[extropy-chat] Confronting our younger selves (was: Superrationality)

[Amara Graps]

Hal Finney
>How many of us might be more motivated to follow through on our
>commitments, plans and dreams, if we could somehow be confronted by
>our younger selves and called to account for how we had lived our
>lives?

http://www.amara.com/aboutme/dialoguewmy22self.html

Oh, I'm motivated. Still I have made what could be dreadful mistakes
on particular paths. Paths that I was thinking were exactly following
my dreams, when in reality, I lost the strength to take good care of
myself. I hope the mistakes were not too dreadful, though, and that I
can still do something about those dreams.

The URL above is the result of an interaction about 1.5 years ago when
someone, an artist, who I didn't know very well, offered to sketch me
a picture of myself from a photograph. The photograph needed to be
black and white, high quality. It was interesting exercise from both
sides because I decided to give him a 21 year old photograph.

On his side, he knew that he had a 21 year old photograph and needed
to give a personality of the present person projected onto a picture
of someone from the past. I told him he was free to project who and
what he wanted.

 From my side, I wanted to look into the eyes of my 22 year old self
and have a dialog with her. When that sketch arrived about one week
later, I framed it and hung it on my wall so I could talk to her.

It's not easy talking to my younger self. I don't know the answer yet
if I have done well in following some of her dreams, but I think I'm
trying.

Amara

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI), Roma, ITALIA
Associate Research Scientist, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson