The Butterfly Effect’s  

Movie review

The movie “The butterfly effect” narrates about life of a boy called Evans who suffered various blackouts and suffering throughout his childhood and adolescence stage of growth (Afdah.com). This included severe sexual and psychological trauma which literary emanated from being forced by a neighbor to participate in child pornography (Afdah.com). At one tine he was nearly killed by being strangled by his mentally estranged institutionalized father (Afdah.com). Moreover, his father was killed in front of him by a gang of men who also killed his mother and his infant sister (Afdah.com).  To make the matter worse, his dog also never survives since it was burned alive by the neighbor son Tommy (Afdah.com).

Seven years later, when Evans was grown up, he came back to his past senses and experiences. He realized possibilities of returning back to his childhood and corrects the misery life he went through. He also wanted to go back and redo part of his life which was very bad experience (Afdah.com). This also involved editing his past time-line that leads to the future where he currently lives in. This decision chosen by Evans was also accompanied with more consequences. This is because in most occasions, as a result off editing his timeline, he found himself on the wrong side for example; imprisoned, as a college student, as an amputee and many other unfortunate incidents (Afdah.com).

The truth is that the intention of revising past life was good but coincidentally, there were several unforeseen consequences that Evans never thought of. These accumulated memories made him in occasion to nosebleed and to some extent suffered brain damage (Afdah.com). In his reversed time journey, Evans saves Keyleigh from his father who was divorced by the wife. Evans did what he could to ensure that Keyleigh travelled to another neighborhood to stay with her mother together with her brother Tommy where they received disciplined upbringing and grew up to be successful in life (Afdah.com).

From the movie review it is clear that time is equally related with freedom which is also compatible to fore knowledge (Linda 1). The fact that the A-theory of time reveals that human has a strong connection between freedom and divine fore knowledge.  Nevertheless, it later emanated that the theory was developed to prove the compatibility of human freedom with divine foreknowledge is relatively inconsistent with A-theory of time (Linda 1).

Human have no power and foreknowledge on what will happen to the future whether they had freedom or not. Evans life was a form of imprisonment and this deprived him self freedom to note the future expectation until one time when he had freedom and realized that he can reverse time. For Tommy and Keyleigh they had total freedom when children but had no power to foreseen desperate life ahead of the m. the main argument suggests that there is no future. In comparison with God, it is noted that God lives everywhere but “it still may not seem plausible that God can know future contingents because it is so hard to see how he could come by such knowledge.” (Linda 4)

Based on Evans past and future life, his past life was full of misery and suffering. At that point the option of living long was not there but his future is calm and entertaining. This is supported by the statement from Zagzebski that “Common sense supports the view that there is asymmetry between past and future and asymmetry that is both ontological and modal” (Linda 5). To expand on this, the ontological describes a real past accompanied with unreal future. It is described that the future has got no ontological status; it does not exist and cannot be related to anything because it is not there (Linda 5).

During the revision of past life Evans did, there was room to correct the future life for Tommy, Keyleigh and himself. This means that the future could be edited but the past cannot be edited. Following the concept and A-theory of time, the past is fixed by the fact that it is actual (Linda 5). On the other hand, the future is open simply because in the present, there is potency for many different possible futures (Linda 6). However, this potency that determines future is firmly connected to freedom since there is nothing in present that determines the future (Linda 6). Moreover on the other hand, this same potency is also connected to time by the fact that the empty future will become the actual present depending on what the person freely choose to do (Linda 6). This literary means that the future is not fixed but wide open.

Contrary to this negative criticism about A-theory of time by Zagzebski, is the fact that if time is real so is the future (Planetaryphilosophy 2). This is supported by the fact that the present never spontaneously appeared from nowhere and will rather not disappear into nothing spontaneously. Time and space being related according to Einstein is very correct. To add on this, the past is a place once lived but people are not currently there whereas the future is a place that already exists even though we have not visited yet (Planetaryphilosophy 2). Evans past life was miserable because hi lived in it and his future was entertaining because he arrived at it. Nevertheless, this concept agrees that the past is fixed whereas the future has got several possibilities one has to make choices on (Planetaryphilosophy 2).

Works cited

Afdah.com. The butterfly effects. 2004. Web. 20 April 2014.

Linda, Nathan. Time and foreknowledge: a critique of Zagzebski.1995. Religious Studies. 31 (1):              101 – 103 

 Planetaryphilosophy. If time is real, Then so is the Future. 2013. Web. 20 April 2014.

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