Peter's Blog

The Tralfamadorians of  Slaughterhouse Five  see all of the past and future at once. Instead of living in the moment, they see every event that will happen ahead of time, and as a result don't care about the future. This makes sense; if you think about it, reality is just a bunch of events that lead to other events. Even our thoughts, feelings, and decisions are determined by past events. So why shouldn't humans think the same way as these nihilistic Tralfamadorians? The underlying difference between humans and Tralfamadorians is how they perceive time. Tralfamadorians are able to view their own decisions--and the consequences of those decisions--before making those decisions in the first place. As such, they don't ever truly  make decisions; everything has already been decided for them by fate. Humans, however, are unable to see these decisions ahead of time. This is a bit of a blessing in disguise; our inability to predict the future means our decisions actually matte...

Slaughterhouse 5  introduces beings that can see all moments in time at once, the Tralfamadorians. I've been pondering how exactly this would work, given what the book tells us. Instead of being time travelers, the Tralfamadorians live their lives in real-time, and are only able to perceive the future and past. Their philosophy revolves around the fact that the future cannot be changed, even though they know about all future events ahead of time. If you think about it, though, this doesn't really make sense. If I knew I would be hit by an MTD bus on my way to Kenney tomorrow, I would obviously stay on alert the whole way, and likely take another route entirely. However, according to Tralfamadorians, there is nothing I can do about my impending injury. How can this be? Perhaps their visions of the future, combined with their philosophy of acceptance, are a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. When a Tralfamadorian sees their own death, they immediately accept their fate, and ...