Philosophical Speculations

Starbuck wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:01 pm When characters loop back on themselves, wouldn't they go a bit mad. They have seen how things play out the first time around, and no matter what they do the same events must occur - a bit like being in locked in syndrome while the world plays out?

[SOMEWHAT OF A SPOILER FOR TENET BELOW]




I have watched it 4.5x now and am still thoroughly confused when I try to think about the sequences in any sort of chronological fashion. I think Nolan is trying to force us to think in a more time-free manner. So there is no "first time around" and "second time around", if that makes sense. They are not "redoing" events that already happened, although some characters experience the same events twice from different perspectives. Everything that happens on the "inverted" timeline which overlaps with the forward timeline is integral to the outcomes.

And Nolan is using this whole thing as a way of explaining how our experience of ourselves and the world works in reality, but I am still trying to work out the details there. My intuition tells me that this diagram by Owen Barfield will be key:

I'm slowly getting my head around it if that's possible!

I've heard more than a few people say it only makes sense as a deterministic loop - Like Nietzsche's eternal recurrence.