Inspired by this article about a jellyfish that doesn’t die of old age, injury or poor conditions, it just reverts back to a juvenile state and is reborn genetically identical. If you could be reborn, as you, would you want to?
Edit: Just the physical you, genetic and presumably epigenetic, no memory.
Reminds me of the end of the game SOMA.
In a way that is temporally continuous? No way. As long as I’m always dead by around 2012? Yeah, sure.
Probably not, but it’s interesting to think about the implications here. If the new you is the same except for the memories and experiences, then what you become is a function of your environment, and if enough experiments are run on this over successive generations then an accurate and comprehensive model of your behavior and thinking could be obtained.
So I don’t know if this has been done before but I have this idea for a fictional setting where there’s people like this, who have made themselves this kind of immortal, and tried to set up automated systems to ensure they have some kind of continuity, raising themselves with robots, biometric access, keeping a journal and such. But then maybe the people excluded from these systems will have figured out over long periods of time that the immortals are predictable, since they are the same people repeated, and developed ritualistic cargo-cult-esque ways of interacting with them designed to produce the results they want, maybe even speaking words in a language they don’t understand and just knowing that those particular words will be interpreted the right way because the person being spoken to has been a known quantity for centuries or millennia.
Being reborn without memory is pretty much the same as dying as you are not your body, you are your memories
Really? My memories in someone else’s body isn’t me either. There is the biological me at birth, then the conscious me of experience and memory. I think they both play a part of the older you, but being reborn as baby you is still literally the original “you” at this point.
This pulls in the philosophy of what makes someone “themselves” - is it memory, body, or “soul”. Technically, twins look the same so body could be ruled out that way but I do understand what you mean. I also tend to think of body as a vehicle in this life and not me, just like a car I got given in life. I didn’t choose my body, it’s just what I got given. My personality though - my morals, my believes, etc… that I do consider myself and who “I” am. An argument could be made that as you “craft” your personality or you - it is similar to working out and crafting your body into “you” but some people can’t do that with the cards they were dealt - so I’ll digress.
I just dig the philosophical conversation to be had here.
People are getting caught up on the “no memory” part but there is no reason you couldn’t communicate with yourself between lives. Sort of preserving your memories that way.
That really interesting to consider.
Would the new you even care?
I would be like the Avatar and wondering what my previous versions of me did. Would be so weird but would be interesting.
These ones expect to be “reborn” indefinitely, with memory. These ones expect some bad existences but probably on the whole existence is good.
The article didn’t specify memories, just a reversion to a juvenile form and rebirth. For the sake of my OP, let’s assume no memory transference. Just the biological rebirth of you.
As to the good and bad in life, there have never been guarentees in life. You play the cards you have and get what you get. Sometimes terrible and unfair and cruel, and sometimes great and easy. Usually somewhere in between with a mix of both.
If my memories are kept, I can only imagine how terrifying it would be to fall asleep and die one night, only to wake up to having zero bodily control and everything is just blury just a foot away, low resolution, and seeing in grayscale. That would be terrifying, so no unless I don’t remember a thing. Then it wouldn’t matter what my answer is now because I wouldn’t remember it.
Oh hell naw.
no
Edit: Just the physical you, genetic and presumably epigenetic, no memory.
Without the memories, that simply wouldn’t be me though. After all, twins that share the entirety of their genetic material aren’t the same person either.
I also just wouldn’t do it, my genetics aren’t anything special that’s worth preserving.
True.
I already do that. And like the jelly fish I just don’t remember.
Cool man.
I can suggest Alan Watts “out of your mind.” Also mind over mind.
I can’t tell you his main points but I’ll try to give a couple. I can only tell you how I take it.
Every living thing thinks itself a person. Every living thing has/is/will be a manifestation of the universe and all these things go together and just like I have a foot I have a son or sun and these things are inseparable.
Just like a universe makes galaxies and galaxies make solar systems and solar systems make planets and planets make trees and those trees make apples those planets also make people.
No memory = no point in doing it.
If you don’t remember something, it might as well have never happened.
Besides, I’m already sick of this time around, and my genetics were fucked to begin with. Give me a redo with my memories and a new body, and then we might have something.
Maybe you could leave yourself hints like the memento guy.
I work with a guy who has a long Polish name that nobody can spell, and it makes me smile every time he’s referred to as John G.
Not without keeping my memory, no. I definitely wish for immortality, just from a curiosity perspective. I don’t think I necessarily deserve it, I am just so interested in seeing how things turn out in the future.
nah humanity is one of the most disgusting things ever. Im actuslly very eager to see the end of my life cause then I wont have to deal with all this genocidal , selfish, illogical bullshit from people.
Also whu would I do this without keeping my memories? Absolutely not.
I see your point. We are a very short sighted species.
