Precognition-A What-if Scenario

[Satoren]

A more serious what-if thread.

I had the most curious dream the other night. In it, I woke up to find that it was once again the Year 2002, and once again I was 13 years old. However, I remembered everything that had happened for the past 9 years. Effectively, it was as though my consciousness was sent backwards through time. My life as a high school student was (eerily) replicated, with the major difference being that I was acting very differently from how I did in high school, and instead was acting how I do today. I was a lot more mature about subjects, and I was always watching my tongue, lest I mention cultural events that have yet to happen. But it wasn't until I visited my then-alive grandparents that I realized this: I possessed valuable information of events that were going to happen for the next nine years. Who would win the elections, how and when my grandparents would die, and even trivial things like ideas that have yet to be realized by the media like songs and the like. What exactly should I do with such information? Should I withold it in fear of messing with the timeline? Or do I take a chance and attempt to alter it in a manner I would see fit? Would there even really be consequences?

In my dream world, I simply kept quiet, and tried to move things in my favor by myself, without mentioning exactly why I was doing what I did. I withheld the information, but attempted to alter the timeline by myself through my actions alone. I dropped subte hints concerning my grandparents' health, in hopes that even if they were to die on the same day, we would be better prepared for it.

Unfortunately, a dream only lasts so long. While it would've been interesting to see what would happen in nine years, I woke up before I could do anything else major. But still, it did pose an interesting question to me. Had it been a real event, I probably would have gone on the way I did, using the knowledge of the future to my own benefit by subtley changing things to how I would want them to go.

So what do you think? What would you do if you knew of the future?

 

[Dark Soul]

In complete honesty; I'd try to shut the hell up. If something like this were to happen, the timeline would've been somehow eff'd up- And by telling others about the future, you would eff it up even more.

It would probably be incredibly hard to relive your life the way you already did. Apart from the fact you might not remember everything you did exactly, it'd be very tempting to make the right decisions where you made the wrong ones and evade embarrassing situations. But that raises the question; Whatever you'd do, would now be your actual past. So would time shift your memory to that, up to the fact where you can't remember you got sent back in time, or would you retain the memory from your 'past future' (In a Dr. Who fashion?)?

The real danger here is the butterfly effect. The smallest decision ends human lives and saves others; Any decision can make life on Earth a to-be Utopia or eventually start WW3. But you wouldn't know.

Thank you for the thought experiment!

 

[Psycho Monkey]

I would probably do as RX did and manipulate events to go how I want them to go. I would do the things that wouldn't just benefit me, but benefit the people I care about as well.

 

[Secad MS]

Precognition is really a funky issue. There are so many paths an action can take. I know the Twilight series is crud, but at least it gave one good bit of insight on precognition. One character, Alice, had precognition. However, she could only see what could occur if the current set of actions played out. If someone acted differently, her vision of the future would change. To me, this makes a lot of sense. If I had precognition like this and took action to change my vision, the vision would change. I would probably only do this if I thought the event was serious enough to try to interfere.