Let me first state my feelings about the title of the film. In my opinion, the word "annihilation" does not fit the theme of the movie. Annihilation is a well-defined and exclusive physical word: matter and its corresponding antimatter. The process of disappearing after collision and producing energy such as high-energy photons, emphasizing the disappearance and disillusionment of matter. And this film is more about expressing the exploration of life.
At the beginning of the film, directly to the point, this is the division of cells, the proliferation of life, but the single-celled organisms 4 billion years ago have proliferated and differentiated into many complex and advanced life forms on this earth.
From the plot point of view, at the beginning of the story of "annihilation", an unknown alien object slammed into a lighthouse on the coast of the United States, and then a radiant "black hole" with a gradually expanding range appeared around the lighthouse, which looked like it was soaked in a layer of bubbles. A mysterious paradise shrouded in bubbles, but almost without exception, those who enter are captured and disappeared by this "black hole". Kane, a soldier played by Oscar Isaac, was lucky enough to escape from a "black hole" (there are black holes in the real universe that can indeed escape, such as "Hawking radiation"), but was severely irradiated, causing multiple organ failure , lives on the line. Lena, played by Natalie Portman, joins the Wu Niangzi expedition with mixed feelings of remorse for her husband Kane's infidelity and a desire to save her, as well as a biologist's curiosity about unknown life forms , entered the lighthouse world to solve the mystery, and then found that many strange life mutations made them panic...
In the film, after Kane and Lena returned from the lighthouse land, the most answered is: I don't know. Compared with ordinary people, who am I, where do I come from, and where am I going, these three questions confuse them and their husbands more. This is an eternal philosophical question for each individual. So, is it only human beings who have this kind of thinking about the nature of life and self-awareness? I think the answer is no. If we ask from a broader perspective, what is life? Where does life come from? What is the direction of life? This question may be something that all living beings want to know.
1. What is life?
The clones of single cells, plants, animals, people, and Kane in the movie are all life, either simple and primitive, or complex and unknown, but they all have a common feature, which is to proliferate the ontology. The mission of this proliferation is to The boot code of life is as important and necessary as the boot is for the computer. Macroscopically, the increase in the number of species is a common feature of life evolution, and only those that can continue can exist and then be defined; from a single individual, life must live on "negative entropy", from chaos and disorder. Draw energy from the world to maintain itself away from its final equilibrium state.
2. Where does life come from?
Modern science tells us that the evolution of life from inorganic matter - organic matter - unicellular organisms - multicellular organisms - plants - animals is a long process from less to more, from simple to complex, in which the randomness of genetic mutation and environmental screening The certainty of life determines the direction of life differentiation. Generally speaking, in addition to spontaneous, some external factors such as physical and chemical environmental factors will affect mutation, such as radiation, chemical induction, etc., and most mutations are harmful. The genetic mutation in the lighthouse world in the movie is extremely fast and intense, so there are many strange life forms and phenomena. Although modern technology is very advanced, we have mastered some laws that seem to be in line with the world by observing the world, and we also know that human beings are most likely evolved, but we still know very little about a large number of details and the reasons behind them.
3. What is the direction of life?
This is what I want to focus on discussing. The most amazing part of life is not only the functionality of individuals, but also the ability of individual individuals to connect and integrate into a larger and higher-dimensional life . While completing their own proliferation and differentiation, life forms at each level serve life forms in higher dimensions, and at the same time obtain functional interfaces from beings in lower dimensions. This integrated service is separated by life levels, and life forms in low dimensions are separated. It is difficult to understand the existence and meaning of higher dimensional beings. In general, sustainable integrated relationships are generally limited symbiosis rather than destruction. The replica in the movie is a higher-dimensional life form to us human beings. Ants in two-dimensional space cannot perceive the existence of three-dimensional space.
Moreover, there is species isolation between different species of the same life dimension, and this kind of life of different dimensions must also be isolated, and this material isolation will inevitably bring about moral isolation. This also explains what Lena said at the end: I don't think it wants anything, it doesn't destroy, it changes everything, it makes something new. In the eyes of extraterrestrial life, this is true. It is just fulfilling the mission of its own life. It does not feel that it is killing and destroying. On the contrary, it is creating. Every individual has their inevitable destiny at the species level . In the second half of the 20th century, many human scientists made a similar point. In 1970, American biologist Margulis put forward the hypothesis of intracellular symbiosis. Some functional structures in cells, such as mitochondria and chlorophyll, have only reached a stable cooperative relationship with the cell itself. She called this cooperative method "endosymbiosis". In 1972, British scientist James Lovelock proposed the "Gaia Hypothesis": the earth is alive, it is an independent life composed of organic and inorganic substances, and the earth will adjust its own body temperature and various parameters. Today, Kevin Kelly believes that after human beings are connected through the Internet, an advanced intelligence that we cannot understand will emerge above the system. All of these life activities are happening all the time both inside and outside our bodies.
From another perspective, looking down from the ontology of consciousness, we can discuss the necessary conditions for consciousness to arise. For human beings, you must have a body before you can be conscious. At least in my current cognitive level, it is Such. In 2015, a neuroscientist named Giulio Tononi proposed that a system cannot be conscious if there are no connections between its internal modules. Giulio Tononi also proposed the "holistic information theory" and proposed the concept of "system integration degree", which is represented by the Greek letter Φ. He believes that the more closely connected a system is, the greater the value of Φ. When the value of Φ is greater than a certain critical value, the system will open its eyes and generate intelligence. If you agree with his point of view, then you should be able to feel the integration and connection of this life and then form the real existence of high-dimensional life.
At the end of the film, as a biologist, Lane, after experiencing all this, even though she knew that her lover had become an "alien clone", she still hugged Kane deeply, and she understood that she and the one who lived 4 billion years ago. There is no essential difference between a single cell. The sequence that has already been encoded is flowing in the body. Her existence is just a collection of these cells. All of this cannot escape the fate of being trapped in the dimension as an individual.
Or maybe as long as the lover can come back, what will happen to this world in the end, annihilation or rebirth, at that moment, it has nothing to do with her. As a person, I prefer the guesswork behind, how about you?
The end of the text opened a brain hole, what would you do if you met your cloned self one day? The clone and the original in the film can only live one, and this scene also appeared in Nolan's "Deadly Magic", the magician played by Hugh Jackman killed this the first time he cloned himself." Own". The way of cloning in "annihilation" is a bit peculiar. It only needs DNA to clone a you that is almost exactly the same as you are now. This dimension of time in this architecture can be compressed arbitrarily. It is quite difficult to think about it. But at a lower atomic level, if you can replicate an object with the same atomic arrangement as yours, how is it different from you? Maybe that day we will know whether consciousness must depend on matter to exist.
View more about Annihilation reviews
