Hard to say. Apparently, World War I (and as a result World War II) started over a ham sandwich. (Not really, I mean, honestly, probably. But to avoid public shame of the human race was probably artificially turned into an "urban legend". Not that it did much good.)

Nevertheless, it's interesting. You never know how far our tiny ripples that are our desires and actions in the sea of reality might end up reaching and what they may knock up against. Just enough to cause an action one could never fathom. Snowball effect, yes?

It is a dark question in many ways. Our way of memory weaves regret with what if X happened. Nightmares pit fatalism against desire.

When you speak of eliminating your role in a scene, those circumstances do not exist outside of your participation. The equation grows to an impossible size. The presumed objectivity is a deeper dream.

Think Kafka. but without all the hopeful messages.

.How would life have been different for others without my existence in causal chains? — Jack Cummins

What if the best outcome is to be a pebble that makes the least ripple on the surface of the pond?

There are two ways of coming at this question. Either the heroic mode that puts us at the centre of everything or the zen mode which prizes equanimity.

And if both those extremes seem unappealing, that leaves us with some kind of state that is inbetween.

An inbetween is an easy place to be. We made as much or as little difference as we did. It is what it is in causal terms.

It may be dark.rumination to wonder about what could have been different, with regret. I probably started out conceiving of my own existence during childhood when my mother told me how she had almost had a fatal accident before I was ever conceived. She said to me, 'Just imagine, your would never have existed...' it led be to wonder about a world without me ever coming into being, which is different from a world after one's own death. That is because after death there are already traces of oneself left in the world.

You say that your role doesn't exist outside of one's participation and, in a sense one's nonexistent self is a limbo phantom self. However, if one had not existed that doesn't mean that others would not have existed, so life would have been different for them.

The ripples of desires and actions are complex. I have come across suggestions like it can be useful to determine the significance of a life event if it will matter in 10 years time. This can be a useful frame but it is sometimes the small events which spiral into large ones..

With events like wars there is an interplay of individuals and leaders in chains of events. It could be argued that if one figure had not taken on a role another person would have done. The interplay of individual actors and their actions cannot always be separated out clearly.

Seeing oneself at the centre of everything, or as having a peripheral role can be a shifting aspect of perspective. There can be extremes of inflation or deflation of one's importance. It is possible to see oneself as having too much of a determining effect or too little.

Each person has some influence but it is variable. One of the most obvious determing actions one has is the role in bringing children into the world. But there are so many other contributions one may make . This is interconnected to moral responsibility and one's sense of agency, as well as the awareness of outcomes of one's influences for others', as evident in their feedback and description of one's personal significance of influence for them.

You say that your role doesn't exist outside of one's participation and, in a sense one's nonexistent self is a limbo phantom self. However, if one had not existed that doesn't mean that others would not have existed, so life would have been different for them. — Jack Cummins

I am not saying that. I don't have access to those kinds of facts. The awareness of different outcomes does not let me know what they might be in other cases. I did not go there.

On one hand, I do know and remember stuff and am well aware that different choices would have meant a different life. I don't get to live that other life while living the one chosen.

On the other hand, those choices do not give me insight into what might happen to other people absent my participation. The subtraction of my involvement runs into the problem of adding it.

My own thought experiment is of thinking about how life would have been if I had not existed. It involves eliminating oneself from every aspect and incident in which one has ever partaken in. I wonder about how different life would have been without me for my family, friends and in all respects..How would life have been different for others without my existence in causal chains? — Jack Cummins

I have gently pondered this question since I was a child. Answer: it would have been different, but not significantly so. If I hadn’t been here, someone else would likely have fulfilled most of the roles I’ve held: perhaps better than me, perhaps worse, but who knows? One of my pet hates is the mawkish It’s a Wonderful Life school of personal significance, which fits neatly with our culture’s romantic obsession with individualism and the putative power of the lone actor to shape and improve the world for those around them. In truth, most of us are woven into larger patterns that would carry on without us, differently perhaps, but no worse. Most of us are not irreplaceable, and most of us make little real difference to the world which, for me, is a sobering idea and perhaps even a liberating one.

I guess that I am just imagining oneself as negative space, which is only fantasised projection in the sense of removing oneself from pathways of causal chains. Each person is separate but also interconnected with others in determining influences. It is not mere actions but discourse, including the spoken, and non-verbal.effects, as interpreted in variable ways.

I am glad that someone else has thought about this question. While it is speculative reflection, it is not completely abstract.

It is true that no one's being and role is irreplaceable. When I left the job I had worked in for a number of years I wondered who would take on various roles I had played out there. What I came to realise was that so much was shifting with various comings and goings. Roles are so fluid and it is almost as if we are like puppets taking on different parts in a larger fabric which is weaved of so many variables in dynamic interplay.

I guess that I am just imagining oneself as negative space, which is only fantasised projection in the sense of removing oneself from pathways of causal chains. — Jack Cummins

I am only suggesting we do that all the time. It is an element of what we do. It is easier to imagine that our species did not exist than imagine what you propose.

My own thought experiment is of thinking about how life would have been if I had not existed. It involves eliminating oneself from every aspect and incident in which one has ever partaken in. I wonder about how different life would have been without me for my family, friends and in all respects..How would life have been different for others without my existence in causal chains? — Jack Cummins

I've thought of this, too. I gave up, mostly because I was overwhelmed by the complexity. It starts with your birth. If you're not there, then, for example, the day of the hospital personal that were on duty that day might have been different. How? Who knows. And it goes on: you enter a packed subway train and take up space, people organising around you. Maybe that got people to talk who would otherwise not have been next to each other? In summary, most of the consequences of me being around likely have nothing at all to do with what I value about myself (either positively or negatively). Stories tend to go the route of things would have been better or worse, but really things would likely have been just wildly different. (For example, going back to my birth: If I hadn't been conceived, then my mother wouldn't have been pregnant during the nine prior months. Someone else might have been conceived during that time, and that in turn would likely throw off the entire rhythm of the world such that it would have been very unlikely that my little sister would have been born, simply because sex at a different time would entail different ovum/sperm combinations....).

My hunch is this: if you hadn't been born, you'd be entirely irrelevent, since the world in which your relevant comes into being with you. Ultimately, the comparison between world-with-you and world-without-you is far to complex and includes a lot of stuff we find incidental rather than significant to us. The question just stopped mattering to me the moment I realised a ceteris-paribus hypothesis is untenable.

Not sure you get what I mean, but that really was a switch for me. I'm here and that is it. Any world without me is either unimaginable or implausible, due to the limits of cognition.

The Butterfly Effect carried to unimaginable complexities. Nature is a fantastically intricate dynamic system. The effect of not being born moves both ways in time and looking backwards brings up whether time actually has a beginning.

I am inclined to see time as cyclical, so both past and present are about about dynamic patterns. In that respect, it is potentiality and actuality, as to what, including individuals person, in the specifics of manifestation. There is almost infinite possibilities, such as all the possibilities of reproductive potential of DNA, and this is the primordial chaos underlying what possible persons may come into existence.

Yes, conceptualizing a world without oneself is a cognitive problem. It is possible to imagine a world after one's death, but that in itself is fantasy because there are so many potential variables. It is hard enough to predict what will happen in one's own life, let alone outside of it.

Such a thought experiment is a question but excessive rumination on it could be futile. The main way in which I see it useful is for thinking about one's specific influence while one is alive, like one's unique personal signature. It becomes linked to the way of evaluating one's role in life. For example, I often worry that I take more than I give in life. I do seek to give out rather than than take but am aware of my own limitations. So, I see the imagination of a world without me as a way of thinking and reviewing the issues of what do I contribute to the larger scheme.

It could make no difference to me, whatsoever, since, if I had not existed, I wouldn't be present to have an opinion.

Having not existed might make some difference to others that did/do exist. I accomplished some minor achievements which, if I had not existed, would not have been done. Somebody else could have, might have, or not. If NOT, then the world would lack those minor achievements, and that might matter to a few hundred people in a probably small way.

It would certainly have mattered to my parents, who would have had one less child to raise. They had to work very hard to feed, clothe, and house 7 children. It would probably have made a difference to my siblings. I was the youngest. Without me, the sister who preceded me would have been the youngest child, and might have received some advantages from that.

My boy friends and lovers would not have had the pleasure of knowing, loving, being proud of or disappointed in me, and they would not have received my love for them. Of course, there are plenty good fish in the sea, and any of them might have made better matches.

I think I have gained knowledge, understanding, maybe 'wisdom' over just about 79 years. Does the knowledge I accumulated count as a "good", an "asset" to the society at large? Don't know. The time may yet come when I will be able to explain some historical facts, for instance, to one or more people who don't have much knowledge about history. Or perhaps I will just be a knowledgeable corpse one day. That's OK. I studied because I liked study.

We know for a fact that through various technologies of birth control, millions of babies have not been conceived and delivered. Missing babies is a significant thing. Ask Japan, which has a growing deficit of children to replace the generation who might have borne them. You can also ask China, Germany, Italy, Korea, and a number of other places about the coming demographic problem of too few children.

Let's not blame birth control, however. A lot of people apparently wish never to change a stinky diaper.

My own thought experiment is of thinking about how life would have been if I had not existed. — Jack Cummins

non cogito ergo non sum

Of course, from the standpoint of one's own ego consciousness, if one does not exist it would not matter. But if Wayfarer had not existed it might make some difference in the larger picture, including 'The Philosophy Forum'.

I like your full consideration of your own personal significance. Each person exists for oneself and others. There is the question of one's own inner knowledge, development and wisdom. Does it count at all if it is not shared or is still significant.

When I thought about the thread question I didn't think about the way it relates to medical ethics and the question of 'unborn child'. That has often hinged on the question as to at what stage does a person come into being. The problem is that has often being a way of guilt tripping people, especially women in difficult situations, suggesting that they should not have abortions. The argument against birth control is also bound up with an emphasis on the moral good of procreation. Where it gets critical though is where people are advised not to have children who may have disabilities and other complex issues. There can be judgmental biases of whose life has 'quality' and value.