Author:: Ted Chiang
Full Title:: Stories of Your Life and Others
Tags:#media/book
- themes::
- theme 1
- Summary::
- summary 1
* Highlights first synced by Readwise 2021-01-06
* There was a temple off to one side that would have been impressive if seen by itself, but it stood unnoticed beside the tower. ([Location 129](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=129))
* “You have no desire to actually walk on the earth?” Kudda shrugged. “We live on the road to heaven; all the work that we do is to extend it further. When we leave the tower, we will take the upward ramp, not the downward.” ([Location 268](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=268))
* All that was visible was a length of the tower. To look up or down was frightening, for the reassurance of continuity was gone; they were no longer part of the ground. The tower might have been a thread suspended in the air, unattached to either earth or to heaven. ([Location 273](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=273))
* A young couple strolls by, the adoration of one bouncing off the tolerance of the other. Apprehension flickers and becomes steady as a businessman, fearful of his supervisor, begins to doubt a decision he made earlier today. A woman wears a mantle of simulated sophistication, but it slips when it brushes past the genuine article. ([Location 817](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=817))
* Furthermore, actually constructing the device wouldn’t give me any particular satisfaction, since I already know it would work, and it wouldn’t illuminate any new gestalts. ([Location 831](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=831))
* Confucian concept of ren: inadequately conveyed by “benevolence,” that quality which is quintessentially human, which can only be cultivated through interaction with others, and which a solitary person cannot manifest. It’s one of many such qualities. And here am I, with people, people everywhere, yet not a one to interact with. ([Location 889](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=889))
* Almost every physical law can be restated as a variational principle. The only difference between these principles is in which attribute is minimized or maximized.” He gestured as if the different branches of physics were arrayed before him on a table. “In optics, where Fermat’s principle applies, time is the attribute that has to be an extreme. In mechanics, it’s a different attribute. In electromagnetism, it’s something else again. But all these principles are similar mathematically.” ([Location 1971](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=1971))
* Still, I tried to ponder questions formulated in terms more familiar to me: what kind of worldview did the heptapods have, that they would consider Fermat’s principle the simplest explanation of light refraction? What kind of perception made a minimum or maximum readily apparent to them? ([Location 2001](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2001))
* while the common formulation of physical laws is causal, a variational principle like Fermat’s is purposive, almost teleological.” ([Location 2064](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2064))
* The idea of thinking in a linguistic yet non-phonological mode always intrigued me. I had a friend born of Deaf parents; he grew up using American Sign Language, and he told me that he often thought in ASL instead of English. I used to wonder what it was like to have one’s thoughts be manually coded, to reason using an inner pair of hands instead of an inner voice. ([Location 2104](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2104))
* The semagrams seemed to be something more than language; they were almost like mandalas. I found myself in a meditative state, contemplating the way in which premises and conclusions were interchangeable. There was no direction inherent in the way propositions were connected, no “train of thought” moving along a particular route; all the components in an act of reasoning were equally powerful, all having identical precedence. ([Location 2111](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2111))
* The motion didn’t feel like something I was forced to do. Instead it seemed just as urgent as my rushing to catch the bowl when it falls on you: an instinct that I felt right in following. ([Location 2207](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2207))
* The physical universe was a language with a perfectly ambiguous grammar. Every physical event was an utterance that could be parsed in two entirely different ways, one causal and the other teleological, both valid, neither one disqualifiable no matter how much context was available. ([Location 2219](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2219))
* Humans had developed a sequential mode of awareness, while heptapods had developed a simultaneous mode of awareness. We experienced events in an order, and perceived their relationship as cause and effect. They experienced all events at once, and perceived a purpose underlying them all. A minimizing, maximizing purpose. ([Location 2223](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2223))
* It’s funny: when you’re tranquil, you will seem to radiate light, and if someone were to paint a portrait of you like that, I’d insist that they include the halo. But when you’re unhappy, you will become a klaxon, built for radiating sound; a portrait of you then could simply be a fire alarm bell. ([Location 2268](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2268))
* **Note**: Started writing in a graphic way
* What distinguishes the heptapods’ mode of awareness is not just that their actions coincide with history’s events; it is also that their motives coincide with history’s purposes. They act to create the future, to enact chronology. ([Location 2276](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2276))
* Freedom isn’t an illusion; it’s perfectly real in the context of sequential consciousness. Within the context of simultaneous consciousness, freedom is not meaningful, but neither is coercion; it’s simply a different context, no more or less valid than the other. It’s like that famous optical illusion, the drawing of either an elegant young woman, face turned away from the viewer, or a wart-nosed crone, chin tucked down on her chest. There’s no “correct” interpretation; both are equally valid. But you can’t see both at the same time. ([Location 2278](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2278))
* language wasn’t only for communication: it was also a form of action. According to speech act theory, statements like “You’re under arrest,” “I christen this vessel,” or “I promise” were all performative: a speaker could perform the action only by uttering the words. ([Location 2291](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2291))
* For the heptapods, all language was performative. Instead of using language to inform, they used language to actualize. Sure, heptapods already knew what would be said in any conversation; but in order for their knowledge to be true, the conversation would have to take place. ([Location 2295](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2295))
* Like physical events, with their causal and teleological interpretations, every linguistic event had two possible interpretations: as a transmission of information and as the realization of a plan. ([Location 2329](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2329))
* Usually, Heptapod B affects just my memory: my consciousness crawls along as it did before, a glowing sliver crawling forward in time, the difference being that the ash of memory lies ahead as well as behind: there is no real combustion. But occasionally I have glimpses when Heptapod B truly reigns, and I experience past and future all at once; my consciousness becomes a half-century-long ember burning outside time. I perceive—during those glimpses—that entire epoch as a simultaneity. It’s a period encompassing the rest of my life, and the entirety of yours. ([Location 2339](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2339))
* **Note**: How the memories interspersed are from all diff time periods
* From the beginning I knew my destination, and I chose my route accordingly. But am I working toward an extreme of joy, or of pain? Will I achieve a minimum, or a maximum? ([Location 2415](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2415))
* the status that you wish your profession to retain is precisely that which weavers have been made to forfeit. I believe these automata can help restore dignity to other professions, and without great cost to yours.” ([Location 2610](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=2610))
* It seemed unfair that automata were so much easier to reproduce than humans. It was as if the problem of reproducing automata need be solved only once, while that of reproducing humans was a Sisyphean task, with every additional generation increasing the complexity of the name required. And abruptly Stratton realized that he didn’t need a name that redoubled physical complexity, but one than enabled lexical duplication. The solution was to impress the ovum with an autonym, and thus induce a foetus that bore its own name. ([Location 3295](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=3295))
* New highlights added 2021-01-06 at 9:37 PM
* they thought getting rid of beauty would help make a utopia, and I don’t believe that at all. Beauty isn’t the problem, it’s how some people are misusing it that’s the problem. And that’s what calli’s good for; it lets you guard against that. I don’t know, maybe this wasn’t a problem back in my parents’ day. But it’s something we have to deal with now. ([Location 4479](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=4479))
* One of the things we admire most in fiction is an ending that is surprising, yet inevitable. This is also what characterizes elegance in design: the invention that’s clever yet seems totally natural. Of course we know that they aren’t really inevitable; it’s human ingenuity that makes them seem that way, temporarily. ([Location 4510](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0048EKOP0&location=4510))