Let’s say you could trade lives with another person. You get the whole life, personality, memories–you are that person. You must take the good with the bad, so if they’re dealing with some trauma that you don’t know about, you get that, too. You have no memory of your current existence.
Would you do it? Who would you want to be?
I can’t think of anyone I’d be willing to risk it with. Sure, there are some celebrities with pretty sweet-looking lives, but I don’t know enough about their emotional state to be willing to go there. I don’t know anyone personally that I would consider happier or better-off than I am.
If I have the other person’s memories, personality, etc., without retaining any of my own, then in what sense is it me leading their life? Does the other person get to live my life instead, subject to the same conditions? Because in that case, the switch – snap – has just taken place, it’s just that nobody ever notices, and everything continues completely unchanged. Or does my life not get continued, it’s just that ‘I’ replace the other person in some way? Then it’d seem indistinguishable from suicide to me.
We just had this EXACT QUESTION posed by someone else a few days ago and the consensus was - for the reasons explained above - that it doesn’t make any sense.
Even before I had the Wiggler, no. My life has always been reasonably good, and the thing is, I don’t REALLY know what someone else’s dark secrets might be, so switching lives is very high-risk.
I don’t agree that it makes no sense, though. Basically the question is that if you could have a completely different life experience than you’ve had, would you? But I’ll search for that other thread (wish me luck!).
I would do so, my life has been pretty rough overall. I’ve always just got by. That said, there are certainly a lot of people much worse off, but then again, there always is.
I hope Lord Nelson enjoys the 21st century. I’d like to him from the moment he stepped aboard his first warship in 1771 until the moment he dies aboard the HMS Victory after the battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
Austrian ancestry, I believe. Very dark skinned, dark eyes, curly black hair, usually(?) unshaven, very friendly. Dating a tall blonde goddess named Megan.
