging egg sac on its tail. Its jaws bite one of your forks in half with what seems like very little effort. You grab your trusty ax and chop the thing into several pieces. On the last blow, however, the ax strikes a metal leg of the overturned kitchen table and chips out a notch right in the middle of the blade.
Of course, a chipped head means yet another trip to the hardware store. They sell you a brand-new head for your ax. As soon as you get home, you meet the reanimated body of the guy you beheaded earlier. He’s also got a new head, stitched on with what looks like plastic weed-trimmer line, and it’s wearing that unique expression of “you’re the man who killed me last winter” resentment that one so rarely encounters in everyday life.
You brandish your ax. The guy takes a long look at the weapon with his squishy, rotting eyes and in a gargly voice he screams, “That’s the same ax that beheaded me!”
Is he right?
Edit: You can even watch this (slightly altered) quote in live action!
Read and watch John Dies at The End. You simply must.
It is simultaneously the same axe and not the same axe. In a strict material sense, the final axe bears no relationship to the OG axe but in the figurative sense it is the same axe.
We must accept this paradox in the same way we must accept that our bodies are in a constant state of renewal and the person we were seven years ago has been completely renewed at a cellular level (maybe bones are exempt but brain cells don’t last forever). We tend to think of ourselves as a continuous process and our identity persists and is stable. On the other hand, it’s easy to argue that we are not the same person as we were seven years ago, we have grown and changed physically and spiritually. Only our identity documents contend that our identity is static. We seek stability and certainty everywhere and find it nowhere. If we can accept the ever changing nature of the universe at large we can find solace in constant change because that’s how it will always be.
Aww, man, you’ve really got to read the book. From that comment alone I am 100% certain you’d love it for nothing more than the chewy thoughts with long lasting flavor that it has to offer on that precise level.
Does that grant it some additional symbolic power over him? Then, yes, I’ll gladly concede the point and chop him down again with “the same ax”.
Nah, for that kind of plot armor you’d probably want to blast something like Holding Out for a Hero by Bonnie Tyler or Home Sweet Home by Motley Crue.
John Dies At The End by Jason Pargin. My favorite book series of all time, no contest. That’s how the book starts.
The fifth book, There Are No Giant Crabs in This Novel: A Novel of Giant Crabs, is releasing this year.
I should really read that if it’s the first part. I knew it existed but nothing else till now. Do enjoy the Dune novels for their philosophy bits (mostly as intro to a chapter as an idea but you can see the ideas used in the actual story sometimes or perhaps all the time and I missed some)
You really should, Jason Pargin just in general is a blast to read. All of his stuff is top drawer. The ship of Theseus theme does tie into the story in a heavy way, but that’s all I will say about it. Of his books the John Dies series are my favorites just because it opened me up to the gonzo Lovecraftian genre for the first time and satisfied a longing for the type of story telling I had always craved in my bones but had never known existed before that book and has lead me to many more great books in the genre (fucking read Skullcrack City, holy shit, it’s so good!) but the Zoe Ashe books are just as good and hit that same nail but with a Blade Runner on meth kind of feel, and I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom is a standalone story in a real world setting that still manages to go so god damned far off the rails.
Also, the movie is a lot of fun, but watch it before reading the book or you’ll hate it. It doesn’t spoil anything from the book, they only managed to get maybe 15% of the story in there, and it doesn’t at all touch on the core theme of the book and the scenes and setup are not the same as what you get from the book, but it was made with genuine love of the source material and they did the best they could with what they had to work with.
If the guy has a new head is it the same guy though?? 🤔
He’s animated by the same evil entity
Are they evil, or are they just functioning on a different level of reality than us and doing what is required of them for their basic survival? The spider is evil to the fly, a brutal and savage monster, but to the spider it is simply and purely survival, no more and no less.
I’d say yes, you’d need a lot more overhaul to hit ship of Theseus levels, I think a head replacement counts as a simple repair, you know, like changing out an air filter.
Sure but the head is where all the guy related stuff hapepens, no? The thinking and such. It’s all in the brain