The Ship Of Theseus

I have brought up thought experiments before, and I would like to share another one with you, dear reader. The "Ship of Theseus" is a thought experiment that I love thinking about. As with most thought experiments it doesn't really have a final or absolute solution, but it is a great way of examining the concept of Identity, and how it ties in with the physical self.

I like using a more modern version of this experiment, but really anything made up of smaller parts works, but for now I will explain it in the way I learned it from the Philosophy and Sci-Fi class I took in school. The Millennium Falcon is a rather large spaceship. If you take away one part and replace it, is the ship still the Millennium Falcon? What about if you replace a second part? What about if you replace every part of the ship? Is it still the same ship? At what point would this ship cease to be the Millennium Falcon, if it ever would? Hell, you can get more fancy with it if you want. What if I slowly replace all the parts in the Millennium Falcon over time, but take the original parts and put them together in another location. Which one is the Millennium Falcon?

This forces the experimenter to examine where Identity lies. Does Identity lie in the parts themselves? After all that is what the Millennium Falcon is, a collection of parts. But replacing bits of it, surely, wouldn't make it a different entity, would it? Does the identity of the ship lie in one part? If I replace everything but, say, the ships computer, would it be the same ship? Is the "soul" or "spirit" of the thing where the identity lies?

Like I said a few before, there is no real way to answer this. There are responses on both sides (yea or nay), but both leave something to be desired. I have not explained most of the answers because I think It would be fun to see how people, just hearing the basic experiment, would respond. Please leave a comment on how you would answer the main problem of this experiment.