The Story of Your Life

In his novella The Story of Your Life, Ted Chiang imagines a woman who learns to comprehend the language of an alien species that perceives the universe through a teleological lens, meaning that instead of seeing cause-and-effect as we do, they live their entire lives always knowing the past, present, and future. Physicists like Stephen Hawking have pointed out that the fundamental laws of physics don't distinguish past from future in the way our experience does. The fact that we perceive time's passage, that there is a past and future, these scientists tell us, may largely be a function of our perspective.Of course, knowing something is true does not mean it's necessarily useful. We would be fools to attempt to live as if time does not pass.But it's something to wonder about.The book's protagonist learns the alien language, and as she does, her own mind is rewired to see things as the aliens do. She comes to know the fullness of her life: that she will marry, have a daughter, suffer…