![]() CHAO NOSRAT PAOLO EMMA CORRIN-these were really the only places in the puzzle that were likely to slow you down. There were a lot of names in this one, particularly pop cultural names. If you've got the "A" from TOASTS (and why wouldn't you.?), then you've automatically got the initial "A" in APPA. As I told Rachel while solving, "if she's the 'Queen of Melody' the way Aretha is the 'Queen of Soul,' then that would make her very much worth knowing, I guess." APPA crossing ATTA might've been tricky for some, but first of all everyone should know ATTA by now and second of all even if you didn't, the "palindromic" in the clue meant that the cross with APPA should not have been a problem. OK yeah that definitely sounds like someone whose international stature makes her crossworthy. At any rate, I am into this theme in a way I haven't been into a Sunday theme in ages. Maybe Will tried that and the theme answer options just weren't pretty, so he went with this slightly wonkier but ultimately just as effective ladder. A perfect expression of this theme would have all four new letters sitting dead center, and then a complete return to SHIP by the end. That is, instead of having all four new letters by that point, the puzzle is already putting the SHIP back together (returning the "S") before the "H" has even been replaced yet. And I think the puzzle loses style points, or elegance points, by not having the letters in SHIP completely replaced by the dead center of the grid. I didn't love how dang easy it was to fill in every single themer once you know you're dealing with a word ladder. So the answer duplication is artful, intentional, provocative, defiantly anti-conventional, and for that, I love it. But but but (you might sputter) there's a major violation of crossword rules here! The last themer is the same as the first! To which the puzzle itself replies: IS IT? The whole point of the "thought experiment" is to question the very concept of "same"ness. It would've been a huge nothing without the absolutely bonkers core concept, which is that the word ladder is actually a literalization of the "thought experiment" referred to by the first (and last!) themer. Word ladders are among the tiredest and least satisfying of crossword themes, and the ladder itself was blah-some of the themers ended up being cool, some bland, whatever. In the end, I have to admire the avant-garde boldness of the whole endeavor. The upshot of my solving experience was: wow, this one went places. Anyway, the video of us solving this one appears below. But NYT's gonna NYT, whaddyagonna do? Just glad Rachel has her freedom back. "You can't do those solving videos with Rex any more" always struck me as a weird, paranoid, petty employment condition. I solved this one on Twitch with my friend Rachel, who is no longer forbidden from making NYTXW puzzle-solving videos with me since, well, she no longer works for the NYT. In contemporary philosophy, this thought experiment has applications to the philosophical study of identity over time, and has inspired a variety of proposed solutions and concepts in contemporary philosophy of mind concerned with the persistence of personal identity. A question was raised by ancient philosophers: After several centuries of maintenance, if each individual part of the Ship of Theseus was replaced, one at a time, was it still the same ship? Each year, the Athenians commemorated this by taking the ship on a pilgrimage to Delos to honor Apollo. According to legend, Theseus, the mythical Greek founder-king of Athens, rescued the children of Athens from King Minos after slaying the minotaur and then escaped onto a ship going to Delos. The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about whether an object which has had all of its original components replaced remains the same object. ![]() Word of the Day: SHIP OF THESEUS ( 22- and 121-Across). SHIP OF THESEUS (121A: Thought experiment that asks whether an object remains the same object if its parts are replace one by one).SLOP BUCKET (90A: Pail for feeding pigs).SLOW MOTION (87A: Dramatic action-movie effect).SHOWBOATING (71A: Ostentatious behavior).CHOW YUN-FAT (51A: Hong Kong action hero who frequently collaborated with John Woo).CHOPSTICKS (48A: Restaurant pick-up option?).SHIP OF THESEUS (22A: Thought experiment that asks whether an object remains the same object if its parts are replace one by one).THEME: "Sea Change" - word ladder that starts with SHIP and returns to SHIP, the premise of the puzzle being the "thought experiment" called the SHIP OF THESEUS ( 22- and 121-Across: Thought experiment that asks whether an object remains the same object if its parts are replaced one by one):
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