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Comment by Vecr | Hacker News Reader

One thing I don't understand about the movie, even after reading the screenplay etc. is why does Vincent claim the doctors knew the exact time of his death just seconds after he was born? They clearly don't and can't, given the entire rest of the movie. Are the doctors just reading out the exact middle of the probability distribution (or the time with the absolute highest probability), to way more precision than actually makes sense? On another note, I'm not sure the probability curve would actually only have one peak in Vincent's case, one peak from his heart condition and another from old age would make sense. The doctors/his parents should have explained the nature of the probability distribution in much more detail.

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That part of the movie actually makes perfect sense to me.

In the real world, the vast majority of people are quick to misinterpret scientific findings to reinforce their own biases. Gattaca is the story of a world where the "Others" in that society are those who are not genetically engineered to culturally acceptable standards.

IMHO it is a very human and believable part of the story that most of society will simply choose to go along with being bigoted against the out group, and not spend the extra time and effort to figure out if their biases are actually correct. In the story, Anton tells Vincent his parents died assuming that he had died young, because the doctors told them he would.

I suspect this is probably correct, thank you.

Isn't that the entire point of the movie? They /don't/ actually know even though they think they do, the entire society is built on hubris.

Good thing we would never fall for such an obvious thing.

> Are the doctors just reading out the exact middle of the probability distribution

The movie was very explicit about reading out high probabilities for Vincent's problems. So they're not certainties, but they are treated as such by the wider society which is why he narrated it as if it was a certainty.

the doctors were also salesmen. There is a scene where they are pitching the various options and pushing for the more expensive. I would assume that a majority of what they say is just dishonest attempts to make the parents feel bad about not optimizing their child. They are presenting the worst case scenario as fact.

"They clearly don't and can't, given the entire rest of the movie."

Even today some doctors dumb-down and overvalued their own opinion. I assume someone who thinks they're basically playing god would think similarly.

I always took it as implied that, although the 99% chance was their real knowledge of the distribution, this was a story about the one guy that ended up flying to space.

He does not actually fly to space in-movie, and from what I recall, it seems entirely plausible that he'll have a heart attack and die during the first flight. With all the implications that has for the rest of the team.

The movie features the moment of ignition, as a counter-point to Jerome incinerating himself, so we see Vincent is going into space, I guess it's conceivable that for some reason his heart fails shortly after the movie ends but you could say that about any movie. Maybe right after he leaves, Truman drops dead of a heart attack in The Truman Show?

After surviving jogging on the treadmill? I don't think space launch is /that/ stressful.

You can read it as a criticism of the society that he was born into.

>> The doctors/his parents should have explained the nature of the probability distribution in much more detail.

It may be a movie based in science and still relevant, but it is still first and primarily a movie for entertainment. Add in the fact that "doctors knew the exact time of his death just seconds after he was born" can be interpreted as how long his body will last, not predicting the future, and I'm not sure your request for explaining the math behind this statement would contribute much to the movie.

>> an be interpreted as how long his body will last

How would you know that either, even with perfect interpretation of a full DNA sequence and NMRI scans? Let's say to simplify you knew the exact total number of heartbeats his heart could handle before instantly conking out (obviously not a real thing). There would still be a probability distribution, and possibly not a simple one at that, based on how much physical activity he does, when and how often he gets sick from viral infections, etc. Really anything that impacts his heart rate at the time.

Also because how would they know a medical treatment wouldn’t become available to allow Vincent the likelihood of a longer life? Maybe society has stopped advancing because of their deterministic outlook?

I always took that as a hyperbole, and not something to be taken literally, and a foreshadowing of him showing them up on that point.

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