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.
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.
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.
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.
God no, I don’t even want to live this life let alone living more!
Well now I’m sad. Hope things get better soon for you.
Ahhh! Sorry to bring you down! I hope breadcat can make you smile!
It does. May the sun shine gently on you both.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Why would it matter if you don’t remember?
what if you have a genetic disease that is just going to come back over and over again
Good point. Perhaps you could survive until genetic medicine could fix it.
I don’t think it matters if you don’t have memory. it lacks your ego and not make any decisions based on your experiences. Its basically like saying would you be ok with a clone made of you.
Similar, but not a clone. It’s really you just rejuvenating. I agree, without memories it loses its luster, but imortality. You could be a daredevil and not die. You could try anything and everything and still come back. Though I assume you would need to retain this awareness instinctually to know.
effectively it would be a clone. you lose your memories. if your a daredevil and die you lose your memories and your current ego. I would still not want to risk death in that scenario as its effectively the same as now from my current memory perspective.
It would suck to not be with the people I love now, so no.
You could love and be loved again.
I dunno why but your words resonate so much with me. Sounds beautiful. However, I’d rather not long for those I lose. I don’t think I’m strong enough for that.
You wouldn’t remember them, I think.
…IF it is just your body coming back and nothing or your mind that it isn’t me coming back.
There are already way too many humans on this planet now. That would just mean that this planet would have 120 Billion people on it.
Not everyone. Just you.
Nope!
Sounds like cloning.
We already have a way of doing that but in a evolutionary more successfull way. It’s called fucking and having offspring. Some people opt in doing that, others dont.
If the memory erased thing was off the table we’d have a different talk but parents raising kids and make them learn from their experience is as close as it gets. With access to all sorts of info our way of doing it is even better. One thing im truly missing though is passing learned skills like guitar or muscles to our clones. Re-learning all that shit is a waste of time.
But that is an individual, not you.
No memory = no point. Fuck that. one life of torture is enough
More time to do more stuff, so yeah. There’s billions of things you can be famous for. Tackling one at a time sounds fun.
Assuming reset is not messy, though.
Edit: Without memory I suppose my plan wouldn’t work that well.
it just reverts back to a juvenile state and is reborn genetically identical.
I need more details here. Like, I’m white, so would that mean I’d have a high chance of being reborn into Europe again? If so, I’ll probably take it just for that.
Like the jellyfish, you die and a baby pops out of your corpse. So die in Europe I guess.
Wait … but that means I’m always born an orphan and I’d be perpetually stuck in the foster system. Pass!
