Conversation

If you think something can be dismantled and later reassembled, and still be the same thing as before it was dismantled, then why wouldn't it be?

Suppose both of these ships exist at the same time. Which is the original ship? Is either?

The answer is, of course, that it depends. Identity is just a convenience, something we impose on the world to make sense of it. Those atoms don't care what they are.