A question on modification of a list via a function invocation

[Gregory Ewing]

Steve D'Aprano wrote:
> The paradox of the axe is one illustration of the difficulty in defining "the
> same" in full generality.

The axe situation doesn't arise in Python, because "same
object" in Python is a concept that only applies to objects
existing at the same time.

There's no way to even ask a question like "does a refer
to the same object that b did a second ago", because
the only way to test object identity is to use the
'is' operator, which takes two expressions evaluated
at the same time.

-- 
Greg