I was reincarnated from a different world, any questions?

An internet forum thread begins. The original poster claims to have memories of a past life. That world seems similar to ours, yet has significant differences.

The characteristics of humans and other living creatures, as well as culture, aren’t that different from here. At first, I thought I might have been born in a different country or era, but looking back now, it’s completely different.

• [3] What kind of creature were you before?
  You can just think of me as human. I was human, but since it’s a different world, there should be subtle differences.
• [11] Did you… remember it?

The thread starter begins to talk about memories of their past life. They say that “magic” technology was developed in that world.

It started becoming clearer after my early childhood. Children who are reported to have past life memories usually forget them after early childhood. Since things are getting quiet, I’ll share a bit more. We shouldn’t really compare civilization levels between different worlds, but I think the technology in that world was more advanced. I wasn’t what you’d call a science person, so I don’t know the details, but the fundamentals of the world, souls, and what you’d call “magic” were quite well understood and documented in books, so I can explain some of it. When I say magic, it’s not the sparkling kind everyone imagines. It was sometimes incorporated into machines, so it was completely a field of physics. By the way, there apparently wasn’t any god-like creator. The point that the world formed from a single point that explosively expanded is similar to what you call the Big Bang here.

• [17] So you mean an alternate world?

The thread starter explains about the alternate world. The physical laws and concepts of souls in that world are described.

Yeah, that’s right. That way of putting it sounds like a light novel, but it’s completely different. My soul seems to have slipped into a different timeline even though it should have been recycled. By the way, I mentioned earlier that it’s similar in the point that it was formed by the Big Bang, but what’s different is what happened afterward. It’s called an “explosive” expansion, but “explosive” is just a metaphor, not a physical explosion. What kind of explosion was it… that part wasn’t figured out even in that world. About souls, that’s about it.

• [39] For example, are there things like baseball draft picks going to different teams? Or is it a case where baseball or professional baseball doesn’t exist at all?
  Give me another example.
• [44] Like historical “what-ifs” where famous celebrities in the previous world never debuted or became famous in different genres.
  Yeah, something like that.
• [50] Is there anything specific you remember that’s different between this world and your previous world?

The thread starter begins to explain the structure of their past world in more detail. The major differences between this world and theirs become clearer.

For starters, it’s much more advanced than this world. We used both electricity and something magic-like. In the previous world, after the Big Bang, the world split into two. If we use paper as an example, it’s like the front and back. If we consider our world as the front, then the back is where souls go.

• [54] What can you do with this magic-like thing?

The thread starter attempts to explain the mechanism of magic as far as they understand. This “magic” is not a supernatural phenomenon but a scientifically explained phenomenon.

For example, all heating devices used that magic-like stuff. Calling it magic makes it sound fake. The inhabitants of the previous world didn’t call it magic. You can think of it as a kind of energy medium similar to electromagnetism. Come to think of it, electricity was hardly used anymore. Originally, magic was something that connected with the consciousness of highly intelligent life forms. I wasn’t a science person, so I don’t know how they created it with machines. There was a period when it was called magic. Special humans who used it intuitively with their senses—something like supernatural powers—were systematized, and it evolved from the occult into science. I mentioned the Big Bang earlier, but it differs from this world in that it split into two worlds at that time. Using paper as an example, it’s like the front and back. The two worlds are two sides of the same coin. Non-material particles produced by the pineal gland in the brain connected the two worlds and extracted energy. This is magic. Hmm, is that hard to understand? The front of the paper is the world we lived in, and the back is like an imaginary space. Non-material particles float in this imaginary space. They are reconstructed to produce the source of magic and souls. When people die, their consciousness—that is, their soul—is transferred to the imaginary space and decomposed, but if the decomposition doesn’t go well, rarely, people are born with past life memories. By the way, why my consciousness was sent to a different world is a complete mystery. Even with the scientific level of that world, research on alternate worlds wasn’t done.

• [70] How does it generate heat? Do non-material particles transition to a different state when heat is extracted? Where do reconstructed non-material particles go after energy is extracted from them in the front world?

The discussion becomes more technical. The thread starter acknowledges that they can’t give detailed explanations because they weren’t scientifically inclined, but continues to explain what they know.

I don’t know much about that. I feel like the non-material entities directly transformed into energy. As a consequence, the magic user’s stamina or the fuel in magic-operating machines would decrease. As for why the decreased energy doesn’t match the extracted energy, you’d have to ask someone in science.

• [77] Stamina decreases? Suddenly bringing in fictional fantasy elements… I was expecting more, how disappointing…

The thread starter continues to explain the concept of souls in their past world. Unlike in this world, souls aren’t limited to animals but exist in everything.

It’s not so much that stamina decreases, but more like your energy gets drained. So if you overuse it, you can’t stand up. By the way, what’s interesting is that souls aren’t limited to living beings. In this world, the concept of souls is limited to animals, so it’s quite different. Souls form in all objects that have some degree of fluidity and autonomy. So even the Earth had consciousness. Imagine a world where this world’s Gaia theory has been proven. But since the Earth is so huge, while the central part might have a soul, the Earth’s surface repeatedly formed concentrated and separated soul areas, reaching an equilibrium state. Some religions worshipped these separated clumps as spirits. ‘Spirits’ is a translated term, so they’re not fantasy-like things. If I explain spirits simply, they’re like autonomous non-material clumps. The so-called spirit users were a race of people who relied on these autonomous non-material clumps rather than their pineal glands as a medium to extract the source of magic. So I mentioned earlier that it uses up stamina, but spirit users could use large-scale magic without consuming stamina. Around the time I died, the mechanism of these spirit users was being decoded, and there was talk that if applied to magical physics, it could create a semi-perpetual motion machine.

• [85] Are the languages there different from Japanese?
  They are different. I don’t remember much of the language there. Proper nouns might help me remember.
• [89] So what exactly are you saying?

The participants seem confused by the complex explanation provided by the thread starter.

Basically, I’d like to go back sometime. Well, magic is used in medical equipment too.

• [96] Do you mean the medical equipment’s performance is different?
  Probably more advanced over there. It’s not fantasy magic where you chant a spell and instantly change your gender. It’s more scientific.
• [99] I don’t get it… can you turn adults into children through cosmetic surgery?
  It’s possible if you wanted to, but it would be illegal.
• [101] Why is it illegal?
  Killing cells risks memory disorders and it’s ethically problematic. I can answer questions about magic, but I might not be able to explain the mechanisms. That’s the job of physicists researching the magic field.
• [109] Were there sports?

The conversation shifts to more familiar cultural aspects, with questions about sports and languages in the past world.

There were X-sports where you ride on boards. Core strength was important. Also shooting and such.

• [115] I wonder if the major sports were completely different. Was there no baseball or soccer?
  No baseball. There was something like soccer. The idea of kicking a ball with your feet seems to exist everywhere. Regarding languages, there was considerable unification, and dialectal variations were almost eliminated.
• [119] I wonder what was the cause of death in the previous world.
  Disease. I died from a brain tumor. If it had been discovered a bit earlier, it could have been completely cured.
• [124] I wonder if countries like Japan or America were the same as in this world.
  Completely different. I don’t think there was a country similar to Japan.
• [127] What nationality were you?

Questions about the thread starter’s country of origin arise. Surprisingly, it’s revealed that there was a country name with the same meaning as “Japan”.

A country called Daiba. It was a small monarchy. There were tons of skyscrapers and it was pretty advanced.

• [131] What does Daiba mean translated into Japanese? Example: Japan → Land of the Rising Sun.
  Land of the Rising Sun. Same as Japan.
• [133] Wow…
  There were about 10 other countries with the same origin for their names. All kinds of urban legends were born from this fact.
• [136] Maybe there are small differences in events, and while it looks quite different from Japan now, if you trace back, perhaps the ancient history is almost the same as Japan?

The thread starter’s statements seem contradictory. A new hypothesis about the relationship between the two worlds is proposed.

That’s possible too. But the history I learned in school only covered about 4,000 years, so unless there was fabrication, I don’t think it’s possible. There were occult believers who would find commonalities and claim they were a single royal family that split thousands of years ago. It was as full of holes as the Japanese-Jewish common origin theory. Well, among occult theories, the “Land of the Rising Sun” controversy was one of the more interesting ones. Just because the origin of the name is the same, don’t imagine it’s like Japan. It had a Mediterranean climate, so everything was different.

• [142] Can you write what kind of events you learned happened? As much as you remember is fine.

The thread starter explains the history of their past world. World wars occurred several times, and magic technology developed during this process.

Starting from what would be medieval level here, there were about four world wars, then a kind of world government was formed, and that settled into the present. I was taught just the flow of events from more than 4,000 years ago. Even if I wanted to know more details, there were no documents. Magic research started around the second world war. They were studying psychics with half-belief, happened to make a scientific discovery, and immediately started research for military applications. I believe it was practically used in the fourth war.

• [147] About when in that 4,000-year history did the second world war happen?
  First and second wars around 3,000 years ago. Third war 2,000 years ago. Fourth war 1,800 years ago. Come to think of it, there’s too much gap between the second and third wars. From 4,000 years ago at a medieval level, there was hardly any progress for a thousand years. Occult believers questioned this and proposed the fabrication theory.
• [151] Well, if that history isn’t fabricated, perhaps there were no major wars or disasters, so there was no need to develop rapidly and progress stagnated…? I can’t say for certain since there’s no way to verify.

The discussion continues about the veracity of history. The thread starter states that they recognized the importance of history after coming to this world.

Hmm, that’s possible too. In our world, history was treated as just trivia, so I really don’t know much. I only realized the importance of historical studies after coming to this world.

• [155] I wonder what was the most important academic field in your world. Magic studies? Or something like that.

The thread starter begins to explain in detail about the science and technology of their past world, particularly about materialization magic. They describe how this technology was applied in daily life.

Magic. To be precise, there wasn’t a field called “magic studies”; magic was included in the field of physics. Speaking of magic, materialization magic was the most interesting. It converted non-material particles not into energy but into substances with actual forms. It was previously a type of magic only certain races could use, but after it was systematized 300 years ago, scientific technology rapidly developed. The development of plate-generating bulletproof vests was groundbreaking. These plate-generating bulletproof vests are now applied to all clothing. They generate armor-like plates the moment impact is applied, greatly reducing injuries.

• [159] If anything can be generated, it seems like students who just learned it would make weird things for fun.
  Ah, almost no humans could use it directly. It was just applied and incorporated into machines.
• [164] So it’s like teaching factory machines magic to increase production efficiency?

The thread starter explains further about the fusion of magic and technology. It appears to be a highly advanced scientific concept.

Hmm, I’m not sure about that. I don’t know much about how it works. Another application of materialization magic is the compacting of everyday items. Due to advancements in spatial shape memory technology several decades ago, many things became pocket-sized. Only some people of a certain race—I think they were called Zero people, but I’m mistaken—could use materialization-type magic. These machines were somehow created by mimicking the pineal gland and neurons. It’s a culmination of various fields like biology, magic, and physics, so it’s too complex. I understand power generators, but the mechanism of machines that produce magic is incomparably more difficult. Anyway, imagine such devices being developed and increasingly miniaturized. As long as you attach the device, the rest is just a matter of programming and circuits.

• [170] It’s probably something like artificial intelligence.

Questions shift to more everyday aspects like transportation and environmental issues. Surprisingly, it’s revealed that despite advanced science and technology, transportation methods in that world weren’t dramatically different from ours.

Something like that, I guess. A bit different, but biological engineering might be closer. Since it mimics the structure of living organisms. Transportation means weren’t much different from here. You either move freely on the ground in something like a car or follow a guideline like a train. When talking about this, people expect flying cars, but there aren’t any. Creating regulations for free movement in the air is difficult. It would be faster to string up guidelines in the air and move along them like trains. There are things like airplanes, though. Winged ones are completely gone. They fly using lift-command devices.

• [177] I wonder if there was travel and tourism.
  You can do it freely. The time-distance is considerably shorter compared to this world, so it’s easy to go. Some people deliberately used old vehicles seeking nostalgia. Books saying that the journey is about the process sold well and were popular for a while.
• [180] I wonder if the things to do at travel destinations are also not that different.
  Food tourism, sightseeing, nothing’s different. Even with such advanced technology, they still preserve tourist resources. Even though vegetables can be grown without fields, there are plenty of places that keep fields for scenic preservation.
• [183] Are nature and the environment valued quite a bit?

The conversation shifts to environmental issues and wildlife. It seems that even in technologically advanced worlds, environmental conservation and pollution problems exist.

Urban areas are like forests of buildings, but there are also many plants. Large areas like African savannas are also preserved, so that was fun. The downside is seeing skyscrapers everywhere when you look in a certain direction. Thinking about it now, the creatures were quite interesting too. There were pterosaur-like things. They were trying hard with environmental conservation, but I learned that it would take an endless amount of time to completely restore what had been excessively polluted. Ocean pollution was especially bad. Maybe they didn’t try to improve it because ocean pollution had no impact on humans.

• [190] Was there technology to offset ocean pollution? It’s treated as a serious problem in this world.

The thread starter explains interesting facts about the biology of their past world. Pterosaur-like creatures existed, and their flight mechanism contributed to the development of magic technology.

All seafood can be farm-raised anyway. Only countries that judged it ethically problematic worked on it, but the biggest country did nothing. Speaking of those pterosaur-like things, they weren’t dragon-like creatures. They didn’t have an impossible structure like wings sprouting from their backs; instead, their forearms turned into wings, a wyvern-type. They were quite large, and structurally shouldn’t have been able to fly, so for a long time, it was a mystery how they flew. When they were dissected, it was discovered that their pineal gland was quite large, leading to speculation about magic use. Later experiments confirmed the existence of lift magic, which was then applied to airplanes. Interesting.

• [196] More than half of the responses in this thread are from the poster, lol.

The thread seems to have become quite lively. Participants appear to be engrossed in the thread starter’s story.

That’s right. I’m rambling on because there aren’t many questions.

• [198] I’m curious about how old the poster was when they died in the previous world. You seem to have studied quite a bit about interesting areas.
  I died at 19. I skipped school a lot because books were more educational than school studies.
• [204] I wonder what subjects there were in school besides physics (magic).

Questions continue about the education system of the past life. Interestingly, educational content is similar to our world, but classics were abolished.

It wasn’t called physics but science. In science, we learned everything mixed together—physics, chemistry, biology. Social studies subjects were geography, politics, economics, history, and language. Classics were abolished a few years ago.

• [207] It’s pretty normal except for no classics. I wonder why they stopped teaching classics.
  I’m not sure why they stopped. Maybe they couldn’t find value in teaching it due to lack of documents. It would be interesting if I were the ancestor in this life.
• [220] What kind of power created magic? Surely you must have learned about it in school if it was an alternative to electricity.
  I was in humanities, so I have no idea. Magic-related topics were too difficult even for science students and could only be learned in university.
• [223] No, like with electricity we have nuclear power plants, right? Weren’t there news or anything in your world? You should at least know the basics. Isn’t it strange that the average person wouldn’t know a little bit when it was so widespread that electricity was declining?

Participants’ questions become more specialized, and they begin to point out contradictions in the thread starter’s explanations. The thread starter acknowledges the limits of their knowledge but tries to explain as much as possible.

I don’t know the detailed conversion mechanism, but it starts with creating an autonomous device that mimics a biological brain. I mentioned quite a while ago that consciousness dwells in all objects with autonomy and homeostasis, regardless of whether they’re living beings, and that’s what is being utilized. After completing the autonomous device, it needs to be powered with electricity for a while. It usually takes several weeks to instill consciousness. After that, using spatial memory I talked about in the materialization section, the consciousness region is expanded and connected to fuel or electrical circuits to produce energy or conversion.

• [229] Was there an internet in the previous world?
  Yes, there was. There were similar bulletin boards over there too.
• [232] They must have made jokes with some other sport instead of baseball. I wonder if there were online games.

Questions continue about more specific aspects of daily life. The thread starter’s memories about digital devices and lifestyle in the past world are shared.

Online games, huh? I never played them, but nothing really changed except for graphics. Retro games were popular. Mobile phones and computer systems weren’t that different from this world either. In sci-fi, there are spatial displays and such, but in reality, there’s no demand for them. If you’re going to spend money on that, a regular computer is fine. There were computers that were like paper. You could fold them up really small and put them in your pocket. They’re flimsy and hard to use as is, but when hardened, the creases disappear and they become taut and usable. This also applies technology derived from materialization magic. Materialization magic originally forms around objects, so it doesn’t harden the object itself.
The thread starter continues explaining about foldable computers made possible by magic technology.

Materialization magic originally forms around objects, so it doesn’t harden the object itself, but these computers are made of porous materials, which makes it possible.

• [239] Are there other things that can do amazing things with materialization magic compared to here?
  With materialization and hardening, the durability of various things increases. By extending consciousness to a device to detect acceleration and harden, you can make a mobile phone that doesn’t break even if dropped.
• [241] Being able to make things less breakable seems useful for many things.
  Looking back now, it really was a convenient society. You don’t notice it when you’re there.
• [243] I think many people in this world had similar thoughts after being restricted in various ways due to COVID…

A moment of empathy forms between participants who experienced the modern pandemic. It makes one think about the value of ordinary daily life.

You only understand the value of something when you’re separated from it.

• [247] Do you have “Anywhere Doors” (teleportation devices)?
  No. Teleportation and such are impossible.
• [255] Was the previous world peaceful?
  It was peaceful. There were occasional talks of conflicts in different regions, but not as much as here. It depends on the definition of peace. If you consider it as the antonym of war, then it’s literally “peaceful”.
• [259] Technology slightly more developed than here and relatively fewer wars sounds like a realistic ideal range.

The conversation approaches its core. The image of a world that has developed technologically while maintaining peace emerges as a kind of utopia.

Yeah, that’s probably right. By the standards here, there were only advanced countries, but even among them, there were disparities, so conflicts were inevitable.

• [268] If you’re not chanting spells or having it activated by imagination, but scientifically utilizing it as an energy source or using scientific machines and tools to create phenomena, then it’s not magic but science. You’re just using a different energy source than what’s commonly used on Earth and moving machines with different laws or mechanisms.
• [275] The poster is saying it’s science. What was once perceived as supernatural abilities has been scientifically systematized. But due to old customs, they still called it magic.
• [276] What is this thread, it’s interesting.

The long thread finally comes to an end. The “magic” the thread starter spoke of is actually a form of science, and regardless of whether their past life memories are true, the participants seem to have enjoyed sharing this interesting thought experiment.