![the story of your life by ted chiang the story of your life by ted chiang](https://www.dcfilmdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/arrival-4.png)
“Sounds good.” We walked past the section of kitchen utensils. “There’s a fish market next door we can get fresh clams there,” he said. “I accompanied Gary as he collected fresh basil, tomatoes, garlic, linguini. If you’re not convinced still let’s take a look at the salad bowl sequence:
![the story of your life by ted chiang the story of your life by ted chiang](https://friendsofwords.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/story-of-my-life-and-arrival-movie-poster.jpg)
So Louise can argue that this is not Louise-human language’s doing, but Louise-heptapod’s doing, and this is not part of the Job Description!
#THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE BY TED CHIANG FOR FREE#
If this was a non-scifi or non-alien story, there would be 7749 ways to argue to and for free will, but this is a sci-fi story, so Ted Chiang has (almost) pacified and normalised the argument against free will by introducing the intrinsic element of the alien language.Now that she knows the future, she is compelled to act according to it. Louise’s rationale: knowing the future is incompatible with free will alien language and alien’s conception of time is thus incompatible with free will, aka free will does not exist for them, every action taken is to comply with what’s to come.Louise’s action: she follows through with her action in the present to fulfil the future.Completely normal and healthy reactions from the readers: B I T C H don’t do it!!!.The dramatic situation: Louise can speak alien language, which changes her perception of time, enabling her to experience past, present, and future at the same time.My job – my task, my mission, my training in CompLit is to look at HOW the question of Free Will is problematised and depicted in this story. In high school and my first year in college I was still very enthusiastic about debating til I recognise the futility in doing so and debate clubs (in my opinion, from the ones I’ve been to) are so pretentious... So I won’t be debating it – that’s the job of Philosophy majors and debate club members. “If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?”Īnyways here you won’t see me debating for >< against it cuz that’s not my job. The film and the story poses the question:
![the story of your life by ted chiang the story of your life by ted chiang](http://scottwritesstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/weekend-review-top.png)
But then I’m confronted with this question when I read “The Story of Your Life” so I guess theo tình tình chạy trốn tình tình theo :p I had a “philosophy phase” in middle school in which I was super crazy about this subject that I wanted to study it in-depth in college (I never do but CompLit is also built upon philosophy treatises!) and I read a lot of stuffs on philosophy, yet the topic of Free Will always confuses me because there’s so much reasoning and logical thinking so I tend to avoid it. What to make of it? Do we humans have free will or not? This is one of the most long-last, enduring, difficult, soul-searching, pain-staking question in philosophy since there were the first humans. I actually found a very profound article on Ted Chiang’s fiction HERE and there’s a section towards the end when Louise Banks and her free will is discuss. On to part 3 where I attempt to look into the question of Free Will in this story and hopefully some take-away as a whole. (Some sharing: I took a nap this afternoon and the whole dream I had was just me trying to explain the narrative development of this story – that’s how invested I am in this project :p) In my film notes I break down the film sequence by sequence with screenshots and point out which part of the film corresponds to which part of the story part 1 of story notes is about the theories I researched for this story, and part 2 is my deconstruction of the story to examine how it’s told and how the narrative and language used in the story serve to create a unique experience of time. Read my Arrival notes HERE, my part 1 HERE, and part 2 HERE. Chắc không ai đọc đâu nhưng mà lỡ cố gắng đầu tư đọc bài tìm hiểu với ghi chú suốt 3 tháng nay rồi nên thôi cứ viết hết ra đi. Wow I originally only intended to have one Notes post and now I’m at part 3.