Would you exist if time travelers stopped World War I?

[Dick]

You would exist, but you would be EEM+WEW instead of EEW+WEM.

Huh?

[Dandelion]

I'm talking about soul (or consciousness for you, since you are an atheist). Do we get our consciousness from all of our DNA? If just one ancestor is altered, what happens then?

Would it be some totally different soul / consciousness? Or still me?

Maybe that alternative me would be better or worse at some things, like for example controlling emotions online, but I think the underlying soul / consciousness would be the same.

Soul is an abstract term and it exists in that regard. I'm not an autistic atheist absolutist and with never nitpick on somebody using that concept. I did notice I'm one of the last people using the Atheist banner still here, because people want to differentiate themselves from fedora tier individuals. I myself still call myself an agnostic atheist.

I do however believe that a different sperm cell would have formed a zygote with a different egg cell, resulting in somebody completely different (possible a woman even). A different soul too as everything else (as one of your ancestors would be a different person).

[Root]

Don't do something you might regret, the butterfly effect explains you anything? No? I strongly recommend you to watch the movie 11.22.63 (TV mini-series)

[Peterski]

I do however believe that a different sperm cell would have formed a zygote with a different egg cell, resulting in somebody completely different (possible a woman even). A different soul too as everything else (as one of your ancestors would be a different person).

But does altering just 1/16 (for example) of your ancestry really create an entirely different person? People don't even inherit any DNA from some of their genealogical ancestors if you go several generations back. DNA from some ancestors can get lost during recombination. For example, it is quite possible that I did not inherit any DNA from one of my great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents.

[Dick]

You didn't really answer the question though. Does altering just 1/16 (for example) of your ancestry really create an entirely different person? People don't even inherit any DNA from some of their genealogical ancestors if you go several generations back. DNA from some ancestors can get lost during recombination.

Good point. which is why siblings can look different.

[Dandelion]

You didn't really answer the question though. Does altering just 1/16 (for example) of your ancestry really create an entirely different person? People don't even inherit any DNA from some of their genealogical ancestors if you go several generations back. DNA from some ancestors can get lost during recombination. For example, it is quite possible that I did not inherit any DNA from one of my great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents.

I wouldn't know. Interesting question, but also one for me. You might still be different as a result of your parents conceiving you at a different time, thus a different sperm cell and possibly egg cell. After all, brothers and sisters always are different enough from one another except for identical twins.

[crazyladybutterfly]

i remember someone saying that if you go back in time and kill a butterfly you might change the course of the entire history

[Dandelion]

i remember someone saying that if you go back in time and kill a butterfly you might change the course of the entire history

Even from childhood other kids warned not to approach you, the butterfly girl, for you'd bring them bad luck. You were very scary as a kid and even proud of it now as an adult. This is the story behind your pseudonym. Accurate reconstruction?

[Peterski]

You are right that altering one ancestor can trigger a domino effect in which other ancestors are also altered, because different people are born, meet different partners, etc. But you can also imagine a setting in which only one ancestor is altered, while all other ancestors stay the same.

i remember someone saying that if you go back in time and kill a butterfly you might change the course of the entire history

Without that butterfly you would be just crazylady.

[Peterski]

Perhaps a Germano-Russo

Without WWI, probably I would be born into a German-speaking Prussian family, even with the exact same ancestors. Maybe independent Poland would still come to exist, but my region would probably not be part of it. As of 1914 all of my ancestors lived in the German Empire. And without WW1, any form of independent Poland would probably be created just from Russian lands.

Without World War I, the whole world would most probably be very different. That war dismantled the Old World Order and triggered a lot of social changes. Without WWI we would probably be living in a much more conservative and still more European-dominated world. There also would be no WWII, but instead a whole series of smaller wars. No European Union would exist.