Story of Your Life Blog by Ken Wu

Story of Your Life is written by author Ted Chiang which revolves around the concept of free will and the extent to which free will can exist. In the story, Louisa Banks narrates her experiences with learning a new language from heptapods which changes her consciousness to be simultaneous, surpassing the confinement of time. Due to this developed way of thinking, she’s able to foresee the future where she sees her daughter and husband, obstructing free will. Rather than experience free will, she’s seen the Book of Ages and plays along with the future. 

Questions and Answers:

1. Aliens communicate very much like humans do except their language is vastly different. While humans have languages that are one dimensional in the sense that text and words are the same, the heptapod’s language are two dimensional and divided. They have a spoken language and a written language that do not correspond to each other. Moreover, their written language is semasiographic where they configure the design of the text before they even write it. Moreover, their way of thinking is also different due to their language consciousness where their way of thinking is with semagrams which allows them to escape the bounds of systematic cause and effect time. 
2. Our physical structure for communication is based on our senses. For example, we communicate with hands if we are deaf. We communicate with our mouth if we don’t have disabilities. We communicate and understand with our hands if we cannot see. Due to this, our stream of consciousness is more linear, being a cause and effect relationship. Meanwhile the heptapods have various eyes causing them to not be bound by direction. In this sense, they have more abilities to neglect orientation of direction which humans cannot do. Moreover, due to this structure, they have simultaneous consciousness allowing them to communicate in writing without regards to direction as they can concentrate in various manners. 

Notes taken when reading:

• Aliens exist in this world, but their language isn’t understood by humans. Due to this, Louise Banks is given the task of understanding their language.
• She and Gary find these aliens that have seven eyes and seven legs without limbs called heptapods. They introduce themselves and find that the aliens respond with flutter sounds. Using technology, they find that the sound distinctly differed for flapping when responding to different questions.
• When she tried to mimic, there was no success.
• She tries to use letters to communicate with the aliens, but their language appeared to be logographic.
• This caused her to want to act out the words to learn their language. She found that in the logogram, heptapod could be seen as well as extra strokes for the action. In addition, their logogram had words rotated. “Giant conglomeration”. “semasiographic writing system”
• The orientation is relative to the subject of the sentence and what function they fulfill.
• Written language and spoken language are different. Spoken words don’t correspond to written words.
• Human mathematics for heptapod is elementary. Their mathematics is much more sophisticated.
• Their written language is dependent on their first stroke which already anticipated what the final design would look like.
• Human’s thoughts are normally phonologically coded by speaking to an internal voice. We think in the language that we are immersed it. “same mode – different language”
• “Linguistic yet non-phonological mode” – American Sign Language
• Ways of thinking – to think with hands, semagrams, or a voice
• We see the world differently based on our interpretations.
• Humans have sequential mode of awareness and heptapods have a simultaneous mode of awareness. Humans believe events are cause and effect while heptapods perceive all events at once.
• The heptapod B writing system fit because the species had simultaneous mode of consciousness. Having changed the mode of consciousness, understanding of heptapod A’s grammar is possible.
• Heptapods are neither free or bound to time. Their actions coincide with history’s events and motives with history’s purposes. They aim to create future.
• Freedom of choice cannot coexist with knowledge of the future.
• Language was used to actualize. Heptapods knew what would be said, but the action must take place.