Conclusions

"As the world continues to change and we become more connected to each other, globalization will bring both benefits and disruptions to our lives. But either way, it's here, and it's not going away."- Barack Obama. With the advent of modern technology, connecting with people around the world has never been more accessible. Before the innovation of modern comms technology, cross culture communication was restricted to trade markets, physical travel, and the occasional newspaper articles on said culture or country. Urgent news took time to be received, especially between continental barriers. But now with cellular devices or access to the internet, one can contact anybody across the globe with little restriction or barriers.

During the film Arrival after the Heptapods made first contact with the planet, all the major nations around the world agree to cooperate with international research to decipher the alien language. Although they all had different methods to approach the dilemma, they held virtual conferences to discuss any progress gained to accelerate this process. One major plot point that connects the world of Arrival just as our own is the influence and spread of a country's local and global news broadcasts. In Arrival where General Shang announced that the aliens message of "Use weapon" and that he would be pulling out of research and begin preparing for war or "any means necessary" to remove the aliens. Every news agency was broadcasting his message around the world notifying billions of people across the world. With nearly everyone on Earth having access to communicate with each other at the push of a button, an individual's culture and influence is able to spread further than ever imagined one hundred years ago.

"To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail" -Abraham Maslow, Psychologist. A fitting metaphor for the problems one might face, Maslow's language portray's a similar paradigm which every student here at WPI faces daily, even subconsciously. We tackle each new problem with a complex system of reasoning, formed around our knowledge base of experience, skills , and our tools at hand (cognitive or otherwise). However, the scope of our perceptions is constrained to what we know, and paradoxically, since we do not know what we do not know, we cannot address this failure of perspective. This is one of the primary debates of Epistemology, the philosophy by which one seeks to understand and theorize on the basis of knowledge, its applications, its validity, and the reach of its scope.

A major throughline of the film Arrival is the differences of approaches of not only Dr. Banks and Dr. Donnelly, but the approaches of different countries and cultures as well. The film eventually comes to revolve around the gaps and failures which result from these differences of approaches and philosophies; no one approach fully accomplishes the mission of deciphering the Hetapod pictography, save for Dr. Bank's research method. Dr. Bank's approach represents an ideal scenario: as she grew closer to understanding the Heptapod language, she began to think in a much different way; her perception of the situtation shifted, and more radically, her very perception of time shifted.

Though a hyperbolic representation, this is a sound example of how different sciences can diversify how one percieves a problem. Returning to the metaphor of the nail, with a hammer, one only sees nails, but with a hammer and screwdriver, ones sees not only nails, but screws as well. Extrapolated to a veritable toolbox of knowledge and experience, imagine the diversity of perspectives with which one could view any given problem. Now substitute hammer with a degree; a Computer Scientist views every problem as a Computer Scientist, a Mechanical Engineer as a Mechanical Engineer, a Physicist as a Physicist, et cetera, et cetera. While we do not advocate one attain multiple degrees to assure a capable problem-solver, we can recommend that one takes classes outside of their major to develop different perspectives and aid in the maturation of their skillset. After all, who wants to hammer nails all day?

A humanitarian issue that has been around since the dawn of time is understanding others' thoughts. Luckily humans are smart enough to have created language that allows us to express ideas using sounds and images. It may seem simple to us, but Homo sapiens have been around for 300,000 years, and only came up with language ~4700 years ago. When learning another language, often times you end up learning a word or an idea that doesn't have a direct translation to your language. This may be caused by one culture experiencing and idea more often than your culture, or maybe your language functions in a different way. Either way, learning that other language can allow you to have a better understanding of how that culture perceives and expresses their thoughts.

During the film Arrival, language is the only barrier separating understanding between Heptapods and humans. Dr. Banks' goal throughout the film is to eliminate that barrier by studying the Heptapod language and learning. For most of the film, Dr. Banks studies and begins to understand the alien language, and simultaneously starts to understand how the Heptapods think and perceive the universe. Alike many examples in the real world, she gains a new point of view due to the newly acquired mastery of the language.

Much like the Heptapod's written language, programming languages can often times be seen in a similar fashion. A good computer scientist will use a computing language that is best fit to their task. Only an inexperienced developer would use a programming language such as R to create a website as it is missing most of the components required that a language such as JavaScript has. This can be related to languages around the world. A language originating from an area with lots of snow may have a variety of words to describe different types of snow, whereas a language originating from a location in the desert may not even have a word for snow. It is ideas like this that will oftentimes convince one that practicing another language can change the way you think.

By immersing oneself into a topic, individuals can increase their understanding of the topic as well as broaden their perspective. Devoting oneself to a craft takes true commitment and undertaking. However, by placing learning into everyday situations, it will allow for repetition in learning and allows individuals to connect the new topic to their current understanding.

In Arrival, Dr. Louise Banks begins to emerge herself into the heptapods language. Out of necessity to determine why the heptapods are on Earth, Banks begins to spend nearly every moment of her day studying and learning the heptapods language. She not only devoted a large chunk of time to this, but she also took a positive and committed approach to decoding the language. By using printed images and software to aid in her understanding, she immersed herself fully into her learning. During this process, she also begins to understand more about the heptapods. The more time Banks spends on this, she begins to develop the skill to view time in a non-linear way. In the end, due to her ability to fully place herself into what she was learning, she was able to quickly learn the language and shift her perception of the world.

In terms of computation and language, those who truly immerse themselves into language acquisition have a deeper understanding of the content. Language allows individuals to pass along and store information. By spending more time learning a new language, it will be easier to recall and recognize. Similarly, the repeated exposure helps master the content while blending the language into everyday life. With this, individuals will be more aware of the similarities and differences between varying languages like lack of direct translations for specific words. For example, if a word is missing from one language, but has two similar meanings in another, the individual is aware of how they relate to one another. This creates a challenge in learning that produces better problem solving and complex thinking.