Hypothetical

[goldkin]

Today's question mirrors my thoughts:

Suppose you were presented with convincing evidence that you made a series of bad decisions in the past. These decisions are all rooted at a single point in time. Had more information been available at this time, it would have changed your entire life for the better, achieving a defined set of life goals that you've otherwise failed to attain.

Now suppose you were given the ability to change that decision. The means are irrelevant: this could be anything from borrowing the Epoch to finding a loophole in quantum entanglement. You are able to change this decision with 100% certainty.

But there's a catch. Due to the inconvenience of a single timeline and the grandfather paradox, doing so will end your existence in favor of your beneficiary clone. The exact time it ends is not defined, but if you alter history it is assured. As an indirect result, you cannot return to your original time.

What would you do in this case? Would you take the opportunity to reshape your life, even if it could only be enjoyed it vicariously? Or would you continue to be the person you became despite your definably flawed existence in your own mind?

I'll offer my rationale in the comments, if anyone is curious.

Comments

[davv]

I think it'd depend on what happens to consciousness. If the you that is helped "splits off", the question is essentially if you'd help another person - but if you become the clone after existence catches up with the time-stranded version of yourself, I would be more likely to do it.

If the clone splits off, it would seem better to just help another person in the present instead, because you're not going to get the dogs of causality after you and end your own existence that way.

But all of this does remind me of a similar question I've wondered about. Would I change something about my past in a better way - say, leave a hint to myself - if it meant I would instantaneously snap back to that point, forgetting anything from after that point, including all the people I now know? I don't know. The thing to be fixed would have to be pretty serious, yet I can think of a few things that are...

[goldkin]

I think it'd depend on what happens to consciousness.

In my formulation of the problem, both apply. It would mean the rise of another self, but it wouldn't be you, regardless of whether the two timelines collapse into one person. Does that make sense?


But all of this does remind me of a similar question I've wondered about. Would I change something about my past in a better way - say, leave a hint to myself - if it meant I would instantaneously snap back to that point, forgetting anything from after that point, including all the people I now know? I don't know. The thing to be fixed would have to be pretty serious, yet I can think of a few things that are...

*quicksave* *quickload* *quicksave* *quickload* *quicksave* *quicksave* *quicksave* *quickload*

[davv]

*quicksave* *quickload* *quicksave* *quickload* *quicksave* *quicksave* *quicksave* *quickload*

Good point, but I was thinking longer term. Sometimes you don't see the full effects until later.

I suppose minmaxers could abuse the ability in another way: when close to dying, write a book about significant experiences so far, then transport it back to your earlier self. Live all over again with the additional knowledge, if indirect. Rinse and repeat.

[davv]

To get something closer to my intent, imagine an external party giving you a choice to either give your past self a message (both the message and the past point in time being of your choosing), or not. If you decide not to, nothing happens, but you won't be asked again. If you decide to actually do it, then your past self receives the message and you become your past self.

There's little opportunity to quicksave under such a scheme :) One couldn't deliberately plan a virtual-immortality idea either... though I guess the "cost" could be made less if the message is sufficiently long - just say things like "try to befriend these people, it'll be worth it".

[arethinn]

I find davv's interpretation of the question puzzling, since it seems to assume you "duplicate" yourself in some way - whereas the question says it will "end my existence". I read it as the current "me" would vanish, in favor of this "other me" - which is an opportunity I would certainly take, if only I had any way of determining just which is an appropriate/crucial juncture, and what is really the correct course of action in that case.

[davv]

My interpretation was based on:

The exact time it ends is not defined, but if you alter history it is assured. As an indirect result, you cannot return to your original time.

If the change just ends yourself immediately, then "the exact time it ends is not defined" would be incorrect, because you know it will end at the moment you do the change.

Instead I interpreted it as that at the moment you inform your previous self, the "you" that did the informing is cut loose from causality. The universe won't like that and will sooner or later end your existence, but how long "time" it takes until it catches up with you is undefined.

[arethinn]

Ah. I read "it" as referring to the other me. Darn pronouns.

[aearo.livejournal.com]

A lot depends on those goals. In the scenario, your alternate/past self is not you, and so what happens in that person's life should be exactly as important as what happens in the life of any stranger. Should you care about them? Yes, I'd say so. Should you destroy your future to change theirs? Not under most circumstances. Maybe if the goals you never achieved have a wide impact outside your life, such as if you were going to invent free energy or usher in a new, golden era of enlightenment and social tolerance or something.

The situation suggests that the alternative to changing the past is living with the knowledge of your mistake. I think it's worth remembering that the knowledge of the mistake carries with it the knowledge that those life goals were at one time achievable, and it might still be possible to achieve them or at least their approximation - particularly since now you know where you went wrong the first time. Depending on how you look at it, knowing that you missed your life goals because of some mistake you made might be a really good, encouraging thing.
So it could be a choice between discarding your own life to create some alternate world where some person who is very similar to yourself has the life you wanted, or finding a way to get that life for yourself.

Although if changing the past gets you separated from causality in such a way that you become a rogue element in the fabric of spacetime, journeying through all possible worlds as some kind of fantastic cosmic nomad rather than causing you to merely cease to exist... heck, those life goals weren't all that great, were they? If they were really so important, your alternate self can worry about 'em. ;)

Anyway... those are my thoughts, but I'm curious and wish to know your rationale, Goldkin.

[goldkin]

Although if changing the past gets you separated from causality in such a way that you become a rogue element in the fabric of spacetime, journeying through all possible worlds as some kind of fantastic cosmic nomad rather than causing you to merely cease to exist... heck, those life goals weren't all that great, were they? If they were really so important, your alternate self can worry about 'em. ;)

It speaks to my geekiness and upbringing that I'm imagining this as the bastard child of Groundhog Day, Sliders, and Quantum Leap. Which actually sounds kind of cool in that voyeuristic, fly-on-the-wall sort of way.


Anyway... those are my thoughts, but I'm curious and wish to know your rationale, Goldkin.

And... you nailed it. What you've written is precisely what I was getting at.

My rationale here is the convergence of two aspects of my psyche, combined with thoughts I've been dwelling on for quite some time.

The first aspect is crushing doubt from some pretty awful decisions I've made. I took degrees in college that haven't served me well, made decisions that kept me tied to a very limited view of the world, and isolated myself from much of my desired peer group for something approaching seven years.

The second aspect is my own willingness to help others without evaluating the effect it has on me. I can't help being a natural empath, which results in consistently focusing on the views and needs of others, very much at my own expense.

Combine with my propensity to believe that others have made better decisions. Of those others, many are similar enough to me that their decisions reflect the person I could have been. Add a pinch of fear of becoming what I should be -- which isn't what I am now -- and the hypothetical brilliantly echoes my thoughts.

***

The positive side is also very apparent. I have a strong willingness and desire to change, fueled by poor decisions and tempered by experience. If a failed college education is the price of understanding, it's quite possibly the best education I could receive in hindsight. And if the price of isolation is the value of understanding friendship and the power of ideas, then it was all worthwhile.

I'm still struggling with my own competence, though, and that reflects itself in the erratic nature of my journal posts. It's not easy to go from a complete stop to full speed in the direction I need to, especially without making mistakes along the way. Yet, I've been graced by friends who have been more than supportive and understanding, very much to my surprise.

It's just one of those things, y'know?

Repentance

[https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm2AVZhjTrv_oDnWX7ZTkqbIcsgSc1xo_w]

I've come to the conclusion that many times - yes, I would change the past as though I had never committed certain mistakes. But since I can't, I move forward and strive to change the thinking that lead me into it in the first place. Many religions preach the same principle - to pick up and change yourself to be the person who would never have made the same mistake had he been there. Who we are becoming is so much more important than who we once were.

Re: Repentance

[goldkin]

Thanks for the kind words. :)

As an aside, um... who you are? The link back doesn't seem to work!

[jaabi.livejournal.com]

I know this is an old entry, but I wandered across this and I was reminded of something that I theorised recently.

Everyone has their own "personal timeline" so-to-speak. Whenever I try to describe it though I find it comes off like the usual parallel timelines in fiction - of which I think it is not.
Your timeline works like this:
"Past" future - time travel to "change past" - "new" future.
Your timeline is based on your perception rather than the believed arrow of time. It's like two arrows: one is your memories and physical state, and one is for the rest of the world.

This is sort of like time traveller's immunity right? Well... what if you did something that stopped you from having to go back in time in the first place? Like your example - if you succeed in "fixing" your past you won't need to go back and change it. Or if someone else changed history to stop you from going back.

Only "you" would still exist. You would still have gone back in time and done your thing. To this other you, or someone who'd altered your past also, you would have not.

When I think about it, it seems like Solipsism in the context of time travel though. Which I don't really identify with. Maybe its like Solipsism, but also not. If you do something to someone's past it is changed to you, but not to them. You each have your own timeline, separated by the things you have done, yet you're also in each other's timeline.

... man, this doesn't make any sense.