Today, I read the short story What If . . ., by Isaac Asimov. The story is about a young couple who are wondering what would have happened if Livvy hadn’t fallen into Norman’s lap in a car. Because of it, they ended up talking and were eventually married, but Livvy wonders if they would have ended up married had she not fallen into his lap. Suddenly, they discover a person called “What If” with a sort of television, and they discover what might have happened if the streetcar hadn’t swerved and Livvy hadn’t fallen into Norman’s lap. They were shown a variety of scenes, after which the two realized that even if events had occurred somewhat differently, that wasn’t reality, and it didn’t matter what might have happened, only what had happened. After all, there are millions of ways that things might have happened, but the difference would be that those people weren’t really ‘you’, the same way that you wouldn’t act the same way in a situation that you would have ten years ago or twenty years later; you change, and though you know that you used to be that person, you aren’t that person anymore. Similarly, in a “what if” machine, you know that you could have been that person, but you aren’t. I recommend this story to anyone who likes to think of “what if” questions or is looking for an interesting, short story and would rate it 9.8/10.
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