"The smallest catalyst can set off mind boggling reactions..."

[Black Hawk]

Was just channel surfing and landed on Joan of Arcadia (yeah...yeah...stfu :ninja: ) and heard the quote and actually thought about it. Take for example, you normally wake up at 6:00am but that day you were a bit more sleepy than usual and woke up at 6:03. Now your routine is 3mins slow like freshning up, getting dressed, etc. You go to get a cup of coffee at your local starbuck's before work and while you're on your way you stop at a red light. A police car is behind you like if it would happen any other day. A few blocks away there's an armed robbery. The squad car gets the call and before getting there the robber shoots the owner. Now thinking about those 3mins you woke up late, what would've happened if you gotten up at exactly 6am. You would've been 3mins ahead of the squad car and probably already drinking your coffee. Maybe the police car wouldn't have been behind you and while the light was yellow could have gotten past it and would've been closer to the place of the robbery. Would've gotten there in time and the police would've arrested the robber and wouldn't have shot the owner. A reaction to that could be hours, days even weeks later. On your way to the local ice cream shop, you have a stroke and collapse in front of the store but since the owner was shot, it was closed. It took 3 minutes for the owner of a shop across the street to nothice and call an ambulance. You die on the way to the hospital. Since that happened, you didn't have the baby with your wife that later became the scientist that discovered the cure for a deadly virus that eliminated the human race. But since you got up 3 minutes late, decades later we cease to exist... What are your thoughts?



Sorry if there's bad grammer, especially lack or excess of comas. I'm not used to writing paragraphs...

[csimon]

so ...like lets say I wake up 3 mins early ...I probably increase the chances of winning the lottery!!!.:scratch:

I like the way you think ;)

[Cyclonite]

That's a very interesting concept. I like it! :)

[Leonardo]

What are your thoughts?

My thoughts are that what if's can drive you baddy! :banghead: ;D :banghead: :eek2:

[Camman]

its interesting, but theres way too many variables that are going to change just then "waking up 3 minutes later" I mean, I understand what you're saying, but think about it. If you're saying that your routine is shifted by 3 minutes, that assuming that your routine is EXACTLY the same time everyday, meaning you take an exact same time for your shower each day, to eat, etc, etc. I thought about this sort of the other day. Like the "alternate universes" thing that says like every decision you make couldve been made differently and it does in an alternate universe, now that seems kinda crazy to me because when you think of it EVERYTHING you do is a decision. Do you decided to read this post? Do you decide to scroll down a bit? Did you decide to pickup a book? so is there an alternate universe where you only scroll down half the page, 3/4, one line? Theres WAYY too many variables and decisions, ahhhh I'm gonna go insane thinking about it :)

[Black Hawk]

Hence the quote.

[Camman]

I was just giving my insight into how I was thinking about that the other day, wasnt disagreeing with you, just adding that there would be a lot more reactions

[Black Hawk]

There's also "everything happens for a reason". Faith? Makes your head hurt just thinking about it. Infinite variables.

[Spinner]

I think I probably watch too much Star Trek, because, to be honest, I've thought about this stuff too many times.

Nice illustration though BK:thumbsup: , you could have ended it on a happier note though.:rolleyes: ;)

[bothered]

With a few 'what ifs' anything is possible.

bothered.

[Black Hawk]

Spinner said
Nice illustration though BK:thumbsup: , you could have ended it on a happier note though.:rolleyes: ;)
First thing that popped in my head :crazy:

[Enverex]

It doesnt matter if I wake up at 6 or 6:30, I do everything entirely different every day, so it wouldnt work for me.

But "what ifs" are pointless, its like "What if I had eight arms and a mounted turret on my head, I could have run in and saved everybody"........

NS

[Templar]

For each and every infinite possibility, there is an equal and opposite infinite possibility.

[mmonnin]

I'm gonna put my Critical thinking skills (COLL 145) to use here. That would be called a fallacy. In specific slippery slope. Because this happened now this and then this and then that happened as a result of the first thing.

Its like the commercial where the kid asks his dad to help him with his HM but Golf is on and the dad sees his kid on a train with hobos chasing chickens all because he didnt help him and his kid got kicked out of school. Slippery slope man.

[Mt_Goat]

Leonardo said


My thoughts are that what if's can drive you baddy! :banghead: ;D :banghead: :eek2:


Camman said
its interesting, but theres way too many variables that are going to change just then "waking up 3 minutes later" I mean, I understand what you're saying, but think about it. If you're saying that your routine is shifted by 3 minutes, that assuming that your routine is EXACTLY the same time everyday, meaning you take an exact same time for your shower each day, to eat, etc, etc. I thought about this sort of the other day. Like the "alternate universes" thing that says like every decision you make couldve been made differently and it does in an alternate universe, now that seems kinda crazy to me because when you think of it EVERYTHING you do is a decision. Do you decided to read this post? Do you decide to scroll down a bit? Did you decide to pickup a book? so is there an alternate universe where you only scroll down half the page, 3/4, one line? Theres WAYY too many variables and decisions, ahhhh I'm gonna go insane thinking about it :)


Black Hawk said
There's also "everything happens for a reason". Faith? Makes your head hurt just thinking about it. Infinite variables.


Spinner said
I think I probably watch too much Star Trek, because, to be honest, I've thought about this stuff too many times.

Nice illustration though BK:thumbsup: , you could have ended it on a happier note though.:rolleyes: ;)


bothered said
With a few 'what ifs' anything is possible.

bothered.
First, I think that is a good show, the kind they don't make enough of anymore (good family entertainment).

Next,
Like Leo said, what if's can drive you crazy. I agree that it is all the litte variables that make things turn out the way they do. Just one person doing something out of routine will change something somewhere some time but to try and calulate what the cause and effects are is just too astonomical for our minds let alone not really for our minds. That's why it drives us nuts to think about it.

I had been caught up in a very big ball of what ifs very recently. I had so many thoughts running through my head asking so many questions and fighting with myself in my mind, feeling guilt for simlpe choices in life I had made and defending those with reason and neccessity. "What if I had not decided to move to Texas?" "What if I had prayed harder and stayed in Anchorage another week?" "What if I had done something, anything differently?" "What if I didn't have such good buddies that one gave his life to save mine by putting himself in harms way?" "What if we had better intel and were dropped in a different area, would it have saved the lives of 4 good men?" "What if I had gone to college and done something different with my life?" All these are valid questions but what good do they do anyone??? Would I do it all differenly if I had the chance and knew what I know now? That is so hard as there are certainly some things I would change but the paradox becomes; "What effects would those changes have on the rest of it?" So in essece I would say nothing as there are too many things I got out of the life I have lived so far and they can only prepare us for what we have yet to come. Does anybody rember; "Mine isn't to reason why. Mine is but to do and die."

Don't get me started on the the why's! ;)

note:

I was in a hurry and didn't proof it.

[Thrax]

Mmonnin is correct. It's a slippery-slope fallacious argument.

[Nomad]

It wouldn't work, because that theory is driven on what you do personally affects everyone around you, which overrules the idea that this was going to happen wheather you stayed home and took a **** in your sink or you went to work with a Heckler and Koch 40mm x 53 GMG automatic grenade launcher.

[Templar]

Hallock^2 said
It wouldn't work, because that theory is driven on what you do personally affects everyone around you, which overrules the idea that this was going to happen wheather you stayed home and took a **** in your sink or you went to work with a Heckler and Koch 40mm x 53 GMG automatic grenade launcher.

Who's this by the way? Thrax's brother? (Just wondering)

Welcome to SM :p

[Mt_Goat]

What some of you guys are talking about reminds me more of some sci-fi movies where people from the future send agents back in time to alter the event time line more than random events destiny.

[Nomad]

Templar said
Hallock^2 said
It wouldn't work, because that theory is driven on what you do personally affects everyone around you, which overrules the idea that this was going to happen wheather you stayed home and took a **** in your sink or you went to work with a Heckler and Koch 40mm x 53 GMG automatic grenade launcher.

Who's this by the way? Thrax's brother? (Just wondering)

Welcome to SM :p

Yes, Thrax's brother (Little), I'm literally above him by one floor.

[Thrax]

He's not wonderful with computers, but he's trying to learn and I'm trying to teach him. He's weasling his way into S-M by abusing the off topic and reading around elsewhere until he feels comfy to comment. ;D

He's getting a good dose of computer parts this christmas, so I'm going to make him put together his computer and install Windows. Give him the experience that got me hooked the first time, building a PC myself.

At any rate, he noticed how much time I spent here, and how much I talk about this place and you gents, so he showed up. Likewise I make appearances in his native community now (DODHQ). Hallock^2 is a class-A WWII historian, and more.

[danball1976]

Templar said
For each and every infinite possibility, there is an equal and opposite infinite possibility.

Ah, man... I was going to say something like that.

[Thrax]

Templar said
For each and every infinite possibility, there is an equal and opposite infinite possibility.

Gentlemen, I present the theory espoused by the baby of Thomas Aquinas and Newton!

[bothered]

There's a part in one of the Hitch Hiker books where they build a time machine, go to the past and get the greatest poet ever born. They bring him to the present to appear on chat shows, open book shope etc, but they collected him before he had written any of his poems so whike he's in the present he buys a few books of his poems and returns to the past and copies them. This has the people at the 'campain for real time' up in arms saying this is exactly the kind of abuse they are talking about.
Funny stuff.

Thrax, do you call your little brother 'mini me'?

bothered.

[Black Hawk]

bothered said
Thrax, do you call your little brother 'mini me'?
;D

[Enverex]

Or like in Bill & Ted where they go back and get Socrates, Napoleon, Billy the Kid, 2 English Babes, Ghengis Khan, and Lincoln. then they talk about stuff.

Not as good as the ending for Bogus Journey though with "Kiss - God gave rock and Roll"

hmm......

NS