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

[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?