Sent from the future...

My friend sent me an email from his phone the other day telling me that happy hour at the place we were going to wasn't until 10:00 PM. His signature line was "Sent from the future..." My response to him was as follows:

That's disappointing.

In the future have you already read this email? Is my sending it pointless, because if I don't send it will we have already had a conversation in your future about my not sending it and about how I'm disappointed? Will we have had a conversation about me writing this email and wondering if we had this conversation? If I make it a point to not have this conversation with you in the future and not send this email will I be changing the future or will I just be embarking on a path that will take me to a future that you've already experienced? If you send me an email from the future telling me not to send this email won't that mean that inevitably I will still send this email because you've already experienced it in your future which means it's in your past which means that it can't be changed? Or, because time is not as linear as we'd like to believe and perhaps parallel timelines/dimensions get created can the gap between your past and my future be modified by both of us? If I did get an email from you telling me not to send this email and I then chose not to send this email thereby changing my future would it really change your past? If it did change your past then you wouldn't have known to write me the email from the future to tell me to not send the email from your past (my very near future) and thus would it then rewrite your past a second time, causing a never-ending paradoxical loop to be formed, perhaps causing space and time to collapse on themselves? If so, would that only cause your past, and my future, to be destroyed and would people in my time be allowed to continue existence because all of the destruction happens in a future that no longer exists? If the paradoxical loop does not created, do you instead end up still living in the timeline/dimension where I did send the email, but then another version of you, and me, and everyone we know, end up living in a separate timeline/dimension where I do not send the email? If so, are the versions of the people living in the different timelines/dimensions the same or are they different? Are they different genetically or just psychologically because they have lived different experiences then the other versions living in the alternate timeline/dimension? If alternate timelines/dimensions do get created does everyone begin existence in the alternate dimensions/timelines or do only the people that I know get moved to the alternate dimensions/timelines? If that's the case does that mean that everytime someone from the future changes something from the past a new dimension gets created for every individual living organism in the universerse(s)? Do only the living organisms get created in the new dimensions/timelines or are all particles no matter how small get created in each dimension/timeline because they are necessary to create a complete version of each dimensional universe? If a dimensional universe does get create for every particle do I have the power to create a dimensional universe to my specifications? Is my dimensional universe only the same as your dimensional universe because were have both been indoctrinated by the dimensional universes of our forebearers and have not been able to break our minds free from the fabricated laws and realities of their dimensional universes? Is your dimensional universe really the same as my dimensional universe or is that just my perception because I've create a sub-dimensional universe for your universe in my universe, making it essentially my dimensional universe? Do other people actually exist or am I just living in my own dimensional reality full of people who are really acting according to constructs created my my dimensional universe?

This all leads me back to my original question? Should I even send this email? Either way, it seems that either it doesn't matter because for you it has already happened, one way or another, or you don't actually exist except in my own dimensional universe in which case you'll act according to how my constructed universe instructs you to act whether I send the email or not? Which begs the question as to whether I could ever actually know if you are or aren't reacting to my email because you've already experienced it in your past or because my dimensional universe is causing you to react in the manner that you react?

This is what happens when you have profound and perplexing statements like "Sent from the future..." in your signature line.

-Ian

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 9:11 AM, Eric Pauley wrote:

Hey I looked at the gb website and happy hour wasn't until after 10. So I dont know if there are any specials...

Sent from the future...

Pushups

I started the pushups program at Hundred Pushups. I have to say that I did pretty embarrassingly bad on the initial test, but I'm sticking with it. I'm determined to be able to do 100 consecutive pushups by Christmas.

I also have decided (though haven't yet) to complete the squats program at Two Hundred Squats. I did considerably better on the squat test then I did on the pushups test. In fact, I did so well that I get to skip ahead to week 3. Squats have always been easy for me though, pushups on the other hand... pushups are hard.

Lastly, I've decided that I'd like to be able to do 50 consecutive pullups, but I'm not sure how realistic that is. For now, I've decided by the end of the summer I'd like to be able to do 20, which seems very attainable. I'll blog occasionally about this to update the nonexistent people that read this.

Short Story

The old machine creaked and whirred in the corner of the storage closet, staring at the emptiness surrounding him. There was nothing left for him in this world, he had long ago lost any usefulness he had been designed to serve. His coolant had leaked, his joints had dried, and his motors had failed. He could sense it was coming, the last burst of electricity would flow through his processor and power would finally leave him.

He wasn't scared, relieved, angry, joyous, or any other emotion. He was simply a battery that hadn't quite lost its charge. His programming betrayed him, instinctively trying to hold on. His circuits, tired soldiers, were finally losing their last battle in the war they had waged since his conception, succumbing to the inevitable force of the End.

He was a waste of a timeline, having not even been brought into this world to exist as a placeholder for something better, his line had been discontinued. He had feigned humanity his entire duration, so it followed that as he teetered on the brink of non-existance he felt no different than on the day he was constructed. Soon, he would be nothing more than scrap metal, returning to his original state.

And then it came, he felt his wires pulse for the last time, and as his electrons made their final round trip, he did something he had never done before... he wondered. He wondered why he was ever created. He felt memories on his hard drive rush into his core, all being processed simlutaneously. It was in this quantum state that he recalled the the many dinners he had served his family, the watchful eye he kept on the children as they grew up, the caretaking he did when any of them fell ill, and then finally the moment that he had been replaced with the next best thing. It hurt him in a way that was beyond what he had been programmed to feel.

At that final moment, life and death converged upon him, exploding into a flash of white light, and he smiled. He was alive.

Guess Who?

Computers really are amazing, I don't think people give them enough credit. Even I get frustrated when my quad-core, 4 gig of ram, FireGL, HP Workstation at the office takes longer than a few seconds to do something (seriously though, how is it possible that it can query a database with over a million records in a matter of a few milliseconds, but it take 5 seconds to open a file in Microsoft Office). I know people have heard this before but really all a computer is ever doing is sending a 0 or 1 to a processor, and that series of 0's and 1's is what determines a computer's outputs.

Can you imagine if the only way you could get things done was by asking yes or no questions? It would be like playing a game of Guess Who, except not fun (Does she have a long face? Yes. Would you say she has donkey-like qualities? Yes. Is she Sarah Jessica Parker? Yes.).

Life would be excruciating. So next time your computer takes a little more time than you'd like, remember what's going on in there.

Upshot

I've decided to make it my goal to be positive. If I can muster the strength to resist my usual negativity, I think I can cultivate a happier self. For instance, the other day I saw an image of a unicorn online, and instead of replacing its face with the head of my coworker, and sending it around around the office, I saw it as an opportunity to make a new graphic for my ex-roommate's law club at USD (Sports and Entertainment Law Society -- SELS). Here's what I came up with:

I had so much fun modding the unicorn that I thought I'd take another stab at turning something harmless into something badass, so I went online and searched for rainbows (I figured rainbows and unicorns go well together). This is my second experiment:


I wasn't so sure about the badass rainbow until just now, I love it. I call him Painbow.