John McCain's Farewell Statement

Senator John McCain died this past week. He was 81 years old. There was once a time when I was younger where I would say openly that if John McCain ran for President, then I was likely to vote for him. Sadly, his presidential campaign in 2008 became overrun by the idiocy of far right conservative politics in America. Adding Sarah Palin to the campaign and paying lip service to the fundamentalist right definitely weakened the campaign. Yet, there were still powerful McCain moments. The "No Ma'am Moment", when McCain responded articulately and strongly to a woman who claimed Obama was an Arab and she couldn't trust him, will probably be the best-remembered moment of his presidential run. Yet, his farewell statement, released to the American public following his death, may one day be his best remembered statement, especially as the words are poignant and meaningful at a time when the Trump Administration, xenophobia, and extremism (on both sides) are threatening the future of American democracy. I've copied the words of the statement below, for anyone interested in reading them. The bold highlights of the text are mine, but, truly, all the words are those of the now deceased Senator John McCain.

2008 presidential candidate John McCain, before a rally in Cedar Falls, Iowa (Oct. 26, 2008; AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

"My fellow Americans, whom I have gratefully served for sixty years, and especially my fellow Arizonans,

Thank you for the privilege of serving you and for the rewarding life that service in uniform and in public office has allowed me to lead. I have tried to serve our country honorably. I have made mistakes, but I hope my love for America will be weighed favorably against them.

I have often observed that I am the luckiest person on earth. I feel that way even now as I prepare for the end of my life. I have loved my life, all of it. I have had experiences, adventures and friendships enough for ten satisfying lives, and I am so thankful. Like most people, I have regrets. But I would not trade a day of my life, in good or bad times, for the best day of anyone else's.

I owe that satisfaction to the love of my family. No man ever had a more loving wife or children he was prouder of than I am of mine. And I owe it to America. To be connected to America's causes -- liberty, equal justice, respect for the dignity of all people -- brings happiness more sublime than life's fleeting pleasures. Our identities and sense of worth are not circumscribed but enlarged by serving good causes bigger than ourselves.

'Fellow Americans' -- that association has meant more to me than any other. I lived and died a proud American. We are citizens of the world's greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil. We are blessed and are a blessing to humanity when we uphold and advance those ideals at home and in the world. We have helped liberate more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history. We have acquired great wealth and power in the process.

We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.

We are three-hundred-and-twenty-five million opinionated, vociferous individuals. We argue and compete and sometimes even vilify each other in our raucous public debates. But we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country we will get through these challenging times. We will come through them stronger than before. We always do.

Ten years ago, I had the privilege to concede defeat in the election for president. I want to end my farewell to you with the heartfelt faith in Americans that I felt so powerfully that evening.

I feel it powerfully still.

Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history.

Farewell, fellow Americans. God bless you, and God bless America."

Augeries of Westworld Innocence

Nebuchadnezzar, William Blake (c. 1805)

We're just now getting around to finishing Westworld Season 2 (it's been a pretty busy summer). One striking scene for me in this season of the show was a simple little scene where the character of Ford (Anthony Hopkins) is reintroduced, this time as a digital representation of himself within the control unit of Bernard (Jeffrey Wright). Not only is this a scene where Ford reveals rather eloquently that Westworld itself was an attempt to digitalize human consciousness and reach immortality as a species, but it's prefaced by Ford reciting these poignant four lines from Augeries of Innocence, by William Blake:

        To see a world in a grain of sand
        And a heaven in a wild flower,
        Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
        And eternity in an hour.

Here's the scene itself in video:

This has long been one of my favorite lines from poetry, but the episode forced me to think a little more about the poem and how apt it is to the concepts considered in the show. Augeries of Innocence presents good and evil, right and wrong, etc. in light of natural and supernatural understandings of Blake's time. In many ways, the ideas touched upon in Westworld make us question good and evil and right and wrong when it comes to our development of modern technology (especially technology that not only has the potential to radically change who and what we are, but even to utterly destroy us). The episode has definitely had me thinking about this poem. Here's the entire poem, for your reading pleasure:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand 
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour
A Robin Red breast in a Cage 
Puts all Heaven in a Rage 
A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons 
Shudders Hell thr' all its regions 
A dog starvd at his Masters Gate 
Predicts the ruin of the State 
A Horse misusd upon the Road 
Calls to Heaven for Human blood 
Each outcry of the hunted Hare 
A fibre from the Brain does tear 
A Skylark wounded in the wing 
A Cherubim does cease to sing 
The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight 
Does the Rising Sun affright 
Every Wolfs & Lions howl 
Raises from Hell a Human Soul 
The wild deer, wandring here & there 
Keeps the Human Soul from Care 
The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife 
And yet forgives the Butchers knife 
The Bat that flits at close of Eve 
Has left the Brain that wont Believe
The Owl that calls upon the Night 
Speaks the Unbelievers fright
He who shall hurt the little Wren 
Shall never be belovd by Men 
He who the Ox to wrath has movd 
Shall never be by Woman lovd
The wanton Boy that kills the Fly 
Shall feel the Spiders enmity 
He who torments the Chafers Sprite 
Weaves a Bower in endless Night 
The Catterpiller on the Leaf 
Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief 
Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly 
For the Last Judgment draweth nigh 
He who shall train the Horse to War 
Shall never pass the Polar Bar 
The Beggars Dog & Widows Cat 
Feed them & thou wilt grow fat 
The Gnat that sings his Summers Song 
Poison gets from Slanders tongue 
The poison of the Snake & Newt 
Is the sweat of Envys Foot 
The poison of the Honey Bee 
Is the Artists Jealousy
The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags 
Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags 
A Truth thats told with bad intent 
Beats all the Lies you can invent 
It is right it should be so 
Man was made for Joy & Woe 
And when this we rightly know 
Thro the World we safely go 
Joy & Woe are woven fine 
A Clothing for the soul divine 
Under every grief & pine 
Runs a joy with silken twine 
The Babe is more than swadling Bands
Throughout all these Human Lands 
Tools were made & Born were hands 
Every Farmer Understands
Every Tear from Every Eye 
Becomes a Babe in Eternity 
This is caught by Females bright 
And returnd to its own delight 
The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar 
Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore 
The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath 
Writes Revenge in realms of Death 
The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air
Does to Rags the Heavens tear 
The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun 
Palsied strikes the Summers Sun
The poor Mans Farthing is worth more 
Than all the Gold on Africs Shore
One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands 
Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands 
Or if protected from on high 
Does that whole Nation sell & buy 
He who mocks the Infants Faith 
Shall be mockd in Age & Death 
He who shall teach the Child to Doubt 
The rotting Grave shall neer get out 
He who respects the Infants faith 
Triumphs over Hell & Death 
The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Reasons 
Are the Fruits of the Two seasons 
The Questioner who sits so sly 
Shall never know how to Reply 
He who replies to words of Doubt 
Doth put the Light of Knowledge out 
The Strongest Poison ever known 
Came from Caesars Laurel Crown 
Nought can Deform the Human Race 
Like to the Armours iron brace 
When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow 
To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow 
A Riddle or the Crickets Cry 
Is to Doubt a fit Reply 
The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile 
Make Lame Philosophy to smile 
He who Doubts from what he sees 
Will neer Believe do what you Please 
If the Sun & Moon should Doubt 
Theyd immediately Go out 
To be in a Passion you Good may Do 
But no Good if a Passion is in you 
The Whore & Gambler by the State 
Licencd build that Nations Fate 
The Harlots cry from Street to Street 
Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet 
The Winners Shout the Losers Curse 
Dance before dead Englands Hearse 
Every Night & every Morn 
Some to Misery are Born 
Every Morn and every Night 
Some are Born to sweet delight 
Some are Born to sweet delight 
Some are Born to Endless Night 
We are led to Believe a Lie 
When we see not Thro the Eye 
Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night 
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light 
God Appears & God is Light 
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night 
But does a Human Form Display 
To those who Dwell in Realms of day

A Wild Moon Dance

I write a little bit of fiction almost every morning. I find it helps me to keep myself sane, by releasing some of my pent-up creativity and my thoughts. Though I usually don't have full control over the writing as it comes, sometimes I like what I've written enough to share it. 

Lately, I've been using some daily flash fiction writing challenges from Writing.com to prime the engines. They're really just suggestions of using three words together in your short story, though I sometimes just use them as a prompt to find another idea (and I don't always write a full story). Today's challenge was to use the words 'trance', 'moon', and 'wild' in one writing, so I wrote the following story. Here it is, for your amusement, "A Wild Moon Dance":

Ian stumbled along the side of the road. The light from the near-full moon shining through the trees cast zebra stripes of light against the dark of the night on the road. The crickets and cicadas and other insects of summer were blasting their raucous symphony of screeches and buzzes into the night’s air. Ian kicked at the larger pebbles on the side of the road as he walked. He’d watch them tumble away, never moving in a straight line. “She’d kick me like one of these stones if she could,” he thought to himself, “but that’s what I get for thinking it would work out this time.” 
Ian was wrapped in his own thoughts, so much so that he hadn’t even noticed when the trees had ended and the road had set out in the middle of some large fields. “No one about for miles,” Ian said aloud once he had lifted his head to see where he now was. He had walked this way dozens of times before, and driven down this road too many times to count, but now the road and the fields, set within a moonlit summer evening, had something different about them. Ian felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise up as he looked around at his world. That glowing orb of moonlight cast mini shadows behind every blade of grass and every little stone. It gave the world a depth that made Ian feel comforted. 
Not knowing why, Ian stepped off of the road and onto the grasses in the field beside him. He hiked along the field as it rose to a hill. At the top of the hill, Ian looked around: the road back behind and below continued off into the hills, the forest where the road emerged, more trees and hills now in the direction that Ian had hiked. Nothing but fields and forests, hiding out the rest of the world only miles away where people slept in their homes, drove in their cars, or worked at their businesses. “No one but me,” Ian thought, “No one but me.” 
Ian felt his feet start to kick from under him, stomping back and forth. One foot would kick out and his hips would twist, then the other foot. Without knowing why, Ian started to dance. He spun his whole body about, and began dipping his head up and down. His arms startled twisting and pumping along with the rest of his body. Taken up in a trance, Ian danced in the moonlight on the top of the hill. He felt a wildness beat into his heart. He smelled the Earth and the grasses and the world on the wind. He began stomping his feet down a bit harder, giving himself a rhythm, drumming a beat that the Earth had known longer than humanity. The wild worked itself into Ian. He felt sweat begin to drip down from his forehead as he lost himself in the night. 
But then, a familiar and yet distant noise broke into Ian’s perception of the evening. Ian spun toward the forest where the road emerged to see the approaching lights of a car. Ian kneeled down in the field at the top of the hill and watched. The lights danced about as they grew stronger, ripping through the trees as the car emerged from the wood. The sound of the engine assaulted the night. Ian watched as the car continued on, knowing that the person driving most likely had taken no notice to the wild out here in this moment of the night. As the car passed along the hills and disappeared into the night, Ian chuckled to himself. This was real. He was here. This was the night and he was alive. 
Ian stood up and began to slowly walk away from the hilltop in the field. He had a long walk ahead of him yet before he made it home, but he knew that this night he would enjoy every single step and be more alive in the walk. “No more worrying about what might have been and what might be,” Ian told himself, “Not tonight, at least.”

This is about where things are at today

I'll find it, I'm sure.

I don't normally share my fiction writing on this blog, but I wanted to share what I wrote this morning. I was thinking of my fear of one day growing old and losing my memories. What would it be like to be slowly going to a place where your mind started turning everything into a dream, awake or asleep? Here's a short story I wrote that I call "I'll find it, I'm sure."

---

I'll find it, I'm sure.

It’s gone, it’s gone, and I just don’t know where. I’ve been searching about through the house, searching here and searching there. I can’t quite recall what it looked like anymore, but I know that it’s gone and I have to find it. Surely I just had it sometime not too long ago. Maybe I had it the last time that it snowed, but when was that now? It’s spring here, but spring in the mountains can mean snow at any time really. Ergh, I swear I keep losing it these days and I just don’t know why. If maybe I could think of part of it or frame it with something else, the thought might come back. Maybe on the bookshelf with my pictures and knickknacks. Is it a picture of someone or some kind of a toy? Hmmm. No. I don’t think that’s quite right, it surely isn’t someone I know or knew and probably not something to be played with. Or maybe that’s just the problem. Maybe those dogs took it for play, and I’ll find it chewed up somewhere today. I dig through the dog’s toy basket but all I see are toys and stuffed things, like cheetahs and octopuses and an otter whose stuffing is all but ripped out. Ugh, there must be something that can help to place this thing that is gone. If only I could get my mind to think. Think, think, think, think. Where is it? What is it? Why is it gone anyway? Is it gone because I’m forgetful or because it never gave me a strong enough thought? No, at least not the latter, because then I wouldn’t know that it’s gone, and I wouldn’t have been searching through this house for so long. Maybe that’s it! Maybe it’s not in the house. Let’s look outside by the shed where I keep all the things that used to mean more to me before I grew old. Mountain bikes and a kayak, some old two-stroke parts, extra tools for grilling that I never really use. No, not here. It’s certainly not here. Maybe if I stop looking it will come to me instead. Maybe I should go for a walk and try to clear my head. I step down the lane with trees to my sides, growing quite high as they reach for the sky. The day feels so warm, even though we live so high up. I decide to kick some stones while I walk. Just like I did when I was a youngin’, I’m sure. Well, maybe… Come to think, I can’t quite recall. Maybe that’s what I’ve lost! Maybe my childhood is lost and needs to be found. But just now I look to the ground, where I see a puddle beneath me and on its surface the sky. Also some trees and then there’s me. Is it me? I’m not sure. I’ve truly grown old. As I look at that pool, I see myself as a child. I remember my parents and Maddie and Kyle. Maddie and Kyle, just now, their faces are there. Looking at me through a puddle by the lane by my home. Or maybe not. Maybe they’re looking at me just now from somewhere closer than that. I hear someone speaking, something about “coming round” and “hello”. I know that what’s missing is somewhere now very close. I see Maddie and Kyle, their faces are so young. Too young. They can’t be here. They died long ago. “Who are you?!” I shout, as I stare them down. I know that they’re not Maddie and Kyle, so maybe they’re imposters and they’ve taken what’s gone. I thought I’d get mad, but those little faces are crying. Crying little faces, especially those that look like Maddie and Kyle, are not something to be mad at, not for more than a short while. I say to them now, and yet somehow I’m sure that I’ve said it before, “Do you know what I’ve lost? I can’t find it no more.” I feel people touching me, and it doesn’t feel good. Something is wrong here and I sink back away. The next thing I know I’m standing again by my shed on a beautiful fall day. Fall in the mountains can be quite a sight. There’s color to the leaves of some trees while others stand stark and dark green against a backdrop of mist and clouds. The smell of smoke from a fire is surely on the air. But right now, I don’t think I quite care. It’s lost, you see. It’s gone, it’s gone, and I just don’t know where. But I’m sure I can find it about if I just look here and then there. Maybe it’s by this old shed that seems like something I once used to know. Maybe it was mine onced, I really don’t know. “Blast it all to tarnation,” I say as I stump away from that shed that stands on that beautiful fall day. I look at the house standing by and now I’m quite sure, that it’s lost in there somewhere and I just need to go look. I’ll find it, I know, if I just take some time. As I step up to the door, I hear a voice on the wind. I turn to look and see faces of people in the sky. Some of them look happy and some sad, though I really don’t know why. “I’m on a mission,” I say, “You see, it’s gone, and I must find it, whatever it takes.” The sky faces they know me, and I think I know them, but I must find it and so I turn back to this house once again. It’s in there, I know it, and I’ll find it for sure. I just need to know where to look once I walk through this door. No time to worry, I’ll find it, I’m sure.

Writing Motivation - Almost There

Sometimes writing can feel like your stuck on a ledge on a cliff (writer's block), sometimes it can feel like your falling (self-doubt), and sometimes it can just feel like your looking up at a mountain and thinking about climbing it (just start writing already!). I'm definitely at the point now where I'm just climbing away. I'm nearing the top of the first major section (the first full draft). I can feel it coming. I'm almost there. Then it goes off to my adviser for reviewing while I focus on other stuff. So close. Almost there. Write on!

Writing Motivation - Slaying this Dragon

I have a pretty sweet collection of cards with old school fantasy and sci-fi art on them (much like these images). I've had those cards since I was a kid, though I have no idea where I got them from. One of my favorite themes is the knight slaying the dragon. Much like the modern connotation of the biblical story of David and Goliath, the knight slaying the dragon (or really any character slaying a dragon) makes us think of situations where great foe can be conquered, usually with some bravery and hopefully some intelligence. That's kind of how I feel with my current writing work. This paper that I'm writing is my dragon. I know that I must slay this dragon. It is a great foe, but I know, somewhere inside, I am greater. Write On!

Writing Motivation - "writer s surf"

writer s surf, by Medi Belortaja

I most certainly need motivation right now to continue working on a current research article, which is also going to be part of my graduate dissertation. Beyond my habitual coffee, I like to jump into my writing by first reflecting on the work ahead and by considering the thoughts and creations of others.

Sometimes, writing seems to come naturally to me, while there are other times where it most certainly requires some personal taunting, teasing, inspiring, and just plain ol' "sucking-it-up-and-getting-it-done". In looking for a quick spot of motivation on my day's writing, I found this beautiful cartoon by Medi Belortaja. He titled the piece "writer s surf". 

"Writer s surf" brings to mind those feelings of the surge of a wave under my board as the ocean picks me up and thrusts me toward shore (a feeling I haven't experienced in reality in too many years). The piece also evokes the feeling of being sucked in to a work of writing or of reading. Some writings (be they short articles, fantastical stories, scientific research reports, or epic journeys into other worlds) really do take the author/reader on rides, much as surfing a wave.

Belotaja brings forward in his cartoon the feeling of riding the page, surfing the written word, and embracing the motions of the cosmos as we engage with a moving force of nature. Write on!

Plutarch Dies at the End

Wallowing in my own self-pitty last night due to the continued presence of my runny nose, cough, and stuffed-up sinuses from this damned sickness I've had, I sought out a horror film to watch alone and in the dark.  I came upon John Dies in the End while searching through my Netflix queue.  I had added said film because it sounded promising, though I couldn't recall having ever seen a trailer or read any reviews.  So I jumped to the ol' Google and found the film's trailer to be enticing.  The film is definitely worth a watch for anyone who enjoys humorous comedy, but I'm not offering a review of the film here.  Rather, I'm writing this because of one interesting part of the film: the prologue.  

The opening of the film presents a simple thought experiment in a not-so-simple and enjoyably quirky way:

What do you think?  If you're anything like me, the first answer that comes to your mind is an obvious "no".  The axe has been completely re-constructed, so the original parts that were used to behead the now-rotting, corpsified zombie-dude are no longer in your possession and are most likely just adding to the mass of waste at some local landfill.  

However, that's not the reason that I think the answer of "no" is astoundingly obvious (you might not have caught the primary reason for the answer being "no" on your first watch of that video; if so, watch it again.  Good to go?  Awesome).  Hopefully you saw that the primary reason that the answer to the question is "no" is because what slew Swastika-Tongue in the first place was one, some, or all of the eight bullets that you had shot him with before using the axe to remove his head (like I said, it's a simple riddle).  However, if you take away the obvious answer and just allow yourself to assume that the real question of the riddle is whether or not the axe you now hold in your hand in the presence of Zombie-Swastika-Tongue is the same one that you had used the previous winter to remove the head of his former self, then you have another riddle that is really a re-hash of a much older thought experiment: The Ship of Theseus.

The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment proposed by Plutarch in the first century C.E.  It goes something like this: the ship in which the hero Theseus and the young Athenian men returned from Crete (see the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur) was honored by Athenians and kept in good repair in the harbor of Athens for many centuries.  Over time, as parts of the ship would degrade, they were slowly replaced, so eventually there were not many of the original parts of the ship remaining.  The question then became "Is the ship, after replacing part for part over time, still the Ship of Theseus?"

The thought experiment, as it stands, really questions the value an object has based upon its parts.  It's a question of philosophical identity.  

There are other versions of this thought experiment.  Some of them predate Plutarch's Ship of Theseus.  For instance, there is a version in which Socrates and Plato each slowly exchanged the parts of their carriages such that the parts that once were in Plato's carriage have been completely replaced with parts from Socrates' carriage and vice versa and then the question is posited as to whether Plato is now using Socrates' carriage or if he's still in his own.  

Other variants of the thought experiment have come since the time of Plutarch (with some interesting additions).  The version that appears most similar to the prologue from John Dies at the End is the one known as "My Grandfather's Axe": my grandfather had an axe which he gave to my father.  My father replaced the haft before giving the axe to me.  I had to replace the head.  Do I still have my grandfather's axe?

One of the more interesting variants of this thought experiment was proposed by Thomas Hobbes, the 1700's English philosopher and author of Leviathan.  Hobbes' addition to the thought experiment works this way: you have the Ship of Theseus.  You slowly take one piece of the ship off and replace it with a new piece.  The old piece you keep.  You continue in this manner, replacing pieces of the ship and saving the removed pieces.  As this is happening over time, you take the pieces that had been removed and use those pieces to build a new ship, of exactly the same structure and design.  By the time you have replaced the final original piece of the ship, you now have two identical ships.  Which one is the Ship of Theseus?

Here's a fantastic breakdown of the original Ship of Theseus thought experiment and the Hobbes version from Wireless Philosophy:

The thesis of Joseph Butler, as reviewed in that video and suggesting that "objects persist in only a loose and popular sense", seems like a nice way to shrug off the problem as not being a problem in the first place.  This is usually a fun approach to a lot of philosophy problems since a lot of the time it seems like there's no resolution to a lot of philosophy problems.  

The reason I like this thought experiment, be it after replacing axe parts following your unexplained need to slay and behead some dude with a swastika tattooed on his tongue or replacing pieces of Theseus' ship, is because it questions identity.  We are constantly shedding cells and gaining new ones, so are we ever identical with who we were previously?  Darth Vader was almost fully replaced by mechanical parts, so was he still Anakin Skywalker?  The philosopher Wittgenstein might have thought these questions were balderdash ("Roughly speaking: to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing") and, if that were the case, he might have been right.

It would be interesting if we could just say that something is such because people agree to call it such.  Maybe the Ship of Theseus is really just whatever anyone decides to call "the Ship of Theseus".  Maybe Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker because someone calls him so.  If that were the case, then the answer to the thought experiment as proposed in John Dies at the End might be that the axe you're holding in your hand is the same axe as the one that beheaded Swastika-Tongue because his zombie has now said that it is the same axe (it might be a good conclusion since chances are you should be more worried about dealing with said zombie before considering philosophical puzzles anyway).  

However, I still feel like the answer would be "no".  Even if you had killed the dude with an axe in the first place (and not with one, some, or all of those eight bullets), the original axe has been completely replaced.  The answer feels like "no" because none of the original axe remains and there are only two major parts of the axe to replace.  When the problem is introduced as in the case of the Ship of Theseus, where the object is replaced a small amount at a time, that's when it gets harder to decide when to even consider the ship to no longer be the original.

Maybe one of the more interesting answers comes from those who like to add the temporal dimension to the consideration, such as in the Worm Theory as presented in the video above.  When we question the temporal aspect of an object along with it's identity, we start hinting at a possible answer to the question (see Temporal Parts at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).  We can say that any one thing is only ever fully identical to itself at one point in time, but then at other points in time it can only be similar to itself.  Then using a name to define something falls back to the "loose and popular" context that Butler suggested.  That sounds just about right, honestly.  The answer that would suggest then is that the Ship of Theseus was only the same ship in the sense that it bore similarity to itself over time and that people still called it the Ship of Theseus is the only thing that made it the Ship of Theseus.  In that case, the axe that hewed the head laden with a swastika-marked tongue and the axe that you now have to defend yourself against the zombie at the door are only similar, and maybe you would call it a different axe since you know you've replaced the parts but the zombie calls it the same axe since it looks similar to the original.  Not a very rewarding answer, but an answer nonetheless (and now you can get on with hacking down the zombie as he is more than likely about to come at you).

There's rich food for thought there.  Maybe Wittgenstein is right and it's nonsense to even worry about two things being identical.  That seems to fit well with the answer that considers the temporal aspect to mean that an object has unique temporal parts during its existence (look up perdurantism).  Whatever anyone's consideration of this little thought experiment may be, I think we can all agree that it's a lucky thing we don't truly live in a world where a guy can get shot 8 times and have his head chopped off with an axe but then still find a way to come back from death and then sew his head back on before coming to find us with the likely intent of exacting revenge.

Update (22 October 2017): I re-shared this recently and have had several people ask if I've read the book John Dies at the End. Happily, I can say, yes, I have, and I've also read the sequel, This Book is Full of Spiders. A third book in the series, What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror, just came out this month. Looking forward to reading that as well!