(image source: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/arrival_2016)
Arrival (2016)
Linguistician Soshir called the two elements that form the basis of the symbol 'signifier' and 'signified'. A 'signifier' is a letter or sound itself, and a 'signified' has the meaning of a letter or sound. So, a tree, a bird, etc. is a signifier defined either by itself or by convention, and the meaning of signified is the concept and meaning associated to the mind when the signifier is heard or said. Thus, symbols are made through the process of joining a single signified to one signifier. Therefore, the term " symbol " is made by promise or chance and interpreted through a symmetrical meaning. It can not be a sign or a language if there is no common agreement or combination.
Nietzsche said, " It is useful because the language simplifies and binds the environment around us into something that can be fixed. " In other words, the language grammar created by chance determines our thinking, and language shapes our thinking. Language begins with a combination of promise and chance and extends into a world that creates enormous space. That is, language is used to define, and distinguish targets. Language is the foundation or the whole of thought. As Derida said, therefore, the world outside the text can neither be described nor recognized.
According to Michel Foucault, insanity was not originally a target of treatment. Up until the Middle Ages, insanity was considered a rather special person. The energy and peculiarity of the common man made him look extraordinary. However, as we moved into modern times, we met the language of enlightenment and reason, and this further shared the concepts of rationality and irrationality, normal and abnormal. The same applies to children. Prior to the Middle Ages there was no recognition of the existence of children. With the new definition and classification of children being newly defined in language, children are being recognized as a subject of parenting, a subject of instruction in discipline and morality, and as something to be read. Yesterday and today, clearly, things that existed without special distinction are changing perceptions and shaking society through the concept of language.
-A gives A to B for A-
-Extraterrestrials that see the future give humans the language of seeing the future for their own future.-
The above is a summary of the story of a movie Arrival. A gives humans a language of looking forward to their future. To put the sentence simply, I am not sure whether B should dare to accept A. I still don't know how great and wonderful A is. Until proven how good and wonderful A is, the process and results of the delivery are unknown. A can be either a gift or a curse. In the movie, a gift or a weapon is called for A. Neither is wrong. Only the key to the future knows the direction.
Knowledge and power are one body. Through Louis, a linguist who understands Heptapods, future humans have both the language of seeing the future (knowledge) and the ability to see the future (power). Then, how has their world view changed since After Arrival? So, what kind of perception and how they can move to meet another world? Just as maniacs and the language of children in the Middle Ages created new perceptions for them, their world now knowing Heptapods will create a different dimension and a different climate. Just imagining the world of After Arrival is also a difficult matter for the audience today, beyond the infinite space beyond which mere curiosity can not be imagined. Ironically, as I have repeatedly argued, we don't have a language to express the world. There is no language to experience and imagine the world.
I think of twelve flying objects that were tall, big, and grand. Reminds me again To the Tower of Babylon, which must have been high, large, and grand. God's punishment was to the men who built the high Tower of Babylon because they wanted to be as powerful as they could be. Their tower, which was united in the spirit of God, collapsed due to misunderstandings and fighting over different languages. The difference between the Babylon Tower and the Contact is in the end. Different languages that created the collapse, and now common languages where the existing barriers of language such as letters and pronunciation are unimportant. The dull and slow sense of the past of human being, who can only speak and feel what he knows, has created a deep division in the history of this world and created a boundary. Perhaps they have already built up a high wall of mutual incomprehension, creating hatred. Now that divisions and boundaries meet, we read and read Arrival again. Contriving on the real reasons why each other pushed arms at each other, I imagine the unprecedented new perception and the vision of the future of the world.
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