Full Idea
Can we 'discover' whether a deck is really identical with its fifty-two cards, or whether a person is identical with her corresponding time-slices, molecules, or space-time points? This is like Benacerraf's problem about numbers.
Clarification
Benacerraf's problem is that several accounts fit equally well
Gist of Idea
Can we discover whether a deck is fifty-two cards, or a person is time-slices or molecules?
Source
Stewart Shapiro (Philosophy of Mathematics [1997])
Book Reference
Shapiro,Stewart: 'Philosophy of Mathematics:structure and ontology' [OUP 1997], p.258
A Reaction
Shapiro is defending the structuralist view, that each of these is a model of an agreed reality, so we cannot choose a right model if they all satisfy the necessary criteria.