If it were possible right this moment to send a message into the past to yourself, would you do it?

Resy: the idea is that the letter goes into the past ten years from today...though the "ten years" bit is somewhat arbitrary I suppose. Yourself, ten years younger, would get the letter you write today.

I'm confused on the tense here...postmark it in the future to get a message in the past?????? I wouldn't send myself a message either way ... I like to take it as it comes. ***Oh, thanks. That would be, If I Knew Then What I Know Now ... what would I tell myself? Probably to eat right and get to Survey Central sooner. (thanks for the clarification)

I think the only thing I might do it about would be money (i.e. "buy Yahoo stock"). All the tempting emotional stuff (i.e. "don't go out with him") or life-decision stuff (i.e. "stay in school") would have repercussions on my current self that are sufficiently unpredictable that I wouldn't want to risk them.

In 1988 I had already made the biggest mistake of my life, so I'm not sure I'd have anything useful to tell myself.

shouldn't it be ten years prior to today? In any case, I wouldn't bother. I would think it was a crank, or if I did listen to it it wouldn't be all that useful, or may seem cryptic. I was a far different person 10 years ago than I am now, what was important then may not be important now, and so on. I will treat this as similar to the other question of a desire to know then what you knew now. I am a product of all the knowledge and experience I have to date, sending bits and pieces that would only come clear after the fact is pointless.

I think after receiving such a letter, whether I was trying to follow the path that gets me to be that future person or was trying to avoid it, I'd start second-guessing myself too much, and judging everything by how it would affect my 10-years self. I'd rather just live it as it comes.

does this mean that I have to decide *now* if in ten years I'm going to send a letter to myself *before now*? *** Oh! I get it!

Sure, that'd be cool. I was 19 then, just married and pregnant with James. I'd send a letter saying to just relax, things will be quite fine all around. I wouldn't give specific advice, or say "Don't do XXXX". I chose what I chose for good reasons. But it would be neat to have done it, and always good to have assurance.

Everything that I've done in the past, no matter how slight it may have been, has contributed to who I am today. I'm happy with my wife and daughter. Say I told myself to buy a certain stock. What is the likelihood after that of me being at the same college that I met my wife at?

Yes! Definitely cool. Common meanings of "useful" and "dangerous" depend on causation; this kind of timetravel makes it hard to use those terms clearly. Also, it depends on yout timetravel assumptions -- for example, if there's only one event queue and you get to change it retroactively, then "eventually" you get a version of the event queue in which nobody can change it retroactively, and there it stays... in that case, the theoretical possibility of timetravel makes it a practical impossibility.
Addressing this as a "what would you tell yourself ten years ago" question, I'd write myself a long letter of the "here are a bunch of things that have happened in my life that are or were important, your mileage may vary" sort much as I might to a beloved younger sibling, then add a postscript including stock prices and various other practical information from the last decade.

I would probably tell myself to go ahead an buy a house. 13 years ago, I should have, and I regret having paid someone else's mortgage for the past 13 years, when I could have been building my own equity instead.

I think that no matter what you would always be trying to second guess yourself and put too much thought into all your different choices and that ultimately you would not end up in the same place you were at the end of the 10 years.

It depends on whether I could think of something useful to say to myself ten years ago. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything. Maybe twenty years ago, when I was still in high school, but I'd probably screw things up. Perhaps it's best I just leave things alone.

I'm a little confused by the parenthetical comment, but:

Interesting. I've often thought about what I'd tell myself if I could send a message back and it so happens that the 10th anniversary of the one event (or rather, non-event) I'd want to influence is in about a week. If the question is, would you send a message today so that it would be received 10 years ago -- this would be exactly the time to send the letter. If you asked me the same question again next month I'd say no instead of yes.

daver: the me of 10 years ago was missing something obvious and just needed to have it pointed out. No easily testable hypothesis would have been required, in my case at least.

Post mark it 10 years from today? I'm not sure I understand that. I think I would like to somehow let my "younger me" know that I was worth more than I thought and tell myself not to settle. No one ever told me that I think it would be interesting to see how different my life would have been. (I would do this only if I was guaranteed to end up with the same kids I have now).

**Yeah, what hunter said. Ten years ago, I was pretty stable. If we go farther back then I might include some encouragement, but no actual advice. Oh, and I'd include some easily testable predictions, since I know that the me back then wouldn't believe that the letter was genuine.
**phi: Understood...if I received such a letter, today or ten years ago, I would believe it was a hoax. I would continue to believe it was a hoax until I had amassed a large amount of evidence to the contrary. I'm just a skeptical person.

I thought about how I'd feel to get such a letter today, and I realized that pretty much no matter what it said, I'd be really psyched to have gotten it. I can see the dangers inherent in changing things, but then again there are dangers we experience every day based on our choices in the present; just making things DIFFERENT doesn't necessarily scare me off. I'm not sure just what I'd say, though I can think of a few things that would almost certainly be in there. I'd trust the me of 10 years ago not to go batty trying too hard to do or avoid things, and it would be pretty darn cool, if it were possible.

***Timmi: Would it be asking that waitress at Nightstage for her phone number? :)

Sure, and I even know which moment I would try to influence.
***Glen, that's the one. And I'm pretty sure it's advice that could be imparted in such a way that it didn't matter whether it came from the future and wouldn't suffer from some of the "problems of proof" others are mentioning.

No way. There is way more potential for harm than good. Maybe if I lost a loved one and had a chance to reverse it, but still not without some serious reservations.

Of course it's impossible; that's not the point. Just at the moment, I wouldn't send a message back ten years, 'cause I was okay ten years ago. If I could have sent a message back ten years five to ten years ago, I probably would have done so, if only to say "Buck up, little camper! It's gonna get SO much better!"

I would, though this is complicated by the fact that I'm pretty happy with the way my life has progressed heretofore. Is saying that you would send something to yourself tantamount to saying that you'd change something about your life, if you could? What if you just sent a postcard that said, "Right On!"

I would do it, just for kicks.
Steve, Yes! That's the same sort of message I'd send too.

The question is ill-posed

dangerous, cool, but would do it in a heartbeat. ten years back I was on a similar track as now, so I'd need to go further back to really change/damage anything.