This is only a problem if you believe that you only have a boolean answer. Western philosophy loves setting up these weird one-or-the-other answers to questions and then spending decades dancing around the real answer which is: both or neither at the same time. Typically comes from also removing the context and timing of asking the question.
I'd answer the above question: "They are both the original ship, and not the original at the same time." But, this baffles people who believe that you can't be two things at once, even though the majority of truly interesting phenomena in the world are complex enough that they fit into this answer.
Another classic done this way is: "A farmer looks at a painted cut-out of a milk cow far away against a tree and mistakes it for a cow. Is it a cow or is it not a cow." Again, why can't it be both. At that moment in time, given the context of a farmer, it's a cow because he believes it and it's not a cow because it's just a painting of one.
I also think this need to shove everything into a boolean algebra problem is why most software is difficult. If you're supposed to model the real world then it'd be nice to not have to turn everything into True and False.
The cow example sounds like a formulation of the Gettier problem[1]. Gettier wrote a single paper assailing the Justified True Belief theory of knowledge.
Suppose that you're driving past a field and you see what you believe is a sheep.
It is also true that there is a sheep in the field.
However, what you've actually seen is a rock.
Behind the rock there stands a sheep.
Do you have knowledge that there is a sheep in the field?
This and related problems are a great starting point to a lot of interesting epistemology. I think you would enjoy contextualist epistemic theory. [2]
Well, the correct answer in that one is "neither"; they're both orbiting their common center of gravity, which is near, but not equal to, the center of the earth.
I'd answer the above question: "They are both the original ship, and not the original at the same time." But, this baffles people who believe that you can't be two things at once, even though the majority of truly interesting phenomena in the world are complex enough that they fit into this answer.
Another classic done this way is: "A farmer looks at a painted cut-out of a milk cow far away against a tree and mistakes it for a cow. Is it a cow or is it not a cow." Again, why can't it be both. At that moment in time, given the context of a farmer, it's a cow because he believes it and it's not a cow because it's just a painting of one.
I also think this need to shove everything into a boolean algebra problem is why most software is difficult. If you're supposed to model the real world then it'd be nice to not have to turn everything into True and False.