Anyone know the movie reference? MJ should.
I just had this weird thought. The Multiverse. The "What If?" What If everything you've ever done happened? Suppose you married that girl that broke your heart? Suppose you never broke your leg that time? Suppose you were born psychotic, or in my case, born not psychotic? Anyone ever wonder about that? I just had a flash. What If your Multiverse was a world where all of your possible choices, the important ones, anyway, came to life? I mean deciding where to eat for lunch one day to the next might change your future, but I mean the choices that certainly would have. All the examples I've mentioned were things that I have wondered about. If I had married the girl, I never would have gotten the Internet, and probably wouldn't be talking to you all right now. If I had never broken my leg, I never would have gotten on medical disability. If I were not born psychotic, who knows? But I don't believe I would be thinking about this, and posting about it on the forum. What If all of your characters could combine? Form into one entity, in the afterlife? You would have the combined knowledge of their experiences. Imagine running that character through the Multiverse? I just had a flash of a thought that that would make an awesome afterlife.
For the important choices, it has to be something that could have reasonably happened to you. I mean like not 3 GE roll possible. Reasonable. I am having a psychotic episode at the moment. This is impeding my train of thought. It is mostly under control, as you can see. Three years ago, I would have been screaming obscenities. I am trying to teach myself to control it. Anyone here planning to study medicine, or know a doctor that would be interested in researching the therapy I'm doing, I'd love to hear about it.
Sorry, the psychotic fit is pretty much over, it started when I typed "Reasonable" When that happens, I try to record it if I can. Sorry.
Back on topic, it has to be something that could have reasonably happened to you. Not just something that could have happened if you were born 2,000 years ago. Something that reasonably could have happened in your real life. Just a weird idea.
Here's one for 07s. What if you could pick through your reincarnations? You can't have all of them in one person, but you could pick the reincarnation that you wanted to lead through the Multiverse. Some would have higher tech and lower bod (probably the one you're in now) but others would have lower tech and higher bod. Maybe one might have limited psionic ability. You could pick through which one you wanted to lead into the Multiverse.
The concept that every alternate version of you is out there somewhere is already inherent in Multiverser--and it's not really all that new for us. Sliders did quite a bit with the notion of divergent selves, and although Multiverser's initial work predates that wonderful show, it was near the end of its run before we went to print.
The idea of combining other selves into you hints of the Jet Li movie The One, but we've avoided any notion that divergent or parallel selves are ontologically linked to each other. Of course, the challenge will be raised that the multiverse concept in The One must also be true--two which I respond, yes, it is, in that somewhere in the multiverse there is a small subset of related universes in which all the residents are identical and are ontologically linked to their parallel selves such that if one dies the others grow stronger. (This will be seen to be absurd on its face, however--since in practice people must die as they get older, and therefore there will be a natural attrition of parallel/divergent selves, and as you age you should get stronger, more powerful, healthier--and this should accelerate in old age, as more selves are dying, and so the older you get the less likely it would be that you would ever die. However, it's fiction, and fantasy, and we can find solutions for the quirks. Maybe you have been given a specific quantity of Life/Power to divide among all your selves, and if one of your selves dies prematurely that increases the amount available to all others, but it is still being used. To truly reap the benefits, you would have to kill all the others while still very young, so that the remaining Life/Power is significant enough to matter.)
I've met some of my own divergent selves, and run a couple for other people. However, you must know the person you are running extremely well to do this effectively, and be able to figure out who they would be if this changed. Had I been born a girl, how would that have impacted me? Had my career in religious broadcasting continued, what would have been different? If my college band had signed a record deal, where would that have taken me? If coming out of law school I'd gone directly into practice, what would be different now? If my professorship at the Institute of the Great Commission not been curtailed by budget cuts, what would I be doing today? I might have been transferred by Bechtel Construction to another job site somewhere; I might have been promoted by Blue Cross Blue Shield. There are a lot of quirks and turns in my life, any of which might have led to a very different person today--and to do justice to any of them, you would have to have known me very well then, or know me well enough now reconstruct who I might have become given the change.
That's why I don't do them on the forum. If I don't know you well enough to do that kind of game, I can't make it convincing; and if I do, I risk publishing rather personal details about you to the world.
--M. J. Young
MJ, I figured you of all people would get the movie reference in the post title. You've quoted this movie yourself a time or two.
That's funny; I can't think of any movie with a character named "Fred". In fact, when I was wracking my brain looking for one, all I could come up with was Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, and Fred is (if memory serves, which it usually doesn't in relation to names) the Actor's name.
I would guess that it's The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, just because that's the sort of movie in which something like that would be said, and I have quoted at least one line from it ("Remember, wherever you go, there you are"), although truth be told I've never sat through the thing twice, but seen it mostly in fragments.
But I'm probably wrong.
Now it's going to bother me. Oh, well.
--M. J. Young
Short Circuit 2. When Ben and Fred are trapped in the freezer, and Ben builds a telephone keypad out of his calculator. They're trying to send a message out, but neither of them knows Morse Code. Fred thinks for a minute and says "Wait a minute. Fred's got this weird idea." And they use the telephone keypad to play music, giving directions to where they are.
Correction. Now that I think about it, I think MJ has only ever quoted from Short Circuit 1. Maybe you never saw part 2. I'm surprised.
I have seen the second, and think it a very good sequel.
I remember when it was new, I just happened to see both the Siskel & Ebert and the Medved & Lyons review shows on it.
Michael Medved trashed the movie, and Jeffry Lyons added that it was so bad they couldn't get the stars to return for the sequel.
Roger Ebert praised the film for its ideas, its execution, its great story, and Gene Siskel added that it was one of those rare instances in which the sequel was better than the original.
Having seen both films, the effect was to confirm my opinions of the various reviewers. Roger Ebert is an excellent critic.
I believe we gave a DVD copy of one of the films to one of our sons at Christmas, but I don't remember which or which, and I've not seen either for a few years now.
--M. J. Young
Yeah, I love both of those movies. I literally break down crying when Johnny 5 gets smashed up in the second one. I loved that robot.