The most important thing I learnt on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just the way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever. When any Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. .Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
About This Quote
This quote is particularly fitting for the purpose of the essay because it is very similar to the concept of time travel. Time travel is possible because all moments are permanent, but that does not mean that the past cannot be altered by changing the present. This idea that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, is an illusion created by our brains. It allows us to believe in time, but it is really just one moment following another one.
We all have a connection with each other due to our memories. We all have memories of things that have happened in the past and we all have a connection with each other because of these memories.
Source: Slaughterhousefive
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