 Suppose we finally encounter the advanced alien race we've always looked for, but due to a quirk of the universe, they move through time in the opposite direction that we do. Our day of encounter is a solemn day for them. They are there to say goodbye to us for the very last time, and we are there to encounter them for the very first time. Conversations are easy for them, more difficult for us, as they have learned to communicate with us in a weird backwards logic, and their English is perfect from over a thousand years of living on Earth. What interesting things they could tell us about our future, which is their past. Every event they have witnessed has played out for them in a boggling way, and to us their behavior is just as strange. They've seen car wrecks reassemble themselves into cars and go screaming backwards around tracks. The winner of the car race must return to the starting line at the exact same time as all the other cars, even though the losers have had a head start. The aliens have seen rotting logs, mere piles of sawdust, be resurrected into mighty oaks, and progressively shrink in on themselves, becoming seeds. Every human decision, every war, every murder, every death to disease or starvation, all of human misery or joy is a foregone conclusion to them, and they see it happening in reverse if they are there to observe it. There's no mystery in our future because it is their past. There was one concept we were never able, or rather will never be able to explain to them, and that is, or was, free will. It's a meaningless concept to them. Our chain of causality is not their chain of causality. We see every decision have a consequence. They see the consequence, and simply await the predestined decision. We've tried, or will try, I suppose, to explain to them the concept of God, and why free will is so important. But since they start shaking their heads and shrugging their alien shoulders before we even speak, we know they do not, will not, understand. It would seem that free will doesn't exist to someone that does not share our precise perception of time. Interesting. Thanks for watching.