After attempting to grasp an understanding of the Tralfamadorians, I feel like I have taken a trip back to Woolley's poetry class last year - I leave each class debating myself and just ending up with no clear understanding (some can relate). Tralfamadorians, in case you haven't read all of Slaughterhouse-Five yet, are 2 feet-tall green aliens who abduct Billy after his tragic experience of Dresden. Tralfamadorians were created in Billy's mind; he uses it as an escape from the devastating experience at Dresden and his mental stress due to the bombings. An important question that everyone had trouble answering in class was, "Do humans have free will?" Are we already predestined to do certain things and choices which makes free will is just an illusion? I am still unsure and will not take a position on this question (I am acting as if the Tralfamadorians were real). Vonnegut takes a step back into his own world with the Tralfamadorians who show us that our free will is only an illusion and that ultimately do not have "choice." Tralfamadorians view Billy as an ideal being because he knows he has been stripped of this so called "illusion" - free will. Tralfamadorians are very smart and are very successful. They are able to enjoy their lives because they travel to only the good experiences for they do not see time linearly like humans and know the outcomes of each experience because they do not believe in free will. Choices will ultimately not be made in these experiences they travel to because these experiences have an ending that is visible, nothing can change within the experiences. So would you rather be a Tralfamadorian and have no free will and the ability to travel to only the good experiences but already know the outcome? Or would you like live to have "illusions" and be a mystery?
(I know this blog was confusing but I hope you understand the questions for the most part)
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6 comments:
This post overall was good, but my favourite part was where you talked about why the Tralfamadorians believe Billy is a perfect specimen. i had never thought of it that way, but i thought it was a really interesting perspective (and possibly not entirely off the mark). When Mr. Crotty talked about Billy being viewed that way, i took it as physically a perfect specimen. Your post brings up an entirely different outlook.
i think that my answer to your final question would be that i would prefer to live with the illusions and mystery. After all--without the experiences of exploring the mysteries, i think life would be pretty boring.
YAY tess like my post for once - makin progress haha
all i gotta worry about is thermin and sabeti now
I like this post too. I talked about something similar in my post. But to talk about choice and free will. As I tried to infer at the end of my blog, humans do not actually have what is termed "free will." Scientists have researched, somehow, and through numerous experiments have shown that neurons in our brain fire subconsciously before we think to lift a hand up (just an example). I cannot really explain it too well but that is the jist of it.
To answer your last question, I would like to live my life as I know it now, but I'd really like to know if the choices I made were out of an act of free will or predetermination. Knowing the answer to that question may change what I would want. This seems similar to The Matrix 2, the scene in the room with all the TVs
I would prefer to go about life the way things were. A little mystery never hurt anyone. Although it might seem inviting to figure out if our choices make any difference in our "destinies" but for now I'd rather just go with the flow. Also, I think its unfair to compare the viewpoints of humans and tralfamadorians because they are two completely different beings. Of course if the humans had the ability to go back to the happy moments in life, they would do so. But obviously they can't so they should just live with their illusion I guess.
While I do not fully understand how Tralfamadorians work, I do think that true joy can not be achieved without the negative aspects of our life. I would use the analogy that if you ate icecream every single day, you would probably lose your taste for it. Wihtout contrast in our lives, there can be no positive or negative, things just siumply exist.
I like to think that we as humans have free will considering I don't want to think that my life is pre-determined. I hate to think that I have no control over my life. Perhaps Billy creates the Tralfmadorians, as Cheese says, to help explain to himself how something as horrible as Dresden could happen. He can't understand how humans could perform such atrocities and creates the Tralfmadorians and their lack of free will to make such occurrences comprehensible.
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