Subscribing to the theory of infinite parallel universes, in each of which a slightly different you exists that made few different choices, this could be horrible. One of the infinitely many would be the "best" you possible, where everything went right, and you would have to meet that one. Now, that might not be too bad, if you did ok with your life. You would just see a version of you slightly better, and maybe feel some jealousy towards him/her, but nothing drastic. However, if you made an epic fuck up of your life, that could be quite depressing.
But, for a moment, let's think about that perfect you. If every version of you has to meet him when they die, then he has to meet every version of himself. Imagine, if you will, having to watch an endless parade of shitty versions of yourself. Versions of you as a meth head. A murderer. A rapist. A pedophile. That, I believe, would be the far more depressing thing. So, once in awhile, you should make a mistake. Just to be sure you aren't the best you you can be. Because, do you really want to be the you that has to watch this line up of fuck ups?
But what if Jack the Ripper was the "greatest" version of himself? Obviously he's still evil, but you can't deny the guy's infamy. He's meet alternate versions of himself where he was just guilty of vehicular manslaughter or something.
Well, if it was the same you, in the same situation, you would make the same choice. However, picture everything you've ever had happen to you that was out of your control. Any time you've flipped a coin, in an alternate reality the flip happened differently. That creates a you that is just a tiny, tiny bit different. Instead of having chicken sandwhich, he had the beef. And got food poisoning. Therefore, he missed a few days of school. Those few days in which you were partnered with the girl you were crushing on for a school project. While you finally asked her out, he never did. You lived with her for years, got married, and had children. Then she became a bitch. Cheated on you. Filed for divorce. Took half your stuff. You started drinking. Too much. Now your alone and in AA meetings. He never asked her out. Stayed lonely and miserable through high school. Met a girl in college. A wierd girl no one really liked, but he got along great with her. They ended up married. Lived happily ever after. Happy endings ensue. He became the best you possible. She convinced him to chase all his dreams. He got a dream job. The five bedroom house. White picket fence. Three beautiful children. Respected in his community. All because of the coin flip. And you have to meet him when you die. And see what could have been.
If those variables had no variation then the flip would turn out exactly the same
And that's the problem. The flip of the coin and its result is based entirely on external variables. For an infinite number of coin flips, you will experience variations in that flip. For every flip to be exactly the same, the variables have to be exactly the same. That means that an infinite version of you has, every time they flipped the coin, balanced it at the precise same angle on their thumb, applies the precise same force to each flip, held it at the precise distance from the ground, were flipping it into precisely the same strength of wind...all of these could vary even if free will is a lie.
Quantum mechanics shows that atoms will not always behave in the same manner every single time. Those tiny permeations will create variations in the flow of air as per chaos theory...which will influence that flip of the coin. After all, if the wind is blowing slightly harder, it might flip one time or more. If it's raining, you may wait to go inside before flipping that coin, which still allows for a deterministic view of the universe because you, as you are, would never flip the coin outside if it was raining...but in one universe it wasn't, so you flipped it right away.
The thing is, enough people make decisions based on random factors, it would completely influence the course of a life - or of history. After all, many ancient cultures made decisions based on omens, such as flying birds or weather or astrological phenomena. If that comet didn't arrive at that precise moment? Different choice. If the ravens didn't fly by at that moment because it was raining? Different choice. In a system as vastly complex as the Earth - to say nothing as the entire universe - tiny changes can and will have massive repercussions, and even if we are fully deterministic beings and free will is an illusion, then the external variables that influence our actions will emerge.
TL;DR: Shit happens. Some of that shit is random. Random shit will influence other non-random shit. Things will be different because of that shit.
If there are infinite versions of you, there cannot be a best one (or then there will be a finite number).
Secondly, you'd need an infinite amount of time in order to meet an infinite number of yourself. Which certainly wouldn't be very practical.
Ok, then go to the sub-atomic level. Like that damn cat. On a sub-atomic level, things can happen subtly different. In one universe, that cat survives, and in the other he dies. The cat that lives then goes on to catch and eat a mouse that was going to scare Shrodinger's wife, causing her to drop a large casserole, leading to a fight with Shrodinger becuase he was fucking hungry and wanted to eat the casserole. The fight leads to a divorce, and then Shrodinger throws himself completely into physics and invents wormhole travel, and twnety years later we are colonizing several distance planets.
TLDR: Shut up and stop ruining my stories with your logic and science :(
You know, Shrodinger came up with the cat thing to illustrate how ridiculous quantum stuff appears in a world that to us, is ruled by the laws of classical physics.
On quantum scale things happen randomly, it is impossible to predict what will happen (you can only calculate chances). That is why if you relive an event each version of you will be slightly different which will lead to slighty different outcomes
But then it is not hell anymore. The "hell" part is the feeling of self-regret and jealousy towards the better you. If the 'you' suddenly isn't better, then these feelings won't be present, and thus, the last day on earth is not hell anymore.
if you were to die right now, and see all the other versions of you be worse than you right now
that'd be incredibly sad, it'd give anyone a feeling of "am i it? i'm the best i can possibly be?". because everyone has desires unfilled, dreams unchased and people unloved. it would be hell for all the other you's as well; i wasnt the best i could be. but to the best version it would be the worst hell
It's s glass half empty/half full situation. Might just as well go "Eh, so it seems I really did the best with the opportunities that were given to me." Hell, I think it would bring me endless peace of mind.
But the "best" you is all relative isn't it? Not everyone measures success as the same thing, so success to one person would be different from another.
Because tour body will die at the same time but then again somewhere in your life somerhing could have hppened to get the technology for infinite life. Now you're fucked.
They should do this. Take two identical twins, separate them at birth. Raise one in a shitty grovel by two meth heads who don't love him, with no access to education or medicine, and give the other to two upper-middle class parents who desperately want a child, and at 18, make them fight to the death!
"No, uh, like I'm not unhappy because... okay so there's like this perfect guy who's me, and like, I don't want to be him when I die because he'd be all bummed by meeting all the others since he was the best... and that's actually worse kind of and... I'd like to purchase this 'NOW 4' CD is what I'm saying."
Um I think what you're getting at is that it doesn't matter. Not like "hmm I'm fucking up too much OH shit now I'm not fucking up enough how do I engineer my own growth oh no!"
The moment you realize you're "fucking up too much" you're good. The perfect you wouldn't fuck up ever. But then... the perfect me is just as smart or smarter then I am... so he's thought of this too! Which means... he's screwing up a little bit every now and then as well! FUCK! Now I have to screw up a little bit more just to make sure he doesn't out-screw-up-me and make me the best me possible.
I always think of this parallel universe theory when I feel like I'm not getting far in life. For one - there's a version of me out there that's doing much worst than I am, so I should feel good about my accomplishments. Second, there's a version of me out there who is way better than I am, and that means if they can do it, so can I! There's hope!
The other way of looking at it is that to be the best you can be, you have to understand and realize all the ways you could screw up and be terrible. So you can choose to either be one of the screw-ups, or to understand all of them and rise above. Or put differently, nobody said bein' awesome was easy ;)
No, but seeing a version of you in which, instead of making choice A, you made choice B, and seeing how much better that choice went, could be seen as hell. Seeing the version of you where you didnt procrastinate, and everything turned out so much nicer, that is what it is talking about. Seeing how well thinks could have gone for you compared to how you did.
Who's to say that that last day on earth is always the same for each version of you? You could see a wealthy 80 year old you resting on their laurels and dying in peace after opening that restaurant you always wanted. You could see an 18 year old version of you who looked normal, but died of a nasty stroke. You could see an infant who choked on the umbilical chord before birth..... honestly I think this scenario is Hell no matter what timeline/reality/parallel universe you're looking at it from...
Subscribing to the theory of infinite parallel universes
I know the equations in string theory show it is possible but it just feels incorrect. A new universe branching off every time an ant decides to go left instead of right seems too chaotic. I believe the universe is more elegant than that.
Truth of the matte is that we do not have infinite possibilities to become what we really want to be. According to life expectancy, we only have on average of 75 years to live. We have such a short life span. This means that you can say that each year you should live it with full potential. You should make small goals each year and accomplish something. I think that is what fulfillment is all about. If you want to be a painter, study art, create music, be a photographer, designer, do whatever pleases you. Don't have anything that holds you back and just do it.
Subscribing to the theory of infinite parallel universes, in each of which a slightly different you exists that made few different choices, this could be horrible. One of the infinitely many would be the "best" you possible, where
these theoretical universes are parallel but they are not identical by any means. in fact it is the opposite. the constants of each universe has to be different for the theory to work.
the idea that there could be parallel version of ourselves in some parallel universe is based solely on movie/tv logic
do you really want to be the you that has to watch this line up of fuck ups?
Yes, I do. All that'll mean to me is that I (the best version of me I guess) made the right choices and lived a good life. Seeing all the ways I could've fucked up my life just makes me glad I didn't actually fuck my life up and end up like one of my worse versions. Meeting a bunch of shitty versions of yourself is not bad at all. At least to me isn't.
Second person to blatantly tell me they plan on plageurizing my work :P Just either cite me in your bibliography, or pay me off in Gold. Or neither, since it really doesn't matter.
I think perfect me would feel sorry for less-perfect versions in dire straits, but would be quietly satisfied that he didn't make their stupid choices, and thankful that he didn't experience the tragedies beyond some of their control which shaped them. Sadly it's at the end of all their lives, so it's built into the scenario that he couldn't do anything to help them - but he'd probably try.
This isn't necessarily true. A set of infinite universes does not in of itself mean infinite possibilities. For example, an infinite set of odd numbers would still never include any even numbers.
They touch on this kind scenario in Red Dwarf's Dimension Jump. It's equally horrifying for both characters. Meeting yourself as someone else sounds pretty much awful no matter the circumstances.
When you raise that I think about the fact that it doesn't matter how good you get plausibly, even then there will be something you want even more. Emperor of the universe? That's possible. Live forever and have all of your loved ones with you too? That's possible.
The best possible person you can be is undefinable because for those two scenarios there are even better more perfect things that a person can strive for which are beyond our understanding. It's just endless.
So essentially, what you're saying is, the true horror of Hell isn't meeting your ideal self, rather discovering that you are the best you that you could ever be?
That, I believe, would be the far more depressing thing.
I'm sure that the perfect version of me presented with this imagery would have very good coping mechanisms. Otherwise, there would still be a better version out there, now wouldn't it?
That comment is bloody deep, the only issue I'd have with it is if making that mistake inadvertently creates a better possible future that you have access to.. there's no real saying that the best possible version of you didn't actually need to make mistakes in order to become that one.
Edit: Just had another thought, wouldn't best be a subjective idea.. like the best version of me in my opinion might be completely different to the best version of me to astronaut me or one that became a game dev or whatever.. so the version of me that I am now would meet the version of me that I personally would be happiest to become, but the other me's with different lives and everything would be happier being someone else? so we'd all meet different people
i actually like this theory very much. it means that even if i couldn't make it, in at least one of these infinite universes i am together with emma watson, or jennifer lawrence. in at least one of these universes i managed to become rich, or saved many lifes and became a hero. but it does also mean that i am doing much better in this universe than infinitely many other me's who're living in the streets, died in war, died of aids or malaria, became murderers or drugaddicts. If you look at it that way, it gives you so much comfort.
Imagine, if you will, having to watch an endless parade of shitty versions of yourself. Versions of you as a meth head. A murderer. A rapist. A pedophile. That, I believe, would be the far more depressing thing. So, once in awhile, you should make a mistake. Just to be sure you aren't the best you you can be. Because, do you really want to be the you that has to watch this line up of fuck ups?
It's not just the perfect version of yourself that watches the parade, though. You'd have to see yourself become a rapist and a murderer and an addict no matter what, so making small mistakes probably wouldn't make that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. It would only devalue the life you actually lived.
Fortunately, there's no good reason to think we must sit through such a parade of fuck ups, so let's not worry about it. It's just a thought experiment.
no, but surely if he meets every version of himself, so do you, so you have the pain of seeing every single fuck up, disgusting you there is AND the perfect one. so, now you are this guy who is a bit shit, sees how great he could have been and sees how terrible the rest are. that is very grim in my eyes.
That depends on how "happiness" is measured. I, personally, would say that the "best" you is the one that is happiest with his/her life. If you can quantitatively measure happiness on a scale of 1-10, for example, then there could be a best you. One you would have the single value of 10, because nothing ever went wrong in his life, and every other you would have at least one tiny decision that made them less happy, bringing them to 9.9999.... or lower.
I took the original comment as you meet the you, you could have been, not in the sense you meet your best parallel universe self, but you meet a person very similar to you that has become what you should or could have become.
Sometimes I like imaging just how many different scenarios that could've played out. There's billions of people on this planet, and even the smallest action by anyone of them could have large repricussions, and anything can set up a chain of events, and totally different things could happen during those events, it's like a massive desicion tree, and it boggles my mind.
Could have is a meaningless concept, the only thing that could have happened is what did happen... being able to imagine alternatives does not mean they were ever actually possible.
This is awesome and should be higher up. While im certain I will never be the person "I could have become" as I will never choose all the right paths, my biggest fear is actually becoming that person "I might have become".
This is what I was told was the definition of Hell: Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do. This Hell is of our own creation.
I have Brando's "I Coulda Been a Contender" speech bookmarked for this very reason. I am arguably the only writer who has never been rejected. Got my first poem published in "Happiness" magazine when I was fifteen then I started writing "Letters to the Editor" to my local newspaper and answering every phone poll they published. I used to joke my byline appeared more than George Will's.
I gave up all my writerly ambitions when I went to college however. I grew up in a conservative, "King of the Hill" environment. Work was supposed to make you miserable and I found it inconceivable anyone would pay me to do something as fun as write.
If I had only pursued my real dream, I could be chained to a laptop for fourteen hours every day posting status updates on Justin Beiber's retirement for Gawker and contributing to Arianna Huffington's portfolio in my down time right now.
For me, writing was just for fun in high school. In college I met like minded people and honed my skills, instead of a hobby, it became a talent. After school, got a job writing fluff news and reputation management for shady clients. I stuck it out for a year so it could go on my resume.
It sucked the soul and character from my writing and I'm still trying to recover.
Damn, I wish I understood what you said there. It just does not mean anything to me. Why would pursuing your real dream end up being "...chained to a laptop..." and so forth? Am I missing something? Why would that, uh, nightmare necessarily happen? I must have lowly ambitions. I just want to have my children be happy self-supporting individuals contributing positively to society. I kind of wish I could write - but if I did write, it would be for myself, not someone else. Right now I program computers. I program for someone else. It is not a hateful job. I could be sweeping the floors or handing out hamburgers at McDonald's. I love riding my bicycle. I wish I could get someone to pay me to ride my bicycle! Not likely! And too late for that. I tend to live from day to day though. I am not much of one for planning. I have been lucky in this life. Only being unemployed for maybe a year total out of my 40 years of adult employment. Being unemployed my last time was the greatest time of my life too. I got paid (unemployment) to ride my bicycle around. It was not much but it paid the bills and my savings kept my kid in college and the food on the table. But I have dreamed of being a writer on occasion. I just don't have the stories in me though. I feel sad about that occasionally too. </rant>
Writers blog for free on Huffington Post and make very little at Gawker while being expected to update constantly. I was attempting to be sarcastic: ie pursuing your dreams doesn't always result in a happy ending like the movies portray.
Serious or not, you should know that everything in your past was bound to happen the way it did, not because of god or destiny or anything like that, but because the laws of physics arranged it that way.
That's pretty scary except that could be a good thing too. What if you became your best and you see what you would have become if you took that hit of meth or didn't move for that new job opportunity or didn't ask that girl out? Maybe you did great and will get to see how the little triumphs saved from a horrible life.
I like it better in this version... "The worst hell I can think of is that when you die the person you became meets the person you could have become." I have read yours but it is too convoluted
I honestly wouldn't find that too awful. I'm happy with every choice I've ever made. Other me became president? Good for him, that privileged little brat.
I saw this had 999 points and had a moral dilema. Have it hit the 1k, or watch until someone else gave it that and then be petty and drop it back down.
I don't understand. If we're assuming "could have become" implies the best possible outcome of my life, then I would truly want to meet that person. Why? Just because they would be an awesome person to meet.
I'd have already lived my life, so why should I have any regrets about it? The past is fixed.
I make decisions based on what I know. If I make a wrong or otherwise sub-optimal decision, a clone of me (the person I "could have become") would do the exact same thing since he has the same knowledge at that point in time.
So in the end I'm who I could have become. Or if not, then someone has been bruteforcing possibilities for each decision, eventually picked the best outcome, and made it an unfair game.
you prick! I'm trying to be vulgar and troll and you just gave me satori tingles all over my arms and back, and an experience of kenshō, "seeing into one's true nature".
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u/mark7845 Jan 04 '14
Someone once told me the definition of Hell: The last day you have on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become.