
‘Story Of Your Life’ Is Not A Time-Travel Story - barry-cotter
https://www.gwern.net/Story%20Of%20Your%20Life
======
mrob
"Story of Your Life" is horror, about a memetic virus that turns humans into
p-zombies. The aliens are infected, and following the meme they infect the
main character, who goes on to infect others. Consciousness is impossible
unless remembering the future is more difficult than remembering the past,
because remembering the future depends on calculations on the state of the
entire universe instead of just your own brain, which implies that the
psychedelic experience of "everything is one" is literally true. Louise is not
human and she is an existential threat to humanity.

The story of the remaining humans fighting back would be much more
interesting. How can you defeat an enemy where learning too much about it
makes you automatically lose? I read a story with a similar concept:
[https://archiveofourown.org/works/6178036](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6178036)

~~~
jerf
"The story of the remaining humans fighting back would be much more
interesting. How can you defeat an enemy where learning too much about it
makes you automatically lose?"

See the stories under the heading "There Is No Antimemetics Division (2015)":
[http://www.scp-wiki.net/qntm-s-author-page](http://www.scp-wiki.net/qntm-s-
author-page)

It's part of a larger universe, but I _think_ it suffices to point out that in
the larger fictional universe in question, the organization that the website
is told from the point of has ready and established access to drugs called
"amnestics", which can wipe memories in much the same style as the Men in
Black. The rest you can probably work out.

~~~
JadeNB
For what it's worth, 'amnestic' is a real class of drugs
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug-
induced_amnesia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug-induced_amnesia)),
although, as far as I know, they only prevent the formation of _future_
memories, rather than erasing past ones. I've always found it deeply creepy
that I once had a painful surgical procedure in which I _experienced_ the
pain, but I can't _remember_ it.

------
daemonk
I think one of the important points the story tries to make is the way we
perceive/react to the idea of free-will vs destiny is very anthropomorphic
because we have sequential consciousness. The heptapods have simultaneous
consciousness and do not even understand the idea of free-will. They are not
troubled by it because it is a purely different way of perceiving the world.

The subtle difference Ted Chaing tried to get at is that humans think knowing
the future means we are doomed to enact a choreography; but the hetpapods
perceive knowing the future as creating the future.

So maybe in a human's mind, we think of the future as a geographic feature
that we are heading towards. And the inability to change where we go to is
troubling. But in the heptapod's mind, the future is just an abstract concept
they know in their minds, but do not exist yet; and they seek to create it by
acting it out.

~~~
devoply
To me predicting the future is about the implications of abstract ideas
carried out in the world.

I take the idea that we are capable of doing a lot of damage with our
technology. I reason that once we discover the damage we are doing, we usually
do something about it. However, that process of fixing our mistakes is much
slower. So I reason that over time we will do more and more damage, because
our technology is progressing at faster and faster rates. And the fixes will
be implemented slowly. Damage will eventually accumulate and be catastrophic.
After some major catastrophe, say a few hundred million people dead, we will
then slow down introducing technology into the system and be much more
precautious about it. However, even then there will be economists which will
argue their way out of it, saying the damage caused by not growing the economy
is much worse than any sort of damage caused to the environment.

------
onli
I'd invite everyone to actually read the story instead of the linked
interpretation. It does not need it, what happens is pretty straight-forward
and the text gives its interpretation freely away by itself. But knowing those
interpretations destroys the stunt the story is pulling on the reader, it will
destroy your experience of reading it.

Not that I particularly liked it. It is one not particularly exciting history
wrapped around an unrealistic pseudo-physics idea. But I never like those type
of stories – you might.

~~~
Tepix
I preferred the movie over the short story as well. But Ted Chiang has written
excellent other fiction. I loved "Tower of Babylon".

~~~
onli
Too absurd to my liking. I think Murakami is where it ends for me. But
admittedly memorable (which also goes for story of your life) and original.
Tower of Babylon left a lot better impression than Story of your Life, for me.
Maybe they will make a film about that next.

------
jawon
The simultaneity of awareness is not novel, but the acceptance of it, the
refusal to change the future, is, and people are ignoring this authorial
premise and tying themselves into knots to explain it as something else
because it unsettles them.

How could someone know the future and not change it? How could someone let bad
things happen?

In fact, it's actually quite zen. Well, I'm not sure if it is really, but
let's pretend being aware, accepting, and recognising the beauty/rightness in
every moment is zen.

And this ties back to the light path and minimisation. When you have that
awareness of simultaneity maybe all your possible paths/options must naturally
collapse into that beautiful sequence that you have no need or desire to
alter.

Now how this simultaneity of awareness coexists with mortality, well that is a
head scratcher.

~~~
stupidcar
What does "refusal" mean in this context? If there is no such thing as free
will, then you would have no ability to choose whether to change the future or
not, which would make your personal feelings about it irrelevant. Nor would
you be able to choose how you felt about it.

If you believe that you have the ability to influence how to feel/react about
something, then you must also believe you have the ability to influence the
thing itself. Which would make a "zen" attitude negligent.

If you believe that you have no ability to influence either an event or the
way you feel about it, then the idea of trying to respond in a zen way is as
meaningless as trying to influence the event itself.

Now, you might, in fact, respond in a way an outside observer would categorise
as "zen". But, within any personal, self-consistent philosophical system,
wherein there is no free will, then you cannot categorise your reaction as
such or as an "attempt" to do anything.

~~~
lmm
> If you believe that you have no ability to influence either an event or the
> way you feel about it, then the idea of trying to respond in a zen way is as
> meaningless as trying to influence the event itself.

The part about performative language counters this objection. Yes, attempting
to respond with equamnity - and succeeding, or failing - is all part of the
script. But the performance of it is the thing itself.

~~~
dsacco
I think the commenter's point is that it isn't enough for one to simply choose
not to alter the future once they are aware of it. If they have the ability
but do not exercise the ability, you've still introduced a logical
contradiction.

From that perspective, framing action as "performative" is at best hand-wavy.
You can reduce the claim to, "An individual can know the future without
creating a paradox by choosing not to alter it." But you either have the
ability to make decisions or you don't; you can't solve the paradox by
introducing a phenomenon that _in effect_ surrenders choice while holding on
to the ability to make a choice.

That, like every argument of compatibilism I've seen, attempts to "have one's
cake and eat it too" in an incoherent manner. When you reduce the dressings
down to the base premises and conclusion, it's a matter of redefining
terminology for a semantical victory. That's exactly like the sort of thing
Wittgenstein used to criticize, because the conclusions aren't _meaningful_.

What would it actually _mean_ for someone to somehow have the ability to know
the future with certainty, while also retaining the ability to change the
future? The ability to express that idea grammatically and to create a
compelling narrative revolving around it doesn't make it logically coherent.
Simply having the ability in principle means that there is a logical paradox.

That said, I deeply enjoyed the story. I just interpreted it as a story about
humans being exposed to the reality of determinism and the process of coming
to peace with it over generations, starting with Louise.

~~~
lmm
> That, like every argument of compatibilism I've seen, attempts to "have
> one's cake and eat it too" in an incoherent manner. When you reduce the
> dressings down to the base premises and conclusion, it's a matter of
> redefining terminology for a semantical victory. That's exactly like the
> sort of thing Wittgenstein used to criticize, because the conclusions aren't
> meaningful.

> What would it actually mean for someone to somehow have the ability to know
> the future with certainty, while also retaining the ability to change the
> future? The ability to express that idea grammatically and to create a
> compelling narrative revolving around it doesn't make it logically coherent.
> Simply having the ability in principle means that there is a logical
> paradox.

I've never understood the non-compatibilist view. The laws of physics are
mechanistic almost by definition; the only question is whether they are
deterministic or randomized, but the idea that one's decisions could be partly
random doesn't seem to make them any more consciously controlled than if
they're deterministic.

The thing that I've always found incoherent is the very idea of "free will".
What would it actually _mean_ to have free will? How could we distinguish
between someone who has it and someone who doesn't?

The closest I can get to it while remaining coherent is the idea that there's
some pattern that's "me", and that to the extent to which this pattern is
causally entangled with events, I'm exerting my will on those events. Knowing
the future wouldn't change that.

------
the_af
I'm puzzled by this article. Do people usually misinterpret this short story
as being about time travel? I can see people thinking the movie might be about
time travel of a sort, since everything is less explained and more "emotional"
in it, but the short story is pretty clear about what it's about. We never see
any sort of time travel in it. Instead, the protagonist painstakingly explains
the different theories of perception of time.

~~~
avar
Characters in the story don't physically travel through time like in The
Terminator, but they have some sort of precognition via information being
passed from the future via some unexplained mechanism.

So yes, it is a time travel story, information being relayed to you from the
future is information traveling through time.

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
It's all word play and there's no meaning in debating about a concept which
itself has multiple interpretations.

You're saying it's "travel" because information travels through time.

But a lot of other people relate "Travel" with humans, meaning it's the human
that travels through time.

In fact, most people when they hear about "travel" think of human as its
subject, not non-human objects like information.

If you stretch it that far, basically any story with flashbacks is time
travel, because information travels to present from the past.

------
taejo
I would recommend to watch _Arrival_ _before_ reading _Story of Your Life_ and
this post: I think that _Story of Your Life_ contains spoilers for _Arrival_
which aren't nearly as spoilery the other way around. I found _Arrival_ more
emotionally touching, and _Story of Your Life_ more scientifically
interesting, so both are worth while.

------
avar
[Book & movie spoilers galore]

As this article points out, referring to Louise being able to see the future
in the book:

    
    
        > "she is like an actor following a script, engaged in a
        > self-fulfilling prophecy, taking precisely the actions
        > necessary to bring about the future she sees. A
        > fictional example of this would be Paul Atreides in
        > Dune Messiah, whose prescience allows him to see
        > visions of the present and act despite being blind -
        > but only as long as he executes the actions which
        > bring about the vision, thereby keeping the visions
        > reflective of reality."
    

However, in the book her daughter dies in a climbing accident, not from
disease. The underlying point of the book as I read it is that free will
doesn't exist and we're all just helpless pawns doomed to play out the
inevitable.

Reportedly Hollywood didn't like that interpretation, so instead her daughter
dies from disease, so the movie doesn't have to explain why Louise can't just
tell her daughter "JUST DON'T EVER GO CLIMBING YOU'LL DIE I CAN SEE THE
GODDAMN FUTURE!".

I think as a result the movie really makes no sense. Seeing the future can
really only make sense if events are either determinate or you can't or are
unwilling to change them. Otherwise you wouldn't know what future you're
seeing or how your actions would impact the future.

In a universe where you can alter the future her vision of General Shang at
the end of the movie doesn't make any sense. How can she see what General
Shang told her in the future, if the only reason he told her is because of
information Shang sent to her from the future as a result of her current
actions, which are only possible due to information Shang sent her from the
future?

In the book it's not as if Louise sees a way to save all humanity and has to
make the hard choice to follow that path like Paul Atreides in Dune. She just
sees things pertaining to her family life, in particular that her daughter
eventually dies in an entirely preventable climbing accident.

So there you go, a movie that really makes no sense, although they had the
good sense to plaster over the more obvious plot hole with her daughter now
that free will is a thing by making her die from an incurable disease instead.

~~~
the_af
> _The underlying point of the book as I read it is that free will doesn 't
> exist_

I thought this was only in the Heptapod non-sequential point of view. Doesn't
Louise say something to the effect of "if you think like a Heptapod, you see
everything at once but don't have free will; if you think sequentially, like a
human, you have free will but can't know everything at once. They are
complementary points of view"? (or something like that, not an exact quote).

~~~
avar
The money quote from the book is:

    
    
        > [...] What made it possible for me to exercise
        > freedom of choice also made it impossible for me
        > to know the future. Conversely, now that I know
        > the future, I would never act contrary to that
        > future, including telling others what I know.
    

I.e. her situation is completely analogous to Paul Atreides in Dune. She can
see the future, she can change events, but if she ever did she couldn't see
the future anymore. So she throws her daughter under the metaphorical bus to
retain her powers.

I think it's a rather bleak story, "woman can see future events, prefers to
live out the spoiler version of her life rather than changing anything and
being surprised", but whatever, at least it's internally consistent.

What I'm pointing out is that the storyline of the movie makes absolutely no
sense, because there she can see the future _and_ is able to change events
based on that information, not lose her seeing powers, and seemingly create
time loops where people in the future only did certain things because she did
them in the present, based on information they gave her in the future because
she did that!

The movie tries to evade this problem with a slight of hand. They change the
circumstances of her daughter's death to be inevetable, otherwise the audience
would be up in arms at the obvious contradiction that she can change the
future based on seeing what General Shang is going to do, but somehow can't
tell her daughter not to take up climbing as a hobby.

~~~
jbigelow76
_I think it 's a rather bleak story, "woman can see future events, prefers to
live out the spoiler version of her life rather than changing anything and
being surprised", but whatever, at least it's internally consistent._

In theory Louise could have told her daughter not go climbing because she can
see the future and knows her daughter would die but that would probably result
in:

1\. Mom getting written off as bat shit crazy and ignored.

2\. Teens and young adults being teens and young adults tend to shrug off
warnings and advice of their parents and she would have died anyway.

~~~
avar

        > Mom getting written off as bat shit crazy and ignored.
    

Yeah let's write off mom, the premier expert in xenolinguistics on the planet
when she tells you the aliens taught her to see the future. She doesn't even
try.

    
    
        > Teens and young adults being teens and young adults
    

Her daughter dies at 25. She's old enough that Louise could have not only
explained this to her, but fully taught her Heptopod B so she could see it for
herself.

------
gregpilling
Today I learned I am a heptopod apparently. I have ideas quite often that I
find hard to write out in sentences, so I end up doing a pen sketch/drawing
thing with many colors and stick figure drawings with one or two words beside
it.

It is usually when I am trying to think through, or explain to someone else, a
concept that has many many variables and the ways that they interact. The
current "thought" on my desk has 8 panels, with individual sketch things and 4
colors.

Surely I am not the only one who does this? How else can you explain
complicated things without writing a whole book?

"I found myself in a meditative state, contemplating the way in which premises
and conclusions were interchangeable. There was no direction inherent in the
way propositions were connected, no train of thought moving along a particular
route; all the components in an act of reasoning were equally powerful, all
having identical precedence…Looking at a sentence like this one, I understood
why the heptapods had evolved a semasiographic writing system like Heptapod B;
it was better suited for a species with a simultaneous mode of consciousness.
For them, speech was a bottleneck because it required that one word follow
another sequentially. With writing, on the other hand, every mark on a page
was visible simultaneously. Why constrain writing with a glottographic
straitjacket, demanding that it be just as sequential as speech? It would
never occur to them. Semasiographic writing naturally took advantage of the
page’s two-dimensionality; instead of doling out morphemes one at a time, it
offered an entire page full of them all at once."

~~~
wwarren
Can you upload a photo of one of your drawings? Sounds super interesting

~~~
dwringer
It's just a black circle with splotches on it.

------
bwooceli
My take on the story was that learning this language changed how she perceived
reality, not that there was anything to do with time travel. I imagined she
would only be able to think "forward" in time up to the point that she already
existed...

------
shalmanese
To me, it was a story about purpose. In America, there's a strong throughline
embedded in the culture that purpose arises from decisions. The entire
foundational myth of the American Dream is that anyone, by making the right
decisions, can achieve any station in life (and consequently, if you don't
achieve the right station, the cause must come from decisions you made).

Chiang's story was an exploration of a more Eastern mode of thought in which
purpose is derived more from participation. That we are all part of one large
tapestry of life and that it is the privilege of participating, not the end
outcome of the participation that gives purpose to life.

Louise is placed in a circumstance where these two values come into conflict
and, crucially, is given a choice. The crux is that she is given the choice to
not have her child and prevent all of the painful memories but also the
understanding that the painful memories are a part of the beauty of living
life.

The variational physics stuff is all a frame to wrap around these concepts,
finding resonance between the idea that there are always two ways of encoding
a problem in physics and the reframing of philosophy that comes from
encountering an alien culture.

------
stared
I like to see Ted Chiang's writing ("Story of Your Life", "The Merchant and
the Alchemist’s Gate" and "What's Expected Of Us") as "free will as a
perspective", rather than anything objectively existing (or not existing). And
secondarily - "free will vs knowing future as a trade-off", not unlike
Lagrangian vs Netwonian mechanics, or as rotating space and time in Special
Relativity.

------
skc
I honestly don't know of anyone that has read the story and ended up
interpreting it as a time-travel story.

------
twoodfin
I know I should have seen _Arrival_ already, and I am sure I once read or
heard that "Story of Your Life" was the basis for the film, but damned if I
didn't get halfway through the very spoilery discussion here in the comments
without realizing just _what_ I was being spoiled on.

In case there's anyone else out there that, like me: Reads hn comments first
to determine if the article is worthwhile, and doesn't really mind being
spoiled on the plot of books, but _hates_ being spoiled on the plot of films,
beware!

~~~
fusiongyro
I saw the movie yesterday and I would say the total sensory experience of the
film is worth a lot more than just the plot! Still see it, it's really great
even knowing what will happen. You might even get a more authentic experience,
per the discussion here...

------
SFJulie
This article may scratch the point that this article b talking of
predestination is basically talking about religion and free will.

And that maybe predestination is pretty acausal, thus posing a strong problem
with science.

So I see it as an article trying to say that the story is under the cover of
very scientific words trying like zelazny, hubbard and van vogt to open a new
era of mystical science.

------
mcguire
Time is what prevents everything from happening at once in the same way space
prevents everything from happening in Cambridge.

------
throwaway7645
This book has a lot of really good stories.

------
shaqbert
Don't overanalyze it. It just happens to be excellent science _fiction_.

~~~
wdrust
(haven't read yet) What do you mean don't over-analyze it, that's the good
part!

