Arrival (seen it - open spoilers)

[Just_Asking_Questions]

Late to the party, but I just watched it yesterday.

I liked it. I loved how the movie structure parallels understanding the language. It doesn’t just spoon feed the story of learning to communicate, it makes the viewer “learn” at the same time.

To addres the biggest comment in this thread, it’s not clear from ther movie if Louise sees her entire future, or just snippets. If it is just snippets, then if she were to try something different with Hannah, like waiting a while for her to be born, or doing testing, that doesn’t mean it will work. The forward-memories were not date stamped. As long as she chooses to have Hannah, then her visions are accurate. Maybe whatever she does, is what she did.

Additionally, she’s just one data point. Maybe it is totally possible to alter the future, that what you see is just one possible future, and with more experience you can learn that. And if she chose to not have Hannah at all, or not call the general, then her future would be different. Perhaps the aliens know this, but just can’t, or won’t, communicate that fact. Maybe they want/need us to discover it on our own. (Or, maybe they don’t. If we also learn that the future is not fixed, there’s a possibility we might not help them in 3000 years.)

Humans having precognition isn’t a new concept. People have always claimed to be able to see the future. It’s always been dismissed as delusions or fraud, but in the universe of the movie, maybe they weren’t all wrong. Seeing the future, or a future, is within human potential. Maybe a complete understanding of quantum dynamics would show that human thought shapes reality (it isn’t the observing of the cat that determines whether it is alive or dead, but you “deciding” whether it is alive or dead that settles the question.). More human experience with the ability will explore these questions.

Even so, if there is only one fixed future, that, too, is not a new concept. People have been wrestling with the concept of predestination since it was first expressed. The biggest question being, if the future is set, why do anything at all?

For other sci-fi examples, in James Blish’s story “Beep”, it is definitely shown that the entire future is fixed, but yet, people still act as if it isn’t. That universe even has time travel, and why one would need time travel in a predestined universe was a mystery even to the people that understood it.

[SlackerInc]

I think the future either has to be fixed, or semi-random: true “free will” doesn’t seem a coherent possibility. But what I really have a problem with is the universe having a fixed, predestined outcome, and our knowing what that outcome is. It just seems too trivially easy to alter an outcome you “know” is going to happen. I mean, sure: if you still want to go through it, fine. But if her precognition told her that instead of dying of a disease, her daughter was going to die from choking on a hot dog at her eighth birthday party, why would you not just serve hamburgers that day?

[Jonathan_Chance]

This is the same theme explored in Watchmen.

It’s not that there’s predestination, just that some people can see the sum-total outcome of everyone’s free will. THAT, my friends, is a mind-breaking concept to deal with. And I thought the movie did it very well.

[SlackerInc]

@Jonathan_Chance

It’s not that there’s predestination, just that some people can see the sum-total outcome of everyone’s free will.

Ehhh…wot?

[RealityChuck]

Why obsess on the size of her house? It’s completely irrelevant to anything in the story. Nothing would have changed if she lived in a cheap apartment instead.

It doesn’t show anything wrong about the movie. Pointing it out is just being snarky for the sake of being snarky and if it ruins the movie for you, you’re just looking for an excuse to have the movie ruined.

The actual* movie* is first-class science fiction probably the best since Twelve Monkeys. If you obsess on her house (which, of course, was chosen because it looked good on film, not for any mundane reasons) doesn’t matter at all.

[Jonathan_Chance]

@SlackerInc

Ehhh…wot?

Exactly.

Imagine that we all have free will. We make our choices and set our fates. Fine.

What about someone who can see how those choices turned out? Would she be viewing things as predestined?

[SlackerInc]

@Jonathan_Chance

Exactly.

Imagine that we all have free will. We make our choices and set our fates. Fine.

What about someone who can see how those choices turned out? Would she be viewing things as predestined?

If she can see how they will turn out (with no chance that they won’t turn out that way), then we don’t have free will. We have only the *illusion *of free will. And I do in fact believe we only have that illusion, but I also do not believe that is compatible with anyone being able to see the future, unless maybe they do not interact with reality but only “watch” (like the Watchers in Marvel Comics, in theory–in practice they did a lot of interfering).

[Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew]

@SlackerInc

If she can see how they will turn out (with no chance that they won’t turn out that way), then we don’t have free will.

That’s only true if time is linear. Since the crux of the biscuit in Arrival is that the linearity of time is only a matter of perception, then cause and effect as the heptapods understand them are simultaneous. So perceiving an effect doesn’t determine a freely willed cause, because the cause is already there.

[SlackerInc]

@Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew

That’s only true if time is linear. Since the crux of the biscuit in Arrival is that the linearity of time is only a matter of perception, then cause and effect as the heptapods understand them are simultaneous. So perceiving an effect doesn’t determine a freely willed cause, because the cause is already there.

What you are describing, if anything, leaves even less room for free will. At least the “I could have done otherwise” version of free will (there is an idea known as “compatibilist free will” that just seems like an incoherent muddle to me).

[Shalmanese]

The way it’s described in the book is that the heptapods view life and existence the same way that we view, say, participating in a wedding ceremony. Even though everyone already knows what’s about to happen, it’s still important that it does happen and even though everyone has free will, it’s by everyone’s free will choice to participate in the ceremony in predictable ways.

The heptapods know what’s going to happen in their lives but it’s important to them that it is still lived out regardless and it’s not so much the choice that matters as the experience.

[SlackerInc]

But at least for humans, there are some actions that lead to results that really have no upside. Again, as I asked about the hot dogs: what mother would know her daughter is going to choke to death on an Oscar-Meyer frank on her eighth birthday, but still go and put those in her shopping cart the day before, and then go out to the backyard on the fateful day and cheerfully grill them up and serve one to her daughter along with a piece of birthday cake? Or what if the foresight was about your own choking death on a certain day? You’re really still going to pick up that wiener and blithely chomp on it? This language would have to also change your mentality radically to some sort of really blase Zen attitude about everything.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Saw it recently, and liked it a lot. It was tense and quiet and slowly-paced in just the right way, I thought. A thinking person’s sf movie - similar in tone (esp. in its sense of wonder at the vast universe), I thought, to 2001, Close Encounters and The Abyss, three other very good first-contact films.

My moment of Fridge Horror afterwards was the thought that the “rare disease” that eventually killed Hannah might have been something the Adams character contracted herself when she took off her protective gear while aboard the alien ship. She has a baby with Renner because they fall in love working on the heptapod project; their baby dies because she got a unique alien bug from that same project.

@Shawn1767

…The Kangaroo story…

But then it turned around and immediately redeemed itself… thank goodness. I mean, how could an expert linguist not know that story was untrue…

It bugged me because somebody on the National Security Council is going to know it’s jive, too, and she’ll lose some of her cred with top decision-makers at a time when she can least afford it.

@obfusciatrist

I did have a moment of thinking it would be funny if it turned out the aliens were trying to talk to the canary the whole time…

Love it!

@Alessan

…Regarding the language - other people on the project may have understood it, to one degree or another, but she - being the genius linguist and all - was the only one who was *fluent *in it, which is what supposedly altered her brain’s configuration and allowed her to see into the fourth dimension. There’s a difference between being able to translate a language and being able to think in it.

@Dewey_Finn

I got the idea that she was the only one who could see her future, because of the amount of time she spent with the aliens. I don’t think it was entirely clear what benefit the alien knowledge gave to humanity but it was necessary to combine the messages from the twelve sites to understand the message.

@IvoryTowerDenizen

…I took her book as a memoir about how she discovered the language, not to teach the world to speak heptapod. She brought all 12 together and they got whatever info they needed plus ushered in an era of global cooperation…

It’s unclear what’s in her book. There was a quick scene of her speaking in an auditorium with the heptapod “words” displayed on a screen, as she apparently taught the language to people. I had the impression that she not only learned the language, but shared it with the world, and many other people could then speak it. Uniting humanity and bringing global peace would be great - but having everyone (or many) able to foretell the future is a pretty daunting/scary proposition. That could be another movie all by itself.

@Dewey_Finn

… (BTW, did Ian appear at that gala event where she talked to the Chinese general?)…

I didn’t see him there.

[Dendarii_Dame]

@IvoryTowerDenizen

I took her book as a memoir about how she discovered the language, not to teach the world to speak heptapod. She brought all 12 together and they got whatever info they needed plus ushered in an era of global cooperation.

Everybody, sing! “I’d like to teach the world to speak/In perfect heptapod (Perfect heptapod…)”

[IvoryTowerDenizen]

@Dendarii_Dame

Everybody, sing! “I’d like to teach the world to speak/In perfect heptapod (Perfect heptapod…)”

I wasn’t before, but now that’s all I’m singing…

[SlackerInc]

Leaving aside all the philosophical and practical questions, am I the only one who wouldn’t want this “gift” of foresight if there were no way to change one’s fate?

[mlees]

@SlackerInc

Leaving aside all the philosophical and practical questions, am I the only one who wouldn’t want this “gift” of foresight if there were no way to change one’s fate?

Nope, you’re not.

[Raguleader]

Saw the movie when it came out, enjoyed it greatly. Jeremy Renner seems to be in everything.

[John_Bredin]

@SlackerInc

Leaving aside all the philosophical and practical questions, am I the only one who wouldn’t want this “gift” of foresight if there were no way to change one’s fate?

Cassandra likes this post.

[SlackerInc]

@John_Bredin

Cassandra likes this post.

Heh, good point.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Two other thoughts:

I couldn’t help but wonder how things would’ve unfolded if the aliens arrived just a few months later when, uh, one President and not another was in the White House. Could’ve made a big difference.

On a similar note, it was unsettling to see a Limbaugh-esque character inciting a U.S. military mutiny that, for all he knew, would’ve led to an interstellar war.

@Shawn1767

Yeah, for me the story wasn’t “OMG aliens have landed!!” It was “would you still carry on your life the same way knowing it would end up with the tragic death of your child?”

For the main character, turns out it was worth having her daughter in her life even for a short time.

The story of the aliens landing was just the delivery system for this film’s “message.” And that’s how science fiction is supposed to work.

Well put.

@Quimby

Honestly I think Amy Adams’ performance sold what could have easily been seen has corny and manipulative. She should get an Oscar nom for it but probably won’t.

Agreed.

@Jonathan_Chance

That was my thought. With this and ‘Nocturnal Creatures’ she’s making her run at some Oscar bait. She’s in her early 40s and never had that young ingenue phase. If she’s going to win one the time is now. Five noms and no wins.

She was a young ingenue in Enchanted (and quite good in that, too, as a squeaky-clean, naive fairy-tale princess - funny and cute without ever becoming cloying IMHO).

@RealityChuck

Why obsess on the size of her house? It’s completely irrelevant to anything in the story. Nothing would have changed if she lived in a cheap apartment instead…

Having an Army helicopter land outside your cheap apartment just isn’t the same.

@Shalmanese

The way it’s described in the book is that the heptapods view life and existence the same way that we view, say, participating in a wedding ceremony. Even though everyone already knows what’s about to happen, it’s still important that it does happen and even though everyone has free will, it’s by everyone’s free will choice to participate in the ceremony in predictable ways.

The heptapods know what’s going to happen in their lives but it’s important to them that it is still lived out regardless and it’s not so much the choice that matters as the experience.

Intriguing - thanks. I gotta read that story.