ARRIVAL

My wife and I did not go to see ARRIVAL because of my interest in Amy Adams but because of my interest in three basic matters. The first was the translation of nonhuman languages into English. Wittgenstein famously wrote that if a lion could speak (in a full blown lion language), we would not understand him. Wittgenstein’s reasoning was that languages develop from forms of life. I believe that that is true. Humans can translate from English to Spanish easily because we are biologically and socially similar (the same form of life), and so are our languages. I can point to an orange and name it. A Mexican can do the same in Spanish. Translation (somewhat imperfect) is accomplished.

Could we translate an imaginary but sophisticated lion language into English? Lions don’t point to things. Do we understand some of the current primitive language of cats and dogs? Yes. They even understand one another in some ways. If the cat hisses, the dog backs off. We have in common with cats and dogs the need for food and drink, sleep, procreation, etc. We can get angry, and so can they. So, yes, we could, over time, find enough in common to begin to put together a lion vocabulary list. (We’ve seen claims that we have mastered the language of bees.)

ARRIVAL presents an attempt to learn the language of total aliens from outer space, and I thought the process shown was plausible.

The second problem is that the film contains a lot of sci-fi stuff like time travel, based on moving faster than the speed of light. That’s currently considered difficult. Here’s a curious thought. I’ve always believed that the speed of light is a constant. I suppose I was taught that in high school a hundred years ago. Recently I learned that a woman working in the science of very cold things sent light through a space that was inconceivably cold, and the light slowed down to a crawl. We need a movie exploring that.

The third is the question of what aliens might look like. On this planet there is another intelligent creature whose form of life is utterly alien: the octopus, whose development of intelligence took a path so foreign to our form of life that we can’t even imagine it. 

(also on Facebook)