/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.3050951]

You have the option to repeat your life from birth, gaining all of your current knowledge sometime when you're like 4-7 or so.

Do you take this opportunity?

[Anonymous No.3050958]

fuck yes

[Anonymous No.3050957]

most kids are still kind of dumb at 4-7. it won't make much difference if i go back at that age.

[Captain Olimar !!ooztLPjQLnv No.3050968]

>>3050957
I assume he meant the knowledge that you have now is remembered when your "second life" reaches 4-7.

In which case yes, I totally would.

[Anonymous No.3050973]

(not op) but if yes would you advance through intellectual stages early? potentially miss massive amounts of social stuff but get into jobs earlier etc. or be constantly surrounded by friends far inferior to you?

[Anonymous No.3050979]

Fuck yes. I could skip school and go to parties and not do homework and actually have fun at school and still be smart as fuck (speaking relative).

[Anonymous No.3050988]

Sounds good, sure. Biggest thing would be remembering a ton of stuff I have little to no opportunity to use or even research further on.

[Anonymous No.3051002]

>>3050968
then i misinterpreted it. if that's the case, i would go back. a lot of things would change and i would be a completely different person by the time i reach my current age.

[a strong ai No.3051012]

>>3050973
I was constantly surrounded by friends far inferior the first time. The second time I would get into everything early, but not a job. I would be like a prophet, make tons of money through entrepreneurship, and then influence the world to fit my image

[Anonymous No.3051016]

>>3050951
I assume "all of my current knowledge" includes experiences, people I know and places I'm familiar with, as well as what I've studied.
So yes. A chance to extend my life and take a different course of learning? That's be pretty cool.

[H+ No.3051061]

Hell fuck damn shit cock yes.

I don't have enough explietives.

I'm one of those crazy OCD people who is specifically prepared for time travel. I've memorized 4 sets of winning lotto numbers, and the main causes and measures of most major historical events in the last fifty years.

If I come in to future knowledge at 4-7, I'll have changed the world significantly by 12.

This wouldn't be simply "Hey, I'll make my life better!" This would be me becoming a billionaire, advancing science twenty years, and hopefully preventing a few things that need to be prevented.

[Anonymous No.3051080]

Yes. I am old enough to have gone through being 'serious' phase and am again fun loving.

[Anonymous No.3051087]

When I'm dying, sure.

[Captain Olimar !!ooztLPjQLnv No.3051097]

>>3051061
>I'm one of those crazy OCD people who is specifically prepared for time travel. I've memorized 4 sets of winning lotto numbers, and the main causes and measures of most major historical events in the last fifty years.

Hey man, better prepared than sorry.

[Anonymous No.3051100]

Sure. I avoid making many stupid mistakes, and live even happier than now. Also, Euromillions.

[H+ No.3051114]

>>3051097

That's what I figure. Pic related, it's saved on my phone. Which I also usually carry with a portable solar recharger.

There may be such a thing as being too prepared. However as I try to imagine worst case scenarios for everything, I've yet to find it.

[Anonymous No.3051115]

This might sound like a stupid question, but how would that help you?

Im just thinking about times when I could use advanced knowledge. Im thinking about the girlfriends in my life, and I feel like, we didnt hit it off because I made shrewd social decisions or anything.

I feel like anything sufficiently important, I wouldnt want to or couldnt alter to begin with

[Anonymous No.3051137]

I'd wanna wait till I turn 14 only then was my life given chances for self discovery and progress changing past events would make my current knowledge of the future useless

[H+ No.3051151]

>>3051115

A lot of people have this feeling, and I have to say that it's hard for me to see where they are coming from.

The people whoa re now making decisions that effect whole nations act on a lot less evidence than solid, empirically proven knowledge of future events. If you did it right, such that you didn't actually realize that what you changed had been changed at all, you could theoretically create a stable time loop.

For example, lets say that the reason Bin Laden was caught is because you went back in time and someone tipped off the US government last August as to his location, and you know he is there and they will catch him because that's where he was found.

As current-you doesn't know with 100% certainty that this is not how that information was acquired, it's possible that you will in fact do this at some future point.

The same applies to lottery winnings not won by people you explicitly know about, as they are outside your current area of absolute knowledge, you could in fact have won all of them using future knowledge.

These precautions are of course useless in the type of time travel OP is offering which creates an obvious alternate reality.

[Anonymous No.3051165]

Yes because my eyes were only fully open a few years ago. If I could skip over the ignorance of teenage years, that would be wonderful.

[Anonymous No.3051172]

YES.

I squandered my opportunities.

[Anonymous No.3051174]

>>3051151

Okay, Im assuming the reality I live in now isnt because my future self came back and altered reality in my favor.

[Anonymous No.3051180]

hard to say OP. You'd ace all your math and science tests. you would have intellictually inferior friends - try making friends with an 8 year old as a 24 year old or whatever. i mean actual friends, not a guardian or big brother or teacher type relationship. that'd be weird as fuck at least, or just wont happen at all at the worst. you'd know about shit people have done or might do in the future before you've even met them, hell you know practically everything about your 'best friend' before you've ever met him. that journey of discovery will be gone. you'll be repeating arguments with parents.
hard to say OP

[Anonymous No.3051186]

I would. I would most definitely take the chance. I squandered a lot of shit being a little brat and never realizing how good somethings were. Fuck I would take this chance.

[Anonymous No.3051188]

>>3051114
This sheet is mostly useless. It's stuff everyone knows or unapplicable generalities.
We all know what penicillin is : but what's the use of knowing what penicillium looks like if you can't build a microscope and don't know how to extract and use the penicilin ?

[Anonymous No.3051192]

yes, of course. for the sake of science

[Anonymous No.3051199]

... yes?! what kind of question is this!

[Anonymous No.3051201]

I don't understand. The first 4-7 years of you life, you dont remember anything, but right when you turn that age suddenly you remember anything? So you'd basically go back to being 4-7?

For me I'd want to be 7, or at a later age as possible. 4 is too young.

[Anonymous No.3051206]

It's a hard question because you'd be so much more intelligent than your peers you'd go crazy with boredom. You might end up being an outcast because you probably totally forget how to talk to 7 year olds as peers.

[Anonymous No.3051228]

As an 18 year old with average or even below average intelligence, I don't know what I'd do. Everyone would think I'm a genius but when I got to be a teenager I'd just be another teenager. People would think I;m a bust, like that Jacob Barnet guy.

[Anonymous No.3051233]

>>3051206
Playing football, bullying and telling silly jokes (these would require a time of adaptation before you shed your self-imposed maturity) is amusing regardless of your accumulated knowledge.

And you can legally have sex with 6-years old girls. There's no way you'll get bored.

[Anonymous No.3051237]

In this scenario are we repeating our own lives, or is it like a second life? Woould we go back to when WE were 4-7 or would we be like someone else at 4-7 or in a different situation

[Anonymous No.3051260]

Would you really be able to help as a young kid though? Like could you warn the world about 9/11? How would you go about doing that?

[Anonymous No.3051275]

Yes.

And I'll reenact every Calvin&Hobbes strip that does not rely on a living tiger friend.

[H+ No.3051285]

>>3051260

Anonymously, through proxies, find at least a few trustworthy people to confide in.

One or two perfect predictions could easily get someone who is apathetic to your situation at least partially interested. At that point even the chance of it being fake is interesting, as they'll want to know how it was accomplished.

The trick is not to overreach before it is defensible. Getting a court order to be an emancipated Minor would also help, probably around age 10-11. There are child prodigies that hit high plateaus at those ages so it would seem strange but not impossible.

[Anonymous No.3051287]

>>3051201
I was trying to work around the fact that children don't have full developed brains.

>>3051237
you go back in time and repeat your own life, but with the knowledge you currently have.

>>3051260
Send in an anonymous bomb threat the morning of? I don't know how seriously they would take those things pre-9/11. It was bombed before in the past, though. You have time to figure it out.

[Anonymous No.3051297]

>>3051285
It'd be great if it happened to multiple people. You could search them out and easily find out if it were true or not.

[H+ No.3051330]

>>3051297

At that point you'd be looking at actually CREATING an illuminati.

Between knowledge of stock markets in advance, and large amounts of lotto money won and deposited in Swiss bank accounts, you'd have significant capital and knowledge to effect world events.

[Anonymous No.3051339]

>>3051260
Anonymous call the day before, maybe.

[Anonymous No.3051347]

I most certainly would go back and do it all again, I'm fairly confident that most people would do the same. First thing I would do is go into school, tell the teacher to fuck themselves, then start doing some fucking multi-variable calculus and differential equations on the board, maybe throw in some OChem; this would probably garner me some attention, and would hopefully grant me the ability to effectively "test out" of entire grades. From there I would either attain my HS diploma, or have my parents withdraw me from public education, and take on homeschooling (my mother is a teacher, but I would probably have to teach myself), and fall into a relatively reclusive state. I'd stay at home studying various subjects in the maths and sciences, and as soon as the possibility arose, I would start taking online classes (I'm guessing I may have to wait five or more years, as I was born in 1988). The reason I wouldn't go straight into college is because I would absolutely hate to be one of those "child prodigies" that get passed around the fucking daytime television circuit. I'd prefer to acquire knowledge on my own until I was at an age where I would be taken seriously, and not considered an amusement for the faculty. While I'm waiting to enter society, I would start dabbling in the stock exchange, investing heavily in Google (around 2004), Yahoo (around 1997), and Apple (anytime before 2k). At this point (16/17?) I'd enter college and begin attaining what I consider to be the trifecta of degrees, a BS in finance, math, and computer programming. From there I would enter grad school, and work on attaining my MS in computer programming, and my PhD in maths. Seeing as how I would be a millionaire, well educated, and a (at least somewhat) known prodigy, I'd try to get a job in DARPA, and live a modest (albeit lavish) life.

[Anonymous No.3051420]

There's no guarantee that the future would be anything like it was already. Like there's no guarantee 9/11 would happen, or certain sports teams would win. They're not predestined events. By going back you are pretty much erasing it all and starting anew.

[Anonymous No.3051458]

>>3051420
I don't mean to start a determinist vs random chance and free choice arguement, but I doubt your knowledge would influence the Yankees winning the World Series.

[H+ No.3051467]

>>3051420

Actually, unless you specifically change anything, it's pretty much assured that the world will go on exactly the same as it did before. All of the stimuli are the exact same, so everything would proceed the same way. Unless you are implying that just by introducing ANY information from the future reality itself will somehow alter.

The problem is balancing your changes so that your foreknowledge will become useless.

Nobody is going to notice someone getting rich by investing a lot of money in major internet companies. There will be thousands of others who make similar amounts from it.

The trick is balancing the utility functions. Is it a good idea to stop 9/11, if doing so would render your foreknowledge useless? Could you provide more utility for the human race by allowing 9/11 to happen to preserve the advantage?

When would be the best time to begin to intervene? What is the best possible outcome you can make happen?

[Captain Olimar !!ooztLPjQLnv No.3051469]

>>3051339
>>3051260
You could always do something to get the flights delayed as well.

[Captain Olimar !!ooztLPjQLnv No.3051503]

>>3051467
On a small and local scale, almost anything you do could change the future, and the further back it happens, the more shit changes. Just by stopping a guy on the street who could be on the way to fuck his wife could cause a different sperm to impregnate her, resulting in a different child. There are plenty of other examples.

Basically, the usefulness of your knowledge would change depending on the time since any variations you introduce, and practical distance between an event and your influence. I wonder if there's any way to estimate that sort of stuff.

I think that stopping 9/11 would prevent this whole slide into increased US military funding, though, and would be worth it.

[Anonymous No.3051521]

>>3051467

I'd leave the major world conflicts as they are now, changing the outcome of 9/11 could be VERRRRYYYY bad. Say that we caught the terrorists months before the plot, or just delayed the flights so they gave up on it, or something along those lines. America would no longer have the priority to destroy Al Qaeda, as they didn't kill 3k Americans, they merely tried to. They would probably be ignored, and possibly have time to plan a larger, more devastating attack.

[H+ No.3051527]

>>3051503

Change things in a local level, yes. But as my local level at age 4 has as much direct effect on the world at large as a single fly has on the total biomass of the planet, I think I'm safe.

As I wouldn't become self aware enough until about age 7 to make any changes, at this point nobody whose birth I could have prevented would have had a major effect on world events anyways. Hell, I doubt anyone from my small 2000-person town of religious old people has had any major effect on the outside world at all in the last 20 years.

So, yes, I admit I could kill a butterfly that has a larger effect later, but those kind of cascading changes only really matter when the timeframe is
exponentially larger than one human lifetime, except in the case of interference with major historical figures or events.

I'm sure I've seen an article somewhere referencing how these kind of changes can balance out over time in a closed system.

[Anonymous No.3051536]

Sure

[Anonymous No.3051550]

Star Trek: TNG, S06E15, Tapestry.
Star Trek: TNG, S06E15, Tapestry.
Star Trek: TNG, S06E15, Tapestry.
Star Trek: TNG, S06E15, Tapestry.
Star Trek: TNG, S06E15, Tapestry.
Star Trek: TNG, S06E15, Tapestry.

Nope.

[H+ No.3051554]

>>3051521

At the same time, that attack led to the Patriot Act, the War in Iraq for which there is no justification, and several other key events that were quite negative.

In this case, you have to balance utility. How big does your prospective new Al- Quaeda attack have to be to justify setting into motion a chain of events that inexorably leads to Iraq? How about a North Korean War? China?

What if by PREVENTING 9/11, you actually cause a worse calamity? This is the common response to the "Kill Hitler in Art School" argument, as shown in the Red Alert series, where it leads to an early Cold War that lets Russia annex all of Europe.

>>3051550

It's a bit different where you have a literally omnipotent being trying to test you based on outcomes he knows will happen. And when you don't get to actually LIVE THE LIFE OUT FOR YOURSELF after one major gamechanging event, it just alters your personality and allows what is basically a P-Zombie to play out for life another 20 years.

[Anonymous No.3051559]

>>3051521
But bush wouldn't have had a second mandate.
It's worth taking the risk of another kind of attack (especially since nothing indicates that a later attack would be more murderous).

I just wonder if that would prevent the current arab revolutions.

[Anonymous No.3051566]

i dont know , i had cancer when i was a child , so fuck , again the fucking chemos , but i think i would

[Captain Olimar !!ooztLPjQLnv No.3051587]

>>3051527
Hmm.

Yeah. I think, though, if I were 80 years old and someone asked me this, I might say no.

That's a lot of time for change, and unless I happen to live in a horrible world I don't think I'd risk it.

>>3051554
That's a good point. Alternate history fiction is interesting.

[H+ No.3051634]

>>3051587

If I were 80 years old and we hadn't solved Aging yet, then I'd have to say yes irregardless. By aging I mean if we've hit the Longevity Escape Velocity.

If we had, I'd probably say no. As any chance of changing society that removed that permanent solution to aging would carry far too much risk. At that point you are talking about killing in the long run billions or trillions of people far earlier than they would otherwise die. Even at a minuscule level of risk, there are few payoffs barring preventing the extinction of the species that would be worth it.

[Captain Olimar !!ooztLPjQLnv No.3051640]

>>3051634
>then I'd have to say yes irregardless. By aging I mean if we've hit the Longevity Escape Velocity.

Okay. I agree with you. I'd make it my (new) life's work to work on that problem.

[H+ No.3051649]

>>3051640

It's basically the end-all of utility problems.

The amount of pain and suffering caused by aging related death is of a higher level than that caused by any possible human endeavour that doesn't cause our extinction.

There is no other way to balance it. It's the lives of not only everyone currently alive, but everyone who will live from now until we solve this problem.

For anyone who has no idea what I'm talking about when I mention utility, I'd advise a quick read here:

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Decision_theory

Actually, that whole website is pretty much a rationalist paradise.

[Anonymous No.3051665]

I definitely would, though I don't want any of the unnecessary memories along with the knowledge. I want it purely only to be science, math and other academic knowledge.

[Anonymous No.3051688]

>The amount of pain and suffering caused by aging related death is of a higher level than that caused by any possible human endeavour that doesn't cause our extinction.

Absolutely. There is no excuse why people should need to have such an awful, agonizing end that most of the time they didn't deserve.

[Anonymous No.3051721]

>>3051634

>If we had, I'd probably say no. As any chance of changing society that removed that permanent solution to aging would carry far too much risk. At that point you are talking about killing in the long run billions or trillions of people far earlier than they would otherwise die.

You talking about euthanizing everyone where they turn 65? I'm thoroughly unmoved by that idea.

[Anonymous No.3051770]

>>3051527
>I'm sure I've seen an article somewhere referencing how these kind of changes can balance out over time in a closed system.
Sounds like entropy.

[Hopeless Necromantic No.3051990]

TEN THOUSAND TIMES.

[Anonymous No.3051998]

Hell yes.

[Anonymous No.3052094]

>>3051228
Yes, but you would skip some grades so you could be in highschool by time you are 10.

Then you can learn things while your mind is ready to learn

[Anonymous No.3053044]

>>3051503
Execute the terrorists. Random break in violence lets say. I like it.
Then when 9/11 is averted and the government blows the ring wide open way after the fact, someone will go, who the fuck new about this shit? Everyone would deny it of course. Maybe somone would try to take credit. meanwhile you sit there and trollface the fuck out of the tv.

Also, I will have to wailt til goddamn 2012 again to play mass effect 3. FFFF-

[Anonymous No.3053065]

>>3053044

More likely the terrorists lie about their origins, and Al Qaeda goes unnoticed or into deep hiding, only to unleash a much larger attack after the attention has died down (and it would).

[Anonymous No.3053083]

>>3051061

...I thought I was the only one who did this kind of shit.

[Anonymous No.3053089]

Fuck yes.

[Anonymous No.3053096]

Yes.

But I wouldn't change a thing.

[Anonymous No.3053098]

of course. you'd have to be an idiot to not take this

[Anonymous No.3053474]

>>3053065
Possibly. You'd have to gamble in that case. Let it happen and know that there will be a response that will come to fruition almost 10 years later, or murder those fuckers and hope nothing even worse comes out of it. or hell, go murder osama, if you are old enough at the time lol. Although that would send cause even larger ripples.

[Anonymous No.3053482]

id go back to when i was 7/8, still have my knowlege

then, when I move to another school, I will act alpha instead of spaz

[Anonymous No.3053503]

No, can't say I would.

[Anonymous No.3053506]

yeah...but I prefer a host with young and healthy body.

[Anonymous No.3053507]

yes,

am I the only one who thinks it would be depressing beyond belief for the first decade or so. Sure you have friends and your childish whims keep you occupied but I think I would find myself returning to thoughts of friends whom I'll never get to meet (or certainly not in the same way, and in many cases not for many years), and just the other things you would miss from current life.

[Anonymous No.3053510]

Yes. But next time around I'd grow some balls and ask her out.

[Anonymous No.3053511]

Stopping 9/11 wouldn't be so hard with foreknowledge, the tricky thing would be to save people from natural disasters, like the Japan earthquake. Probably start out by predicting a few smaller disasters, then once people trust your word, start telling them what to do. Also, you need to become fabulously rich.

[Anonymous No.3053523]

This always sounds like a great idea, but I'm not so sure. Basically, life would be unbearable if you had the full mental capacity of an adult as a child.

And I don't just mean purely intellectually, I mean they will have the experiences and emotional maturity (well, maybe not a group of 4chan posters, but generally) of an adult. Then they are suddenly three years old again, and are suddenly finding they have difficulty forming certain syllables because their body hasn't fully developed the muscle memory associated with them. They also can't write or draw for shit, because the hardware isn't capable yet. For boys, it won't be for another seven years or so, though only about 3-4 years for girls.

You also have no freedom. No driving, no drinking, and hell, you probably won't even be able to go around much by yourself if your parents are at all responsible. Even if you do make it clear, and they accept that you are essentially and adult, you lack the physical capacity to defend yourself like an adult could. I'm not saying the average adult is jackie chan, I just mean a 4 foot, fifty pound munchkin cannot resist force as well as a six foot hundred and seventy pound adult or teen.

Also, you'd have to explain how you know all the stuff you do, or at least provide some plausible way you could have learned it. A five year old solving the dirac equation is going to attract enough attention, let alone a five year old who has never had access to a physics textbook and never showed any signs of learning elementary math.

That kind of attention would suck. People are fuckin' crazy, man. I wouldn't want to deal with people claiming I was the messiah or antichrist because I knew shit I shouldn't know.

[Anonymous No.3053532]

so you mean like transplanting my adult brain in a child body and being force to relive another childhood?

what would be the point of that
you think that i'll agree just because i'll have the opportunity to fix the mistakes i made?
"fixing" a mistake with another mistake is not really fixing anything is it?
reliving my child hood in a different way won't make my existence matter any more than now
it's just OP's futile attempt to become happy
i have news for you OP you won't be no matter how many lives you relive you won't find happiness because it does not exist
you are born crying and you'll die crying it's just the way the world works
this is not a ferry tail moments of happiness are brief and most of your life is just a struggle to survive
reliving it again will just make you more sad

[Vladeworth No.3053534]

Hey, /sci/, I've been assigned to this paper and, to be honest, I don't really know how to finish it.
See, I have to explain everything that we know about the "truth", but the problem is that in the end of my essay I have to give two or three examples of theories of absolute truth in philosophy, which is very hard, because all I could find is "requirements" for absolute truth, but there were no theories about it.

It would be wonderful, I you could help me out.
Thanks in advance!

[Vladeworth No.3053539]

>>3053534
Fuck, I actually posted it in this thread I've been browsing instead of board. Woe is me.

[Anonymous No.3053565]

>>3053532

What the fuck am I reading.

Take your 9th grade pseudophilosophical shit to Facebook and keep it there.

[Anonymous No.3053577]

>>3053532

>this is not a ferry tail moments of happiness
>this is not a ferry tail moments
>this is not a ferry tail
>not a ferry tail
>ferry tail

WTF....

[Anonymous No.3053592]

>>3053532
nonsense, I'm not OP but reliving it all would be the perfect thing, I could actually make several things happen at the time they should have. Graphene by 95, paper thin supercomputers by 05?

Oh and also:
>you are born crying and you'll die crying it's just the way the world works

This is what you think in your sheltered little box you call existence, i won't blame you though.

However I am fairly sure I will die laughing uncontrollably as nuclear fusion alights the skies above and all turn into pure white ash.

[Anonymous No.3053593]

Fuck yes I would.