#RT1 - Random Thought - Victory Through Defeat

"It is not defeat, but victory, that takes the greatest toll upon a man. He who lies dead in defeat knows naught but that he fought well and died well. He who lives in victory knows always the pain of war, of battle, of the cost of his victory and his adversaries' defeat. He has the unadmirable task of accounting for himself to history, and even if truly the victor writes history, only the victor must hold himself to trial if he is to lie to make his victory seem more glorious than he knows it is, or to make his adversaries' defeat seem less noble than he knows it must be.

It is not the defeated, but the victorious, who pays for the war - To die a noble death at the height of a nation's glory is an easier path by far, than to rule over a people broken by the drain of creating victory."

The result of letting my brain run away with itself.

~The Thinker

#1 - The Ship of Theseus - Part One

We're going to start out today with one of the simplest and most original thought provoking arguments of all time. You may have heard of it in many different forms, but because it will probably carry the most relevance to western readers, I'll start with the version known simply as 'George Washington's Axe'.


You have an axe, given to you by your grandfather. Over the course of many years of use, the haft becomes worn (That's the handle, folks) - So you replace it. Then, you carry on using the axe, sharpening it every day until the head is beyond repair. You replace the head of the axe, many years after replacing the haft, and yet...

You can't escape a nagging feeling. Is this actually the same axe, anymore? The head's gone. The haft's gone. There's no part of this that your grandfather ever used - Or for the more apocryphal version, that George Washington ever used.

Hrm!

Is it the same axe? Let me know what you think in the comments!

We'll carry on with this one tommorrow.

Cheerio,
~The Thinker