Why Is The Tralfamadorian Idea Of Time Incompatible With Free Will?

While it may just seem like semantics, free will and freedom differ. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines free will as a “voluntary choice or decision” or “freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention” (Free 1). Free will includes the ability to make simple, everyday choices. The definition of freedom differs from that of free will: “liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another” and “the absence of necessity, coercion or constraint in a choice or action” (Freedom 1). Someone with freedom can say, do, act, and feel however he wishes without the threat of outside forces.

Billy Pilgrim travels through time. It is debatable if Billy Pilgrim can actually time travel or not. I think he can’t time travel, simply because time travel is not possible. Billy can see what no other human can see with their eyes.

Your geography and you beliefs determined greatly who you are as a person but no one had a choice on that during their formative years. So there are so many factors and causes that affect freewill that’s not under the individual’s control. Let’s acknowledge that. In the context of life being a canvas you can visualize your life as a specific and unique individual pathway on the canvas of life with with different choices(options) available as one moves through time. At each moment in time, different choices are available to you within said predetermined path. The pathway is already predetermined because all time exist at all time all the time, but within each moment you’re are presented with certain set of choices (different set of choices are available at different point in time). These choices range from good to evil as far as their impacts are concerned. So this is why it makes sense to say true freewill doesn’t exist but we can make choices within the predetermined path we find ourselves in. If you think about it from a believer point of view, it’s basically God created everyone differently (predetermined path), with different gifts (drives) manifested through choices available to us at each moment in time. Evil and good are natural forces in this world which

All through Billy’s life he ran into obstacles that obstructed his free will. As a child Billy’s father lets Billy sink in the deep end of a pool so he could learn how to swim “because his

On page 85 the Tralfamadorians say “Trapped in another blob of amber, Mr. Pilgrim. We are where we have to be just now.” The tralfamadorians are saying that if Billy were anywhere else the moment would be different and wrong. It is important that he is where he is.

In the quotation above, Billy says that he can time-travel by simply blinking. I have been alive for sixteen years now, and have not met a human or heard of anyone who can do anything like this, so one can infer that Billy cannot have an acceptable mental health. Billy Pilgrim also says that he knows all of the details of his death, and has a designated place for them in the next quote. “As a time-traveler, he has seen his own death many times,

The first matter to be noted is that this view is in no way in contradiction to science. Free will is a natural phenomenon, something that emerged in nature with the emergence of human beings, with their

In their eyes, free will is simply the ability to accept fate, what is going to happen, will always happen, and has always happened. This is just simply their perspective and is also expressed through the quote “So it goes.” which is said countless times throughout the entire novel. This seems to be the Tralfamadorian motto or catchphrase, meaning whatever happens, happens. This is mainly said after a talk about death; when someone dies, Vonnegut says “So it goes”, so as to be not as emotionless as ‘oh well’, but to have a fairly close meaning, because no one had control over the action, there is nothing else to say.

As an archetype that describes Billy is that, he is a skinny white male, who is weak and super tall. He is also a guy who can't stand up for himself and has everyone walk over him. He also gives direct characterization of Billy “Last came Billy Pilgrim, empty handed, bleakly ready for death”(Pg 41). He is also manifested as wearing military clothing that is too big for him and very dirty “He didn't look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo”(Pg 42).

''You sound to me as though you don't believe in free will,' said Billy Pilgrim. 'If I hadn't spent so much time studying Earthlings,' said the Tralfamadorian,

The fragmentation of the novel is used to illustrate the Tralfamdorian's perception of time. "There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects”

Vonnegut once again explores the theme of free will through the Tralfamadorains mere abstract perception of a human being. This is seen when Billy and his father- in-law they are abroad a doomed plane that is soon to lift off, Vonnegut goes onto write:

Humans belief in free will is because they are unable to see in four dimensions like the Tralfamadorians. When Billy was abducted onto the flying saucer one of the aliens said this to him, “I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is time. It does not change… It simply is.” This is the first glimpse of the endless and simultaneous time period that the aliens are able to envision. The choice of being overly vague

Billy becomes detached to unreactive to the changes of his town. Due to his belief in predestination, he has accepted that the event was meant to happen and

assumed that Billy Pilgrim relives his war-time experiences on a near daily basis. Another thing is that Billy avoids connections with people like his mother, and even his own fiancé.