The Nebula Award is the highest honor for science fiction. "The Story of Your Life" is the work of a Chinese-American Ted Chiang. Although it was written ten years ago, it is always exciting to read this short story again.
Free will, time, foreknowledge. These are the most fascinating keywords of science fiction subjects, and these elements are expressed incisively and delicately in "Story of Your Life", which can be said to make people's three views re-baptized.
The number of words in the novel is not long, and it is mainly about the story that the advanced aliens came to the earth, and human beings researched these advanced aliens (heptapods), so that human beings evolved. The core of the novel can actually be summed up in one sentence: language affects people's thinking patterns, which in turn affects the way people perceive the world.
Key words: After watching
This novel from 2005 was finally made into the film "Arrival" in 2016, although the film could not go deep into the essence of the language system and the thinking of some philosophical issues. However, in terms of artistic conception, the expression is penetrating. The language of the heptapod barrel adopts the Chinese ink style, and the ink splashing effect of a circle is very freehand. Friends who like science fiction, the movie "Arrival" is not to be missed.
The novel uses a lot of words to explain linguistics and analysis. Of course, the movie can't talk about it like this. The movie contains a lot of dramatic conflicts, especially the last part of "black" China. On the surface, China is rendered as much as Russia. The super military power to follow! But deep down, China is a self-willed child, much like the China that Americans see now. No resources are shared, no information is made public. In the end, it's up to the United States to persuade our General Shang not to start a war (Koko...). Some people will think that it is really good to raise China so high, and some people will think that it is really good to shoot China so much. . .
Audiences who love novels will naturally have a lot of complaints after watching the movie. For example, the heroine learns heptapod language and finally becomes a "quick", which goes against the original author's ultimate meaning. The novel is that the heroine slowly passes through an alliance The sharing of resources, hard study and then slowly learned the language system of the heptapod, and because the movie needs to increase the dramatic conflict, the heroine and the melon eaters are divided into two groups, one is the group of peaceful coexistence with aliens, the other is Do things. So the heroine could only find the heptapods alone, and the heptapods personally found a private car to meet the heroine, and taught the heroine exclusive secrets to learn the language of the heptapods in depth.
But the movie does a good job of it, aesthetically, ambience. The alien spaceship in the novel Heptapod is actually very small, so only a few people can only visit the earth by aliens, but the film, as a visual art, turns the spaceship into an installation art, and the oriental pebbles visit all over the world, so " Arrival" posters attracted many audiences when they were around the world.
In terms of the performance of the heptapod language and characters, the novel does not specifically describe the expression form of the heptapod language, which makes every reader have a reverie of the heptapod language in their hearts. Freehand.
In general, because the novel is specifically to elaborate a philosophical idea and a topic of discussion about language thinking, there are not many big conflict scenes in the movie. There are almost no special effects explosions, and no heptapods fighting the Chinese army in the South China Sea (the trailer is deceiving...).
Key words: Free Will
Since we mentioned three elements of science fiction, let's start from the three elements to talk about this novel. About free will is actually choice, we choose our own decisions according to our own will, thus affecting what happens next. The heroine of the novel is a linguist who is sent to study the language of aliens (heptapods). The novel gives a very simple example, the way humans understand the world, is causality. That is to make a choice first, the choice affects the development of the situation, and the development of the situation leads to the result.
The way heptapods understand the world is teleology, what is teleology, we all know that light also has a path, and the path of the light source movement will choose the fastest path to reach the destination according to physics. A beam of light is shot from air into water, and the beam will be refracted in the water because the light itself chooses a way to reach its destination with the least energy consumption. Heptapod's language thinking mode Formally light mode of thinking, they will abandon the so-called causality, they choose the physical mode of thinking Heptapod's language system is divided into written and spoken language, but these two are separate, and human's Language system Oral language and text are one. That is to say, human's oral language is from A to B, and the meaning is expressed, and the text mode is the same, A to B, and finished.
Heptapod believes that spoken language and writing do not need to be used in the same way of expression, so they separate the thinking mode of writing as a teleology. mode of thinking. Just starting from the beginning, you can know which path takes the shortest time, so the text expression of the heptapod has the ability to predict the future. The text system of the heptapod can see the future.
There will be a refutation here, since I can see the future, then I will use my behavior to refute the future I see, so the future will not happen?
This is also the question raised by humans in the novel, since the heptapod barrel Being able to see the future means that it is impossible for them to have free consciousness. This raises a philosophical question. What is free will? If we say that no matter how we choose, the result we end up with is the same, then we will be stupid. Do you feel that you have a sense of freedom?
This is the so-called fatalism - if artificial intelligence is developed in the future, the robot feels that it can have its own choices, but these are the codes that humans have given him ABCE choices, no matter how the robot chooses , the end result is the same, then in the robot perspective, they are free-conscious but in the human perspective the robot is not free-conscious. Of course, this is a science fiction, so free will and seeing the future has always been used by people topic of discussion.
Keywords: Time
novels mainly have two timelines. The heroine's study of the language of the heptapod is one timeline, and the other is the heroine's future.
That is to say, after the heroine slowly learns the language system of the heptapod, she develops her own thinking and can see her own future. I think there is a concept that is particularly interesting. It is also a substance. Humans and various things that move in time have their own motion trajectories, which can be calculated. Humans have not yet learned the ability to see the future time, and the heptapod can be based on unique characters. Language sees itself in the contours of the river of time.
Key words: precognition The level of civilization and technology in the heptapods in the
novel is much higher than that of humans, and according to the background of the novel, when humans and heptapods first appeared in the universe, the time is similar, but humans follow the consciousness of freedom, Developed with a causal way of thinking, while the heptapod gave up the so-called free consciousness and developed with a teleological way of thinking. So humans and heptapods embarked on two completely different development paths. Therefore, the way humans perceive time is linear. Humans can recall the past, perceive the present, but cannot experience the future and can only speculate on the future. For example, they decide to drop a cup, and then the cup shatters.
And the way heptapod perceives time is simultaneity, purpose, past, present and future, has been like a picture in the mind of heptapod, what heptapod will do next is to put this time It is drawn one by one.
After learning the language of heptapods, the heroine perceives that she has a daughter in the future, and her daughter died in an accident at the age of 25, so she has the name of the novel "Story of Your Life", because the heroine can see the time Zhihe, see his own life, and then see his daughter's life, 25 years from birth to death, bit by bit, slowly emerge in the heroine's mind.
What a sad ending this is. But the novel is particularly touching at the end. The heroine can see her future and her husband meet at the dance party, date and dance together, discuss whether to make BABY, and finally have a daughter. Even though the heroine knew she could refuse, she chose to accept it, accepted her husband's invitation, and accepted to give birth to a daughter together.
This is the story of a lifetime. The story of your life.
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