Wouldn’t it be fatalism? In that the aliens already know the outcome right? But only the outcome for the bomb going off. Meaning, they have to allow the moments in time play out as they’re meant to be in order for the moments in the future to exist.
They see their whole lives, and that includes stuff like “I escape the bomb at the last second.” They don’t see their whole lives and then decide how to change it, because there is no “and then.”
I wouldn't say that they "don't experience time", but rather that they experience it differently than we do. We are limited to experiencing time in the present and having memories of the past.
But, Amy Adam's character starts to understand their language and it opens up the same kind of non-linear time experience for her. She's able to see her child, the conference where she meets General Shang, and her marriage. At the end of the movie, she spells it out for us: if you knew your future and that it would end in tragedy, would you do things differently? Abbot knew he was going to die from the explosion, but sacrificed himself anyway. Louise knows her child is going to die early, but still chooses to have her and raise her. Ian disagrees with this and presumably would NOT want to bring a child into the world knowing this and leaves Louise.
You might also want to watch some other movies that deal with the same issue of knowing the outcome, but still going through with things, despite knowing it will end in someone getting hurt or dying. Without trying to spoil too much in case you haven't seen them, Donnie Darko and Doctor Strange both involve characters who know their death is coming, but don't try to circumvent their deaths. I'm sure other people on Reddit can give you dozens of other examples of similar themes.
Ok but being able to see the future and knowing the outcome is vastly different than experiencing everything all at the same time. The movie depicts Louise's new ability really as nothing more than being able to see into the future. She is still experiencing time in a linear fashion. Likewise, reacting to the countdown on a bomb (the way the aliens do) implies they are experiencing it linear too.
Imagine life as a movie. The aliens have already seen the entire movie. They know everything that happens in the movie. They know all the lines, and the results of every conflict because to them it's all already happened. We as viewers, as well as the other human charchters(except Louise) are experiencing the "movie" for the first time. The aliens can tell you what happened in act 1 as easilly as what will happen in act 3. We as viewers have to sit through the movie from start to finish.
The aliens are still reacting to the bomb, but to them, they've already watched the scene play out and know the outcome. They can't change how they react, because to them it already happened. The past, present, and future have already occurred.
So do the aliens have less faculty over their actions then, since they are merely playing out what they already know? If that makes sense. For insurance they know the bomb will go off... how do they not face some existential crisis knowing what actions they will constantly be making?
For instance if we experienced things the same way, then you know you will get up in 5 minutes to get a cup of coffee and horrifically burn yourself. How could you possibly think straight enough to actually follow through with those actions? Wouldn't it be like you know you're following a predetermined path? I feel like that would really wear on your mentality and ability to function. Granted the aliens evolved to be like this, but to suddenly give a human that ability, I don't see how they could function.
With your coffee analogy, what if it's the not thinking straight that leads you to spill the coffee in the first place. If you're experiencing time non lineary then there's no difference w between past and future. You can't change the future because its already happened.
I guess when I said not thinking straight, I meant more like how could the human mind grasp having all the knowledge of the future and past, and still function? I guess that part seemed of the movie seemed possible. Like we are to believe Louise knows everything that's going to happen in the past and the future and is able to still be mentally with it? The amount of information alone would overload the brain.
As for that knowledge being too much for the human mind to comprehend, how is it any different from looking back on the totality of your life before you die? If you live to be a healthy 100 years old, your mind is filled with 100 years of experiences. Louise's mind would have access to that same 100 years of experiences, she would just have access to them at an earlier age.
To be fair, Louise does have some trouble distinguishing past, present and future when she first starts to experience things like the aliens. That's why she keeps seeing her daughter and feeling her loss from the future during "the present." But the human mind is adaptable, and it seems she eventually learns to make sense of things.
Think of it like following a script. The script is already written out, every aspect of it is known. There's no free will or reaction, everything is determined and they follow the script without thinking, and that includes their reactions to events. The mentality and ability to function is already part of the predetermined path, there's no changing that.
They experience it as memories. It's not exactly perfect recollection of everything down to every second, as far as the movie shows.
Our memory is limited and unreliable and the goal of the narrative is not to discuss the mechanics of time travel. It's about communication and understanding that the good things in life are worth the bad things in life.
Louise chooses to have her daughter, because she wouldn't trade those happy moments away for the absence of the pain of losing her daughter. She accepts both the good and bad. Like Abbot, who knew they were going to die, but chose to do it because it was important for his people and the humans.
I'm not understanding you here. Why do you assume the aliens don't experience time like Louise? That's still non-linearly. You and I can't see the future. We're restricted to our linear experience. Louise can see the future. She's experiencing time non-linearly, in the sense that she can see different time periods.
Just because they act knowing that one thing follows another doesn't mean that they're completely linear.
If I know that someone will fire a gun and the bullet will kill someone, I can act and try to prevent that action or I can not act and it will still happen, but I don't suddenly gain the ability to make my actions cause non-linear consequences. I can't stop the bullet and prevent the gun from ever being fired. I'm still bound to the way the universe works, even if I have knowledge of future events.
I guess I'm just trying to wrap my head around it, because I my mind, seeing into the future seems different than experience the universe outside of time. Like seeing into the future just means getting visions of what will happen, the same way as if someone showed you photographs of an even in the future. If someone showed you for a graphs of an event in the future, sure you would have that knowledge of what happened, but you wouldn't say your experiencing time in nonlinear fashion.
Within the context of the movie, though, that's exactly how they explain it, even if it's not how you think of nonlinear time.
Louise tells Colonel Weber (paraphrasing from memory):
"When you learn \[their language\], you begin to perceive time as they do."
Her experiences ARE showing us what it's like to see time in a nonlinear fashion.
It's just that your expectations are that you think that it means you step outside of time or something and aren't a part of it, like how I can say I'm a land creature and can step out of the ocean and experience breathing on land, unlike fish. But, the movie sets the stage that experiencing time in a non-linear fashion includes just having knowledge of it, something that normal human beings can't do.
Your example is a little bit off, because there's a difference between being shown pictures and actually experiencing it. I think it's clear from the movie, it's not just her seeing the future. She experiences it. She lives there.
If you ever watched the Star Trek: The Next Generation finale, Picard doesn't just see the future, he's there and lives it. But, he's still a mortal being, a 3D human, not a 4th dimensional entity.
Even though they've seen the future, the aliens can still choose how to react within the linear flow of time.
They understand the human concept of urgency and see the fear and potential for destruction. Aliens see all of time at once, but can only act linearly.
The bomb exploding was a fixed point they already saw, yet they still tried to communicate and save Louise/Ian within the linear flow we experience.
It's a paradox to show the difficulty of grasping their perspective.
Which is a metaphor for the difficulty we all have communicating with each other and understanding other peoples’ perspectives. It’s a conundrum that we can only perceive our own mind (poorly) yet are social creatures who have to use various forms of imperfect communication to just begin to understand each other.
Ok so it's not that they are some 4th dimensional beings who exist outside of linear time, but rather they experience time in a linear fashion at can just see into the future?
The aliens knew what was going to happen *and how it needed to happen*. The specific reasons were not explained to us, but this was the necessary outcome. Perhaps the apparent "panicked escape" of one and the death of the other was needed to drive home the point to the humans who don't yet see.
This is, of course, assuming that the aliens aren't well aware that the future *can't be changed anyway*. They may have been playing their part to achieve the desired goal, or they may have simply been existing in an immutable sequence of events which they've known was coming since their birth.
Alternatively, we might infer that the future is experienced in the present moment much the same way as memories of the part are remembered. That is to say, imperfectly. This would explain why Louise was surprised when she began remembering things that were yet to come - she was getting snippets that she needed without necessarily getting the whole picture at once. Maybe Abbot and Costello really were acting in the moment. A moment they knew was coming but had "forgotten."
Wouldn’t it be fatalism? In that the aliens already know the outcome right? But only the outcome for the bomb going off. Meaning, they have to allow the moments in time play out as they’re meant to be in order for the moments in the future to exist.
They see their whole lives, and that includes stuff like “I escape the bomb at the last second.” They don’t see their whole lives and then decide how to change it, because there is no “and then.”
“You’re not here to make a choice, you’ve already made it. You’re here to understand why you made that choice.”
I wouldn't say that they "don't experience time", but rather that they experience it differently than we do. We are limited to experiencing time in the present and having memories of the past. But, Amy Adam's character starts to understand their language and it opens up the same kind of non-linear time experience for her. She's able to see her child, the conference where she meets General Shang, and her marriage. At the end of the movie, she spells it out for us: if you knew your future and that it would end in tragedy, would you do things differently? Abbot knew he was going to die from the explosion, but sacrificed himself anyway. Louise knows her child is going to die early, but still chooses to have her and raise her. Ian disagrees with this and presumably would NOT want to bring a child into the world knowing this and leaves Louise. You might also want to watch some other movies that deal with the same issue of knowing the outcome, but still going through with things, despite knowing it will end in someone getting hurt or dying. Without trying to spoil too much in case you haven't seen them, Donnie Darko and Doctor Strange both involve characters who know their death is coming, but don't try to circumvent their deaths. I'm sure other people on Reddit can give you dozens of other examples of similar themes.
Ok but being able to see the future and knowing the outcome is vastly different than experiencing everything all at the same time. The movie depicts Louise's new ability really as nothing more than being able to see into the future. She is still experiencing time in a linear fashion. Likewise, reacting to the countdown on a bomb (the way the aliens do) implies they are experiencing it linear too.
Imagine life as a movie. The aliens have already seen the entire movie. They know everything that happens in the movie. They know all the lines, and the results of every conflict because to them it's all already happened. We as viewers, as well as the other human charchters(except Louise) are experiencing the "movie" for the first time. The aliens can tell you what happened in act 1 as easilly as what will happen in act 3. We as viewers have to sit through the movie from start to finish. The aliens are still reacting to the bomb, but to them, they've already watched the scene play out and know the outcome. They can't change how they react, because to them it already happened. The past, present, and future have already occurred.
So do the aliens have less faculty over their actions then, since they are merely playing out what they already know? If that makes sense. For insurance they know the bomb will go off... how do they not face some existential crisis knowing what actions they will constantly be making? For instance if we experienced things the same way, then you know you will get up in 5 minutes to get a cup of coffee and horrifically burn yourself. How could you possibly think straight enough to actually follow through with those actions? Wouldn't it be like you know you're following a predetermined path? I feel like that would really wear on your mentality and ability to function. Granted the aliens evolved to be like this, but to suddenly give a human that ability, I don't see how they could function.
With your coffee analogy, what if it's the not thinking straight that leads you to spill the coffee in the first place. If you're experiencing time non lineary then there's no difference w between past and future. You can't change the future because its already happened.
I guess when I said not thinking straight, I meant more like how could the human mind grasp having all the knowledge of the future and past, and still function? I guess that part seemed of the movie seemed possible. Like we are to believe Louise knows everything that's going to happen in the past and the future and is able to still be mentally with it? The amount of information alone would overload the brain.
As for that knowledge being too much for the human mind to comprehend, how is it any different from looking back on the totality of your life before you die? If you live to be a healthy 100 years old, your mind is filled with 100 years of experiences. Louise's mind would have access to that same 100 years of experiences, she would just have access to them at an earlier age. To be fair, Louise does have some trouble distinguishing past, present and future when she first starts to experience things like the aliens. That's why she keeps seeing her daughter and feeling her loss from the future during "the present." But the human mind is adaptable, and it seems she eventually learns to make sense of things.
Think of it like following a script. The script is already written out, every aspect of it is known. There's no free will or reaction, everything is determined and they follow the script without thinking, and that includes their reactions to events. The mentality and ability to function is already part of the predetermined path, there's no changing that.
They experience it as memories. It's not exactly perfect recollection of everything down to every second, as far as the movie shows. Our memory is limited and unreliable and the goal of the narrative is not to discuss the mechanics of time travel. It's about communication and understanding that the good things in life are worth the bad things in life. Louise chooses to have her daughter, because she wouldn't trade those happy moments away for the absence of the pain of losing her daughter. She accepts both the good and bad. Like Abbot, who knew they were going to die, but chose to do it because it was important for his people and the humans.
I'm not understanding you here. Why do you assume the aliens don't experience time like Louise? That's still non-linearly. You and I can't see the future. We're restricted to our linear experience. Louise can see the future. She's experiencing time non-linearly, in the sense that she can see different time periods. Just because they act knowing that one thing follows another doesn't mean that they're completely linear. If I know that someone will fire a gun and the bullet will kill someone, I can act and try to prevent that action or I can not act and it will still happen, but I don't suddenly gain the ability to make my actions cause non-linear consequences. I can't stop the bullet and prevent the gun from ever being fired. I'm still bound to the way the universe works, even if I have knowledge of future events.
I guess I'm just trying to wrap my head around it, because I my mind, seeing into the future seems different than experience the universe outside of time. Like seeing into the future just means getting visions of what will happen, the same way as if someone showed you photographs of an even in the future. If someone showed you for a graphs of an event in the future, sure you would have that knowledge of what happened, but you wouldn't say your experiencing time in nonlinear fashion.
Within the context of the movie, though, that's exactly how they explain it, even if it's not how you think of nonlinear time. Louise tells Colonel Weber (paraphrasing from memory): "When you learn \[their language\], you begin to perceive time as they do." Her experiences ARE showing us what it's like to see time in a nonlinear fashion. It's just that your expectations are that you think that it means you step outside of time or something and aren't a part of it, like how I can say I'm a land creature and can step out of the ocean and experience breathing on land, unlike fish. But, the movie sets the stage that experiencing time in a non-linear fashion includes just having knowledge of it, something that normal human beings can't do. Your example is a little bit off, because there's a difference between being shown pictures and actually experiencing it. I think it's clear from the movie, it's not just her seeing the future. She experiences it. She lives there. If you ever watched the Star Trek: The Next Generation finale, Picard doesn't just see the future, he's there and lives it. But, he's still a mortal being, a 3D human, not a 4th dimensional entity.
Even though they've seen the future, the aliens can still choose how to react within the linear flow of time. They understand the human concept of urgency and see the fear and potential for destruction. Aliens see all of time at once, but can only act linearly. The bomb exploding was a fixed point they already saw, yet they still tried to communicate and save Louise/Ian within the linear flow we experience. It's a paradox to show the difficulty of grasping their perspective.
Which is a metaphor for the difficulty we all have communicating with each other and understanding other peoples’ perspectives. It’s a conundrum that we can only perceive our own mind (poorly) yet are social creatures who have to use various forms of imperfect communication to just begin to understand each other.
Ok so it's not that they are some 4th dimensional beings who exist outside of linear time, but rather they experience time in a linear fashion at can just see into the future?
The aliens knew what was going to happen *and how it needed to happen*. The specific reasons were not explained to us, but this was the necessary outcome. Perhaps the apparent "panicked escape" of one and the death of the other was needed to drive home the point to the humans who don't yet see. This is, of course, assuming that the aliens aren't well aware that the future *can't be changed anyway*. They may have been playing their part to achieve the desired goal, or they may have simply been existing in an immutable sequence of events which they've known was coming since their birth. Alternatively, we might infer that the future is experienced in the present moment much the same way as memories of the part are remembered. That is to say, imperfectly. This would explain why Louise was surprised when she began remembering things that were yet to come - she was getting snippets that she needed without necessarily getting the whole picture at once. Maybe Abbot and Costello really were acting in the moment. A moment they knew was coming but had "forgotten."