question in philosophy

Please answer one (and only one!) of the following two questions. 1) You are a heptapod. Yes, you’ve learned to read and write in the human language known as English, but no, it hasn’t rewired your brain. Your mode of awareness remains simultaneous. Whereas human beings experience events in an , sequentially, as a heptapod you experience all events in your lifetime at once. In other words, for you, “now” is the name of your entire life, not a moment that once was future and will be past. A human being named Louise has learned your language to some extent and begun asking you philosophical questions. She wants to know, in particular, whether you consider yourself to be free, or whether your knowledge of the future makes you feel like a prisoner to your own life. From her human point of view, foreknowledge is incompatible with freedom. She wouldn’t be able to think of herself as truly, “metaphysically” free if she saw her whole life already laid out before her. Though you have learned her human language, you have trouble understanding her point of view. You just don’t think of freedom in those terms. You act to create the future and to enact chronology. Your actions coincide with history’s purposes. Engage Louise in dialogue or write her a letter in English. Do your best to explain to her why her problem of freedom, from her human point of view with her human mode of awareness, isn’t your problem of freedom. Explain to her why, for you with your mode of awareness, knowledge of the future isn’t incompatible with freedom. Perhaps it might help her if you likened what it is to be a heptapod to performing in a play. 2) You are a marriage counselor. A most interesting couple, Louise Banks and Ian Donnelly, have sought your services. Not only are they interesting for what they are famous for: namely, their work with the aliens. They also are interesting because what is driving them apart from one another is extraordinarily complex. It turns out that Louise suffered radiation poisoning from her work with the aliens. She learned of her condition shortly after the aliens left. She also learned at that time that, if she conceived a child before she underwent a six-month course of treatment, that child would very likely develop a cancer that would end her life by the age of twenty-five. Nonetheless, when Ian asked Louise, “Do you want to make a baby?” she said yes though she had not yet started the treatment, and their child Hannah was conceived and born. Louise eventually disclosed to Ian Hannah’s likely fate. Ian became furious with her, and now their marriage is on the rocks (that is, in trouble). Louise insists, however, both that she did not harm Hannah by bringing her into being and that Ian’s anger over what she has done to Hannah is irrational. Louise keeps talking about what she calls the non-identity problem. (She also occasionally knows in advance what you’re going to say, though thankfully her knowledge of the future—which she ascribes to her knowledge of the aliens’ language—is intermittent rather than comprehensive.) Sessions with Louise and Ian leave your head swimming. You need to write about their case in to get clear about it. They just left! Get yourself to the computer. First, summarize their case. Explain in your own words why Ian is angry with Louise. Second, try to explain Louise’s response to Ian (her insistence that she didn’t harm Hannah and that Ian is being irrational). What is this non-identity problem that she keeps talking about? Is her response to Ian right, or is she the one who is in the wrong? You wonder whether her decision to bring Hannah into being violates what the philosopher Rivka Weinberg calls the principle of procreative balance. Third and finally, consider the advice you might give to help them salvage their marriage. Requirements: Short answer