Here's why the ending to Arrival (2016) makes no sense

[@mikesinistar8834]

I think you are misunderstanding the way she is living her life after learning the alien language. she isn't making choices, she has already made those choices and is living future past and present all at once like dr. Manhattan

[@FilmHerald]

Louise in Arrival retroactively uses her knowledge/experience of the future to "change" the past. For example, her husband leaves her when she tells him that their daughter will have a short life but chose to have the daughter anyway. In short this isn't strictly possible because it creates paradoxes (like the General problem I highlighted), but it shows that she can make choices, NEW choices, not choices she already made. If she uses knowledge of the future to her advantage, AND the future is certain, the paradigm breaks down. So either she has free will and her timeline does NOT have a certain future, or she has no free will, and the future IS certain. After heavily going over "Stories of your Life" I concluded the latter as it was quite explicit in the source material that the future is certain in Louise's universe. In Arrival it was ambiguous at best. It's possible that the screenwriter(s) chose the former and just didn't reveal it to the audience, but that would have been pretty dishonest considering the way they framed the scenes. I understand that Louise experiences time simultaneously and that she has already "made" these choices, but the existence of a certain future supplants her capacity to have made those choices. Her choices, the ones she's making or the ones she's already made, are not choices at all, though I suppose it depends on how you define free will. I defined it as follows: "free will is the capacity to make choices in which the outcome has not been determined by past events". This is at odds with determinism. I left this out of the video because it's not easily digestible unless you feel like sitting down for a few weeks to think about it (which is what I did). If you want to follow that train of logic further I would suggest the following two wiki pages: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism

[@coreyhoward4397]

Film Herald I think that argument either way is kinda hard to make because the fact that were watching a movie with particular sequences that are chosen to be shown or not shown and also that an existence in which you live your whole lifespan simultaneously is too complicated a process to show in a film if that is what happens.

[@ThePoint6]

Film Herald , just like with what Corey Howard just said. Plus Its all about the 5th dimension, those beings exist and communicate in a 5th dimensional plane. Just like when they said they will need humans help many years into the future. Adams character doesnt get the luxury of horizontal free will since everything plays out all at the same time, free will i suppose is thrown out the window. Higher dimensions are too complicated to try to show on screen. Best way the screenwriters can interpret it. P.s. i could just be telling you the same thing you probably already heard, just said differently, great video nonetheless

[@rodrigoborges3876]

This is where the novel and the filme diverge a lot. Louise making a "choice" here was a deliberate change by the screenwriter who adapted the novel "Story of Your Life" which the movie is based on. They actually talked about it in an interview. The novel's original message was all about accepting the inevitable, after all, if we know the future, the future is already written and unchangeable, but Eric Heisserer, the screewriter, said he didn't like this and wanted the film's message to be about choice. The novel's original idea did create a causal loop, however, causal loops are not really paradoxes (even though they are sometimes referred to as a predestination paradox), since they do not break our - or even the heptapods' - understanding of time

[@FilmHerald]

After making this video I also found that interview, but as a result the film portrays this weird mix of determinism and choice which are at odds with each other. I found this exceptionally frustrating because, as I stated in previous comments, the film consistently only shows one future. If she has choice we should expect to see several different futures. Can you elaborate on that second point? Many people here keep saying that this isn't paradox but, I ask again: whose idea was it to call the general? Even if one could see time simultaneously it's still a problem. How did the general experience this in the past if Louise needed to see the future in order to get the idea?

[@ThadiusMeyers]

I don't really see the point you are trying to make here. The movie wasn't really about being able to see the future and make loops back to the past - it's about seeing everything at once. Instead of looking at time as a line -------------- she now sees time as a dot • she sees her whole life both past present and future in one singular frame and experiences it as such. Her actions in the future affect those in her past and vice versa. Everything may seem predetermined for her but in actuality it's only like that because she's already made those choices. Once she unlocks the heptapod language, she instantly feels every choice and decision she's made throughout time. And that gives her the most freedom I think because she gets to live through her happiest moments multiple times and use knowledge that presents itself in other moments of time whenever she wants.

[@randyspears9827]

I agree with you. There has to become a moment in her timeline in which she gains the ability to see her whole life. I do believe she still has free will, but chooses to make the same decisions because she accepts the continuum of her life.

[@thatotherguy8138]

Agreed; the movie seems to be saying "When you make the decisions in your life is irrelevant. The decisions are made, and you live with the consequences." Which is entirely antithetical to the way we understand time as it negates the Cause-Effect paradigm that we live in. I can't decide now that I'm going to get on an earlier flight in 2028 because I can't see what's happening in 2028. Similarly, I can't decide today that because I love my daughter, I want to marry my wife 18 years ago because I married my wife 18 years ago, and if I didn't marry her I wouldn't have the daughter I love. But the movie proposes that when you start to think like the Heptapods, you CAN make those kinds of decisions because you will see everything forward and backward.

[@timothyrockwell5742]

Another for this comment. I was going to make a comment as well, but you hit it on the nose here. I wish he made bullet points of these "logical inconsistances" because I don't understand them.

[@MyMrawsome]

Its okay guys she has galaxy brain

[@Sebax]

You and the 197 people who liked your comment know nothing about logic. Look up the bootstrap paradox.

[@vg5028]

you're looking at time too linearly. When you can access all of time (in your life) together, there will be no paradoxes because the typical arguments of "what came first" are inconsequential.

[@Siegberg91]

In that case if everything happens and will happen then there is no Point at all things happen at the same time no choices are made just paths without meaning. I choice to not do something and it still happens because i choose to do it

[@posadistpossum]

@@Siegberg91 Yeah, that's the reason her husband leaves her in the movie, cause he can't come to terms with that being existence

[@group555_]

I think it's more that she nade every decision and experienced everything in her life in one single moment (when she understood the lamguage). Time works differently for her but from an outside perspective it still looks normal. She isn't going through life, she both married and divorced at the same moment. However to the husband time is still normal, such to him it looks as if she just looks into the future. There is still free will.

[@midas4057]

If you experienced everything simultaneously then you would cease to process any information you get and everything would be inconsequential. Humans would ultimately be devoid of any feeling and lack any awareness.

[@MarekHekselman]

its basic metaphysics, the object cant be itself reason to be, its like being ur own parent

[@parishilton1376]

Amy Adams not having an Oscar is honestly a crime. My favorite movie of 2016 was Nocturnal Animals, which she was also great in.

[@SUHLESTlAL]

Nocturnal Animals was GREAT!

[@diiasze3743]

didnt suiced squad get a oscar?!!! hahahah

[@robbiem9817]

+ze diias your talking about that as though an Oscar makes Suicide Squad is better, they got it for make-up which to be fair was pretty solid but Arrival is overall better in every way

[@airsir9559]

They earned that oscar. The makeup effects in that film were phenomenal.

[@Nimbereth]

Same here. Jake was killing that year.

[@dragonoidcollosus]

The "time paradox" you mentioned in the beginning is called the "bootstrap paradox" and it's actually a lot older than you think. Also, the second part you mentioned can also be called the "predestination paradox," which basically states that everything is predetermined to happen, and that there is no way to change it, even if time travel is used (to an extent).

[@josawesome1]

TDC-StatX Indeed, I believe it was created by Heinlein (or at least popularized by him) considering his novella "By His Bootstraps" and his short Story "All You Zombies" which was made into the film "Predestination"

[@shelbzilla]

I think Predestination might make Film Herald's brain explode lol but I'd definitely like to see more sci fi analysis from him

[@skepticalfaith5201]

The Translator I was going to mention that story too. I hadn't heard about Predestination. Now, I'll have to go find it.

[@BigZ7337]

You made so many wrong leaps of logic in this video. In the short story, it's all about deterministic destiny, in fact her daughter's death was from a mountain climbing (or something like that) accident, something that the mother would be able to change, but can't. For Arrival, the script writer changed how the time powers worked, and to me it is not deterministic. I viewed the ending scenes to be her coming into her power, she uses it to look into a possible future where she wrote a book about deciphering the Heptapod language to help her increase her power. Then she looked into a possible future where the Chinese general gave her all that information so she could use it in the present. Also, with her daughter, they changed her death to some sort of incurable disease. I assumed that there's something genetically wrong with Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, so that if they reproduce the child will have that disease. There is no possible future with them where their child will live. However, she decides that all of the happy moments with that wonderful short lived child is worth the pain. To me, that made the ending even more powerful, as the future is not deterministic. The Heptapods searched their future, and found that many years later they would need humanity's help, but without the gift of their language bringing humanity together, perhaps humanity would be extinguished. Amy Adams searched her future and found all of the horrible and beautiful moments that would come from their child, and chose to marry Jeremy Renner and give birth to that amazing child in spite of the heartbreaking tragedy that it would bring. People look back at their lives, and think about what they would change if they could, but when someone can look into the future and change the present, it's incredibly interesting to examine what you would and wouldn't change.

[@FilmHerald]

For a detailed reply see the pinned comment. To address your specific points: -It's very possible that the screenwriters chose a nondeterministic universe but I personally don't think that's the case because they only ever show one future. They don't show Louise looking at possible futures that could come about by specific actions she makes. Again it's possible but at the very least it would be dishonest. -It's certainly possible for two people carrying a recessive genetic disease to have a child that isn't homozygous. If the film is set in a deterministic universe there would be many possible futures in which they have a healthy child. -I agree that, if the film is nondeterministic, it would be an incredibly powerful ending, which for me was equally disappointing when I came to the conclusion that Louise lives in a deterministic universe.

[@wheelsndealz]

Nice point. I was going to say something similar. That if you realize that the life/time that we are currently watching isn't the only one then you could reasonably assume that the heptapods just chose this specific timeline to interact with because it's the one that would lead to the desired outcome. It's still kinda deterministic because each timeline would be set based on what has already happened and what will happen existing simultaneously. It's like reading a story and being able to skip ahead. But also time being a library where every possible outcome and story exists and can be read and travelled to by the heptapods.

[@bowserjjumetroid3645]

@@FilmHerald Where's the "pinned comment"? It ain't pinned anymore.

[@Nuclearburrit0]

@@FilmHerald It could be that she can only see a single future but that the future she sees isn't the only one that can happen.

[@xezevahc]

She's not looking into possible futures she is living her life simultaneously throughout her lifetime. She is forever present. There is no past or future that needs to be changed because she lives those constantly. She wrote the book because they needed humanity to have the abilities the language brings. She wasn't looking for more power. You don't get more power using the ability, you get more fluent in your ability to use said language but that's it. She can't "change" anything because that would imply there was a different choice to be made when there isn't. Your choice immediately becomes the choice once you've chosen it and that's what you're experiencing. Because you're present in that choice at all times.

[@frenchcoupon3391]

I’m in minority but Contact is a much more universal and exciting movie. I feel like Arrival it’s too artsy and intimate for its own good. What excited me was the Aliens, trial and error with communicating with them, the stress and tension on the scientists etc. The focus on the women’s private life was not interesting for me - it does not hold a candle against Jodie Fosters character story (but the twist was great). The ending was nice, but nothing revolutionary.

[@aphexdjinn]

It doesnt seem like a paradox in the movie, since time isnt liniar and to her everything just happens all the time

[@israelnoletto]

aphex cringe You did get the point! Congrats

[@Tyulenin]

A human doesn't have a 4 dimensional brain, so no matter how well you understand the alien language, you wouldn't be able to change your 3D brain into a 4D one, that's some major rewiring, that will most likely lead to death. You can't perceive the present, just because of the permanent delay in the work of the brain, and the perception of the past is simply a "recording" of what the brain left there for future use, and your brain cannot store the memory of the future, because you in the future and you in the past are not made of the same materials - there is no connection between you two except an imaginary one.

[@mysteriesbroadcastingnetwo8648]

1) The theme of determinism in the movie deals with Benjamin Lee Whorf's theory. According to him, language determines how you think. On the other hand, we have Edward Sapir's theory. According to him, language creates conditions on how you think. 2) The time paradox is a real paradox for us, humans, because we process time as a linear dimension, but for the heptapods, time is not linear, but circular, so there's not paradox at all for them. Since she's beginning to think and dream in their language, she becomes able to to see the future and this is how she foresees the future dialogue with the Chinese general. Nobody inserts in her mind the idea of calling the Chinese general. She just sees the future because she already understands the heptapod's language. CONCLUSION: The final of the movie MAKES ABSOLUTE SENSE.

[@stephenrice2063]

At last! A linguist--or at least someone who understands the Whorf-Sapir reference. Learning the Heptapod language produces Whorfian effects that free her from time-bound thinking--very strong Whorfianism, beyond anything I've ever heard of in an actual linguist, but still... So she can take in her timeline not as a whole--that would be too much to handle--but in episodes, and she can see the choices she will (from a time-bound perspective) freely make, and goes on to make them freely, because only coercion would lead her to deviate from her free will. (I'm theologically Arminian, and I have no problem with the purported determinism here.)

[@orangecaprinun]

@stephenrice2063 I understand what you're saying, but still, there is a number of nonsensical points made in the movie. For example, in one scene towards the ending of the movie, Louise digs through her stuff and pulls out a book that had the heptapods' words printed on it, the question that this scene poses is, how did this book (from the past) have the effects of something that happened only later in Louise's future, like when was it printed? It had to be at some point during Louise's life before she had met the aliens so... what went through her mind to write down something that made absolutely no sense to her at the time. Secondly, the loop of.. life pretty much that the movie creates for Louise is illogical. Meaning, the movie entertains Einstein's theory that time is the 4th dimension. Therefore, similar to how we can move forwards and backwards, up and down, or left and right we can travel back and forth in time. More specifically, each individual can freely travel in their own unique timeline. However, the events that happen in a particular timeline more or less need to follow a linear path so events like birth or childhood naturally happen first so they can not be a result of events that happen later in life like elderhood or death. But the movie fails in that regard, it creates a circle rather than a line, and instead of being able to move back and forth in that timeline, it creates a sequence of events that rely on each other resulting in a neverending loop or a circle, a paradox! To elaborate on that using proof from the actual source material. The beginning of Hannah's life is a result of Louise and Ian getting together, and what is that a result of? It is a result of Ian and Louise having to work together to study the aliens, and how was Louise like when that took place? She was single and a mother to.. dead Hannah. So she works with Ian, they finish their business with the aliens, and then they get married and have Hannah, Louise then tells Ian that Hannah is going to get cancer and die, Ian doesn't like that so he leaves her, Hannah gets cancer and dies, Louise continues to work at the college until the aliens envade, and she has to work with Ian again and then have Hannah again. The thing with this is, everything revolves around Hannah's life, even strangers like the general or the colonel or anybody else. Making anytime before her existence nonexistent even Louise's life before this, let's say, 15 year period. There is no fixing for this movie. Because it is built around the notion that events in life create a domino effect that go around and eventually the last piece (event) hits the first piece of the dominos kick-starting the same chain of events to happen again and again and again... and like I said, the chain of events in the movie revolves solely on Hannah eliminating anything before or after her. Because there is only only loop in the universe of Arrival and it is that one.

[@Skylingale]

@@orangecaprinun Holy fuck you have no idea what you're talking about do you?

[@Ildarioon]

@@orangecaprinun I think you're confused. The book she wrote, she wrote in the future, when she also became the most eminent professor of this new language. Nothing in the movie actually moves back in time. Her life has a linear beginning, middle and end. She perceives all of it at once however. She begins the movie teaching normal languages and starts having memories of the future when confronted with the language.

[@DanielRodriguez-sf4vj]

yeah but that's the thing about determinism, that if she for example, sees that she will become an alchololic in the future, and she stops drinking and doesn't become alchoholic, then she didn't see the future, the real future would be her leaving alchohol. That's why i don't disagree with the movie's ending, because all the choices made are the ones that were needed in order for the future to be fullfilled. Yet that doesn't happen in our universe as you explain very well in the description.

[@matthewcooper4248]

Daniel Rodriguez But then you have to consider the argument that the future is always in motion, so she saw the future that would happen if she hadn’t altered her course of actions. This particular story has a predetermined future because of how the story is written, but if had a few minor changes it could have been the cycle of possible futures.

[@KickenItOldSchool]

Then that means she has no choice and no free will congrats you just proved his point

[@tonidev]

Your central argument is weak - I would argue that only in deterministic universe you can have free will. Because you are free to choose, but you can only choose one thing. Contrasting free will with determinism means that free will is indeterministic and in math we call that random. Would you like random will?

[@Catalyst375]

Except one's own will isn't "random", and contrasting free will with determinism doesn't make it random or "in-deterministic". Free will is universal - every person will be able to choose what to do at any moment, and those choices, either isolated or influential on the lives of others, shape your own life. Which is another point where I think the movie runs into a problem, but I will choose not to go into too much detail, and instead say this: her seeing the future locks anyone she interacts with into that same future, even though those individuals hold no knowledge of the future themselves.

[@danielgrizzlus3950]

you do not understand how determinism works

[@tonidev]

Deterministic is really easy to explain - free will is not easy to define in logical terms.

[@brianmiller7447]

I totally disagree with the idea that she has no choice, she simply can see the future where she makes those choices. This movies version of time doesn't match ours, creating more of a supernatural movie than a paradox. That's just my interpretation.

[@nicolasbascunan4013]

Even the creators said it's a paradox.

[@Mallard942]

Time is deterministic in reality as far as macro events like human life is concerned. The future is set in stone because the past has occurred. That's why the butterfly effect exists, and how we judge probability of future events.

[@disjustice]

As far as I understand it, causality in physics doesn't care about the direction of time. Information about an event can be transmitted backwards in time, even if it is the information transmittal which causes the event to occur, as long as the world line forms a closed timelike curve.

[@Mallard942]

In actual physics, there is no "backward" in time. Time can slow down immensely but not stopped or reversed, time doesn't exactly flow the way you think it does, it's more akin to a volatile chemical reaction than stable liquid.

[@polaroid_people4676]

She has a choice but no choice at the same time. She could make other choices but it would change the future in a way where she would never have the choice to make the choice in the first place. Pretty much meaning everything would constantly be changing.

[@movax20h]

Oh. Boy. You completely missed the entire point of the movie. Wow.

[@bowserjjumetroid3645]

..... Could you elaborate?

[@ZEEYANG]

ya he didnt

[@VeryPeeved]

she doesn't have a choice because her personality and circumstances will inevitably cause her to freely choose to make that decision. we have free will, but given the same exact circumstances and same exact knowledge and same exact capability, we will make the same exact choices, simply because we have no reason to make any other choice.

[@TeraAFK]

A closed time loop object of the bootstrap paradox, an event or object that breaks the causal chain becomes a fixed point or a fact. It no longer needs to obey the rules of causality. It's self consistent and not really an issue. It can also be reasoned that determinism and free will are not exclusive to one another. The choices the person makes of their own desire is subjectively interpreted as free will, but the factors and circumstances that led the person to become a someone who makes that choice are not within their control. I feel that these "flaws" you've pointed out is exactly what the makers had intended for and are part of the story's narrative and intention to explore these ideas. not actually flaws.

[@JoeJoeTheManHoe]

You seem to have overlooked the movie's demonstration of the perception of time, and how originating from a remarkably different language can cause a nonlinear interpretation of your own life. This 'flaw' if was intentionally placed in the movie, and subtly (and quite brilliantly) follows this same theme!!

[@NRF787]

When it comes to determinism, I look at it like this. The future is always a result of what happened in the past, so it accounts for a person or people obtaining knowledge of the future. The future she sees of her and her daughter is one where she had decided to have that future if that makes sense. There was no future where she had her child and didn't know what was going to happen. She always knew that her daughter was going to die, she just didn't realize this until she learned the language which allowed her to access the future, and we as the audience didn't realize this because we weren't given that information until the end. It;s like the show That's so Raven. She sees the future and tries to change it only to realize that the act of trying to change it caused that future to happen. You can't change the future, not because you don't have a choice, but because the future already accounts for all of your choices. I hope that made sense.

[@bubububnever]

1. General Shang told her what to do, because he knew that she needed to hear those words otherwise she wouldn't have called him. He explicitly says that he "Now you know", which implies General Shang is aware Louise needed the information from him in the future, to alter the past. General Shang told her what she needed to do, and how she needed to do it, because she already did it - the only reason she didn't know was because she was experiencing a future memory in a present state of mind.

[@horysmokes3339]

She seemed to have no knowledge of the past in that scene though.

[@moshyura]

Important to note with the calm demeanor of the General at the book release, paired with the fact that by then the heptapod language has spread throughout the world (to the point where it's garnered international attention, granted that insanely expensive looking release party venue)-- the species on screen is no longer human. This film is as much about free will as it is about evolution, as it's heavily reminiscent of Kubrick's conclusion in 2001: A Space Odyssey (how much does that ship look like a giant Monolith?). The General relays his information following what we can infer as the spread of the weapon (it's literally been published and deciphered for the masses), so that, paired both with his serene expression as well as the fact that he's at this stranger's book release in the first place, ends up reeking of intention. He was closing the loop. He was calm because he knew what he was doing. He was staring at her like the Oracle in the Matrix-- a calm parent, lovingly, giving her the instructions to go back and cover their asses. And in using the rules of string theory, 4th/5th dimensional beings (whichever one they're classified as, I always forget) the dominion of things like free will and solipsism become borderline irrelevant. Granted this hypothetical species, the sovereignty of individualism would be broken down by the necessitated nature of each individual's interwoven timelines. There wouldn't be any "falling in love" anymore, no predication of identity upon past vs. present vs. future-- the individual's existence becomes an affect, wholly absolute. It exists and functions wholly within a resolved juncture of time, moving back and forth freely, as you do up and down a sidewalk. So in those final scenes, there's no reason to ascribe your own humanity onto those characters at all. They've attained a symbiotic nature that at best resembles a hivemind, exacting functions that always happened; and as a result, their civilization's course then plots itself towards a direction that people like us literally lack the capacity to understand. Do they have feelings? Probably, but they wouldn't work as ours would. They wouldn't follow the same rules. They would operate with holistic, existential knowledge of their own path, all of the time. I say all of this only because I didn't see your postulated assertion of choice. Once time becomes simultaneously experienced, choice has to be deadened, regardless of a filmmaker's intentions. That's true no matter what flowery language and solipsistic romanticizations Amy Adams makes onscreen (if she makes any, I don't recall), even if they don't commit, the behemoth of what they've created still whispers that truth, towering over them for the people that know. As a result, I never considered it a failure...just figured that it'd go over the heads of literally everyone who watched it. Thank you for making this video, though. You're the only person I've found that's approached the implications of this film's ending empirically, and provided a platform for this discussion (all of the reviewers I found/people I talked to about it after Arrival originally came out didn't acknowledge the logic/scientific theory of the ending whatsoever).

[@xoreign]

It's a common time paradox that had already been discussed way before futurama

[@frostingthebirthdayclown3774]

Paradoxes are by nature not illogical, they are self creating natives to time travel stories

[@davecirlclux]

No. A paradox is illogical and incoherent. If it wasn't incoherent. Then it wouldn't be a paradox

[@Nevyn515]

That’s because you’re viewing time as we do, but the premise of the entire movie is about the perception of time. Basically, humans, including you, see time as linear, while the heptapods view it differently. It’s not to do with time itself, it was more cultural. We have certain cultural opinions about things, while people from other cultures may have other ways of seeing the world, which doesn’t make sense to us. In this case, we have opinions about time, and the aliens, from another culture, have other views on it and other ways of perceiving it. You might as well say Dr Manhattan is paradoxical, because he experiences the past, present and future simultaneously, simply because you don’t. Or that high shelves don’t exist if you’re too short to see them, or far away places don’t exist because you aren’t able to see them. Someone tall, or gets a stepladder, would disagree about the shelves, and someone who lives somewhere else, or travels, or has Google maps, would disagree about your perception of far off places. Long story short, there was no paradox, as it was partly about our limited understanding. Current understanding of a thing doesn’t presuppose that we’re correct, or that we won’t grow or learn, or that ideas and understanding cannot change and grow over what we perceive as time.

[@exoltairior]

My favorite movie from 2016 was Nice Guys.

[@waydanker]

Jaques Montierre when ryan gosling would scream out of fear was my A E S T H E T I C

[@dashman8499]

It’s one of those films I have to watch agin, it was really enjoyable, but I didn’t laugh that much, it was different then I thought

[@jinhunterslay1638]

Arrival basically created its own rule of how time works that defied all logic and the laws of physics....that’s why it’s so confusing Instead of time being linear as we understand it, time is a loop or omnipresent where past, present, future could influence each other. That’s why there are so many circle imagery in the alien language

[@Lord_Sunday]

The problem is you are choosing where to draw the line. The idea that she has no free will is flawed, because the future she sees will always be what she chooses, otherwise she would not have seen it.

[@AnatemaOficial]

I'm pretty sure the chinese guy says something like: something tells me I have to tell you this, meaning he understands how her future seeing works and understands that he is the one who tells her what his wife said before dying, wich is why he does. It's still a paradox, but it's more understandable.

[@calvinbrown6111]

Btw my favourite movie was probably 'Hacksaw ridge' I really loved that movie, the music and Andrew Garfield's acting

[@Ptaku93]

are you an antisemite I mean wow do you even know that it was Mel HACKson who directed it? nice going there you KKK member you must be fun at parties

[@anhonestlawyer5193]

Ptaku93 I is confuse

[@DominikRoost]

I'd argue the movie puts forward an well thought out counter to the determenistic world view. It's the answer to the question, if an all knowing creature exists, would it have free will? She doesn't actually travel time, she experiences it all at once, sees it as whole. Like the circles her life is bend and not linear anymore. The paradox would only occure, if your time is still linear, but you'd have a device that can make you jump to any point on that line.

[@waedjradi]

This gives you the idea that everything is only happening. With that being said, this proves that when someone hurts you - they do not mean it, which leaves us to forgive people. You cannot alter reality. Not that it is going to happen or already happened, but the fact that everything happens right now. This where the term "go with the flow" comes from.. We all play a significant role in this reality. Everyone matters. Even you reading this, right now.

[@benediktzoennchen]

You slightly missed the point. I agree that the movie requires determinism to work with respect to physics. However, Louise does not travel into the future. She just remembers the future like we remember the past. This does not lead to a time paradox if everything will happen like you remember it. The ability to remember the future will influence your decisions such that you will only remember the future that you decide to live. Which is a very strong message. The only thing that seems not so logical is that Louise is surprised about the generals appearing, since she should now in the future that he will appear and therefore she should also capture this in her memories. Regarding to physics Louise has no choice to avoid her future memories since she never want to avoid them. Otherwise the memories would not like they are. So she can "choose" her way of life but it will be the life she don't want to change. She will always remember the future she wants. So the ability to remember the future might improve her life. The film is not so strict in this perspective. In the film she might change things such that her memories and her actual life diverge which is not possible.

[@kevingarrett8403]

I read the short story, and yes, there is NO free will; there is NO choice, but as the book pointed out, it was the act of experiencing the moment in time that made it meaningful, even though you already knew the outcome. It's like riding a roller coaster. You know it is going to take that 100 foot drop before you get on, but its the experience of feeling that drop that makes it meaningful. Also, Christopher Reeves' movie "Somewhere in Time" (1980s) made use of The Futurama Time Paradox FIRST! An old woman gives Christopher Reeves a gold watch at the beginning of the movie and tells him, "Come back to me," and later in the movie, Christopher Reeves goes back in time with the watch that she gave to him, and he gives it to her, just before he is unexpectedly pulled back to his own time. The woman has the watch now (when she is young) and she has to wait for Christopher Reeves to be born (and she is old) before she can give it back to him...but where did the watch come from? That was the question everyone was asking themselves back in the 80s, when the movie came out. See? Same thing.

[@nicktohzyu]

it's possible to FEEL like you have free will whether or not it is really deterministic

[@LouiseEtienne]

What really bugged me about this was that the phrase is delivered in Mandarin, with no subtitles.

[@FilmHerald]

Supposedly his wife's dying words to him were "war does not make winners, only widows"

[@ceebbees12345]

omg, thank god i finally get an answer

[@Durwood71]

I think Douglas Adams explains it best in _Mostly Harmless:_ "Anything that happens, happens. "Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. "Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. "It doesn’t necessarily do it in chronological order, though."

[@WobblesandBean]

Am I the only one that thinks Louise is a horrible person and an even worse mother? To selfishly and deliberately bring a child into existence, knowing that she is going to suffer immensely and die at a very young age, just because she made Louise's life more fulfilled, is nothing short of abhorrent. They act like free will does exist, you can choose to...I dunno, not go along willingly, I guess? But she seems all too happy to make the birth of her doomed daughter happen, and I just find that nine kinds of reprehensible. It's like keeping a miserably sick pet around because you think it's cute, totally ignoring their pain for your immediate benefit.

[@concernedcitizen9101]

I've spent some time reading some of the comments opposing your view and I just don't get it. This is a great bootstrap paradox and it makes for a neat little package that seems to fit together and make sense, but it doesn't (btw, watch predestination, the film is not as good overall but the paradox is imo better executed). If the general tells her about a call he received from her and that call ends the attack, then she would have no way of ever making that call. Non-linear time doesn't make sense. Non-linear time is the same as non-existence. In the movie, the present is changed by the future when Louise receives the information to stop the attack, but that future relies on her having already received that information, thus creating a bootstrap paradox, which doesn't make sense. There is never the first instance of her calling off the attack because her present is reliant on a future that never comes. The ending to arrival doesn't make sense. Change my mind.

[@RedNomster]

You think it's the bootstrap paradox because you're thinking of time as a line instead of a single point in time. The movie DRILLS the circular time concept into the viewers head, so it's interesting seeing so many people treating the situation as if it's not circular time. - "the present is changed by the future when Louise receives the information to stop the attack, but that future relies on her having already received that information, thus creating a bootstrap paradox, which doesn't make sense. There is never the first instance of her calling off the attack because her present is reliant on a future that never comes" The present ISN'T changed by the future. For her, the future IS the present. She's not looking forward into the future to when she talked to the general, she's REMEMBERING the future, the same way you and I can make a decision based off of what we remember in the past. The general changing his mind in the present based off of info from the past (his wifes dying words) is the EXACT SAME as Louise changing his mind in the present based off of info from the future (again, his wifes dying words) His wife always dies, he always receives a phone call, and Louise always tells him his wife's dying words, just as he always tells her his wife's dying words. Why did he? Simple. After being told information that nobody but him knew from the past, he deduced that the information must've come from the future. And considering he's the only one who knows the information in the present, he MUST have been the person who shares that information in the future, with the only other person who proved to know the information in the past - Louise. Again, he thinks he's making a choice, but he's not. There is only 1 timeline, and him "choosing" to tell Louise his secret is simply him uncovering a future that he had yet to see - Louise could see that future as it's already uncovered in her present thanks to her unique comprehension of time given as a gift by the heptapods. The simplest way I can explain it is that she's a spectator for her own life. The same way you and I can watch the movie a second time, the ending is always the same. We're not capable of using end-movie knowledge to change the middle, creating a paradox where the end is now different. But we CAN use end-movie knowledge to understand the middle, and watch as the events unfold with more clarity, which is exactly what Louise does when she makes the call. She's not "choosing" to make the call based off of the end of the movie, she's remembering that she made the call, and remembering what she said, based off of the end of the movie.

[@TopKing63]

Commenting to beckon for your return. Miss the vids.

[@watcherofthewest8597]

Pulp Fiction uses a messed up chronology to tell a better story. The problem with Arrival is the plot and character arcs are directly tied into the idea that the chronology is messed up. Director is awesome. But not in this movie.

[@pointynoodle]

No, you’ve misunderstood the movie. The whole point is that she makes those decisions of her own free will, but because of her perception of time, she sees every choice she’s ever made at once. Literally your “problem” with the movie is the entire point of it.

[@jessicastebbins3075]

You have a very interesting perspective on the time paradox that I agree with after hearing what you've said. However, I disagree with the idea that she had no choice. She knew the future, but chose to experience it anyway. I think it was a beautifully done example of " better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all"

[@FilmHerald]

The reason I came to the conclusion that she had no choice was conjecture from the book Arrival is based on, which makes it very clear that she had no choice. However, several people have pointed out to me that in an interview the director came out and said that in Arrival, Louise can in fact choose, in the vein you describe above. I'm making a follow-up video that will include this updated information and what implications her free will has on the ending. Stay tuned!

[@jessicastebbins3075]

Film Herald thanks for the reply. It's always interesting to me to hear another's perspective. That is, after all, part of the fun of watching these types movies in the first place. :)

[@terror2434]

Another version of this kind of parodox happens in Voyager, where the action caused by you happens before you have done it it's very confusing and just hurts your brain to think about it

[@FilmHerald]

Agreed

[@Rhode.]

I dont know why everyone likes this movie cause I dont. Guess im just dumb

[@tiagotiagot]

The thing we don't see is the alternate timelines that did not have a paradoxical start, but which due to the presence of time-travel mechanics gradually morphed thru possibly a huge number of variations into an bootstrap paradox. If we take in consideration evolutionary mechanics, a self-interacting time-travel has only two possible end states, either it prevents it's own existence, or it becomes an apparent bootstrap paradox, after a possibly nearly infinite number of iterations. Extinction or perfect adaptation to the environment are the only two outcomes of evolution given infinite "time"; any other outcome you can think of would involve an state of flux which cannot be the ultimate outcome as there is always some path in the variation that leads towards one of the two outcomes that will be hit at some point given enough "time".

[@PatternShift]

Closed/stable time loop. Well-trodden trope. The classic example is -All You Zombies- by Heinlein. Dates back at least to “The Clock That Went Backward" in 1881 (Edward Page Mitchell).

[@shelbzilla]

As many people have already said, Arrival is showing Louise "unstuck" in time a la Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. It's a really interesting concept that someone can experience things nonlinearly. As Larry said in the show Numb3rs, "why is it that we remember the past, but not the future?" If you believe the Arrival universe is deterministic, that is your choice to believe that, but that is not necessarily everyone else's position...as Louise being unstuck in time does not necessarily indicate determinism. Also, time paradoxes existed long before Futurama.

[@NickBatinaComposer]

OMGGGGG!! I’ve performed the piece for violin and string quartet(?) in this vid during undergrad! That’s Richter’s On the Nature of Daylight!! It’s a really gorgeous piece to play, super cozy, and lets you go all out with the hyper passion 😂 it is in a key that is really difficult for the violin, very dark, and really makes you focus in on every little thing.

[@melanierugiero1382]

From where it see it, he is kinda right. The point of the video it’s whether she does or not have a choice in how to react to the things that happen to her. Like, she already knows everything, and she has lived it all. So, for example, she knew her daughter was going to die young, and when Ian asked her if she wanted to make a baby, she said yes. That’s what happened for her (in her circular timeline), and what’s gonna happens for us, who see time as linear. So, taking into scout that she was going to have her daughter anyway and that she had already said yes when he asked her, does she really chooses to say yes? Because, for her, that moment has already happened and she knows she said yes. She can’t say no, cause she already said yes. That’s the paradox, that she has no free will, cause everything that happened she has already done it so she can’t change it. She has no free will, cause she has to say yes, cause If she doesn’t then the fact that her daughter is going to die young isn’t there to change her mind, cause it didn’t happened. So, if the sickness of her daughter does not happen, then she would have said yes when Ian asked her, cause the thing that made her change her mind isn’t there any more. So she says yes, and then her daughter dies. And then she says no. That’s how a circular timeline would work if she had the power to decide and change things. But it stays the same, so she doesn’t have a choice. She has to live that way and that’s all. It would be a constant paradox if she has a free will, but it isn’t cause she doesn’t. Overall, I think it is an excellent movie, like 10/10, but we have to take into that consideration. I don’t know how life works for her with all that knowledge and having no choice what to do cause everything I explained before. I think it would be a total nightmare to just live like a robot having to do everything that’s you supposed to have done even though you didn’t do it. But the movie just ends there, so there is no way to know.

[@jessgreen2464]

This movie blew me away, it was so much more emotional than I thought it would be. I loved it to pieces.

[@thisisnotmyname9044]

The only thing that's bullshit here is that you're brain will never rewire to an extent that you would start experiencing every timeline at the same time.

[@Qwerasd]

It's called a bootstrap paradox or causal loop.

[@ThexHaloxMan]

This is my unrequested review of the movie. Cons. Wouldn't the understanding of the future take away from the unpredictableness therefore making her act differently. e.g. butterfly effect. Why wouldn't she tell Jeremy Renner about the cancer and have him help decide the next step (in my eyes she was selfish with that). Not to mention the odds of getting the same child after seeing the future. The marines bombing the space ship was not realistic at all and made it a little too ridiculous for me. After she saw her daughter, and I realized she didn't have one in the present I expected it to be a time thing (not trying to seem pretentious). Asking these questions took me out of the film, and made me apathetic to the characters and overall story arc. It also started dragging a little, and I would assume the aliens would have a better form of communication rather than let the primitives work it out. Pros. (I have few) I enjoyed Jeremy Renner, not to big of an Amy Adams fan. I also thought they did first contact with the reapers was cool, and Denis Villenueve is an impressive director. Overall: overrated for me, and by the 2/3 of the movie was waiting for it to end.

[@gijsvandergiessen1150]

If time is cyclical then there is no paradox. An idea doesn’t need a fixed origin because the idea originates at both the start and finish of the cycle. Just like if you draw a line on a diamond ring (starting at the diamond), you’ll encounter the diamond twice.

[@benz4411]

the general learned heptopod language because louise made a book about and since louise knows heptopod and can see the future (and as its says in the film time is non linear) she can see the past too and so can the general so he saw that she needed to do that so helped her in the future by telling her how to save everything

[@afbennett3038]

I’m confused that so many people disagree with this video. If she was to exist in the future where she learns the general’s phone number then she must’ve already known his number as she’d used it in the past, except when she’s in the future she doesn’t know what the general is talking about and learns it there and then. Knowing the future is just plain impossible as you will inevitably change that future whatever the case. I think it would’ve been better if they’d just given her some cool tech

[@4thplayerdill836]

There is debate if whether or not we actually have freewill. Some say freewill is just an illusion. It might sound silly to think you don't have freewill, but I would suggest looking into these discussions. I found them very interesting. I would recommend a video from CosmicSkeptic's channel. It really got me thinking.

[@fruehling0987]

The key question in my opinion is: When does the movie starts? When I watched it for the first times, I had the impression, the movie started AFTER her daughter died. When I am right, then she would know the father of her daughter, when she would see him "first time" and the hole story would be completely nonsense.

[@solosimone8394]

"Patterson" was a big surprise, have you seen it ? I think it was pretty good , funny and deep at the same time

[@BigZ7337]

I loved Paterson, it's such an understated but absolutely beautiful film. Probably the best lesser known film from 2016.

[@FilmHerald]

I haven't but it looks really good! I'll definitely check it out.

[@JezebelIsHongry]

Not done on Futureama first. It is a standard trope in Science Fiction.

[@orangecaprinun]

I agree with you for the most part. Here are some of my thoughts. In one scene towards the ending of the movie, Louise digs through her stuff and pulls out a book that had the heptapods' words printed on it, the question that this scene poses is, how did this book (from the past) have the effects of something that happened only later in Louise's future, like when was it printed? It had to be at some point during Louise's life before she had met the aliens so... what went through her mind to write down something that made absolutely no sense to her at the time. Another thing is, the loop of.. life pretty much, that the movie creates for Louise is illogical. Meaning, the movie entertains Einstein's theory that time is the 4th dimension. Therefore, similar to how we can move forwards and backwards, up and down, or left and right we can travel back and forth in time. More specifically, each individual can freely travel in their own unique timeline. However, the events that happen in a particular timeline more or less need to follow a linear path so events like birth or childhood naturally happen first so they can not be a result of events that happen later in life like elderhood or death. But the movie fails in that regard, it creates a circle rather than a line, and instead of being able to move back and forth in that timeline, it creates a sequence of events that rely on each other resulting in a neverending loop or a circle, a paradox! To elaborate on that using proof from the actual source material. The beginning of Hannah's life is a result of Louise and Ian getting together, and what is that a result of? It is a result of Ian and Louise having to work together to study the aliens, and how was Louise like when that took place? She was single and a mother to.. dead Hannah. So she works with Ian, they finish their business with the aliens, and then they get married and have Hannah, Louise then tells Ian that Hannah is going to get cancer and die, Ian doesn't like that so he leaves her, Hannah gets cancer and dies, Louise continues to work at the college until the aliens envade, and she has to work with Ian again and then have Hannah again. The thing with this is, everything revolves around Hannah's life, even strangers like the general or the colonel or anybody else. Making anytime before her existence nonexistent even Louise's life before this, let's say, 15 year period. There is no fixing for this movie. Because it is built around the notion that events in life create a domino effect that go around and eventually the last piece (event) hits the first piece of the dominos kick-starting the same chain of events to happen again and again and again... and like I said, the chain of events in the movie revolves solely on Hannah eliminating anything before or after her. Because there is only only loop in the universe of Arrival and it is that one.

[@the_hanged_clown]

problem with this is that the non-existence of free will is not dependent on a deterministic universe. if you truly had free will you would be able to choose what you like and dislike, not just free to act or not act on those desires.

[@pureNaturel]

This bothered me immensly after watching the movie. I remember sitting in the car talking about this particular sequence with my friend. We both came to the same conclusion as you did. A lot of people in the comments don't comprehend what you are talking about. They go on and on about how she sees everything at once. Like that has anything to do with the point you are trying to make. Nice video bro.

[@xherdanrayng1903]

I think even if you know you have no choice in the matter, you can still choose to enjoy your time with your short lived daughter's life... Its just like I know that one day my mum will die, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying the life I have with her company today.

[@Nuclearburrit0]

I would like to point out that Free Will being compatible with Determinism is a real philosophical concept which has largely overtaken the idea that Free Will is somehow exempt from causality. So the world being Deterministic doesn't negate the existence of Free Will in any practical sense, since the kind of Free Will required to do so isn't what is usually being referred to by the term in philosophy

[@andyreacts]

If everything is as it is and couldn't be otherwise that means the finished movie is already on Film so to speak. But even so, we still do go to the cinema and watch it, don't we? And it's thrilling. Even though the movie is as it is and will not be otherwise, therefore there are no real choices, just apparent ones...we don't know these choices yet and so the film feels thrilling nonetheless. And even if there is no free will, life still feels like making choices, right? We all can relate. So in the end you don't know the choice until you see it. This is about the viewer's experience, not the fictional characters in the end. And that can still be a great one. By the way, if you want to listen to an interesting viewpoint regarding these ideas, search on YT for "Darryl Bailey dismantling the fantasy" Take care!

[@calmacda]

First time viewing this channel, didn't watch the recommended video, just went to your channel since it sounded interesting. Came across your video on Arrival, since I saw it, and the way its done leaves lots of room for analysis and interpretation. I'm a tad late to the party with comments, but I do have a contrasting opinion on your analysis of the film. Firstly, I think the portion where you point out the time paradox/logical contradiction is not relevant. You're thinking of the time, in the context of the film, in a more one dimensional way, as opposed to a more dynamic, multidimensional one. One of the things the movie does is connect the language to a simultaneous perception of time. One who has learned and understands the alien language can perceive all of time at once. It essentially extends the capabilities of humans. A time paradox, at least in the sense you provide, can only occur in a world where time is linear. You point out that the future occurs before the past, in the timeline of the film, where the general puts the idea into the protagonists head, who then acts on it. Logically, in our world, this is a complete contradiction. How can the future occur before past, and how can the past be determined by the future? When looking at things from the view of someone who can perceive all of time at once, these boundaries are erased. The past and future occur at once. One does not, cannot, come before the other. There isn't a paradox here, from the view of the protagonist, who perceives the past, present, and future at once. Secondly, and this heavily regards the first point, the comparison to Futurama is simply false. In Futurama, no one perceives all of time at once. In the linear timeline of Futurama, the paradox and logical contradiction is clear. The false comparison, and misinterpretation of time, makes the first half of your video seemingly pointless. Finally, as I mentioned in the first argument, the protagonist experiences all points of time at once. Time is not linear. Your entire argument regarding determinism doesn't hold up. Determinism is based on the notion that time occurs in a linear fashion. Previous events determine future ones, and as a result, free will is an illusion. Your whole argument is based off the notion that the universe is deterministic, when this is, in fact, not true. It can't be. Previous events can't cause future ones, because there is no past, and there is no future. Thank you for reading through my rambling, I anticipate a response. Thank you, and I'll have you know, I did smash that like button. TLDR - Video arguments rely on a linear timeline, when in reality, it is beyond linear. All events occur at once, as opposed to in sequence.

[@johnnyjoestar4473]

ond-ish video, but the time 'paradox' presented in both movies are whats known as a closed loop, in which, for example, someone might do something to save their past self, allowing their past self to do that in the future saving said past self. this loop is also present in harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban

[@orlybabe]

I get how its full of paradoxes, but I dont even understand in the first place how someone could experience the past, present and future all in one go like Amy Adams does in the movie after learning the language. Don’t the choices we make in every moment we live affect the future? How can you see the present and future at once when you haven’t made the choices that determine the future yet? And even if a choice is predetermined, how can you see sth happen when you haven’t done the thing you need to do to make it happen?

[@Dzeltens]

Please make 'makes no sense' a series

[@lovaszaron3138]

Harry Harrison did it first by pointing it out in The Technicolor Time Machine - but the very first instance I know is actually the ancient Chinese tale "Hang-wei the immortal".

[@kavitasundesha533]

Shang's wife's last words, translated into English, were "In war, there are no winners, only widows".

[@globalmovies4918]

Yes! she still would have pick up the glass. Even if she knew she will get in to an accident and die, she still would have gotten into the car, these two would have been very easy choices compared to watching her daughter die a slow painful death, hence that's the CHOICE she was shown making in the film, as it is often said that the child's death is the hardest thing anyone could endure. You are right that she gave her daughter's life more importance than her own pain of losing her BUT she also knew that her husband will leave her if she told him what's going to happen and she did it anyway, causing pain to not just her and her husband but also to her daughter who now thinks that her father left her. I'll be making video of my own on arrival in few weeks, hope you'll check it out :)

[@MivStar]

Arrival definitely is one of my favourite films, it was so emotional and raw ;-; Although I definitely have a few 2016 films I need to catch up on, so we'll have to see! (EDIT: Totally forgot about Nice Guys, loved that film too!)

[@leavealoner]

I think you've understood it wrong and the future shown isn't deterministic at all. The paradox you've mentioned isn't done by futurama alone, it's done by half of all the timetravel shows and films. There's just one thing that most stories with bootstrap paradoxes usually lack, but what Arrival did include: aliens that can see all of time, who influence the plot. The parts of the future we saw MIGHT have been deterministic, but they were also influenced by the aliens and they were shown to be similar to memories. The aliens claimed to need the humans in the future (implying they want to change what they saw) and memories are fallible, untrustworthy and can change/erode over time. The future we saw was always a result of the choices that were made, but the choices that were made were only sometimes the result of the future being shown. Often the future parts we saw happened exactly because the choices were already in the making. Amy Adams character was shown to be alone, of course she would choose for a husband and daughter if she had the chance. The world needed to be saved from irresponsible military tactics, of course she would call the president the moment she knew how. I think that the fact that we only saw short important snippets of her future, her happiest and worst memories of times yet to come, very much implies that all the rest that happened/will happen/will have happened are yet to be decided by her. But before she starts to make a choice, she won't be able to remember what the results are going to be.

[@Excanda]

The movie does not say the future is deterministic as much as that the language gives her a future that will lead to them helping the aliens 3000 years later. She chooses to embrace said future even though knowing the heartbreak it bring as she possibly finds the unification it also brings worth more then her own pain. This movie is more of a self fulfilling prophecy then that the future is completely set. At multiple points it can go wrong, but having seen what it can bring she pushes through to make it into what she saw. The phone call is a circular time paradox yes. That is the only thing in this movie I see as impossible, but maybe at the start the aliens found a way to give the information to Louise and so she created a timeloop that becomes the greatest hurdle in the whole story.

[@xoreign]

You're still under the impression that time is linear, which is not the established setting of this movie for how the Universe works.

[@nviz47]

It could be that multi times in diff timelines she calls him and diff things happen, and in one of those when she talks with him at some point, the convo covers his wife and it comes up. Maybe he just shortens it for her - oh. Just saw the determinism bit.

[@EthalaRide]

I always thought she just went full Slaughter House 5 and became unstuck in time, experienceing everything all the time. And I also figured that in a scene that we don't get to see she tells the general about how she's basically a mental time traveler and needs him to tell her all this information at the gala, because he was playing that WAY too knowingly to have just randomly brought it up. It's not like it's a secret or anything at that point either that she can do this. She wrote books about it and has proof by that point for the general to believe her. The future might be set, but it's only *her* future she's aware of, like it Slaughter House 5, he knew he was going to be assassinated during one of his speeches because that's just how it is, and he still does it (and still exists within his time). Is that a lack of free will? maybe. but it seems like it's more about a higher level of existance than just the matter of choice.

[@shizuwolf]

I think it was the General’s idea to share that information. It couldn’t have been anyone else because they didn’t know who she was. Did she use her ability to see the future to prevent several catastrophes and this information got to the general? Is that why he said “I don’t claim to know how your mind works”? Or was this one instance stuck in his mind for 1.5 years? Thus leading to the moment where he finally meets her in person? I don’t know and I don’t care. Because it doesn’t really matter. It would’ve been unnecessary exposition that left you nothing to think about

[@pljdavies]

specifically The Bootstrap Paradox. And she went to the party knowing he would give her the information she needed, for her (at the party) it has all already happened.

[@ProjectILT]

I don't agree with the "she has no choice/free will" argument. The whole point here is she sees whatever future her choices and personality will lead to. She only saw a future with a cancerous daughter because she at some point chose that path. If she is someone who would decide NOT to have the daughter, then in some weird Schrodinger situation she never would have seen that future to begin with. She will basically never see a future which makes her question her decisions and would have to choose to act differently, but this isn't a lack of free will.

[@deplorablemecoptera3024]

The funny thing is I disagree with you. The story of your life is a better story than arrival. I would re read it in light of your complaints in this video. the paradox is not in the original story as the protagonist can not see the future but rather remembers things in a non linear manner. She isn't a heptapod. The story in the original is remembering the events of the aliens arriving transposed with the story of the life and eventual death of the protagonists daughter. It is a memoir written after both sets of events which is why she can talk about it, but her memories of everything after learning heptapod b are all laid down together rather than chronologically. The heptapods on the other hand are implied to be able to see the future, or more correctly they can see all of their lives at once, and as a result they have no free will, they live performative lives exactly as they are supposed to by the ironclad hand of fate. (Though they seem to have no problem with this) I would argue that the original is more heartfelt but the writing style is difficult until you've read it twice. The story changes from talking about this alien encounter to a more mundane tale of the tragic death of daughter and the grief of the mother seemingly at random and the latter story beats are not chronological. In the end you realize that this is due to the way the protagonist thinks now due to her linguistic awakening. Reading it with this in mind is a completely different experience.

[@Meme033094]

I always took it has her experiencing different possible outcomes of future possibilities and she chooses to choose the time line where she saves the world but also has a daughter and in choosing that future her daughter dies an early death but she rather have chosen that life because in the end the experience and time she has with her daughter was all worth it even though she knew she was gonna die

[@luckymeoy]

but does this undermine the films theory of the non-linear timeline? cause whether we live in a deterministic reality or not, the theory still stands that both the past, present and future happens simultaneous.

[@fm4qy]

I think you are looking at it wrong, in our universe and in our timeline we have only one opportunity to make our choices in life. In essence we will never have free will because all events, although predetermined, will only happen once.

[@VishusCycle]

The biggest plot hole for me: She didn't need to stop the attack, the aliens were leaving anyways. That big dramatic section at the end of the film was for nothing.

[@julianussilvannus6918]

NO. No . No. A paradox is a paradox. Louise's call to General Shiang is paradoxical if, and only if, she called him for her own reasons, i.e. she choose to do it. Otherwise there is no paradox. Arrival never claims Louise must call General Shiang. I think Louise called General Shiang because language is performative, i.e. language is both a mode of thought and of action. Our thinking defines the world. By thinking, we choose how to interact with the world. By acting, we change the world. Knowing in advance what one will choose does not predetermine one's choice because we must still choose it every day over time. She chooses a marriage that will end in divorce and child bearing that will end in grief, not because she must but she loves and who knows why we do that? The heptapod language, once learned, contains unactualizated possibilities the learner may actualize or not. Louise only "remembers" how to reach General Shiang when she needs to: her knowledge of the future is connected to her present reality. Determinism is based on the premise that people must do what is best for themselves (if people always do what is best for them, their behavior is subject to rational calculation, otherwise, they act out of their own mysterious motives). But even people who are aware of their self-interest can choose to act self-destructively. Determinism assumes the optimal choice is necessary when we have all seen people making less than optimal choices. We can support the notion that people act rationally to maximize benefits only so long as we do not look around us and see what people actually do. Paradox and determinism are antithetical: either you have one or the other. It is distinctly possible that Arrival is self-contradictory (though I do not believe that it is), but an interpretation of Arrival that claims it is both paradoxical and deterministic is self-contradictory and confused. If this interpretation of Arrival is valid, then the author is right, Arrival makes no sense. But I think Arrival makes perfect sense, but this interpretation is nonsense. The interpreter's error, in my opinion, consists in interpreting the movie theoretically and not existentially.

[@eriksherman2119]

I disagree with the findings. In the movie, the General approaches Louise and says the he’s not sure how her mind works, but he felt it was important to tell her... (or something along those lines). Go back and re-watch the sequence your referring to. As for whether she is living in a deterministic universe, I would say that we never saw her make a decision contrary to what she saw in her “memories”. It wouldn’t have suited the story. It’s a little like looking at a sliver of the night sky and saying there’s no such thing as aliens.

[@jerrymeeks8257]

If Shiang knows Louis already knows his cell phone number and his wife's last words then why will he tell her again in the future. He wouldn't bother. So wouldn't that eliminate determinism. So now since she has used the future that will no longer be the future this would create an impossible instance and reality would cease to exist.

[@sherlockfury]

another thing that confused me with the General scene is whether Louise is actively taking over her future self through her understanding of the alien language. She doesn't remember calling the General and needs all of the info, so its not just a voyeurism. She's not just seeing the future because that future is one where she would remember what happened. And when she eventually goes to that black tie celebratory event, is she going to fain ignorance to match up with the vision? If she does that could explain it away, but seems pretty far fetched.

[@ThadiusMeyers]

sherlockfury When she realizes that she knows the Heptapod language, she sees and experiences time all at once. She is living all of those moments at once. Instead of experiencing time as linear ----------- to her it is now just • she experiences everything that was and all that will be as one singular unit. The alien language, in order to be written, the writer must also know how much space is needed for it to be written. In order to write your future you must also know your future. It's a bit weird to explain but I think the point of it all is that the language just lets you see what is despite distances of time.

[@skepticalfaith5201]

I agree that that was an inconsistency in the movie. She had to _wait_ until the memories came in order to know what to do and what to say. Ideally, she would have already known and just done it. But I guess the climax (not the ending) wouldn't have worked as well cinematically if she already knew what was going to happen.

[@mupicap7927]

I was got confusing bout lois decision to still want to have hannah.. but then i think it again.. When lois ask Ian bout "If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?" In this point lois can't do time travel or change the timeline. She can only see her future, her destiny. Means she can't change the timeline. It's like knowing that we all gonna die in the end. u can't change it, u can't change the fact that we all gonna die. So when lois ask Ian, it's same condition with when a girl ask her boyfriend "if i can't get pregnant/poor woman/stupid woman/ugly or watever, will you still love me?" She already kno, that one day when they fight each other this things gonna popup, be a problem, be a reason to the guy to left her. So despite to leave that guy from the 1st place because of all that things, she welcome every moment of it..

[@MrGuillermolago]

I don't see how having a deterministic universe without free will is a problem or a logical inconsistency

[@Kazemahou]

No, it is not a paradox at all. It is a closed time-like curve. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_timelike_curve Also: arxiv.org/abs/1008.1127 It's a complex subject, and one an average person would not know about normally, but that is also what makes it so fascinating to see in a movie.

[@RevCQ7]

As the Oracle once said: You didn't come to make the choice. You came to understand why you did. Didn't get it, dude. Gonna have to dislike this one~

[@rorygiambalvo2955]

I dont think determinism and lack of free will detracts from the movie. It's just a view we tend not to like thinking about. I also think they do still believe they can choose to follow that future or not, as Ian is referenced as saying "You made the wrong choice" to Louise about following her vision of the future to start a family with him.

[@clay2521]

My favorite movie of 2016 was Nine Lives.

[@Wonton-the-Sea-Snail]

Its called the bootstrap paradox. Its a very common theme in time travel stories where the existance of an object leads to its existance

[@konstantinnikolaev4949]

Well, mass defect also made no sense at the moment. However, nowadays it is just a scientific knowledge. I do think that all good science fiction uses that trick: came up with something that does not fit with our knowledge and logic. So I wouldn't call it illogical. It's rather that fictitious idea that movie assumes to be logical and then elaborate on it. Great movie and nice video. Thank you.

[@arandombard1197]

Your mind just isn't capable of understanding this type of time travel story. There is no time travel, all time happens. Its a bootstrap cycle, there is no origin event. Its not a paradox. You come home to find your door is locked, despite it being unlocked when you left. Good thing you have a time travel machine! In the future, you will travel back in time and leave the key under the mat. You check under the mat and there is the key! You open the door and enter and travel back in time to leave the key there. Hang on, the door is unlocked but the door was originally locked. Okay, leave the key outside and lock the door with the present day key. This makes perfect sense and yet it makes no sense at all. As for arrival, she isn't really making any choices, life is determined for her. None of us have free will, the universe is already deterministic but we believe it isn't. The only difference is that Louise has become aware of it.

[@Peter.Young21]

This understanding of time is actually Biblical and therefore likely very similar to the time we observe in reality. We just cannot comprehend it. You cannot change the future despite knowing it or not. The future has already occured just as much as the past has. When you go to say that someone knowing their future would attempt to change it, they cannot. Because if they had changed it, they would have seen a different future. As three dimensional beings, it is difficult for us to fully understand things that occur on higher dimensions such as time which exists on the fourth dimension. The same confusion would occur if a two dimensional being tried to comprehend three dimensions. If someone lived on a piece of paper, and you poked a hole through the paper, they could not observe the hole, but rather just the borders of the hole as an end to their paper world.

[@D.M.S.]

I don't see a logical inconsistency. All of her experiences still form her as a character and determin her choices. Maybe she believes she could make choices, but every choice would still be based on the experiences she made in the past. Even a forced decision for the sake of being different, would still be based on her experiences and therefore part of a determined universe. Even the fact that she told her husband that the child will die, has always happened and could not happen otherwise, because her experiences and her as a person make it happen. Her ability to see the future and time in a different way, still happened at a fix point even when from this point on, it becomes a full circle filled with timey wimey stuff for her. It still follows a chronological order. Determinism and time travel are two fun things combined. Even when you see the future and you make one important change in the present to alter it, and you succeed, it is still not a proof against determinism, because you had to see the other future to make the actual future happend and therefore you are still following a chronological order. English is not my native language. I don't know If I managed to explain it correctly.