Futures

If you had the chance to change one fundamental thing in your past: a choice, your beliefs, an action, gene cross overs, anything, what would it be?

An excerpt before we begin (with minor adjustments for your viewing pleasure)...

So this is after I went on gmail and realized my friend didn't log off. So I sent him an email from his 'future self'. Sort of. I got lazy. I'm tired.

Jho says:
didn't you shut down your browser [Dood]? I left it on as don't remember me.

Dood says:
Lol.

Jho says:
I bet you left your browser on you hacker.

Dood says:
Lol.
I'm totally not in the mood to construct some sort of 'from the future' thing
Also, my writing caliber is inferior to yours, and seeing as how your writing can only improve... how would I
imitate the 20 years from the future Hong?

Jho says:
You're assuming we'd still be using email or typing or using English in 20 years haha

Dood says:
I wouldn't be assuming that.
However, future Hong knows that we wouldn't have whatever technology they have, and that you wouldn't
know the language they use in the future.
Fho is not an idiot

Jho says:
also another assumption.
a plethora of disease could overtake my brain and make me nothing but a vegetable

Dood says:
yeah, but as long as your brain functions, it's all good... in the future anyways. xD.
I was going to go with some epic tale about how you'll get back stabbed by that [enter expletive here] known as [Dood].
He was going to tell you about where it all began... in your one year exchange to Korea, where you eventually meet 2 members of Girls Generation
The destruction of your marriage, the loss of your job, your dethronement from your NGO, all can be traced back to the seeds sown when you helped bring [Dood] to Korea.
He was hoping he'd be able to send the warning to you before it was too late... before you started [Dood] off on everything.

Anyways...

How often do we hear the words "if only I didn't do ____" or "if only ____ never happened" or something along those lines? Are things so simple that nothing else shifts when something... anything.... is changed?

I think that rather impossible.

"if only I had studied for the test, I would've passed it". A null effect could be that even with studying, you fail. A negative effect could be you stayed up to study, woke up late due to fatigue, and missed the test entirely. A positive effect would be that you pass. These are of course, short term effects. Perhaps this was an important test that determined half your grade. This grade played an important role in that tenth digit of your GPA, the almighty factor in your future aspirations. Or it could just be nothing.

All actions have consequences. Not just in relation to Newton's 3rd Law.

If we change something in the past, how can you not expect the future to be affected, in more ways than one?

What if my parents decided not to immigrate to Canada? All my current connections would be nullified. I would not know any of you. Surely my grasp of English would be minuscule to my current standards as well as my Chinese being exponentially better than it is now. This blog would not exist. My personality, shaped by its environment, will be vastly different from what it would be now due to the cultural differences. The people I have met, my influence on them, will not have existed; they would be wholly different too. Everything changes. At least for anyone that I am, or would be, affiliated to in some way or another.

Going back to the excerpt, two possibilities exist: either Fho's message does not alter the course of history whatsoever or the altered course travels in such a way that Fho still exists in this timeline to send the message. Why? Because if the altered course creates a reality where Fho does not send the message, the message would not be received, and hence the reality remains unaltered.

Now consider the existence of parallel universes each being written at the exact same time as the other. If for every decision or choice made, a parallel universe is created for every other choice, then multiplied by every organism on this planet. Taking into consideration the possibility of the effects being minimal and others being critical, some universes can be incredibly similar whereas some are completely dissonant...

If you had the chance to change one fundamental thing in your past: a choice, your beliefs, an action, gene cross overs, anything, what would it be?

Would you be willing to risk changing everything just for this one shift? Can you be certain that changing this one fact will actually bring you to your intended destination?

..

By the way. The lay out and template has changed, if you haven't noticed. Honestly, if you haven't noticed, that'd be ridiculous. Thought I'd change it since I didn't want to use one of the generic blogger ones and go find something more... 'mathy'. Although I'm not sure how 'mathy' this is either.