So the "illusion" of a changeable future never arises
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But there's the realization that one of the aliens dies and could have prevented its death but didn't because that's how it happens
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Same, of course, with the protagonist's doomed daughter, and doomed marriage
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The story makes this even clearer -- the daughter doesn't die by cancer (which "feels" inevitable to us) but in a rock climbing accident
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The protagonist watches her leave for her rock climbing trip with the knowledge that she will die and can't stop it
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She can't say anything because that would break Fermat's theorem. That's not the lowest energy state. It's not what happened
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The story goes into more detail about how it works -- she experiences it as "seeing" or "remembering" the future because she's still human
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She has flashes where she thinks she fully grasps the alien POV and it's like Buddhist enlightenment, losing the sense of self entirely
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But as a human she can't maintain it -- most of the time it's like she has a second consciousness watching her from the outside
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The part of her that thinks and feels like a human still goes through causal time, still doesn't know things before learning them
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In a meta sense she's like an audience member watching a movie, or an actor playing in one
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