Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Here's the plot. If you could send one message back through time to your younger self, what would it be and would your younger self listen?

A few (two and a half) years ago I would have answered this question quite differently from how I'm going to answer it now.

Here's the resolution. I would ask my younger self to work a lot harder than he (I) will (did) during the first semester at Wisconsin and to switch from signal processing to image processing even earlier. How would I convince my younger self? Put something in the message which he (I) would recognize as something only I (he) know and would never possibly reveal to someone else even under torture.

Here's the twist. How will I answer this question in the future?

Everyone writes (reads) their own novel.

9 comments:

Jean Valjean said...

Hmm...interesting premise. Hermione's Time-Turner would be a perfect tool for such activity. "Miss Granger, three turns should do the trick". However, Book 6 revealed that all time-turners had been destroyed. Hope you are not a muggle. Still have to work on the book-tag

Anonymous said...

I guess it depends on how far back you want to go. That, in itself, is a huge decision. I guess, right of the top of my head, it would have been "work very hard in engineering college and try to learn as much as I can". However, I like to think that if I was really presented with the opportunity, I would say something like "consider an alternative career, work smart, and have a blast".

Of course, in a few years that would change and the message would probably be "Sit up straight".

Rashmi Patel said...

Ah! Here's another twist: What if you went back in time and killed your mom before you were born?

While you are at that ... might as well try ... :)

Kousik said...

The universe is replicated infinitely many times, and each is running at a "small" time difference with the other. So when you go back in time, you actually land up in a different universe whose current time is the time when you wanted to go back. Whatever deed you do there, will be reflected in that universe, and *this* will be unaffected!

Jean Valjean said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Jean Valjean said...

What Ray Ben is refering too is called the
Grandfather's Paradox
Ray, if you could time travel..there are so many things to do...why would you kill your mom??? 'While you are at it you might as well try'...hope I never run into you.

i-me-moi said...

schroedinger's cat!

Anonymous said...

WHEN U LEAVE SCHOOL AND START YOUR LIFE IN THE WORK FORCE PUT PUT PUT 10 PER CENT OF YOUR WAGE IN A BANK ACC AND FORGET ABOUT IT.40,50 YEARS WORKING PLUS INTEREST YOU DO THE SUMS.

Anonymous said...

THE ONLY PERSON THAT WILL MAKE YOU TRULY HAPPY IS NOT THE PERSON YOU THOUGHT , ITS THE PERSON THAT THOUGHT ANOTHER PERSON COULD.