Sunday, February 22, 2009

A new concept of time

Tralfamadore. As soon as this planet is mentioned in the book, my previous assumptions that the book would be a different and one of a kind description of World War Two were confirmed. The most interesting thing about this was the Tralfamadorian concept of time, and although it took me some time to understand what they meant, when I finally did I pondered on this subject for a long time. “All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just the way can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance.” Would things be the same if time was not relative and if you could live every moment forever? Would there be any morale in humanity if actions had consequences, but if you could stay in the action at the same time? Would people live afraid of what came ahead if they knew that what they were living that moment could go on forever? Personally, I would think that if you robbed a bank, and had one great month of a luxurious life before the police caught you, and when they did you could still be living the luxurious lifestyle; people would rob banks all the time. People would do dangerous things that bring lots of adrenaline all the time too, and I think in general the consciousness of humanity would take a giant plunge. I think that Vonnegut is a very creative person to come up with this concept of time, and it interested me in the book because now I want to see how this time idea and the aliens tie into the story.

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