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460 out of 600 people found the following review useful: Comments arguing against many claims made in the movie., 13 December 2004 Author: swmmng (swmmng@hotmail.com) from Michigan
OK, first I'm going to tear down the "Columbus's ships" thing. I'm fairly certain the Caribbeans had some sort of seaworthy craft, such as rafts or canoes. From these, any normal human intelligence can extrapolate their concept of "boat" to include these ships. Also, where did the writer get this story? Source? Since it's not common knowledge, you need a source.Next is the direction of time question. In Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time," he talks about the 4 arrows of time accepted by the scientific community at large. While it is true that some fundamental (classical/Newtonian) physical laws don't care which direction time is going, many do. The arrow that I remember (it's been a while since I last read the book) is the thermodynamic arrow of time, which causes us to experience events in such a way that the entropy, or disorder, of the universe increases. For example, a cup falls off a table and breaks, not the other way around.Ah, then the probability discussion. Yes, for subatomic particles like electrons and quarks, the probability wave is spread out enough that the particle can be in >1 place at a time. However, when you look at anything larger than these specks, the waves get exponentially more concentrated, so that a large (visible w/naked eye) object really has an infinitesimal probability of being in more than one state. So small is this probability that you would have to watch a "large" object say, a tennis ball, for more than the present age of the universe (15,000,000,000 years) for it to have an appreciable chance of doing anything strange.Closely linked to my last paragraph is the talk about particles popping in and out of existence. The answer to "where do they go" is "they turn back into energy." This is what E=mc^2 means. In the "vacuum" of space, particle/antiparticle pairs of subatomic particles are constantly being created from random energy fluctuations, but these particles are existing on borrowed energy, which they very soon have to repay by annihilating with their mate.Next is the water conversation. First of all, those pictures were of FROZEN water, which the narrator conveniently forgot to mention, only saying the jars were "left out overnight". Next, the claim that our bodies are 90% water is completely bogus. If that were true, there'd be no way we could so much as stand up. Instead: newborns have around 78%, 1-year-olds around 65%, adult men about 60%, and adult women around 55% (http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/may2000/958588306.An.r.html).This sheds doubt upon the rest of this "experiment."The claim that if you only believe enough, you could walk on water is another seriously questionable one. If it's true, why didn't they show us? Tape someone walking on water. Even though you could fairly easily fake it with some video editing software, it'd still be a little more convincing than them simply telling us it's so. Using this "positive thinking" idea to then say that you create your own reality is equally flawed. Sure, I can very well believe that I live in a world inhabited by one-eyed, one-horned, flying, purple people-eaters, but that's irrelevant if the beings you interact with don't see the world this way.And then the movie goes on to preach to us about God! How can a "scientific" movie propose to do this? Actually, I have a problem with that one guy proscribing what God is and what He isn't. Shouldn't that be up to the individual, thank you very much? Also in this part, one of the women commentators mentions that we have "antigravity." No, we don't. It's that simple.Biology's not my thing, but there's a point where you just have to bring out a contradiction. One lady says that if you keep bombarding a cell with a certain chemical, the receptors on that cell will decrease. But soon after, a guy comes on and says that this same daily bombardment will cause the cell to produce a new cell when it divides that has MORE of the receptors. Contradiction. Oops.I also have to comment on the guy who earlier on this board said this movie would appeal to anyone who's read "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene. I strongly disagree; I own and have read that book, and nowhere are its ideas remotely connected to this movie's ideas.Lastly, I will agree with whoever said the movie is rather drawn out. Especially at the end. They just won't stop talking. They keep on going. Repeating the same stuff over and over. Which is what I'm doing for effect, if you couldn't figure that out.
294 out of 378 people found the following review useful: I saw the movie as new age religion passed as scientific fact., 23 October 2004 Author: MakoShark from Los Angeles, CA
The movie got a lot of the quantum theory and neurology right, but then it proceeds to make a lot of wild tangential claims that are loosely based on the theory and pass it off as the absolute truth. Anybody with a advanced physics background (my job requires an advanced math and physics background) will be deeply turned off (despite the fact that a number of physicists and neurologists are interviewed for the film). The scientists back up the scientific theory, but then some new age woman and others (some scientists, but mainly that woman) kept on saying things that were loosely based off of the theory. The movie basically passed that off as scientificly valid as quantum theory, but provides no serious argument as to why. I was really bothered by the fact that the movie was already drawing conclusions for me instead of posing questions as to different possibilities.The movie may be interesting to some, and I don't discurage anybody from watching it, but please watch it with a grain of salt.
292 out of 376 people found the following review useful: Ramtha will see you now. Bring your checkbook., 26 September 2004 Author: Jon from United States
About 20 years ago, I encountered quantum mechanics in The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav, and the Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra. Despite the *relative* popularity (note the emphasis on "relative") of such books, the average person in the street has never read a science book that wasn't assigned to them in high school or college. And those books certainly weren't speculating on the nature of Life, the Universe and Everything based on the implications of quantum physics!In my own life, awareness of the intersection of science of spirituality has given me a smidgen of additional fuel in my life of studying Christian and Eastern mysticism. So imagine my delight when I learned "What the Bleep" promised an exciting investigation into the cutting edge of science and spirituality. Surely there would interviews with people like Rupert Sheldrake, Freeman Dyson, and Larry Dossey! Well, no, although most of the scientists were well-qualified to speak on the quantum concepts addressed. Strangely, the film undercut itself intellectually by not giving the names and qualifications of the speakers underneath their "talking heads" but only at the end. Regarding spiritual speculations, I find Capra, Sheldrake, and Dossey have more depth when it comes to this sort of thought, but the opinions shared may be eye-opening for many viewers who have never considered the inter-connectedness of mind, the universe, and God."What the bleep" has a beautiful visual style, exciting graphic effects, and also gets out of typical documentary mode by creating a small story of a deaf woman photographer's frustrations with life. The "Polish Wedding" sequence is hilarious, and might actually have you rolling in the aisles, as it did me! The disappointment comes, oddly enough from the "Spiritual Teachers, Mystics, and Scholars" used. Sounds impressive right? There were only two. One was "Miceal" Ledwith, (elsewhere spelled Micheal), former member of the Catholic International Theological Commission, (who retired from Maynooth College in Ireland about the same time he made a private settlement regarding sexual abuse of a minor--see the Irish Times article of June 1 2002). The other was--get ready--RAMTHA! Yes, Ramtha, the absurd "Neolithic entity" supposedly channeled by JZ Knight.Both Ledwith and Ramtha seemed to only be used to bash conventional religion with "the shackles of restrictive doctrine," and in Ramtha's case, assure us all that we are God. Yippee! No need to worry about meditation, service, or denying the ego. Why, I wondered, would someone go to the trouble of sharing the scientific plausibility of mysticism only to undercut it with the bitter statements of a former Catholic priest and the laughingstock of New-Age kookiness? Perhaps it's because, according to Wikipedia.org, all three filmmakers are students of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment. Ultimately this was a long, entertaining commercial. Ramtha will see you now. Keep your ego, but bring your checkbook.
310 out of 483 people found the following review useful: How Do We Know What We Know?, 27 October 2004 Author: kegbot1 from Cedar Rapids, IA
I was not surprised to see many of the comments here about this film calling into question everything about it's premise. While reviewing this film for my newspaper (Cedar Rapids Gazette) I knew immediately that the concepts would be controversial and hard for the conditioned American mind to wrap itself around.Having said that, it seems that many people view a movie like this as an all or nothing proposition -- if one theory or belief seems flawed, then it all must be called into question. What I think too many polemicists are forgetting is that this picture is a smorgasbord of different theories presented, as Rod Serling might say, for you approval -- or not.But what many are missing is what makes this film revolutionary -- that filmmakers were able to present these concepts in the medium of film in a way that was at least entertaining and most, thought provoking. You don't have to buy off 100 percent on what is here, but the presentation, in and of itself, was stunning in its bombardment of the viewer with multi sensory imagery. That this film was even made at all is a mini-miracle, especially in our current intellectual and cultural climate. Its sad to me to see such judgmental reviews. I knew conventional Christians would simply dismiss this as "new age" fluff and I mentioned that in my review. But I would have hoped that lovers of film and higher order thinking would be more tolerant of some of the excesses.In short, this is a film that needs to be seen not just for its quasi-cinematic, quasi-documentary methodology but for a presentation of theories and beliefs that are rarely discussed in the ossified American mainstream. For that alone, I thank the filmmakers.
295 out of 479 people found the following review useful: Unenlightening and Highly Flawed Film that Attempts to Connect Quantum Physics to "Spirituality", 26 March 2004 Author: brandonrerickson from Portland, Oregon
I had numerous problems with this film.It contains some basic factual information concerning quantum mechanics, which is fine. Although quantum physics has been around for over 50 years, the film presents this information in a grandiose way that seems to be saying: "Aren't you just blown away by this!" Well, not really. These aren't earth shattering revelations anymore. At any rate, I was already familiar with quantum theory, and the fact that particles have to be described by wave equations, etc. is not new.The main problem I have with this movie, however, is the way these people use quantum theory as a way of providing a scientific basis for mysticism and spiritualism. I don't have any serious problem with mysticism and spiritualism, but quantum mechanics doesn't really have anything to do with these things, and it should be kept separate. The people they interviewed for this movie start with the ideas of quantum theory and then make the leap to say that simply by thinking about something you can alter the matter around you, hence we should think positively so as to have a positive impact on the world and make our lives better. The reasoning is completely ridiculous, and the conclusions do not logically follow from quantum theory. For every so called "expert" that they interviewed for this film, there are scores of theoretically physicists who would completely disagree. They would point out, quite rightly, that the unpredictability of the subatomic world does not lend support to mystical notions about our spiritual connectedness.It disturbs me that people are going to see this film and completely eat it up because it leaves them with a nice positive feeling. The main thrust of the film is based on a total misinterpretation of quantum theory, and it is as bad in its reasoning as any attempt to justify organized religion with similar pseudo-scientific arguments.Avoid this film.Oh yeah. At one point, one of the "experts" says that since throughout history most of the assumptions people have made about the world turned out to be false, therefore the assumptions we currently hold about the world are also likely to be false. Huh? That totally does not follow. And even if it did, I don't see how that helps his argument. I mean, if his ideas ever became common assumptions then I guess we would have to assume that they are false too, based on his own reasoning.
261 out of 421 people found the following review useful: Terrible, misleading movie, 13 July 2004 Author: eflood from Seattle
As a physics student, I've become aware of many idiot professors, and other so-called experts, in the field. As I continue with my studies, I learn more and more about real physics experiments going on, and about the people who are doing things right.Then, my friends tell me of this "physics movie" they want to see. Knowing nothing of it, I'm excited, hoping that the information will be presented well.I've done REAL quantum mechanics; this wasn't it.This movie starts with the basic assumption that anything that occurs to a subatomic particle can, and will, occur to you, if you just open your eyes. Let's think about that, for just a moment.Our bodies are composed of somewhere around 10^30 such subatomic particles. That is a million billion billion billion particles! The more "mysterious" quantum effects of just two particles can have a 50% probability of cancelling each other out completely. As you add more and more particles into the mix, it becomes almost impossible to have a large net quantum result. To tell us to believe that this is a valid assumption, with no rationality behind it...it's just stupid.My friend, also in physics, and I counted 3 facts during the course of this movie. But they were presented in the most misleading manner I've EVER SEEN.I cannot say as much for the neural portion of the movie, as I have not had any kind of medical training. It seemed as though it might have had a slight bit more truth to it, remembering my days in biology, but I cannot say.At least this film had a redeeming quality: the dancing peptides (or whatever they actually were) scene. Not to ruin the invaluable plot that drives this movie, but the main character goes to a wedding, where she sees all different types of personalities "driven" by their peptides*, and then the film cuts to the dance floor, where we are spliced between people dancing, sometimes surrounded by CG peptides, and a fully CG scene, filled with dancing peptides. The film, at that point, was trying to tell us how we're "addicted to emotions," so we're treated to the full song of that smash hit, "Addicted to Love."This scene was redeeming, because anyone who could go through THAT scene, and still take this movie seriously...well, you are the ones that need to "open your eyes."
238 out of 396 people found the following review useful: Offensively bad, 17 October 2004 Author: andysc-1 from New Jersey
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This movie made me very angry. I wanted desperately to throttle the "scientists" and unseen film-makers during the course of it. Very, very painful to sit through. Sophomoric and pretentious in the worst way. The little good information on brain function/chemistry and quantum theory is lost in a sea of new agey horse sh*t. The worst offenders were the crack-pot charlatans Ramtha and Joseph Dispenza. Mr. Dispenza informs us that most people lead lives of mediocrity and clearly implies that he, on the other hand, is living on a higher plane. Even the ideas and attitudes that I basically agree with are presented in such a heavy handed, clumsy, superior, pretentious, preachy manner that I felt the desire to disavow them. I think that's what made me so angry, the fact that they've taken what are indeed profound aspects of established scientific thought and marred them with their new age hokum. Much of it is based around the fallacy of applying concepts of quantum theory to the macro world. Fittingly, the dramatized portions with Marlee Matlin are amateurish and cliché ridden.I would refer people instead to Bill Bryson's excellent survey of science: "A Brief History of Nearly Everything." There's plenty of profound wonder about life and the universe in the actual, established science.
148 out of 235 people found the following review useful: Fascinating but heavily flawed…, 25 October 2004 Author: Michael DeZubiria (miked32@hotmail.com) from Luoyang, China
It's nice to see that there are some movies being made and released into mainstream theaters that actually make you think. Great fictional films do this through the delivery of their stories, but What the #$*! Do We Know does it in a much more direct way, almost like an educational film. It's a fascinating exploration of existential theories and philosophy, and is one of those very rare movies that will challenge the way you think even about everyday life. It's a strange film and moves entirely too fast for much of it's material to sink in, but it's a great exploration of quantum physics and some of the implications that it has on our lives that we really don't think about, but should.The story sporadically focuses on the life of Amanda (Marlee Matlin), a deaf woman suffering through heartbreak and work troubles but who ultimately alters her perception by applying certain rules and theories of quantum physics, as I imagine we are expected to after seeing the movie. The great thing about the movie is that it makes you think, but the biggest problem with it is that it uses presentation to make simple statements seem grand and make crazy assertions seem like they have merit.There is one point where the movie says, "Here's a puzzle - why should we be able to remember the past and not have the same access to the future?'' What is that? A completely obvious fact of linear time is rendered strange just by being in this movie. It's odd that the movie delves so deep into such statuesque disciplines as quantum physics and the very fabric of the universe, while not knowing why you can remember a conversation you had today, but for some weird, unknown and mysterious reason, you can't remember a conversation you will have tomorrow.The film also makes outlandish claims and then shrouds them in the mysteriousness of unobservable history. There is a part of the movie that claims that when the first ships arrived in what is now North America, the Native Americans looked out to sea and saw the water parted by the ships, but could not see the ships themselves because they had never seen anything like them before. This, obviously, is utter nonsense, but the movie uses it as an example of its suggestion that there are different levels of reality for different people. There is no pure, objective reality, but different plains of existence for different people.A friend of mine, who hails this as one of the greatest films he's ever seen, explained to me that the Native Americans' minds simply did not understand how to decode the concept of a ship, a signifier which they had never encountered and so it was perfectly understandable that they couldn't see it. Wrong! Sure, they had never seen ships before, but I am willing to go out on a limb and assume that they had seen wood before, and since vision is merely the process of light bouncing off of objects and coming into contact with the retina inside the eye, it is physically impossible for a Native American to have x-ray vision because he or she doesn't know what a certain object is. My friend used the example that it is not until you learn that lightning travels from the ground to the clouds rather than the other way around that you really begin to see it that way. Before you learn that curious little fact, you see lightning and are completely sure that it's coming out of the clouds and zapping the earth. You do see it differently from then on, it's true, but you did SEE it before you knew where it originated, right? And incidentally, lightning is known to travel from the ground to the clouds, from the clouds to the ground, and from one cloud to another. But when it occurs, I am willing to suggest that it's rarely invisible, even if, as they say, there's no one there to see it.I believe that the human mind is set up to believe what it wants to believe (hence religion), but I do not feel obliged to believe that people's beliefs or knowledge enable them to see through solid objects just because they've never seen them before, nor do I believe that any human has the ability to change the molecular structure of water just by thinking about it in a certain way, which is another of the more bizarre claims that the movie makes. I don't know, I just never thought of water as susceptible to being offended or made happy, or having any effect over human emotions.But while the movie does slip up by going a little far in claims like these, it's important to have things like this because even for things like invisible ships, which we know are not reality, it is good that it makes you think about them. There are a lot of things in the world that we take for granted, and not just possessions but truths, and it is movies like What the #$*! Do We Know that really get people thinking about them. For a while, at least.
165 out of 269 people found the following review useful: Contradicts itself again and again., 18 August 2004 Author: mr.fabulous from Denver, Colorado
It seems the makers of this film had trouble deciding what their message really was. Consequently, they had even more trouble delivering it. They began by poorly describing principles of quantum physics which relate to sub-atomic particles. Having established a fuzzy picture of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, they presented a barrage of talking heads who built a case of ridiculous logic intimating that every living person is an entity which follows the same quantum rules on a cosmic scale. Then there was a lot of talk about ideas upon which Stephen Covey and Tony Robbins have made their careers: positive thinking, interrupting bad patterns, always look on the bright side, etc. Next came a bit about how our brains can change our bodies through production of proteins: hormones which we more or less choose to create. If you are sad, you will create sad proteins. If you are happy, you will create happy proteins. It's just so simple, isn't it? Interwoven with our lessons we follow the fictitious life of Amanda, a photographer who pops anti-depressants and hates her thighs. The film makers slowly but surely were trying to get us all to say, "Hey, Amanda, just cheer up!" Why can't she cheer up? Obviously it's because the world is a BAD place where there is crime and poverty and religion, that's why. The conclusion of the film (which is basically the entire second half) brought on a barrage of contradiction. We are all a part of a whole energy where we are not beings, but a collective consciousness, but we are individuals who can change the world, but there are many of each of us because of all the different dimensions, but we can choose who we are, and we have a purpose to do good, but there is no god because there is nothing better than us, so there is no such thing as right and wrong, so there is no such thing as reward or punishment, so nothing good ever came out of religion, but we should still do good anyway, even though there is no such thing as bad and good because there is nobody to decide what that is, except for the fact that we each can make life good if we all meditate, and then crime will cease, and if we say nice things, our water will freeze into pretty shapes. Still with me? Good because there is more. According to Robert L. Park in his book "Voodoo Science", the whole meditation experiment put on by John Hagelin in Washington, D.C. was a farce, the numbers were doctored, and the murder rate was higher that year that any year before or since. And what about your positive attitude keeping you young and healthy? This was a message delivered by an older man who looked his age and a woman who was overweight.So does all this work or not? I was lucky enough to see the film at a theater where Betsy Chasse, one of the film's three directors (yes, three) fielded questions following the show. I call myself lucky because I had first-hand confirmation that these people don't know what they are talking about. Several of the questions asked by audience members had her so stumped that her husband, a chiropractor, had to step in and recite the answer. I finally had to leave when the discussion inevitably turned political, and everyone, including Ms. Chasse, began speculating as to how wonderful the world would be if only President Bush could see this movie.
70 out of 106 people found the following review useful: Absurd, 5 December 2004 Author: jdbornem from USA
Anyone who has studied any physics or cognitive science will walk out disgusted after 40 min., as my wife and I did. The ignorant masses might be entertained by the hand-waiving arguments and the absurd "conclusions" drawn (without even an attempt at a logical reason) from real science. I'm offended by such nonsense presented under the guise of "science". I can only conclude that the writers picked up a quantum physics book, didn't understand a word of it, then watched The Matrix about a thousand times, and proceeded to write this movie.For example, the Washington DC crime experiment was done by The Transcendental Meditation Program. A brief search will reveal the science of their methods. (http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/t/tm/dissenter.htm)Save your money.
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