Theseus’ Ship is possibly one of the best known philosophical dilemmas, after the Trolley Problem. Unlike the Trolley Problem it concerns the “is-ness” of things, their identity, what it means for something to have a unique identity.
The premise is fairly simple. After killing the Minotaur, Theseus escaped the labyrinth of King Minos and rescued the children of Athens, sailing back to Athens in triumph. In memory of his voyage, the people of Athens preserved his ship and each year made the same journey. Over time the boards of the ship deteriorated and were replaced. If, over time all of the original timbers of the ship have been replaced by new ones, sometimes many times over, and none of the original timbers remain, is the ship still Theseus’ ship?
Some of you may be more familiar with this problem as “Trigger’s Broom”. Trigger, sitting in a café with Del Boy, Rodney and Boycie, has won an award from the local Council for saving them money, having mentioned to them that he’s had the same broom for 20 years.
“And that’s what I’ve done. Maintained it for 20 years. This old broom’s had 17 new heads and 14 new handles in its time.” (BBC, 1996, Only Fools and Horses, Heroes and Villains)
Whilst its easy to laugh at Trig, and we might not want to give him an award given the number of heads and handles he’s used over the years, why should we not consider it the same broom? It’s the same problem as Theseus’ ship, just with fewer parts.
Other variations exist, the one I hear most often is the same as Trigger’s Broom, but the item is my Grandfather’s Axe. It doesn’t really matter what we use as the example.
28 years ago, give or take, Professor Alexander Bird introduced it to me through the Star Trek Transporter Problem. In order to beam someone through space, their matter must be deconstructed at a molecular level, the information is then sent through space and new matter is reconstituted at the other end using the information obtained from deconstruction of the original entity. In the case of an object, is the object which materialises at the other end the same as the one which was sent? None of the atoms are the same, but it resembles the original. Unlike Theseus’ ship, the process has been sped up.
If I took apart a broom to see how it went together and used this information to put a head and a handle together, creating a new broom, this is unlikely to be considered the same broom. There is no shared identity between the item destroyed and the item created.
Adding identity to this takes it to a more challenging level though. What happens if that process goes wrong and the person is reconstituted at the point of origin AND the intended destination (TNG, 6.24: Second Chances). If both people have the same memories, and are indistinguishable from one another other than in their geographical location, then what is it that differentiates them? Which is the original? Given that the individual has been through the process of deconstruction and reconstruction hundreds of times already, can either of them have any claim to be the “true” version?
There is a point to this, honestly, beyond creative procrastination.
Financial planning often treats identity as something which is far more stable than it really is. A plan can remain in place for years while the person, their circumstances and objectives, the technicals and legals, all move around it.
If we create a financial plan for someone in their 40s and work with them for the next 20 years, it’s still their plan. Similarly, the person we are dealing with has also been largely replaced over that time, both physically and mentally. Over that 20 year period, their body will have replaced quadrillions (1, followed by 15 zeros) of cells. Whilst some more are more continuous than others (brain cells for example) the person sitting before you at 60 is largely a different collection of cells as they were at 40.
Their psychology will have changed. They will have experienced things which have changed their perception of the world. Sometimes this will happen dramatically (the eponymous Damascene Conversion) but sometimes gradually or in only small ways. Who we are changes over time, both mentally and physically, even if our brain cells stay largely the same.
When I was 20 I didn’t like country music. I loved it in my 30s. I like it now.
Certain experiences can change people’s perception of the world dramatically. One person I interviewed reported their perception of environmentalism changed dramatically when they had children, from something that barely registered, to something that is now important. The experience of becoming a parent changed their perception of the world.
Some changes are reactionary. Research shows that exposure to extreme views may encourage people to take an aligned, if less extreme, perspective. This can be applied to different groups across the political spectrum. We change with the world around us, and what we want from that world may change too; our financial and non-financial objectives.
With a financial plan, it’s not just the person it’s about that is changing. It might be their circumstances, their job, their income, their marital status, their family situation, their house and so on.
We must also remember that the technical environment in which the plan is created will change as well. Ten years ago Pension Freedoms had just been dumped on us with very little warning, resulting in an almost inevitable mis-selling scandal and probably further problems yet to materialise. Next year pensions become IHT-able. We’ve had lifetime allowance changes, annual allowance changes, money purchase annual allowance, we’ve had changes to CGT, Income Tax, dividend allowances and so on.
Just because the person who is sitting in front of you might retain aspects of the internal identity of the person they were 20 years ago this doesn’t mean that what constitutes them, what they want, and what they need, is going to be the same.
Occasionally I’ll have to look at a piece of financial planning where the client has been invested in the same way for 10 years, where there appears to have been no concerted effort to establish how that person has changed, how their life has changed, how their outlook has changed.
The expression “still medium risk” rings through my head as I write this.
As the FCA considers changing its approach to reviews, moving away from the annual cycle started by MiFID II, we should consider what a review really means. It’s our opportunity to reconnect with the client, not just to reaffirm the relationship, but to see how they have changed, to explore what it means to be them today rather than a year ago.
Updating fact finds, ATR questionnaires and calculating and recording CFL all seems very clinical when you’re sitting in front of someone who probably just wants to know if they are on track to be able to eat and go on holiday when they retire (there is so much more to financial planning that this!). But its an expression of understanding about the individual, it’s important, but it’s just as important to reflect the person, how they have changed, who they have become.
Recording meetings is something that I’m quite in favour of, it has a tendency to capture so much more than file notes. But increased automation, letting the system summarise it, spewing it back to the client, risks turning the human into the mundane. We are better than this.
The person is changing, they are replacing the boards of their vessel day by day, year by year. We might not notice it from one meeting to the next, but eventually they’ll be replaced with someone new. Their identity will stay the same, but things that make up who they are will be different.
Listen to the differences.
Just because someone said in the past that they weren’t interested in something doesn’t mean that will always be the case.
If a client once said they didn’t have any ethical or religious preferences to be taken into account with their investments (regardless of how much of a garbage question this is rather than finding out in a more complete way), framing this to them as “you still don’t” rather than asking what is important to them now, changes the nature of the conversation.
Let people tell you who they are now. They are still the same person, but the things that make up who they are might have changed quite considerably since you first met them.
Until next time.
Alan