there is no dog

November 23, 2004 6:28 PM

What the Bleep Do We Know? Has anybody else seen this movie, about quantum physics and the nature of reality? We went to see it last night and were flummoxed by the 100-person line sprawling up the sidewalk outside our little downtown art theater. The movie was good, but for the most part didn't cover anything I hadn't heard or thought about before. Except for the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto, whose experiments seem to prove that ice crystals form in different shapes depending on the mood that the water is subjected to. As somebody with only the most introductory familiarity with quantum physics, I'm curious to know from people who've spent more time around the subject: What do you think (of the theory, and of the movie if you've seen it)?
posted by damn yankee (125 comments total)

I think this would make a marvelous post over here, where hey-guys-whaddya-think posts are the norm.
posted by argybarg at 6:37 PM on November 23, 2004

Well, I haven't seen it myself, but I read an article about it, I think in the Toronto Star, saying it was a thinly disguised and pseudo-scientific attempt at apologetics by a new age group, bankrolled by one of their wealthy members.

Here's the Rotten Tomatoes review, which gives it a Rotten 38% rating.
posted by The Thnikkaman at 6:41 PM on November 23, 2004

Isn't the movie just a front for some cult, anyway? Oops, thanks, Thnikkaman.
posted by selfnoise at 6:42 PM on November 23, 2004

I took a cursory look for the article, or an article like it, through google, but didn't find anything.

I didn't look too hard though. A lot of the quotations on the Rotten Tomatoes review are to that effect though.
posted by The Thnikkaman at 6:44 PM on November 23, 2004

Hey, you know how when you walk into the L. Ron Hubbard center they show a merry little movie questioning what we really know about life?

I exposed this movie (in this article) as a puff piece for a cult in Washington that worships a woman claiming to channel a 35,000-year-old warrior spirit.

The ice crystals are as goofy as the movie's claim that the Indians couldn't literally see Columbus's ships because they were "out of the box," or that erect penises are proof of mind-spirit unity.

The movie tied neatly into the marketing of a number of books about how you can see love particles floating around in water that has been blessed by monks.

If you enjoyed What The Bleep, you might like this more openly propagandistic Ramtha film from the same director.
posted by inksyndicate at 6:44 PM on November 23, 2004

I've seen it. My parents and their friends love it. People my age (GenX) take a more critical view, that it presents some real science then leaps to some unreal science with some missing gaps of explanation. One of the main talking heads you will note in the credits is a channel, she was talking as a dead person. Anyway, my parents have been back twice and brought all their friends. On preview, interesting comment about the apologetics, although the film seems very much against traditional religion.
posted by stbalbach at 6:44 PM on November 23, 2004

I saw it a couple months back in SF. It had some interesting stuff about how habits form, both emotional and substance-related. Cell receptors on the outer membrances of cells are customized to what they're accustomed to getting. Brain cells map and remap themselves according to the stimulation and usage they get most often. Interesting info.

There was absolutely nothing interesting about quantum physics in it. I have only a basic layperson's reading of the field, and yet this film taught me nothing new. Inasmuch as the film explores the jars of water experiment, it's utter shit. Some guy put labels like "i love you" and "you disgust me" on jars of water, then rendered images of how the water molecules aligned. Water has multiple ways of stacking together, and he found that the different jars had different patterns. Hardly a scientific experiment, though (at least the way its presented - hastily). I would fully expect to find different patterns in different sample. Big deal. Yet we're supposed to believe that these "patterns," which of themselves are pretty random, are the result of "chi" or other human telekinetic energy acting on the water. "If words can do this to water - imagine what they can do to us?" It's 3 stretches and a reach tossed together. Eh.

I want to see double-blind trials of this with some method more conclusive than writing fortune-cookie messages on the jars. I'd like to see what happens to a control group of 10 jars that have "101010" written on them. I want 10 jars each that have "love" on them, and I want to compare their results. Well, you don't get any of that in this film. Far from interviewing the guy who did the experiment, all we see is a dramatized scene of people in a subway station looking at an exhibit of the jars and reading info about the experiment from placards. WHAT?? Is it too much to ask that we get some real exposure to this core idea which underlies the entire movie, not 2 mintues of watching actors look at placards?

Moreover there is a lot of naked-deaf-woman-looking-at-her-fat-butt-in-the-mirror content in this film. Yes, I shit you not. There's a "plot" overlayed on top of a bunch of narrative about science. It's about a deaf woman. It basically goes nowhere, except a couple of tableaux used to show how moods actually take place on a biochemical level (which at one point fully breaks down into a Pixar movie musical number, with all kinds of animated hormone characters dancing around the screen).

Not worth waiting in a line for. 100-people isn't a big one where I come from, anyway.
posted by scarabic at 6:48 PM on November 23, 2004

This film really should really just be considered a long commercial for JZ Knight, AKA Ramtha. The three co-directors of the film are all students at Ramtha, and probably the most reputable scientist in the whole affair has since backed off after seeing the final product. Two other people appearing in the film (Joe Dispenza and Michael Ledwith) are also Ramtha members.

As for Masaru Emoto, while everyone claims his research is repeatable, nobody has repeated it. In fact, most objective reports pretty much dismiss the entire experiment as non-controlled. If this was intended as a "scientific film", it really should be avoided.
posted by PantsOfSCIENCE at 6:50 PM on November 23, 2004

According to WSJ:

"The three directors attended the Ramtha School of Enlightenment in Yelm, Wash. According to Ramtha's Web site, the group's leader, JZ Knight, says she channels the spirit of a 35,000-year-old warrior named Ramtha, who teaches his "unique perspective from which to view the mystery of life."

Last time I saw Ramtha on the local news in Seattle, he still hadn't lost his Indian accent after 35,000 years. You know, If I was an immortal warrior, Yelm would be the last place I'd move to.
posted by aliendolphin at 6:51 PM on November 23, 2004

Read The Dancing Wu Li Masters if you want an exploration of quantum mechanics that the layperson can access. It's incredibly much more effective at getting to the core of the issues, and none of the info in it is channeled from dead people.
posted by scarabic at 6:52 PM on November 23, 2004

Here's my favorite quotation from Joe Dispenza:

"I say, I'm taking this time to create my day, and I'm infecting the Quantum Field. Now, if it is in fact, the observer's watching me the whole time that I'm doing this, and there is a spiritual aspect to myself. Then, show me a sign today, that you paid attention to any one of these things that I created, and bring them in a way that I won't expect."

Oh yeah, he's a chiropractor. Talking about Quantum Mechanics.
posted by PantsOfSCIENCE at 6:56 PM on November 23, 2004

On preview -- re: PantsOfSCIENCE -- hee hee.

Basically the movie panders to people's understandable dislike of organized religion...but isn't honest about how the woman uttering these words is a guru who asks people to fork over thousands to listen to her channel an ancient Atlantean warrior.

The only reason the pic so big on quantum physics is that this is the theological rationale "Ramtha" normally uses to explain her existence. i.e. "Particle experiments show that we don't actually know anything, therefore an ancient Atlantean warrior really might be in Washington State fully deserving of my $5,000 per session."

I was recently in D.C. and was stunned to see the City Paper describe it as a "cinematic mind fuck." It was like the only thing playing in Dupont Circle, too. It seems to have an enduring popularity.

And sure, it hits on a couple of insights about the human condition. But every con has a grain of truth in it.

Create your own reality!!!!
posted by inksyndicate at 6:59 PM on November 23, 2004

Roger Ebert's take (scroll down to the fourth question)
posted by painquale at 7:03 PM on November 23, 2004

Never trust anyone over 30,000.
posted by homunculus at 7:07 PM on November 23, 2004

Wait, wait-- there's a scientist doing experiments about what mood water is in, and his name is Dr. Emoto?

There's totally a comic book in there.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:10 PM on November 23, 2004

Wow. I’m so glad I posted this. (And argybarg, thanks for the AskMefi suggestion – I’d never really explored over there. I’m happy for the introduction.)

I realize I could have done some moderate lifting in Google and found all this out myself, but because I was at once taken by and suspicious of this movie (particularly in the parts and aspects that have been mentioned here), I wanted to hear from mefites before I went thrashing through a tangle of search results. People here typically have interesting and well-informed things to say. (Hence AskMefi – gotcha.)

And our post-film discussion actually included The Dancing Wu Li Masters, so double reinforcement that I should check it out.
posted by damn yankee at 7:10 PM on November 23, 2004

Wait, wait-- there's a scientist doing experiments about what mood water is in, and his name is Dr. Emoto?

Nice. I can't believe I missed that.

(Drugs are bad, m'kay?)
posted by damn yankee at 7:12 PM on November 23, 2004

Wow, I'm floored. I didn't know Ramtha was still around -- figured that kind of thing went out with crystal shops on every corner. Perhaps someone will pick up on the obvious interest in quantum phenomena and offer up a proper treatment of the material.

Besides, we all know this atomistic view of the world is bollocks, right? Orgone, baby!
posted by undule at 7:14 PM on November 23, 2004

You know, I wonder if JZ Knight believes that Ramtha is coming through her? It's staggering to think she has a twenty-some year running gag.
posted by undule at 7:16 PM on November 23, 2004

***
We interrupt this thread to bring you a link to the previous Ask Metafilter thread about the movie. That is all.
***
posted by euphorb at 7:17 PM on November 23, 2004

RAMTHA?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Oh. My. Sweet. Baal.

Isn't that woman dead/in jail by now?

Also, what is the "bleep" for, or is it just a "bleep"?

And thanks for the link to the article, inksyndicate. Good stuff.
posted by Sidhedevil at 7:18 PM on November 23, 2004

Maybe someone has been reading the What the Bleep can I do? recommendations for helping promote the film?
posted by internal at 7:22 PM on November 23, 2004

You know, I wonder if JZ Knight believes that Ramtha is coming through her?

They say that when a Gou'ould takes over your body, something of the host survives. But then, you never know. You could run that blond lady through Thor's Hammer and she might come out gasping and panting saying "THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I CAN'T STAND TOFU!"
posted by scarabic at 7:22 PM on November 23, 2004

It seems to have an enduring popularity.

It's been playing at the Uptown here since summer. Apparently there are a lot of people who haven't seen it. Who would go back ? The 'acting' in the 'dramatic' parts is embarrassingly bad and it has the crappiest animations ever.
posted by y2karl at 7:23 PM on November 23, 2004

I never read reviews before watching a movie, and therefore got suckered into actually paying to watch this piece of shit nutball propoganda film. I can't believe the Red Vic let me down...

I'm gonna quote this IMDB comment, in the hopes that no one else gives these con artists anymore money...

The film doesn't explore "science"; it explores pseudoscience. The comments of all the purported "leading" scientists center on a single theme: "We all create our own reality." Well, at leastthe filmmakers certainly have succeeded in creating their own reality: there is not one scientist presented who does not try to tie quantum mechanics to spiritualism, despite the fact that only a small minority of physicists in the field ascribe to the view presented in the film. Largely, the scientists presented in the film have previously been involved in promoting pseudoscience and some are tied with the Ramtha cult directly. Their presence in the film represents the filmmakers efforts to use only scientists sympathetic to the film's premise.

The film fails to inform the viewer of it's maker's affiliation to the Ramtha School of Enlightenment. Ramtha is an alleged 35,000 year-old warrior spirit from the lost continent of Atlantis and one of the Ascended Masters channeled by JZ Knight, who is featured prominently in the film. Her group, The Ramtha School of Enlightenment, is considered by many a cult. The fact that the filmmakers fail to reveal most of this information until the very end, and only then in passing and incompletely, indicates that not only is the film factually biased, but that the filmmakers are being disingenuous about their agenda. All three directors of this film are students of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment. Director William Arntz reports that the spiritual influences in his life include metaphysics, Rudolf Steiner, the Theosophists, Carlos Castaneda, Rama, various forms of Buddhism, and Ramtha. Director Betsy Chasse has attended SRF (Self-Realization Fellowship classes – founded by Paramahansa Yogananda). Mark Vicente says he "arrived on the planet as a Christian; performed a brief stint as a New-Ager" - until he realized that the latter was: “a bit like being a Democrat – well intentioned, politically correct but lacking balls.” He then became a student of Ramtha.

The science presented in the film contains mostly conjecture and unsupported conclusion based on errors of fact, especially around QM. They use many of the terms, jargon of QM, but they misrepresent their conclusions and rely on Bad Science that lacks objectivity. They've started with a preconceived belief and filtered their own observations so as to try to support that belief. They've failed to be self-critical and try to disprove their hypotheses by all available means. Masaru Emoto's work with frozen water crystals is prime example of this. Dr. Masaru Emoto is not a scientist but received certification from the Open International University as a Doctor of Alternative Medicine, and the yet film presents him as a scientist his conclusions as science. He has not published a single study in a peer-reviewed journal.

The film misrepresents both current science and the background and agenda of the filmmakers.

They are part of the Ramtha cult, and the opinion they present in the film is exactly one supported by the Ramtha cult, hence making their film a vehicle for the Ramtha cult's message without informing the viewer.

posted by rajbot at 7:24 PM on November 23, 2004

hmm, I'm, uh, kinda writing a book about it.

Hey, it's not like we're coherent energy realizing ourselves in an eternal single moment of now or anything.

Bill Hicks did some nice comedy about the conception, search "Bill Hicks, Einstein was right.".

Also, QM is old and busted, string theory is where the big bucks are nowadays.

Finally, 'string theory' should be called 'energy theory', IMHO, as that's what the 'strings' are.
posted by wah at 7:24 PM on November 23, 2004

Also, re stbalbach saying his parents and friends loved the movie-- we were very amused/irritated by the demographics of this mystery movie we were lining up to see: "It's all people from Cape Elizabeth," I whispered to my husband. Which, if you're not from southern Maine, means, "It's all rich 50-year-old couples who can go out to the movies on a Monday night because their 2.5 children are in college. [But will be home again in TWO DAYS.]"

It's interesting to see boomers so drawn to this movie. Perhaps it logical. You get to the sprightly autumn of your life and I imagine you might finally start to question these things, even if you never had before.

Old age makes hippies out of all of us! (Long live old age!)
posted by damn yankee at 7:24 PM on November 23, 2004

I saw this in SF a couple months ago (where it played at the Sony Metreon-- a mallplex-- for a long time), and alternated between loving and hating it. I loved the wide-eyed joy they had about what could be a heady subject, but hated such things as the wedding dancing sequence about endorphins(!). Basically, I liked it for the same reasons I would join a cult....if I actually liked computer-animated dancing endorphins...

In the end, I told all my friends to see it, but very few took me up on the (kinda) glowing review. Definitely worth the trip anyway.
posted by schlomo at 7:25 PM on November 23, 2004

I saw it in Vancouver last month. I left having enjoyed it, but with basically the sense that "think happy" = "be happy". Which to me, is true on occasion--I generally believe in good karma. In the end, I guess I enjoyed it, learned a bit, but took it all with a good shaker of salt.
posted by stray at 7:42 PM on November 23, 2004

PRESIDENT TRAVOLTA TO MAKE MAJOR ECONOMIC ADDRESS
I put my trust in Ramtha
posted by crunchburger at 7:47 PM on November 23, 2004

Maybe someone has been reading the What the Bleep can I do? recommendations for helping promote the film?

Internal, you realize such negative thinking is doing irreperable harm to your neural nets, don't you?
posted by damn yankee at 7:50 PM on November 23, 2004

...there is a lot of naked-deaf-woman-looking-at-her-fat-butt-in-the-mirror content in this film

A tragically neglected genre.
posted by squirrel at 7:50 PM on November 23, 2004

The fact that the filmmakers fail to reveal most of this information until the very end, and only then in passing and incompletely, indicates that not only is the film factually biased, but that the filmmakers are being disingenuous about their agenda. All three directors of this film are students of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment.

While I agree that this is suspicious and dishonest to at least some degree, I don't think it's implausible for someone with weird spiritual beliefs to make an essay-format film about science and spiritualism that isn't a complete and total mindfuck agenda piece. Look at it from their perspective. Perhaps "not revealing" their connection to the cult was, in their eyes, not pushing the cult on anyone.

If, for example, someone wants to make a documentary about the meat industry, I don't think they have to come out in the first 10 minutes and admit that they're a Hindu, or that the film will necessarily be a puff piece advertisement for whatever Hindu temple they belong to.

This film is what it is. It's shitty, but I got the impression that the filmmakers were making an honest effort. They just weren't very smart, or very good filmmakers. I certainly didn't feel like they were selling the cult directly, though their membership in it does undercut their general credibility.
posted by scarabic at 7:59 PM on November 23, 2004

Read Connie Willis' novella, Inside Job, in the current issue of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. That will tell you all you ever need to know about channellers. And it's funny.
posted by rushmc at 8:00 PM on November 23, 2004

Read Connie Willis' novella, Inside Job, in the current issue of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.

Don't you mean we should turn on her channel?...
posted by wah at 8:02 PM on November 23, 2004

Though Salon referenced it, I thought it appropriate to cite what the Good Doctor Sagan -- one of the great promotors of the wonders of science -- said about the newest individual to take up that mantle, Ramtha. All this is from his wonderful "The Demon-Haunted World":

"The simpliest hypothesis is that Ms. Knight makes "Ramtha" speak all by herself, and that she has had no contact with disembodied entities from the Pleistocene Ice Age. How does he know that he lived 35,000 years ago, even approximately? What calendar does he employee? Who is keeping track of the intervening millenium? What were things like 35,000 years ago? And if Ramtha came from the 'high civilization of Atlantis, where are the linguistic, technological, historical and other details? Tell us. Instead, all we are offered are banal homilies."

I like that he points out the trouble in knowing that 35,000 years have passed....
posted by blahblahblah at 8:03 PM on November 23, 2004

Having not seen this movie, but from reading the commentary regarding it, it seems like is is popular for the same reasons that "The DaVinci Code" is.
posted by Eekacat at 8:11 PM on November 23, 2004

A freind of mine here at TESC was conned into being a participant in the movie, only to

FLEE IN TERROR AS HIS GRIP UPON THE MORTAL COIL WAS LOOSENED!
posted by blasdelf at 8:13 PM on November 23, 2004

what the bleep is the big deal with this movie ? next thread pls
posted by dawdle at 8:15 PM on November 23, 2004

I was tricked into going to this movie by a relative. For those of you that haven't seen it, for the love of Ramtha... spare yourselves. If you have seen it, I feel your pain. Or is that my pain channeled through you and back to me? Where's my bong?
posted by lazymonster at 8:17 PM on November 23, 2004

I tried to visit the Ramtha site, but he kerashed me browser.

The Wikipedia Entry is quite complete, though skeptical in tone.

From whatthebleep.com re: the crummy title-
"Q: Why was the name of the film chosen?
A: The name was first floated out of the filmmakers' exasperation in trying to find a way to combine all the information and elements in an engaging, entertaining manner. Then the title took on a life of its own, as we realized, What DO We Know? and Who are WE to Tell You Anything? We are not offering the ultimate solution to life's mysteries, but inviting viewers to ask themselves the What do I Know? question and figure it out for themselves."

No ultimate solution to life's mysteries here folks, move along..
posted by lippe at 8:21 PM on November 23, 2004

What a crummy film. I was tricked into seeing it, thanks to ignorant friends who enjoyed it. The entire movie is one enormous logical fallacy; in particular, the complex question fallacy. With absolutely no support, this crusted piece of pseudoscientific claptrap implies that acceptance of Quantum Mechanics means that one must also accept Ramtha's crazed spirit-channeling worldview.

Tragically, Bleep is still playing here in Portland, thanks to the support of the neo-hippies over at the McMenamins chain of pub/theaters. Many of the scenes were also filmed here. My only regret is that I did not know about the filming ahead of time so that I could creep into the frame with some appropriate mocking signage.
posted by ladd at 8:26 PM on November 23, 2004

Yeah, my dad and all his friends also love this movie and have seen it gazillions of times.

My dad: "well, I don't know if they're respected by the mainstream or anything, but they all had science PhDs and seemed to know what they were talking about..."

It's funny: people often like to set up a dichotomy between science (all that's rational and credible) and faith (all that's unsubstantiated)...but then Rathma & Co., along with other fringe religious movements, turn around and exploit that very dichotomy to legitimize themselves by reframing their views as scientifically justified. Since many people don't have a sophisticated enough understanding of current science to evaluate whether someone is misleading them (and instead just rely on a "talking heads with PhDs = credible" heuristic) , they get all enthused about how science has "proved" that blah blah blah, and end up dissolving the science-faith boundary even as they believe they're adhering to it.
posted by introcosm at 8:28 PM on November 23, 2004

Also, QM is old and busted, string theory is where the big bucks are nowadays.

Finally, 'string theory' should be called 'energy theory', IMHO, as that's what the 'strings' are.

I may be feeding a troll here, but: Dude, make sure you know what you're talking about before spouting out shit like this. There's a couple of misconceptions implied in your post:

1. Quantum mechanics is not "old and busted" by any stretch of the imagination any more than general relativity is "old and busted". I will grant you that there are a few natural phenomena, most notably gravity, that haven't yet been successfully described by quantum mechanics; but there are simply no credible theories that even remotely challenge the foundations of quantum mechanics.
2. "Wait," you say, "what about string theory?" Well, String Theory is, in fact, a quantum mechanical theory: you get it by assuming that the fundamental particles in the Universe are little bits of string, and then describing these bits of string with quantum mechanics.
3. You're of the opinion that string theory should be called "energy theory"? That's cool. Just realize that nobody who actually works on string theory shares that opinion. (Maybe I'm wrong — feel free to point me towards a physicist who is of this opinion and I'll gladly eat crow.)

Honestly, this is why I didn't go to see this movie when I first heard about it: I knew it would be full of people taking partial results and catchphrases from modern physics and using them to suit their own purposes. As you might guess, such things tend to irk me a little.
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:28 PM on November 23, 2004

That movie? Hilarious for the first five minutes; then the kind of spiritual experience that can only be accessed through unrelenting aesthetic pain. No amount of hipster irony can save you. I wound up creating my own reality by focusing exclusively on an imaginary rectangle spanning the upper right 1/16th of the movie screen, a coping mechanism that'll serve me well when I'm being Clockwork Oranged by the Hastert Administration sometime around the year 2016.
posted by furiousthought at 8:38 PM on November 23, 2004

Johnny Assay,

Hey how's it going, not a troll, and I am actually writing a book about the stuff.

The "old and busted" phrase is a cliche and QM is old and busted (in actuality) for precisely the reason you mention, it doesn't incorporate gravity. String theory kinda seem like it can, but has to go through some mind-bending tricks to do so. BTW, Newton is about all anyone needs in real life, and he's old as busted as all hell.

Also, we'd have to take the word of a bunch of priestly math sages that it all works out to the Nth Dimension, anyway, so "faith" creeps back in except for a gifted few that can actually...write the computer programs necessary to calculate it out.

As to two, yes, I know. I was making light of the subject. Please excuse my puns, but people speak in literal energy puns all the time.

That's cool. Just realize that nobody who actually works on string theory shares that opinion.

I know, and I think they are blinded by Copenhagen. It's all got to be metaphors anyway. If they are right it seems the dimensional analysis is, as mentioned, mind bending, and few could prove such a thing for themselves.

However, many of the metaphors from Einstein's insight prove remarkably accurate, IMHO, and are therefore useful for people who ask the question, "What is this place?" "What am I?" "What am I supposed to do?"

These are not easy questions to answer, much less ask honestly of oneself.

I knew it would be full of people taking partial results and catchphrases from modern physics and using them to suit their own purposes.

They do this because modern physicists refuse to speak on the subjects. They are afraid of being branded charlatans by the physics community you see...

As you might guess, such things tend to irk me a little.

Yes, I'm familiar with the reaction.

--
one must also accept Ramtha's crazed spirit-channeling worldview.

What is he/she/it one of those "Love and be nice" crazy people? How not goth can you get?

(this is just the intarweb people, relax)
posted by wah at 8:42 PM on November 23, 2004

*sorry for the hijack*
When did string theory get boosted beyond a theoretical standpoint to an experimental one? I haven't followed it, but I though the math still didn't work out?
posted by litghost at 9:12 PM on November 23, 2004

Wah -

You seem to believe that "I'm writing a book on the subject" means that you are an authority and that people are supposed to regard your opinons as having expertise.

You also seem to assert that since physicists with credentials disagree with you, that that just *shows* how much more you know than anyone else.

I have no idea what, if any, your real expertise is, but if you have any real knowledge in the area, please put it out here, as opposed to just asserting that physics has some spiritual/psychological/metaphysical value as a convenient metaphor for things that you think are true.
posted by jasper411 at 9:14 PM on November 23, 2004

Oh good night nurse, keep my dad away from this one. He was all into Erich Von Daniken back in the day.
posted by konolia at 9:16 PM on November 23, 2004

I'm really, really frightened when it's the skeptical voice in this thread that recommends The Dancing Wu Li Masters.

Please don't read that book.

String theory is not even remotely experimental (ha!), and there's growing skepticism among the non-string-theorist physics community about whether it will ever amount to anything.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:45 PM on November 23, 2004

litghost - String theory has not yet in my opinion predicted anything that experimentalists can test. The closest hope are certain new particle resonances or black-hole production at the LHC; see this summary[pdf]. There is a lot of room for new and exciting physics these days (e.g. polarization in the cosmic ray background, temporal variation of fundamental constants[pdf], Lorentz (CPT) symmetry violation, gravity-probing extra-dimensions, the dark sector (missing mass in the universe, a full neutrino picture), etc.) but none of these require Strings. In fact, instead of the math not "working out," theorists these days are blessed with an embarrassment of riches: any new physics that is discovered (especially any new physics demonstrating supersymmetry) could probably be explained by any one of an infinite varieties of string theories which in my view are the inevitable product of overexuberant funding and too much coffee.
posted by fatllama at 9:47 PM on November 23, 2004 [1 favorite]

jasper411 : You seem to believe that "I'm writing a book on the subject" means that you are an authority and that people are supposed to regard your opinons as having expertise.

Seem would be the operative word there. I am writing a book because I have been looking into the question for a good long while. Once I realized the question was looking back at me (--ssp), my perspective shifted. that happened about 4 years ago, halfway through my research, and then i tested the hypothesis. so now that i've been working/thinking/testing the subject for abou 8 years, i thought maybe i should try and write a book or something. btw, i'm 30 now.

You also seem to assert that since physicists with credentials disagree with you, that that just *shows* how much more you know than anyone else.

"Seem" part 2. Now, I thought I said that it merely means that physicists with credections disagree with me, and they don't even like to talk about it. And I'm just trying to show that there are easier ways to concieve of the stuff they are talking about. More, shall we say, profound interpretations.

as opposed to just asserting that physics has some spiritual/psychological/metaphysical value as a convenient metaphor for things that you think are true.

physics and math are the most exacting ways we have to speak of reality. "Words" fail miserably in comparison. Our maths have expanded past the language of the layman. There exists little in the way of attempts to explain what they mean.

Also, we don't really need metaphysics anymore, IMHO. Physics lapped it.

I only think the stuff I say is true because I have tested it, and I have studied others who have tested it. Extensively. Intensely. Such pursuits give me pleasure, and so does writing about them. Again, so I'm writing a book on the subject(s).
posted by wah at 9:48 PM on November 23, 2004

I saw it, with moderate hopes. While the QM content was spot on, it wasn't that new to me. Most of the acting and animations were downright embarrassing. Yet it's been playing here in Asheville for over a month, and there's still F911 type lines around the block. I really lost it when it was clear just how prominent a role Mr./Ms Ramtha was going to play in the whole trainwreck, and the horrid attempt to 'modernize' Alice in Wonderland made for a ridiculous plot vehicle.

Yes, I agree with the whole spiritual side of QM and the human potential movement. But a wingnut with borderline personality disorder and an unemployed prez candidate (who now declared himself president of the world peace government) certainly don't speak for those of us willing to look to science to evolve our spirituality.
posted by moonbird at 9:54 PM on November 23, 2004

I'm really, really frightened when it's the skeptical voice in this thread that recommends The Dancing Wu Li Masters.

Please don't read that book.

Why not? It's got only the barest framework of Eastern Religion sprinkled on top. The rest is more or less a history of QM milestones, with some discussion of the implications.
posted by scarabic at 9:59 PM on November 23, 2004

Ugh. I saw this movie with my dad after seeing some glowing reviews of it, when it was playing very early on down in Phoenix. It... wasn't very good. I guess it could succeed in opening the minds of close-minded people. Maybe. The cult indoctrination was pretty light, so I'm inclined to think the goal was to open people's minds, with the presumption that they would automatically join crazy cult. Anyway, I think it's mostly harmless, vaguely amusing, and pointless overall. Plus I always thought Marlee Matlin was hot. At least I only paid $5 for it.
posted by JZig at 10:00 PM on November 23, 2004

QM is old and busted (in actuality) for precisely the reason you mention, it doesn't incorporate gravity.

Haha. Bwahaha.

You remind me of all the digerati smarty guys who were "writing books" about the Internet in 1999. They all said that HTML was old and busted, DEAD in fact, and that the future was all about XML.

This is possibly an educational example for you, since *both* XML and HTML are quite useful for solving problems today, just not the same problems. Similarly, QM and Newtonian models are both astoundingly consistent with experimental data, just not the same sets of data. They apply in different contexts. They solve different problems.
posted by scarabic at 10:10 PM on November 23, 2004

Now, I thought I said that it merely means that physicists with credections disagree with me

Note: if you experience credections lasting for longer than 48 hours, please consult your physician.
posted by ladd at 10:12 PM on November 23, 2004

hey wah.

Are you insane?

Just curious.
posted by xmutex at 10:14 PM on November 23, 2004

Similarly, QM and Newtonian models are both astoundingly consistent with experimental data, just not the same sets of data. They apply in different contexts. They solve different problems.

Yes, and no, IMHO. They solve different problems, but are most definitely attempts to explain the same context.
Sometimes it doesn't matter about how much more a ball weighs when in motion, and least compared to the resistance of the air around it.

You remind me of all the digerati smarty guys who were "writing books" about the Internet in 1999.

Thanks. Yea, I'll probably be wrong about a few things, of that there is no doubt. But, alas, the possibility of failure is not enough to dissuade me from trying...so...there ya go.

xmutex : Let's just say I've read enough Derrida to ask, "And by insane you mean what, exactly?"

hmm, the doctor called. It seems I'm fresh out of credection medication and he's worried.

;-)

I did walk around Manhattan the other day for 'fun'. Is that crazy?
posted by wah at 10:20 PM on November 23, 2004

Something else you all oughta know, that didn't make it into the Salon story for space reasons -- these Ramtha people aren't just run-of-the-mill crystal-loving New Agers. A travel guide to Yelm, Wash. describes their ranch as impossible to miss, fenced in by copper pyramids that they believe are warding off CIA mind control radiation.

I swear to God. A number of reference books have chronicled the apocalyptic bent of the cult. Before the end of the Cold War, Ramtha taught that a secret contingent of Communist soldiers was going to invade the U.S. from Mexico, and she required members to build "survival huts."

Just so you know the source.

So I don't want to flame here, but I find it totally amazing that these people have found a public platform for earnest discussion of their ideas. I used to volunteer at a public access station, popping in video tapes, and we'd run cult promos all the time -- Eckankar or what have you -- and it really wasn't much different from this, except for the hype.

And...these people say the Indians couldn't see Columbus's ships! I haven't heard anyone comment on how crazy this claim is.
posted by inksyndicate at 10:23 PM on November 23, 2004

"Why not?"

That book probably more than any other started (or popularized) the trend that culminates in this awful film. There are particle physicists and theorists who take the philosophical implications of QM seriously even though most gave up talking about it since Bohr. But I don't know any that speak fondly of that book. Lots of cringes, rather.

Pretty much every era of western scientific history has had a frontier of science that the popular imagination colonizes for the same imaginative purposes. If you think about just pure knowledge of the world, the Prester John legend is exemplary of this. Hell, even Roger Penrose, who should damn well know better, hand-waves consciousness into QM territory.

If you're interested in the philosophical implications of QM, then read Bohr, especially, and some of his contemporaries. These were some of the last people who had the training and temperment and passion to consider these questions. But please stay away from non-physicist authored popularizations.

On Preview: particle physicists would be happy with a "Grand Unified Theory" (a single theory unifying quantum chromodynamics and electroweak); saying that QM is busted because it's not a "Theory Of Everything" is silly. Anyway, string theory has been around a long time and the initial excitement that it would accomplish these aims has greatly diminished.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:23 PM on November 23, 2004

saying that QM is busted because it's not a "Theory Of Everything" is silly.

Saying anything is 'old and busted' is silly, IMHO. Just to be clear.
posted by wah at 10:31 PM on November 23, 2004

WBR's The Connection did an hour on the movie, taking it embarrassingly seriously. Callers, for the most part, tore it to shreds. Amusing.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:37 PM on November 23, 2004

Oh good night nurse, keep my dad away from this one. He was all into Erich Von Daniken back in the day.

We'll make a healthy skeptic out of you yet.
posted by rushmc at 10:55 PM on November 23, 2004

Ah, you guys are sooooooo wrong about the water crystals thing. Just the other day I glared at a glass of coke I was drinking, and there was ice in there... well let me tell you the whole glass erupted into a brown boiling sludge and came after me. I didn't think I was going to be able to outrun it, and I was right. Damn thing beat the shit out of me.
posted by rabidsquirrel at 11:14 PM on November 23, 2004

Thanks for the links, fatllama!
posted by vacapinta at 11:27 PM on November 23, 2004

copper pyramids that they believe are warding off CIA mind control radiation.
...

I find it totally amazing that these people have found a public platform for earnest discussion of their ideas.

Well, they may be nutso, but there is no discussion of mind CIA control rays in the movie. So don't panic.

There are particle physicists and theorists who take the philosophical implications of QM seriously even though most gave up talking about it since Bohr. But I don't know any that speak fondly of that book. Lots of cringes, rather.

Did you read it? Or are you talking second-hand impressions? About the furthest it goes toward new age googoo is "and so we see that the particle must be turned around twice in order for the same face to appear again. This came as an incredible shock, but was consistent with experimental data" (paraphrasing, but you get my point).

It's not at all about religious implications of anything at all. It mentions once or twice that some of the discoveries of the last century were so counter-intuitive that the scientific mind was perhaps less equipped to fully grasp them than, say, the philosopher's. But that's it, as I recall.
posted by scarabic at 11:47 PM on November 23, 2004

I read it.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:53 PM on November 23, 2004

Hhmmmm. Was dragged to it months ago, cringed hard the second I saw that freakazoid JZblahblahblah. Just went downhill from there. So basically you could say it was....crappitycrapcrapcrap. Oops, that was supposed to be; . . .

Out of sheer love for my fellow man, please don't throw your hard earned money at this____________(see above).
posted by codeofconduct at 12:17 AM on November 24, 2004

three cheers for rabidsquirrel!
posted by equipoise at 12:21 AM on November 24, 2004

Okay. I guess you are friends lots of particle physicists, too, so what the bleep do I know? I'm still just surprised to hear you trash it. Other than "lots of people don't like it" you're not telling me what's wrong with it. I tend to sell it a lot, as I did here, so if there's a critical light I need to cast on it, by all means, please lay it on me.
posted by scarabic at 12:25 AM on November 24, 2004

wah,

Do me a favor. Solve Schrodinger's equation for a simple hydrogen atom to yield the first 3 wave functions (to the 2p orbital). Show all work. Or explain Hartree-Fock approximation.

All the bright physicts who developed a real feel for the inner workings of quantum mechanics by actually doing the work and solving the problems deserve at least that much -- a basic intermediate college level background in physics. Then you can go on to read all the Derrida in the world and wax philosophical as you wish. Jumping to the philosophical implications of modern physics without at least getting your hands a little dirty first just seems in poor taste.
posted by drpynchon at 1:21 AM on November 24, 2004

Scarabic - For what it's worth I'll weigh in on the Dancing Wu Li conversation. It certainly was one of the books I poured over as a high school geekling desperate for inspiration and after many years of being educated stupid I still think it rates pretty well among the Pop Quantum genre at least in terms of not outright lying to readers. But many pop-sci books are better (I'm slightly embarrassed to say this because of the book's title, but the first half of this R.A. Wilson book isn't too bad at all.)

I think scientists' frustration with G. Zukav and similar writers/filmmakers can be partially explained like so: Many academics overwork themselves daily struggling to understand and apply very precise details of a subject they love since all the easy problems are already solved. Modern experiments yield results only at high cost, significant long-term investment, and at substantial risk of someone else finishing it earlier and better. Funding is scarce, department infighting is at its peak, and to top it off the damn graduate students are unionizing! But at the end of the day, Oprah invites this Gary Zukav fellow on her show to put a Quantum-enlightened spin on self-help and Wu Li Masters sells 1200 more copies.

As for the notion that "real" physicists don't dabble in QM philosophy, I can assert anecdotal evidence to the contrary: last year Lenny Susskind (who is certainly the Real McCoy, for example) came to town and gave a rousing defense of the Anthropic Principle. Maybe I didn't notice, but no significant amount of Shock nor Awe resulted.
posted by fatllama at 1:38 AM on November 24, 2004

If you liked the ice crystals, be sure to see the also popular $28,000 cheese sandwich at the Golden Palace Casino.
On the other hand, if you’re interested in a good read about the mysteries of quantum physics, try The Fabric of Reality:

"Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make more sense than common sense," writes physicist David Deutsch. In The Fabric of Reality, Deutsch traces what he considers the four main strands of scientific explanation: quantum theory, evolution, computation, and the theory of knowledge. "The four of them taken together form a coherent explanatory structure that is so far-reaching, and has come to encompass so much of our understanding of the world, that in my view it may already properly be called the first Theory of Everything." Deutsch covers some difficult material with unusual clarity. Each chapter ends with a summary and definitions of important terms, which makes the work an invaluable sourcebook. (Amazon blurb)

Deutsch uses simple examples, like the double slit interference paradox to infer that the universe, or the multiverse, as he calls it, is much, much bigger than we think it is. You can perform a similar experiment yourself here, with polarizing filters. I love this stuff.

scarabic: Scientific legitimacy has to do with the difference between correlation and causality. Cause and effect are often difficult to determine. If you throw enough virgins into a volcano, it will stop erupting, right? Many things we know to be true are popular, but popularity does not determine truth--except in politics.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 2:21 AM on November 24, 2004

...gave a rousing defense of the Anthropic Principle.

Strong or weak? And, anyway, that's not QM. And, anyway, the strong anthropic principle is attractive to people who would best be thinking about things other than the strong anthropic principle. I shouldn't poke fun at people I otherwise respect, but as I've said here before, the anthropic principle just annoys me to no end.

Anyway, there are physicists who continue to write and publish on the philosophical implications of QM...which I think is great and I wish more would do so. But none of the real giants have concerned themselves thus for 70 years. And one such physicist told me that he takes some ribbing from colleagues for wasting time on all that hand-waving nonsense. That is, really, the consensus, for better or worse.

My rule of thumb for popular works on physics, especially, is not to trust anything by non-physicists. I read Zukav's book twenty years ago, as well as many others, right when I was starting as a physics major. I was young, ignorant, and naive and I didn't really know better. Some people who did know better turned me from Zukav to Heinz Pagels and other writers more trustworthy. Hell, even the buddhism in Zukav's book didn't stand up to deeper scrutiny as I learned more about it.

A chronicle of early discoveries and an explanation of some QM basics is itself not that controversial. But as I said, QM philosophy, even in the context of physics, is considered just this side of snake-oil sales—popular treatments almost invariably take something that not many understand and use it to mislead everyone else.

I didn't end up with a physics degree, but I do have a fair amount of science and math, and a lot more philosophy and philosophy of science, I'm forty years old and have been reading and learning about this stuff forever, besides knowing physicists most of my adult life, and I don't really have much to say about the philosophical implications of QM except that reality isn't as we intuit it to be. Beyond that, I don't have much to say. Coming from me, that's saying a lot, isn't it? :) One thing that everyone has said to me is what drpynchon implied: if you're not well-versed with the math of QM (and I'm certainly not), you can't think you know anything at all about it. It's all in the math. If there's a philosophical truth to be found, you'll only get there via the math.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:46 AM on November 24, 2004

Ethereal

QM philosophy’s not
As false as Ethereal thought,
But at self-inquisition,
He lost superposition--
He knew it, but then he forgot.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 3:40 AM on November 24, 2004

Wu Li was an important step for me as well, a kid in HS thousands of years ago craving real knowledge. But Zukav's further books lost the flavor and delved a bit too much into a certain region of metaphysics which various modern $1000 a workshop 'gurus' like Chopra use to justify their polished belief systems.

One man in Bleep, Fred Alan Wolfe, is not a Ramtha devotee and actually makes a great deal of sense. If they made a whole film about him, I'd see it in a flash. He's credentialed. respected, and doesn't live under a copper pyramid. I highly recommend his books. Yet any physicist, like the one maligned in Bleep, can have his work mangled to justify a belief system, and no soundbyte can realistically give you enough information to upheave your paradigm. Folks gotta do their own diggin' and come to their own conclusions. Bleep tried to ram so much shiny data down your throat so as to 'convert the unwashed masses,' without context, that it caused me to walk away laughing, mostly.
posted by moonbird at 4:19 AM on November 24, 2004

God does not play dice with the fat butts of naked deaf women.

Alfred E. Neumann, The Bridge on the River Quark


posted by rdone at 5:33 AM on November 24, 2004

That was my experience as well, moonbird. Fred Alan Wolfe seemed like the most grounded of the bunch. Especially when another of the members of the film was declared President of the US Peace Government.

When I saw the movie, I took it all with an open mind, partially because I didn't recognize any of the people talking. I walked out really jazzed about it, and slowly, over the course of the evening that followed, I kept having these "Wait a minute!" moments. Like about the Indians not seeing the ships because they had no frame of reference for them. The more I looked, the more I found wrong or shady (self-link).

Ultimately, though, I think the film has a little bit of value, but it's so covered in psuedoscience bullshit and Ramtha cultism that it's easy to lose it.
posted by shawnj at 5:53 AM on November 24, 2004

EB,
What by Bohr can you recommend? I understand he's difficult for the layman, nevertheless, I'm interested.
posted by lyam at 6:00 AM on November 24, 2004

First of all, it wasn't Derrida who wrote about the subjectivity of definitions of "insanity"--it was Foucault.

So although I am hardly qualified to dispute wah's statements about quantum mechanics (having barely made my way through the Feynman Lectures without my head exploding) I can share with the class that wah's knowledge of French critical theory is neither all that nor a bag of chips.

It's nice that you're writing a book, wah. However, lots of people write books. That doesn't make them right.
posted by Sidhedevil at 6:17 AM on November 24, 2004

And will someone please tell me about the "Bleep" business?
posted by Sidhedevil at 6:18 AM on November 24, 2004

It's just a bleep, as in a censored word. On the posters t's sometimes shown as #$@*!
posted by shawnj at 6:26 AM on November 24, 2004

I don't really have much to say about the philosophical implications of QM except that reality isn't as we intuit it to be.

Personally, I think that's spot on, and all that can be said.
posted by drpynchon at 6:28 AM on November 24, 2004

Well, do they ever say it in the movie? Is the "bleep" supposed to represent any particular word (or combination of words), or are you just supposed to supply your obscenity/profanity/vulgarity of choice?

If so, I am going to call the movie What the Holy Bleeding Ramtha Do We Know? from now on.
posted by Sidhedevil at 6:53 AM on November 24, 2004

I'm really, really frightened when it's the skeptical voice in this thread that recommends The Dancing Wu Li Masters.

Gotta back Bligh on this one -- I can't believe people are still taking that silly book seriously. Back in the day I was hoping it was a flash in the pan that would go away and stop annoying me, like "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head."

And wah, I'm all in favor of people believing in themselves and following their star, but I've gotta tell you, you sound like a classic crank. If you want to impress people, quit saying "I'm writing a book" and start making sense.

It's interesting to see boomers so drawn to this movie. Perhaps it logical. You get to the sprightly autumn of your life and I imagine you might finally start to question these things, even if you never had before.

Oh, give me a fucking break. You extrapolate from a few idiots? There are idiots in every generation. From this thread I'm seeing a lot more young ones who see merit in this piece-of-shit movie than those of us in "the sprightly autumn of your life." I'll tell you something, when I go see genuinely thoughtful and well-made movies, the audience is overwhelmingly made up of boomers and older; you young folks are too busy with your computer games and pseudoscientific twaddle.
/annoyed codger
posted by languagehat at 7:18 AM on November 24, 2004

Ethereal Bligh - Susskind defended the Weak version. I also completely agree with

I don't really have much to say about the philosophical implications of QM except that reality isn't as we intuit it to be.

But w-g pandemonium wins, of course.
posted by fatllama at 7:26 AM on November 24, 2004

The best explanation for the "meaning" of QM, to my mind, is still the first chapter of The Principles of Quantum Mechanics by Paul Dirac. In part:

The necessity to depart from classical ideas when one wishes to account for the ultimate structure of matter may be seen, not only from experimentally established facts, but also from general philosophical grounds. In a classical explanation of the constitution of matter, one would assume it to be made up of a large number of small constituent parts and one would postulate laws for the behavior of these parts, from which the laws of the matter in bulk could be deduced. This would not complete the explanation, however, since the question of the structure and stability of the constituent parts is left untouched. To go into this question, it becomes necessary to postulate that each constituent part is itself made up of smaller parts, in terms of which its behaviour is to be explained. There is clearly no end to this procedure, so that one can never arrive at the ultimate structure of matter on these lines. So long as big and small are merely relative concepts, it is no help to explain the big in terms of the small. It is therefore necessary to modify classical ideas in such a way as to give an absolute meaning to size.

No mystical mumbo-jumbo, no consciousness connection, just a cool logical argument that nature can't be "turtles all the way down."
posted by starkeffect at 7:35 AM on November 24, 2004

Everything I need to know about "Quantum Philosophy" I learned from wah's illustration of it.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 7:45 AM on November 24, 2004

I think the Dancing Wu Li Masters, like Goedel, Escher, Bach, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and other such pop-knowledge tracts are far more useful as a vade mecum to real knowledge than as a repository of the knowledge itself.

As such, they fill two useful social functions: a) to give teenagers something to think about other than sex, and b) to give overly intellectual teenagers something to talk about while they're trying to get other overly intellectual teenagers into bed.

I liked Siddhartha when I was fourteen, but if it seemed profound to me today, I'd check myself into the nearest rubber room to have my neurons rotated.
posted by Sidhedevil at 7:53 AM on November 24, 2004

I'd second David Deutsch, and also suggest Hyperspace by Michio Kaku, for some good pop science on metaphysical implications. I enjoyed Dancing Wu Li Masters when I read it ages ago, but it did swerve a little too easily into new age territory... Kaku also can tend to be a little too awed by the implications of things - when people get excited about what something could mean, they tend to gloss over the ways in which the numbers don't add up, so to speak.

Re: string theory should be "energy theory", that would be far too generic. Einstein already showed us that everything is energy; that isn't really disputed anymore. The question is how it manifests. String theory provides a theory of a structure, these vibrating loops of energy.

I'm surprised (and thankful) that none of my friends have recommended this movie to me - some of my non-sciency friends think that anything which purports to talk about philosophy and science must be "right up my alley", which means, that from one friend in particular I get a lot of new agey pseudo scientific suggestions... anyway, good to have a head's up.
posted by mdn at 7:53 AM on November 24, 2004

Lotsa new squirrels in this latest batch, yessir.

*Hitches up belt*
*Looks around*
*Hitches belt back down again*
posted by squirrel at 8:16 AM on November 24, 2004

I haven't seen the movie, and given the discussion here I don't really plan to (I appreciate this thread in that respect, anyway) - I'm all up for even relatively blue sky and questionable pondering of "what it all means," but not if there's some dipshit agenda like this motivating it.

On quantum physics: I studied this a fair bit on my own and did a reasonable amount of rigorous, formal study of the principles when I took physical chemistry in college as part of earning a bachelors in this field. To my mind this is very much just slightly scratching the surface but I think going through some of the rigorous math and experimental expositions of principles did give me some perspective.

My observation is that when you start extending the admittedly strange and non-intuitive principles that come out in quantum physics to "everyday life" you are on very, very shaky ground.

An example from a more conventional branch of science, thermodynamics. Most have probably heard about how in thermodynamics, everything moves towards increased entropy. It's very easy (and perhaps not wholly innaccurate) to extend this to our everyday world - things break but rarely self-repair, houses get spontaneously messier but rarely more orderly. Sure, entropy. But you may get into trouble if you start thinking that your conceptual notions of "order" and "chaos" are the same thing as increased or decreased entropy. A "real" definition of entropy might be expressed as S := -? Pi log Pi
_____ i
to which an appropriate response (including from me - P Chem was a long long time ago now) might be whuhuh?

Precisely. The thermodynamically defined state of your messy bedroom may actually have decreased entropy over when it was clean, all depending on the sorts of energy inputs and their effects. It's not merely a hypothetical issue, either - you can still hear literal scripturalist creationists talking about evolution violating the second law of thermodynamics, as weak and debunked as that notion is - it's a notion rooted in a conceptual notion of order, not the scientific definition of entropy. I happen to think (and I say this as a devout Christian) that so-called "Intelligent Design" is really nothing other than this identical notion dressed up in new clothes. It appeals to certain concepts of order but it is not scientific.

The same sorts of principles are at work in applying quantum physical principles to our notions of everyday life. Classic example is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. This tends to be presented with the everyday-conceptual explanation that "you can't be sure of what you observe because in the process of observing it you change it." In some very narrow contexts this may serve its purpose but what Heisenberg's principle actually is is an elegant mathematical proof demonstrating that there is a limit in principle as to how accurately one can simultaneously measure the position and momentum of a particle on the quantum scale. Extend this principle to the macro scale and you have left the realm of science.

This is not to say I don't think science will continue to give us critical insights into the human experience. But science has a particular role in the exposition of knowledge, and that role is often at odds with how we conceptualize things in what you might call a philosophical sense. When people start tossing out quantum physics (or chaos theory, or superstrings...) to justify their crackpot philosophy, this is generally the grade of bullshit I'm smelling.

I say, study things like quantum physics (there are lots of fine texts for the non-scientist, the only thing I can handle any more, out there) for its own interest and elegance and fascinating counter-intuitiveness. If you're looking to crack the meaning of life, look elsewhere.
posted by nanojath at 8:18 AM on November 24, 2004

This movie, and books like The Dancing Wu Li Masters, are examples of bad marriages - they seem like a good idea to at least one of the parties at the time, but in the long run they do no one any good. While this discussion has been pretty good about showing how it shorts the physics end of the spectrum, I'd like to point out that it isn't any good for the religious/crank side of the equation either; hitching an independent belief system to something as ephemeral as physics invites embarrassment when scientific theories change (or advance, if you're teleologically minded), and give off the desperate stink of opportunism (like some of those Muslim and Christian apologists who insist that every scientific and technological innovation is predicted or addressed in their respective Holy Books). While that may not matter much when you're dealing with something flash in the pan like this Ramtha gig, it makes me nervous when you see people hooking religious traditions with thousands of years of careful argumentation behind it to whatever shiny thing happens to come down the road. If for some (unlikely) reason QM gets put on the intellectual ash-heap, does this mean that every Buddhist should go and chuck their religion?
posted by The Jade Monkey at 8:22 AM on November 24, 2004

That's a very interesting point, The Jade Monkey, though I think Buddhism has shown itself to be quite a bit more robust that that. There will always be cranks in every system. But I agree: a lot of these things give short shrift to both metaphysical belief systems and scientific inquiry.
posted by nanojath at 9:22 AM on November 24, 2004

It's not merely a hypothetical issue, either - you can still hear literal scripturalist creationists talking about evolution violating the second law of thermodynamics, as weak and debunked as that notion is - it's a notion rooted in a conceptual notion of order, not the scientific definition of entropy.

Creationists always try to use the second law,
to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
The second law is quite precise about where it applies,
only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun,
so fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!
--MC Hawking, "Entropy"
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:51 AM on November 24, 2004

After being the only person laughing in the theater, I walked out. What a load of crap.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 10:12 AM on November 24, 2004

Hmmm, this is a long one. Sorry about that.

drpynchon : Do me a favor. Solve Schrodinger's equation for a simple hydrogen atom to yield the first 3 wave functions (to the 2p orbital). Show all work.

Here, someone else did it. You'll want to scroll down to the chart labeled "Probability Densities". I think that is what you are looking for, no?

As to be able to do the same on a chalkboard, well, I freely admit to my ignorance is how to do such things. However, it is my humble opinion that this stuff isn't as hard to calculate as it's made out to be. Again, IMHO, is is because of a failing our generation conception of 'numbers'. And so I'm building a model of numbers that, quite frankly, acts a good bit like the solution to Schrodinger's equation for a simple hydrogen atom.

That's what the first chapter of the book is all about trying to explain. Also, I learned a while back that if I tried to learn everything before saying anything I would die a frustrated ignorant man. There is simply too much for one person to know these days. Hence the value of networks...and metafilters.

All the bright physicts who developed a real feel for the inner workings of quantum mechanics by actually doing the work and solving the problems deserve at least that much -- a basic intermediate college level background in physics.

If you've got another $100,000 to spare, I'd be more than happy to go back and get another degree. I don't have that kind of scratch laying around, so I'm trying to raise it and learn 'modern math' in my spare time.

Jumping to the philosophical implications of modern physics without at least getting your hands a little dirty first just seems in poor taste.

I've gotten my hands quite dirty, thank you. Like I said, I'd love to be able to dive back into the muck (school). Eventually you have to "jump", as they say, but the gap can be reduced (via Zeno) to an arbitrarily small distance. Regardless, it does take "action" to cross.

fatllama said (before staging a coup of the credits to the Holy Grail) : As for the notion that "real" physicists don't dabble in QM philosophy, I can assert anecdotal evidence to the contrary: last year Lenny Susskind (who is certainly the Real McCoy, for example)

Susskind is also on record for calling 'string theory' == "Matrix Theory" From "Elegant Universe" page 312.

Whatever the eleven-dimensional theory is, Witten has provisionally name it M-theory. The name stands for as many things as people you poll. Some samples: Mystery Theory, Mother Theory (as in "Mother of all Theories"), Membrane Theory (since, whatever it is, membranes seem to be part of the story), Matrix Theory (after some recent work by Tom Banks of Rutgers University, Willy Fischler of the University fo Texas at Austin, Stephen Shenker of Rutgers University, and Susskind that offers a novel interpretation of the theory).

INFORMATIONALLY INTENSE LINKAGE.

A direct connection to an argument for "Matrix Theory" Note equation 2.3. That's one of the ones I'm trying to get at...with words.

weapongs-grade pandemonium said: Many things we know to be true are popular, but popularity does not determine truth--except in politics.

wahs adds..."and religion". The two things Americans, half of them, don't really like talking about in public.

on insanity via the foucault link::

binary division and branding: mad/sane; dangerous/harmless; normal/abnormal
coercive assignment of differential distribution [ (1977 p.)]

---
Generally speaking, all the authorities exercising individual control function according to a double mode; that of binary division and branding (mad/sane; dangerous/harmless; normal/abnormal); and that of coercive assignment of differential distribution (who he is; where he must be; how he is to be characterized; how he is to be recognized; how a constant surveillance is to be exercised over him in an individual way, etc.). ...

The constant division between the normal and the abnormal, to which every individual is subjected, brings us back to our own time... a whole set of techniques and institutions for measuring, supervising and correcting the abnormal brings into play the disciplinary mechanisms to which the fear of the plague gave rise. All the mechanisms of power which, even today, are disposed around the abnormal individual, to brand him and to alter him, are composed of those two forms from which they distantly derive.

The Derrida reference was towards the concept that the definition for such difficult to define terms rises as a relationship between two, what I would call, "observers".

Personally, I don't think I'm crazy, but I do plan to go and visit my friends and family to make sure (during the Month of December, in fact). One of them is a PhD clinical psychologist, so she will probably have some insight to share on the matter that is myself.

Sidhedevil : I can share with the class that wah's knowledge of French critical theory is neither all that nor a bag of chips.

Quite true. There has been a great deal written that I haven't read, but some things I pick up quite quickly and intuitively. Especially when the information has been presented and organized by those that are familiar with the meaning of it.

Well, do they ever say it in the movie? Is the "bleep" supposed to represent any particular word (or combination of words), or are you just supposed to supply your obscenity/profanity/vulgarity of choice?

The funny thing about my perception of the title was that it was also asking the opposite question. That is, "What the Bleep (How Much) do we Know? (a ton) How much do we Not Know? (a little bit)". But then again, I tend to see things differently than your average bear.

It's nice that you're writing a book, wah. That doesn't make them right.

You are correct, and it's usually a bad idea to judge a book by its cover as well.

languagehat : And wah, I'm all in favor of people believing in themselves and following their star, but I've gotta tell you, you sound like a classic crank. If you want to impress people, quit saying "I'm writing a book" and start making sense.

I'm writing a book to make sense of it. It's not really something that can be grasped in an afternoon. Soundbites don't work for some memes. GEB is a good example of this. There is no way to "plow" through that book, IMHO.

I prefer the term 'Classical Crank' or maybe 'Memetic Engineer'. Like Heraclitus...mixed with Bill Hicks. Seriously, I'm thinking of putting together a stand-up comedy monologue about the stuff...Mel Brooks style.

But back to Heraclitus for a moment...

A Greek philosopher of the late 6th century BCE, Heraclitus criticizes his predecessors and contemporaries for their failure to see the unity in experience. He claims to announce an everlasting Word (Logos) according to which all things are one, in some sense. Opposites are necessary for life, but they are unified in a system of balanced exchanges. The world itself consists of a law-like interchange of elements, symbolized by fire. Thus the world is not to be identified with any particular substance, but rather with an ongoing process governed by a law of change. The underlying law of nature also manifests itself as a moral law for human beings. Heraclitus is the first Western philosopher to go beyond physical theory in search of metaphysical foundations and moral applications.

Optimus Chyme chimed in with : Everything I need to know about "Quantum Philosophy" I learned from wah's illustration of it.

Q: The funny part?
A: What's under the dragon. A bit of hubris I wished to conceal. One of those mistakes I mentioned.

nanojath : My observation is that when you start extending the admittedly strange and non-intuitive principles that come out in quantum physics to "everyday life" you are on very, very shaky ground.

I would agree most whole-heartedly. That's why the use of metaphors is rampant in such a discussion.

Extend [these principles] to the macro scale and you have left the realm of science.

Yes, now entering "The Philosophy Zone".

:-)
posted by wah at 10:30 AM on November 24, 2004

This movie was a piece of crap, don't see it if you can help it. I wanted to rip the heads off of everyone around me and yell at the entire theatre that they were a bunch of fools for buying into this cult.

pwb.
posted by pwb503 at 10:54 AM on November 24, 2004

Ok, I'm usually very generous to lay people approaching physics, but I second languagehat's opinion concerning Wah's eminent crankhood; a model of numbers that, quite frankly, acts a good bit like the solution to Schrodinger's equation for a simple hydrogen atom is complete nonsense. With all haste abandon string theory and work your way through a decent modern textbook or three. Even string theory grad-students thesedays have a tenuous grasp on the standard model of particles and they've supposedly done the hard work. My advice is to either start cooking with gas or be resigned to order take-out.

The only reason I'm of two minds on the issue is that public curiosity in fundamental physics is necessary for funding. If more movies like Bleep mean that projects like the SSC stay alive then I'm all for it. Also, Sidhedevil is very wise. To all else, you'll know good physics writing when it is clear and achieves consensus in a community of professionals--a rare bird to spot but well worth the time spent waiting.
posted by fatllama at 11:06 AM on November 24, 2004

a model of numbers that, quite frankly, acts a good bit like the solution to Schrodinger's equation for a simple hydrogen atom is complete nonsense.

Well, I found something that looked similar to the model I was drawing [that's what chapter 1 is all about, check my user page for a rough draft outline], and then noticed it went by the curious term 'spherical harmonics'. [mathworld]

So now I'm trying to learn how the math behind it works in more normal terms (i.e. modern mathematical jargon). Part of what I'm writing is about how I got this far by thinking about it, and some of the metaphors I've constructed to help myself along.

Also, I was going to link that same book, QED, a while back. I've done so in other discussions. Feynman most certainly "got it", and was damn good at explaining it.
posted by wah at 11:19 AM on November 24, 2004

I believe that Pope said it best:

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

Drink more, wah. You've got a ways to go before you drink yourself back sober.
posted by Sidhedevil at 11:35 AM on November 24, 2004

With all haste abandon string theory and work your way through a decent modern textbook or three.

Unfortunately, with textbooks like Griffiths costing over $100, QM is not as accessible to the layperson as it could be...
posted by vacapinta at 11:39 AM on November 24, 2004

Drink more, wah. You've got a ways to go before you drink yourself back sober.

This has now become a recursive discussion. Check this thread on The Cellar IOTD for the other side of these last few days of my presenting my argument.

You'll know when the recursion becomes apparent when the conversation turns to 'drinking oneself sober' (i.e. brainwashing).
posted by wah at 11:44 AM on November 24, 2004

Drink the learning, wah. The learning.
posted by Sidhedevil at 11:48 AM on November 24, 2004

"McCandless starred and bracketed the paragraph and circled "refuge in nature" in black ink.

Next to "And so it turned out that only a life similar to the life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is happiness...And this was most vexing of all," he noted "HAPPINESS IS ONLY REAL IF IT IS SHARED".

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, page 189.
posted by wah at 12:00 PM on November 24, 2004

Does someone else want to explain to wah why Mr. McCandless isn't exactly a desirable role model? Because I'm pretty much done here.

wah, I admire your interest in these matters, but I really think you need to acquire a greater depth and breadth of knowledge in these areas before you can make meaningful contributions. Because right now, I'm not sure what the difference is between you and this guy.

And, dude, you don't want to be that guy.
posted by Sidhedevil at 12:22 PM on November 24, 2004

WAH DENIES TIMECUBE, EDUCATED CUBELESS STUPID.
posted by starkeffect at 12:27 PM on November 24, 2004

But to be serious for a moment.. wah, if you want your "quantum philosophy" to be taken seriously in a scientific sense, there has to be a predictive element to it. Any crank can jerryrig their pet theory to explain an already extant phenomenon, but visionaries predict phenomena.

When I was studying physics at UC-Berkeley, my advisor got a couple of monographs a month in the mail by some armchair physicist trying to disseminate their theories of energy vectors, time waves, whatever. It's intoxicating to believe that you alone have the key to unlock Mother Nature's chastity belt, but revolutions in science have NEVER (I repeat, NEVER) been accomplished by one misunderstood, isolated genius.
posted by starkeffect at 12:42 PM on November 24, 2004

Does someone else want to explain to wah why Mr. McCandless isn't exactly a desirable role model? Because I'm pretty much done here.

Douglas Adams did a pretty good job of it.

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
--
Time Cube Alarm Clock
--
wah, I admire your interest in these matters, but I really think you need to acquire a greater depth and breadth of knowledge in these areas before you can make meaningful contributions.

Thank you. I am working to do so. However, there is a bit of depth and breadth to my knowledge at present. It is my humble opinion that I now need to present much of it order to refine it further. Which is to say, I need a few good editors. In order to find them, I have to publish something.

But to be serious for a moment.. wah, if you want your "quantum philosophy" to be taken seriously in a scientific sense, there has to be a predictive element to it. Any crank can jerryrig their pet theory to explain an already extant phenomenon, but visionaries predict phenomena.

The problem with 'philosophy' in the 'scientific sense' is that we only have a single chance to conduct the experiment. There is no real..."Well, I tried this and it didn't work...let's change things a bit and do it again while remembering the previous trial"

As to a prediction...I'm more than comfortable about speaking about likely future scenarios, and I'm happy to own up to errors. I do, however, realize that my actions influence said results, particularly in the sense of how my words are or are not accepted by those of a scientific mindset.

For one prediciton of a likely scenario and the reasoning behind my conclusion, google for "Logarithmic Epistemology".

I understand the Popperian (sp) concept of 'falsifiability', but to mangle a phrase of Clarke's, "A sufficiently advanced philosophy is indistinguishable from religion".

As such, it requires an experiment to prove. I mention one such technique aqui.

That 'walk' I mentioned earlier is a half narrative of my own experience during my own experiment.

peace.
posted by wah at 1:07 PM on November 24, 2004

It's intoxicating to believe that you alone have the key to unlock Mother Nature's chastity belt, but revolutions in science have NEVER (I repeat, NEVER) been accomplished by one misunderstood, isolated genius.

Not even Wegener? Sure, continental drift wasnt quite right but arguably it helped to kick off the study of plate tectonics.
posted by vacapinta at 1:13 PM on November 24, 2004

It's intoxicating to believe that you alone have the key to unlock Mother Nature's chastity belt,...

see: Above quote from McCandless.

...but revolutions in science have NEVER (I repeat, NEVER) been accomplished by one misunderstood, isolated genius.

Well, not that I am assuming such a lofty title for myself, but I'm not that isolated. I talk to hundreds of people a day. I've got many good friends, and make them quite easily. Misunderstanding is often a product of two parties without the ability to effectively communicate. I'm fairly good at communicating (when I try) and have studied the concept on a number of levels (personal communication, mass communication, network level effects).

So, to recap a bit, I have been isolated for a long time, eventually I came to a point where I had to "shit or get off the pot" to fall back into the idioms of my home state of Texas for a moment, and so this is an attempt, of sorts, to extract myself from such an isolated environment.

Anyway, I 've taken up enough of this thread, and have real life stuff to take care of, so I'll bid you adieu.

Good day to those that read all the way to the bottom. It is turtles all the way down, in a sense, but some of them have at least two heads.

On Topic Note: I haven't seen the movie yet, but have written something of a review of it.
posted by wah at 1:17 PM on November 24, 2004

Regarding The Dancing Wu-Li Masters and their ilk:

As such, they fill two useful social functions: a) to give teenagers something to think about other than sex, and b) to give overly intellectual teenagers something to talk about while they're trying to get other overly intellectual teenagers into bed.

I would just like to note here that this, in fact, worked exceptionally well back in the day.

*keeps reading*
posted by jokeefe at 2:52 PM on November 24, 2004

This is reminding me too much of sci.physics and sci.physics.relativity. Arghh.

I'd like to defend GEB. Hofstadter was writing about (mostly) what he is a credentialed authority in.

Oh, and nanojath is saying something about thermodynamics that an outspoken chemist is always trying to say. I can't recall his name at the moment, but he's well worth reading. He's right.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:00 PM on November 24, 2004

Yeah, I saw it. I went for Marlee and not for the psychobabble. And damn she was good.

See, it depends what you expect to get out of a movie. I knew basically nothing about the plot or theme, and so I didn't care that I didn't understand 75% of it. But I certainly had a great time watching one of my favorite Deaf actresses.
posted by etoile at 5:11 PM on November 24, 2004

Okay, I'm officially giving up waiting for any actual criticism of Dancing Wu Li Masters as a beginner's survey of the last 100 years of physics. languaghat and Bligh are reluctant to do anything more than flip their wrists at "that silly book," which, inasmuch as I recall, simply outlines a lot of popular science icons like Schroedinger's Cat, the speed of light, the double slit experiment, and others, in more or less plain language. I may simply not be recalling if the book flies off into "follow your bliss" orgasm at some point. I'm sure that hardcore physicists think it's a gloss-job, just as hardcore LOTR fans think the movies are shit. But in both cases, the item in question is an interface built for the layperson, and if it can convey some core concepts with some lucidity, its done its job.

But anyway, if the worst MetaFilter Itself can inflict is an abbreviated brushoff, then I will assume that the book is astoundingly lucid and well-founded in every regard :)

(again - I'm totally open to hearing why it's shit, but no one will tell me. I'm getting the feeling this is a case of "someone(s) really stupid that I happened to know liked it")

Thanks for the alternatives, fatllama; you can bet I'll be checking them out.
posted by scarabic at 11:03 PM on November 24, 2004

Scarabic, I read the book twenty years ago. I'm sure I could have itemized my objections to the book then. Now I cannot.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:39 AM on November 25, 2004

wah- I'm writing my senior thesis (undergraduate) on harmonic functions on the ovaloid (generalized case of the sphere). There are plenty of interesting mathematical physics applications of this, most notably charge distribution on a conductor. Unfortunately, in my research on this (which is limited in this aspect, as I'm focusing on the math, not the applications), I've run across nothing to do with events at the quantum level. From what my physics major friends have told me, Quantum Mechanics is just linear algebra with a bit of probability. At least, the junior level course is like that.

Anyway, if you have questions about spherical harmonic functions (or harmonic functions in general) email me. And tell me your math background. To understand these at all, you need at least a good grounding in basic calculus, better would be at least a semester of multivariable and ideally, to truly grasp what's going on, a semester of complex analysis.

(I think you're way over your head in looking at this- harmonic functions are defined as functions on a surface whose Laplacian is equal to zero, but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt here. And if you are truly interested in trying to get a handle on this, email me. I need practice explaining these ideas to non-mathematicians for my orals.)
posted by Hactar at 2:03 AM on November 25, 2004

I can't wait for Time Cube: The Motion Picture.
posted by inksyndicate at 9:39 AM on November 25, 2004

And no, they don't discuss CIA mind control in the movie.

But they do say the Indians couldn't see Columbus's ships.
posted by inksyndicate at 9:41 AM on November 25, 2004

And no, they don't discuss CIA mind control in the movie.

But they do say the Indians couldn't see Columbus's ships.

And what the heck does Marlee do other than look awed by the cloying little kid with the basketball? Oh, it hurts.
posted by inksyndicate at 9:42 AM on November 25, 2004

Huh. Looks like MeFi has it's first functioning schizophrenic on-board. Should be interesting.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:48 AM on November 25, 2004

fff, if you are talking about me...that's quite a diagnosis from reading a few pages of text. Good job, you have a future in cold readings.

If not...carry on.

Should be interesting.

it is.
posted by wah at 11:21 PM on November 25, 2004

Let's go to Applebee's!
posted by squirrel at 8:56 AM on November 26, 2004

i hate to jump on to an already clogged thread, especially after it has been proclaimed that applebee's would be swell...

i just wanted to add that i have heard some physicists refer to "string theory" as "energy theory", however, the same could only be termed "physicists of ill-repute" or just "crazy people" if you're into that whole brevity thing.

my own father is a physicist who would like to believe that he could prove a theory of everything based on "energy theory" if only he could read the bible closely enough. apparently, it's all in there, only we mere mortals can't figure out G-d's secret language. anyway. my father believes that one of these days, G-d is going to tell him and he's going to walk away with the Nobel prize.

i obviously don't need to see this movie, i've sat down to christmas dinner with it.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:40 PM on November 26, 2004