[edanm]

In the book, the death happens to do an accident, not cancer, as the sibling comment says.

So just to spell it out more than the sibling comment - the story doesn't ask "do I decide to have a child, even knowing that they die".

Instead, the focus is on her literally knowing, that morning, that her daughter was heading out to a place where she would die. One word of warning could've prevented the death. Of course, that "isn't possible" from their point of view, but from "our" point of view it seems like it is possible, so she effectively let her daughter die.

Very different emphasis. Both the movie and the Chiang story are great.

[stavros]

Not only is it possible, but there's a narrator part in the book where she chooses to do this. It's been a while, and tell me if I'm misremembering this, but what I remember is her choosing to live this way, to know the future but to "act it out" so that it will happen, rather than trying to change it.

[edanm]

Well this is kind of a philosophical question, I think from her point of view there's no choice involved - if you throw a ball, it doesn't have a choice but to fall to the ground, and she likewise "acts out the scripts" that she knows happens.

I think that's kind of the challenge the story poses. From our point of view, she knows what will happen and "chooses" not to change it, from her/their point of view, it's all already happened, she can't change it.

[stavros]

I can't really speak to it as it's been years, but I remember her likening this to a play, where the actors can change the words, but they don't, for the sake of the play. IIRC she was very clear that this was a choice that the aliens were making, and not something that was enforced on them, but, as I said, it's been years.

[edanm]

Years for me too :)

You're right that she compares it to that, but my reading of it is that that is the whole disconnect/point - she does it view that way, but also doesn't change it in a way that is incomprehensible to the way we view it but that is the only way it could go from their perspective.

I don't think we're disagreeing, just viewing the same actions from a different lens.

[stavros]

You may be right, I read the story again and she does say that it's a completely different viewpoint, where free will doesn't apply. Not that it doesn't exist, but it's not applicable.