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.
Depends on if you keep your memories or not each rebirth.
How would this change your answer? I fear the thought of carrying trauma forever.
It’s the difference between reliving the exact same life repeatedly with no knowledge of any previous lives. This could actually be happening for you right now, but you’d never know. So, what’s the point? Retaining memories lets you differentiate between the iterations with accumulated trauma, joy, loss, sense of renewal.
If this topic interests you, I recommend Replay by Ken Grimwood.
Replay is one of the best books ever written, fight me!
I think I’d fight with you on this point.
Ever read This Perfect Day by Levin? It gave me similar vibes, although the story is very different.
Thanks for the recommendation! Will check out.
Thanks for the reco!
All that time to work on your trauma? Sign me up!
Would be very bizarre to be like 15yo though, would you like get born in a new family every time? Weird af.
Yeah. You die, become a baby and get adopted (hopefully) by whoever finds you.
If you die in a remote area, do you just revert to baby…then no one finds you, you die in a remote area, revert to baby, then no one finds you, you die in a remote area, revert to baby ad infinitum?
Don’t drown…
I think so.
Even if the new body and I are genetically identical, if it doesn’t have my memories, it is not “me”.
I wonder. You hear about twins seperated at birth that end up doing similar things.
I don’t want to make the same mistakes for infinity, at least this way I could make new mistakes for infinity!
Like groundhog day or any of the other time loop movies. If you had the ability to accumulate knowledge over lifetimes, you could progress to incredible levels of understanding and ability.
Imagine spending a lifetime to learn an instrument, then repeat until you are a one person master band.
It has the benefit of immortality to accomplish things, without the issues of being going crazy from being 52 for a thousand years. You’ll be young again, and experience the joys of youth, the pain of heartbreak again as a teebs, your first child, etc. Or spend one life being reckless, then another being a parent, another a space explorer, etc.
All true. Every life would be lived anew but times change, so you would see the futures beyond a single human life.
That is a real fear. But part of trauma are the neural pathways it forms. So, that creates a problem whereas remembering a thing as having happened doesn’t have that same effect.
I had not considered the distinction. Interesting.
Why would it matter if you don’t remember?