I wonder. If we could do it all again but with the wisdom we've already obtained, we could have all the good and none of the bad. Without bad can we enjoy good? Would great times be as great if it was just status quo?

Re: "Interesting to consider, but I'm not sure I have any interest in a synthetic version of me, even if it meant that all I had learned and all my memories were preserved."

Family & other non-significant friends might be uninterested in a ~Me~V2.0 just like their first opportunity. The phrase "there's a marvelous Future Behind Me" could enjoy meaning missed the first time around.

I almost died from cancer in 2003. So in my own way, I think I've had a second life since then.

In August 2003' I weighed 75 lbs at 5'9".

Not exactly what Para is discussing, but for me grasping life after cancer , and understanding the reality that I was near death has made the succeeding years much different.

Para, my dad use to say " I wish I knew 50 years ago what I know now". He would never say why, I just always assumed he would do things differently.

I like this concept better than the 'do over' concept of reliving your same life knowing what you know. Too many ways to mess up living your same life over again, but living a different life but knowing what you have learned in this life is an interesting concept. Knowing what is really important in life and knowing how to build relationships from a young age would be incredible. I know personally that I spent a lot of years wasted on things and people that were not worthy of the expenditure and I know now how to identify those people and things and how to eliminate them from my life.

Each day I would like to have yesterday back, and do something different.

In many ways I’m glad that I have not had this burden to bear...I feel that everything I have done, every choice I have ever made has been like the rings flowing outward from tossing a stone into a pond...hopefully more good than bad. I can think of many things that I would have done differently in my life that would be better for me as well as others...but would that be true in the scheme of life? Everything hinges on reality in the real world we live in this minute...Some Decisions are better, some worse...hopefully better out ways worse...that result will come later at judgment.
Goodnight all...I’m sketering off to bed...”my brain hurts”...cue up Monty Python’s “Gumby” videos

I am closer to the end than the beginning.
Seen a lot, done a lot.

“The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable - who can understand it?”
Jeremiah 17:9

How does one fix this?

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
I like this concept better than the 'do over' concept of reliving your same life knowing what you know.

That prompted me to reread the original post and understand that it wasn’t the common go back in time and do things differently scenario of such questions. (I complain about lack of reading comprehension, and, as usual, I find myself being guilty of the things I criticize.)

The idea of continuing life by starting over with a new body but with all our memories intact isn’t one I’ve encountered much, but that’s exactly the premise of the book Old Man’s War by John Scalzi. That book, though, isn’t about continuing life as we know it, but at age 70 being removed from Earth, being given a new, highly enhanced body, and being required to serve as a soldier for 10 years (and a high chance of being killed during the period).

After reading the book some years ago I was discussing it with a friend who asked me if I would volunteer for such a program. At the time I said I would, but my life circumstances were different then, and the older I get the less appealing the idea of continuing life becomes.

As for the conditions and scenario parabellum set in the original post, I’m not sure that would appeal to me either even without the complete change of life in Scalzi’s book. I would be very happy if I were given a 20-year-old’s body to live out my remaining allotted years, but I don’t know that I would accept it if it were coupled with the knowledge that my life might continue for another five or six decades.

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:
Interesting to consider, but I'm not sure I have any interest in a synthetic version of me, even if it meant that all I had learned and all my memories were preserved.

I'd trade in this meat suit very quickly if given the chance.

It gets in the way of my consciousness's desires way too often to be fun anymore.

The closest we come to this ideal is good parenting and education passing the knowledge to the next generation.
Reading and understanding history is something each individual can do for themselves.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
Reading and understanding history is something each individual can do for themselves.

Where has that gotten us? Look around

As stupid as it sounds this reminds me of an episode of the Simpsons where Homer has a time machine. Each time he used the time machine he did some trivial action which ultimately changed world as he knew it.

This is a hard question because who knows how changing a specific event would snowball further in your life. If you didnt have that fight with your high school girlfriend you would have stayed together, got married and had a family. You would have never met your current wife and not have your kids as you knew them.

quote:

I almost died from cancer in 2003. So in my own way, I think I've had a second life since then.

well if that counts as a do over ,
I am on life #4

I regularly muse at how we never have it all simultaneously; the vitality of youth, the prosperity of mid-life and the wisdom of age. To do it one would need immortality and time travel......maybe just immortality.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
I disagree. You don't ask a person why they've had a happy life.

The question isn't why, but how.

To me, asking why implies some concept of fate or things being pre-ordained which I refuse to believe in. How is freedom of choice and self fulfilling. Having a happy life is a choice. Once can choose to let the negatives weigh them down or one can choose to overcome them.

When do we fill out the requestion forms for the next Earth bound life experiance ?


Putting in for:
5 ft. 11 in.
168 lbs.
Brn / grn.
10 1/2 shoe
Play piano / guitar
4.0 grade point avg.
Speak English, Latin french
20-20 eye sight
Four times the income
1/2 as much romance
Read two books per month
Physically fit
1/3 faster metabolism
Plays six card games

quote:

being given a new, highly enhanced body,

You didn’t mention the frequent intense and promiscuous sex without consequences.
Actually that’s all I remember of the book.

Seriously, though: I’ve had a lot of patients who felt like they got a “new lease on life” when their heart attack/cardiac arrest/bypass surgery resulted in their realizing there’s a lot they want to live for, and started making themselves better in more ways than one.

A man who does not make mistakes is a boring man.