As my reader may already be aware, I have an interest in time and time travel. Knowing this, one of my friends suggested to me that I should watch the film Slaughterhouse-Five from 1972. Recently, over five years after the suggestion was made, I finally found the time to watch it.

I did not know what to expect. I had been told it was not your typical time travel story. That it approached the idea of time travel very differently. Now, having seen the film, I will argue that the story contains no time travel whatsoever. I would add a tag here warning of spoilers, but I think I am safe in this particular instance, as I’m simply going to describe how the nature of the story works, not delving into particulars.

My whole perspective on this hinges on the idea of dimensions, and in particular of the fourth dimension. Most will likely be familiar with the common and well known first three dimensions, usually referred to as length, width, and depth. That is, any object in three dimensional space will have as part of its features a length, a width, and a depth. These dimensions are described using simple scalar values or quantities of magnitude. As I have stated in the past, as a three dimensional object myself, I have values of about two meters (length) by about three quarters of a meter (width) by about half a meter (depth). What’s more, these dimensions are irregular, as I only occupy a portion of the volume described by a prism of the dimensions I just stated.

What is important in all of this is not the particular values that I state, only that they exist and they are finite. It is possible using various methods and tools for one to measure and record the values that could be later used to describe my length, width, and depth within these three dimensions. And possibly more importantly, over time, these dimensions remain relatively consistent. That is, I have had a length of about two meters for probably the past thirty or forty years now. And while my length might change a little from day to day, it isn’t so much that I cannot be identified.

Which, as I think about it, raises all sorts of questions about identity and defining the boundaries which delineate what is me and what is not me. It is not my intention in this post to delve into such matters in detail, but I do think it is important to acknowledge that however those boundaries might be determined, they will still consist of simple, measurable scalar magnitudes that can be described within these first three dimensions. Any object that exists within this plane of existence ought to be able to be similarly described.

But then there is this fourth dimension: time. I state it as time specifically, as for some the next dimension might be something else. For example, my partner literally just told me that the fourth dimension is smell, as in if you go to a theater presenting a film in “4D,” they will often be referring to a fourth element that has been added to the experience, and smell is often utilized in this case. In my discussion here, I am specifically interested in talking about time, especially as it relates to the alien race in Slaughterhouse-Five known as the Tralfamadorians.

According to the film, the Tralfamadorians are four dimensional beings, in that they “exist in all times simultaneously, and are thus privy to knowledge of future events.” The issue that occurs to the protagonist of the film is that he is jumping around from time period to time period without any control to stop himself. This is the aspect of the film that I believe people think makes it a film about time travel, as the protagonist is jumping around through time.

However, when the protagonist jumps from time to time, he does not vanish from one period and appear in another. He does not stand in a field in Belgium during World War II and suddenly vanish to appear in a house in the United States in the 1960s. Furthermore, when he goes through his jumps, he is not the same at the end of the jump as he is at the beginning. Specifically, when he is in the field in Belgium, he is a young man, but when he is in the house in the United States, he is an old man. It does not take long, observing these details, to realize that what is happening is not him jumping through time or time travelling, but instead he is perceiving and experiencing different moments or periods of his life.

To be clear, in a chronological sense, his life occurred in a linear fashion as most of us are familiar with. He was born, grew up, went to war, returned home, married, got old, and eventually died. The detail that is confused with travelling through time is that he does not perceive his life in chronological order. Instead, the way the film is presented, the protagonist frame of perception and experience jumps from one part of his life to another, outside of his control.

But even that, I think, is incorrect. As is explained by the Tralfamadorians, they experience all of their lives all at once, instead of a little bit at a time. Instead of experiencing one moment to the next, like travelling on a path or road, the Tralfamadorians experience all moments of their lives simultaneously. And I think, based on their significance to the story, that the protagonist is doing the same. Perhaps due to a traumatic event or due to his encountering the alien species, the protagonist becomes like the Tralfamadorians and has full access to the total sum of all his experiences all at once.

What I think is happening instead is a function of focus. Like the way that I can see quite a bit with my eyes, but that I tend only to focus on a small portion of my field of view in any moment, I think the protagonist is doing the same, though perhaps with less practiced control than I have with my eyes. I have a wide 180 degree sweep to my vision with either of my eyes. That which resides on the periphery of my vision is often referred to as my peripheral vision, and it takes a mere moment’s thought to shift an object in my peripheral vision to the focus of my vision. I can turn my head, or I can simply turn my eyeball itself. And, through practice, I have found I can do neither and still focus on an object in my periphery while still looking straight ahead. It is true that the objects viewed in this last way do not come to me as clearly, but I can still do this, ignoring that which is directly in front of me.

I argue that this is the same thing that the protagonist is doing, though he may not understand it, nor is he practiced in controlling it. The evidence for this, I think, comes from the sorts of events he does experience and when he experiences them. There are a number of scenes where he seems to be straddling two events at the same time. The two events tend to have something strikingly common about them. In one particular case, he is involved in a public speaking event, in both cases struggling to differentiate between himself at a podium as an old man and him supporting his friend speaking to a group of soldiers. He claps in the latter event, which is inappropriate, while many clap in the former event which is appropriate. I think the character is confused, perhaps clapping for the wrong event, but as he is experiencing both events simultaneously, it is hard for him to distinguish.

There are many such scenes in the film, where the protagonist quickly jumps from one part of his life to another in quick succession. Back and forth between the same two events repeatedly for the duration of both events. This seems to me not to be accidental. For him, the emotional relationship between the events draws them together into his focus, like a moving object will draw my eye. In some sense he should be able to control what is happening, and could choose not to focus on a particular event, but if he does not realize that he has such control, of course he will not exercise it.

Finally, the reason I do believe all of this is happening is captured nicely in the brief phrase that is apparently the source of this well known idiom: “so it goes.” Within the context of this film, “so it goes” is not a phrase meant to conjure a dismissive attitude. It is meant as an acknowledgement of how death is simply a part of life. All things are born and live and eventually die, and there is no reason to get too worked up about that. Instead, the Tralfamadorians suggest adopting a more positive outlook, focusing their attention on the more positive moments of their lives. And as they are experiencing all of their lives all at once, this can be taken quite literally.

Just as I can focus the center of my vision on the object that most interests me, adding greater clarify and texture to it while I mostly ignore and dismiss that which happens in the periphery of my vision, the Tralfamadorians can do the same with their perceptual focus, choosing to experience those parts of their lives that are more pleasant and positive, ignoring and dismissing those parts that are boring or negative. It can be debated how healthy it is to ignore the aspects of one’s life that one does not enjoy, but for a species who is experiencing all events all at once, there seems to me to be some logic to this.

Thus, I do not think the film is a film about time travel at all. However, I would agree that it is a film about time and about how time is perceived. For myself, in this existence I presently inhabit, I experience my life as a linear stream of events that follows a chronological sequence. Right now I am typing at my computer this blog, and later I will go to bed to sleep. And then tomorrow I will experience the weekend and do chores. I do not experience all events in my life simultaneously, and I certainly cannot choose to focus on an event from ten years ago, or an event ten years from now either.

It would be interesting if I could do such things. To be able to use information from the future to inform the decisions of the past. To help myself make better choices. To help myself avoid various pitfalls along the way. But that just isn’t how it works for me. At least not so far.

The last thing I want to raise about all of this is something I’ve thought about in the past. I’ve even written about it a little in previous blog posts from years ago. This fourth dimension, time, does not seem like the previous three dimensions. Or perhaps it is, but is not so easily seen. I have a relatively fixed length about me. Do I have a relatively fixed time?