You are your own ancestor: What person from history talking to a younger version of him/herself would be most interesting?

Rembrandt Brown

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"It's not the case that you exist at a certain time and if we look at a later time there will only be one of you... [When you go to sleep and wake up,] it's not 100% you tomorrow. It will be some degree of you, some percentage of you.

Consider the way you are now versus the way you were as a small child. How similar are you?... [Myself and a friend I have a lot in common with] are much more similar than I am with my five-year-old self. So Parfit says it would be incorrect to say that I am just identical with my previous self, my childhood self. It would be much more accurate to say that there is some degree of continuity between my childhood self and me today."

"If your grandmother did not exist, you would not exist. And if 5 year old [you] died at the age of 5, you wouldn't exist, either. So you might think that you owe your existence to these other beings but that they are separate. We very easily recognize the separateness of you and your grandmother. We think of you and the baby as being the same but we might be very mistaken. It might be better to think of the baby [you] as an ancestor."

 

Rembrandt Brown

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Imagine a 33 year old Eldridge Cleaver talking to a 50 year old Eldridge Cleaver.

33 year old Eldridge is the 50 year old's ancestor. They share some of the same frame of reference but are not the same person.
 

mk23666

Rising Star
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Nice thought experiment. Similar problem with identical clones and memory transference. They are the same from the moment they are created, but if separated and given different experiences the clones become their own selves and more akin to siblings.
 

Rembrandt Brown

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Nice thought experiment. Similar problem with identical clones and memory transference. They are the same from the moment they are created, but if separated and given different experiences the clones become their own selves and more akin to siblings.

People think of the old Eldridge talking to the younger like the younger is destined to grow to be like the older, when there are really infinite paths anyone can take in personal evolution.

I could have a whole dialogue with the version of myself that first started posting here in 2002 and it would be like talking to a completely different person. There are areas where he could school me and vice-versa.
 

mk23666

Rising Star
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People think of the old Eldridge talking to the younger like the younger is destined to be that way, when there are really infinite paths anyone can take in personal evolution.

I could have a whole dialogue with the version of myself that first started posting here in 2002 and it would be like talking to a completely different person. There are areas where he could school me and vice-versa.
Mmmm, I doubt that the old you could school the you of today. You have already lived that person's life, so you can understand where they are coming from. They more likely wouldn't be able to understand you and your changes from their perspective. You may not remember with 100% accuracy what that younger you was like, but you remember the majority of it and the more you spoke to yourself the more it would come to you how and why you used to think that way.

Going downhill takes far less effort than going uphill.
 

Rembrandt Brown

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Mmmm, I doubt that the old you could school the you of today. You have already lived that person's life, so you can understand where they are coming from. They more likely wouldn't be able to understand you and your changes from their perspective. You may not remember with 100% accuracy what that younger you was like, but you remember the majority of it and the more you spoke to yourself the more it would come to you how and why you used to think that way.

Going downhill takes far less effort than going uphill.

I think that's generally true as far as life experience. There are levels of expertise I have definitely lost from lack of application. And some I have developed.

I don't think it is necessarily a matter of uphill versus downhill but also the infinite number of different paths a person can take. Principles can be abandoned, conviction can deteriorate, connection can fade, motives can change. Sometimes acquired knowledge doesn't surpass or equal forgotten truths. I think 51 year old Van Jones would probably benefit more from talking to 38 year old Van Jones than the other way around.
 

Dannyblueyes

Aka Illegal Danny
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What's really wild is the number of people that probably already did it.

It would certainly explain why Tupac didn't give a fuck.

Why Malcolm x spent his last few years so obsessed with being murdered.

How Warren Buffett keeps making such lucrative trades

Why Eric Clapton never got on that helicopter

why Eric Clapton threw his son out of a window to get a number one hit.

Why Joe Jackson had so many damn kids

Why Donald Trump keeps getting away with everything

Why Barack Obama quit Harvard and moved to Chicago

Why Johnny Cash signed up with a hip Hop producer

Why Billy Joel kept up with his piano lessons.

Why, despite decades of failure, Rudy Ray Moore never gave up on show business

We might credit these things with coincidence, good timing, fate, brilliance, bad omens, luck, or privilege, but what if these people simply discovered a technology or ability that allowed them to talk to their past or future selves?
 

mk23666

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
I think that's generally true as far as life experience. There are levels of expertise I have definitely lost from lack of application. And some I have developed.

I don't think it is necessarily a matter of uphill versus downhill but also the infinite number of different paths a person can take. Principles can be abandoned, conviction can deteriorate, connection can fade, motives can change. Sometimes acquired knowledge doesn't surpass or equal forgotten truths. I think 51 year old Van Jones would probably benefit more from talking to 38 year old Van Jones than the other way around.
Interesting, but, I think you're missing the obvious paradox.

If you go back into the past to speak to the younger you, wouldn't the older you remember that having happened when the older you was the younger you? The younger you has to become the older you in order to go back into time, so there probably wouldn't be anything that would change at all in the way the younger you grows up and experiences life. Even if so, the older you would immediately have those altered memories as the default memories of it's past.

What I mean by going downhill is easier than going uphill is this: The older you is going downhill into the past, you have the advantage of the experiences and the memories of those experiences that the younger you doesn't have. The only thing the past you could school the older you in is clearer insight on the memories the older you has. The younger you has the disadvantage of having to climb up the mountain of time, and regardless of the path it takes to get to where the older you was, that path becomes the older you's present memories.
 

Rembrandt Brown

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Interesting, but, I think you're missing the obvious paradox.

If you go back into the past to speak to the younger you, wouldn't the older you remember that having happened when the older you was the younger you? The younger you has to become the older you in order to go back into time, so there probably wouldn't be anything that would change at all in the way the younger you grows up and experiences life. Even if so, the older you would immediately have those altered memories as the default memories of it's past.

I'm not talking about time travel, where I go back to 2004 and talk to my 2004 self and then remember it. I mean a younger version, like if you just sat down at a metro station and happened to encounter that person, so you don't have the advantage of already having lived the conversation.

I'm interested in the psychology of it, not the physics or logistics. It's just a theoretical exchange of ideas, not taking place in any particular "home world" or timeline.
 

mk23666

Rising Star
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I'm not talking about time travel, where I go back to 2004 and talk to my 2004 self and then remember it. I mean a younger version, like if you just sat down at a metro station and happened to encounter that person, so you don't have the advantage of already having lived the conversation.

I'm interested in the psychology of it, not the physics or logistics. It's just a theoretical exchange of ideas, not taking place in any particular "home world" or timeline.
Oh, I see.
 

mk23666

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
This would have been an interesting three page thread ten years ago.
It's still interesting. But I know what you mean ... almost everyone's gone who would have been adding to the convo.

Once this virus thing winds down a little more, and work picks back up for me, I will go back to popping in once or so every 3-4 weeks myself.
 

ORIGINAL NATION

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
I did not read most of this or check out the video but it is true that we sent our ancestors. Only God can read the far and distance future. Who is the real man that created all this? Who is it that can say all this has always belonged to me? I say it is me. The why will be revealed.
 

roots69

Rising Star
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I would enjoy sitting back listening to those young Creek Indians when they started the Greenwood District!! They being a tribe, it probably just fell in place!! That shit in every copper color person in this colony it's been shut off!! These colonist got us on this me me shit!! But ain't nobody listening!!!
 

Curtwalk

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
Muhammad Ali - How much sooner would Cassius Clay retire after seeing his future self
Mike Tyson vs pre prison Mike
Bill Cosby
O.J. Simpson
Michael Jackson
Prince
Eddie Murphy
Richard Pryor
Mike Vick
Lil Kim -" who the fuck is this bitch???

All these people who make a ton of money and end up broke
George Foreman -grills are where it's at man
Elvis -more thieving ,.......less eating man
Bill Bellichek - video tapes is the key to success
Larry Brown - The grass is always greener baby .....keep your bags packed
 
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