The Axe Conundrum

[Varia]

An excerpt taken from John Dies at the End

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 next 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 with your newly-headed ax, though,
you meet the reanimated body of the guy you beheaded last year. 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 slayed me!”
Is he right?

[Temote]

Nope. You slayed him by shooting him.

[Varia]

Inconclusive. Being shot does not necessarily induce death and it doesn't say he was killed by being shot. It is assumed that after shooting and incapacitating the man, you behead him and end his life.

[ieatyourlvllol]

If you're nitpicky about English, you might immediately discount the problem at hand by holding that "slayed" is not an actual word.

Anyways, at first glance, the answer seems to be "no", as both the handle and the blade of the ax have been replaced at some point. However, here we encounter an infamous philosophical conundrum. To what extent does bodily (physical) continuity define the identity of an object? If we have a large wooden boat and replace its planks one by one over the course of decades, don't we still consider it the same boat? What about the ax?

In this instance, the problem is reduced to its most basic form by operating in the context of two parts - the handle and the blade - that can be isolated into very distinct identities on the basis of function, composition, and other such characteristics. Suppose we call the original ax "Ax A" and label its parts "Handle A" and "Blade A". When we replace Handle A with Handle B, what do we get? Do we still consider it "Ax A" in the same manner with which we would regard a car with freshly swapped tires? Or do we establish a new identity "Ax AB" that distinguishes it from Ax A? Whatever the answer, it seems that when we replace Blade A with Blade B, we then have a completely different ax (in physical terms) from the original.

We run into a fork in the road, however, because of the way in which the parts are replaced - sequentially, rather than simultaneously. What if instead of following the events described in the excerpt, the entire ax shatters, and is subsequently "replaced" by Handle B and Blade B at the same time? In this case, the logical conclusion would be that the ax is undeniably different from the original, and there would be no question as to whether we should call it "Ax A" or "Ax B".

However, the excerpt diverges from such a logically facile scenario. Like the case of the large wooden boat, although in a purely physical sense the current ax is different from its predecessor, it always retains at least some part of its prior form, and thus (the non-physical component of) its original identity can be carried by extension of referential continuity. In other words, we do not customarily give the boat a new name, even as the last of its original planks is replaced, so the ax should arguably be treated in a similar fashion.

However, a name does not denote an identity. We may call the boat Wayfarer regardless of its physical state, but when asked if it was the same Wayfarer from its first expedition, the appropriate answer seems to be "no". Here, we encounter a similar condition from the excerpt that possibly liberates us from the quandary. By claiming that the ax is the one from the incident, the man immediately contributes an additional dimension to the equation - time. The man was attacked by Handle A and Blade A, but now, as he regards Handle B and Blade B, neither of which have played a role in the past incident, it seems that it would be wrong for him to say, "That's the same ax that slew me!" That particular ax is now disintegrated, the splinters of its handle in some place and its chipped blade in another. If we were to somehow construct an ax from these parts, that ax would be the original. Its successor simply assumes its role and carries that non-physical component of its identity. Thus, the answer to the conundrum is "no" unless your definition of an object's identity is predicated entirely on its bodily continuity.

[Draigun]

I'm mildly disappointed that this thread is not about Axe brand body spray.