5 ms·

Note that the meaning in the book was almost wholly changed for the film. A big part of the book was that by learning to think 4-dimensionally (via the alien l

Note that the meaning in the book was almost wholly changed for the film. A big part of the book was that by learning to think 4-dimensionally (via the alien language), the scientists found that free will did not exist. The narrator had no choice in how to act with her child - she was simply acting out a predefined narrative... "I suddenly remembered that a morphological relative of 'performative' was 'performance,' which could describe the sensation of conversing when you knew what would be said: it was like performing in a play." ... "Before I learned how to think in Heptapod B, my memories grew like a column of cigarette ash, laid down by the infinitesimal sliver of combustion that was my consciousness, marking the sequential present. After I learned Heptapod B, new memories fell into place like gigantic blocks, each one measuring years in duration, and though they didn't arrive in order or land contiguously, they soon composed a period of five decades. It is the period during which I know Heptapod B well enough to think in it, starting during my interviews with Flapper and Raspberry and ending with my death." The movie left this key message out almost entirely.

garmaine 5y ago
That was the conclusion of the movie. I remember because I hated it so much. It destroyed the story imho.
- taneq 5y ago
  I thought in the movie it was cast as her choosing to accept it and cherishing the time they'd have left together? Maybe I missed the predestination theme (or maybe it was just implied... although you could say it's implied for any story involving travel or communication between different times.)
  - garmaine 5y ago
    We’ll I certainly walked away with an understanding that it was all predestined, which annoyed me to no end because it felt like a ridiculous and meaningless cop out. But maybe I misread something that was actually more ambiguous?
gonehome 5y ago
I thought the movie implied this as well? I include Arrival alongside Children of Men as an example of a case where the movie is better than the book (and I'm a big Ted Chiang fan) - changing the daughter's death from a climbing accident to a disease was much better imo.
- penteract 5y ago
  In the book, it's impossible to act on information from the future, whereas in the film that clearly happens in the phone call near the end. This means that if the daughter had died in a climbing accident in the film, the mother would have to have chosen to let that happen/not warn her, whereas to avoid the disease, the only option would have been not to have the child. In the book, that wasn't an option; learning the language changed her subjective experience of time, but did not give a superpower.
  - rpaddock 5y ago
    "...impossible to act on information from the future..." Might want to read: Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect Daryl J. Bem Cornell University https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/psp-a0021524.pdf https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/psp-a0021524.pdf This work has been replicated many times by others because no one believed it. Also look up Decision Augmentation Theory.
    - joegreen 5y ago
      That paper was an interesting read :) I googled a bit about it and found possible explanation https://replicationindex.com/2018/01/05/bem-retraction/ https://replicationindex.com/2018/01/05/bem-retraction/
      - rpaddock 5y ago
        There is also: "Feeling the future: A meta-analysis of 90 experiments on the anomalous anticipation of random future events" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4706048/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4706048/ The book 'Real Magic' is related: https://www.deanradin.com https://www.deanradin.com

garmaine 5y ago

That was the conclusion of the movie. I remember because I hated it so much. It destroyed the story imho.

taneq 5y ago
I thought in the movie it was cast as her choosing to accept it and cherishing the time they'd have left together? Maybe I missed the predestination theme (or maybe it was just implied... although you could say it's implied for any story involving travel or communication between different times.)
- garmaine 5y ago
  We’ll I certainly walked away with an understanding that it was all predestined, which annoyed me to no end because it felt like a ridiculous and meaningless cop out. But maybe I misread something that was actually more ambiguous?

gonehome 5y ago

I thought the movie implied this as well? I include Arrival alongside Children of Men as an example of a case where the movie is better than the book (and I'm a big Ted Chiang fan) - changing the daughter's death from a climbing accident to a disease was much better imo.

penteract 5y ago
In the book, it's impossible to act on information from the future, whereas in the film that clearly happens in the phone call near the end. This means that if the daughter had died in a climbing accident in the film, the mother would have to have chosen to let that happen/not warn her, whereas to avoid the disease, the only option would have been not to have the child. In the book, that wasn't an option; learning the language changed her subjective experience of time, but did not give a superpower.
- rpaddock 5y ago
  "...impossible to act on information from the future..." Might want to read: Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect Daryl J. Bem Cornell University https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/psp-a0021524.pdf https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/psp-a0021524.pdf This work has been replicated many times by others because no one believed it. Also look up Decision Augmentation Theory.
  - joegreen 5y ago
    That paper was an interesting read :) I googled a bit about it and found possible explanation https://replicationindex.com/2018/01/05/bem-retraction/ https://replicationindex.com/2018/01/05/bem-retraction/
    - rpaddock 5y ago
      There is also: "Feeling the future: A meta-analysis of 90 experiments on the anomalous anticipation of random future events" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4706048/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4706048/ The book 'Real Magic' is related: https://www.deanradin.com https://www.deanradin.com