According to the creators of this film, it is the beginning of a new genre. If that is so, then let this be called, Quantum Evangelism. Really, Quantum Evangelist sounds like a pretty cool occupation. I can just imagine Leo bringing me in for show and tell some day. "My dad is a Quantum Evangelist." Then I could spend the next 10 minutes explaining to a bunch of 2nd graders just exactly what it is I do.
Ah, but that will never happen, I'm afraid, because I am a quantum misfit. I just don't get quantum physics. Possibly because my only contact with it is through documentaries like this one. I have also previously failed to comprehend String Theory . . . even after watching The Elegant Universe. It isn't that I refute such theories; I'm simply not convinced. And even more significantly, my mindset bends toward a more "phenomenological" light, so I often come away from these speculative theories saying, "So what? So how does this affect me and the world I actually live in . . . live as opposed to exist." This all derives form (or else results in) my preference for psychological ideas over philosophical ones. Unless I can hammer an idea into applicability, then it remains forever insubstantial to me, never attaches to emotion or valuation.
Oh . . . say no more, say no more! A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat! Because "What the Bleep" advocates application! That is, it throws down some talk about influencing reality with our thoughts and feelings. The film itself is only very subtly evangelical in this claim, but the special feature interviews with the filmmakers on the DVD demonstrate a good bit of zeal to the tune of "It changed my life!" and "Every day I go out and create my reality with positive thoughts!" and "We want 100 million people to see this film . . . because it will enlighten them!" (my paraphrasings). It may be this behind the camera zeal that allowed them to take a leap from the speculative science of quantum physics to altering the material environment with your thoughts. That's a leap I won't be taking. In fact, clinically speaking, I think it is kooky.
Now, I don't think or understand “quantumly” enough to represent the filmmakers' line of reasoning accurately, but it seems to have something to do with electrons being in either one state or another, but never in between . . . thus, the positing of a mysterious "in between" existence (other dimensions, etc.). On top of that, there is this idea that, on the quantum level, observation affects reality. So, as I am told, light (for instance) appears to behave like a wave when we do not directly observe it, but like a particle when we do. It is thusly that observation affects reality. Ok, maybe so. I'm not dissenting, but I think extracting from this speculation that some form of active observation can affect non-quantum reality, and that harnessing such reality-affecting observation should be a "spiritual" goal is neither justified nor entirely healthy.
On the other hand, "What the Bleep" did deal with other topics that I could understand and even appreciate. For instance, that states of mind and emotionality can affect our physical bodies. This doesn't require quantum science to be explained, merely a bit of neurology and biology. It has to do with peptides and proteins and stuff (I'll spare you my lame attempt at explaining it). Some of the interviewees expressed the idea (my paraphrasing again) that human beings are addiction machines, and that, on the level of the brain, all sorts of repeat emotions (regardless of how pleasurable or not pleasurable they are) are chemically addictive. Even (and maybe especially) self-destructive behaviors, feelings, and thoughts can become addictive. Such habitualized emotions can have an impact on the way our bodies’ cells grow and reproduce. That is, the more we indulge particular states of mind/emotions, the more our cells will grow to become receptive to the neural chemicals that accompany those emotions . . . and less receptive to alternate chemicals/emotions.
Another thing I partially dug was the expressed notion that creation is the purpose/right/duty of the human animal. I have written extensively (though unscientifically) about this topic, so I was surprised and pleased to see other people (other wackos?) voicing similar ideas. But I say “partially”, because I ultimately felt that I meant this a bit differently than the interviewees in “What the Bleep” did. Some of these folks seemed to suggest that “creation” was a kind of determination of reality, a willful “ordering”. To Jungian-esque thinker like me, this is an invitation to disaster. The individuation process as Jung described it is specifically NOT to be mistaken for an act of will/ego that serves to “conquer” realty or the unconscious. Rather, the increase of consciousness involves an increase in flexibility, fluidity, and acceptance.
Jung thought that westerners operated on a different psychic paradigm than easterners. In the west, our struggle for consciousness is often symbolized as a battle against the darkness, a conquering of the darkness, so when we get our psychic paws on eastern philosophy that talks about perfecting mind or expanding consciousness, we mistakenly apply our conventional psychic paradigm. As a result, we too easily fall pray to a kind of “Orientalism” and apply our puritanical self-punishment to the “quest for enlightenment”. This results in discipline, maybe, but not enlightenment, because (psychoanalytically speaking) it is a repression of what needs to be a naturally emerging, consciously cultivated intelligence.
“What the Bleep”, I felt, leaned in this direction. To contrast, my personal experience has led me to see creation as the result of an increasingly large and increasingly “audible” dialog between the ego-self and the other-self, a cooperation, if you will. From that cooperation, a story is spun, a narrative fiction, which becomes the creation as it ceaselessly evolves . . . not into a unified or perfected thing, but into an elaborate eco-system of self and the connection of that self to others, The Other, and the world. This is maybe a bit more complex, poetic, and faith-driven than the New Aged take in “What the Bleep”, but it works better for me, seems more tangible, less . . . quantum.
So . . . in reacting to this film as I have so far, I have indulged the filmmakers’ intents. I have used the film as a capsule of ideas, swallowed it, and “dialoged” internally (and now in blogsville) with its statements, its contents. Now, many would find such an approach simplistic or even inappropriate. I think specifically of the conventional contemporary academic attitudes toward art: art for art’s sake, art as an aesthetic pleasure, not a statement, not something with an agenda.
As a piece of art (sans agenda), “What the Bleep” is also interesting if ultimately not epiphanic. Along with the interviews, the film integrates a fictional narrative (starring Marlee Matlin) about a photographer (get it? An “Observer”, as the Quantumites say) set upon by a functional depression/existential crisis/reckoning with self. She’s uptight, obsessive, and self-hating . . . and it seems the immediate cause for her existential ailment is an ex-husband who cheated on her. As a result, she is “addicted to” seeing all men as betrayers and anyone who might want to get to know her as a potential invader/violator. With the help of some time, a few synchronous events, and a number of CG “quantum visions”, she comes (we are led to believe) to a better place by the end of the film. The space-time continuum heals all wounds, as they say.
The narrative adds some entertainment value (although a “climactic”, surreal Polish wedding sequence was too drawn out for my taste) but doesn’t entirely transcend its sideshow status or really even bring any further illumination to the ideas being discussed. Those ideas and the interviewees who espouse them are the real stars. And these espousers were given a pretty ritzy treatment. The film seems to have a pretty sizable budget ($5 million according to the filmmakers) for a documentary.
Ultimately, I think a film about ideas that intends to make people think is a good thing . . . especially if that goal is achieved (and it seems this is the case). Of course, any such film must develop some relation to its own potential to propagandize for its cause . . . and there is some awareness of this in “What the Bleep”. But, whereas they have a few interviewees giving hasty, superficial, but not altogether unwise critiques of Christianity, they don’t provide any anti-quantum thinkers. I don’t mean to suggest that they should toss a few fundamentalists in out of some prefabricated sense of “fairness” . . . I’m talking about real thinkers who understand quantum ideas and can offer scientific alternatives, or at least provide a sense of debate. In fact, although the film deals pretty extensively with theological issues, the theological talk is pretty narrow in its perspective, hoping (I assume) that because the ideologies expressed are not mainstream, they can be expressed without any real debate (i.e., they are the debate against the mainstream). So, on the God issue (that it purports to take on), I found “What the Bleep” rather lame, simplistic, superficial, and trendy. Maybe this is partly due to the fact that we don’t live in a very theologically complex age or place, but the film doesn’t do anything to counter this deficiency.
I would give the film 3 stars for achieving its agenda (spurring people to think and debate complex issues), but only 2 stars for failing to consciously recognize its own tendencies to be propagandistic and spurious, and also for failing to bring all the necessities of a legitimate, logical argument to the table. I glanced at a few Netflix reviews before I wrote this, and there were some angry Quantumites grousing about the “weak science” in this film. They are correct as far as I can tell. I might not know the science, but I know rhetoric pretty well (remind me to be forever grateful for my English degree), and such knowledge is all one needs to start gaining a critical perspective on “What the Bleep”.
Also, some Netflix folks brought into question the credentials of the interviewees. Some interviewees struck me as more loopy than others, but the obvious one stands out: the woman who is supposedly “channeling” some mystic dude (Ramtha?). When one has lived in
Still, 1 or 2 star ratings don’t do justice to what this film does achieve: the offering up of some ideas to think about. Very few films make us think . . . especially think philosophically or existentially. And really, if the dialog we adopt is one primarily of dissent (as is mine), is this actually such a bad thing? We are still thinking. We are still formulating our own reactions and disagreements. And if we do that with honesty, integrity, and consciousness, the result can only be positive.
2 comments:
I didn't see this film, because I saw clips, and perceived the 'kooky' tone. [My standard terminology is 'loopy'.]
I think I understand what you're saying. Let me try a short paraphrase.
The purpose of understanding is not so that we can steer, but that we can ride as passengers in comfort.
I think I start to grin when I think about these folks using their wills to steer quantum events. That class of direct manipulations and interactions of the mind with metaphysical classes will always seem loopy to me. I am aware that my attitude is patronizing, and, as a profoundly unenlightened being, I can ill-afford to patronize anyone. But I can't help it. It seems silly to me. I guess, to me, that it is silly is, for me, an Article of Faith.
When I first heard about this film, I thought it sounded way too loopy for me . . . but then I heard a few other people talk about it in a more or less sane way. I went in suspicious (and I tend to be too homemade-fire-and-brimstone for the new age mindset), but I am very interested in contemporary American perspectives on spirituality. It seems like an epic quest to me: to be both American and spiritual. That is, to recognize your connection to the American psyche, its baggage, its individualism, its old ugliness and myopic lust for increase, etc. . . . and to combine this with a spiritual life . . . not one that imitates Buddhism or accepts mainstream Christianity unquestioningly, but one that searches for meaning and faith while maintaining American rationalism, sarcasm, and a leeriness of mammoth institutions and PR tactics.
Or maybe it’s a spirituality that has a sense of invention or creation, that looks forward into the future, thinks in new ways, rather than looking to the past, toward some kind of textual fundamentalism. It doesn’t make sense to me that religions have all been written in stone and exist in only a petrified state. I don’t trust petrified ideas, the unquestionable, the solved; I trust adaptation, evolution, growth. The prior are abstract notions of the human intellect, while the latter are principles of nature and the natural universe, by which I mean, logical. They have precedent. They are constantly demonstrated and don’t require an ideology or a sacrifice of consciousness to grasp.
Anyway, I tried to shelve my cynicism in hope that “What the Bleep” would be interesting. I had watched the PBS miniseries “The Question of God” when it was on, and found that I sympathized almost entirely with the Freudian perspective . . . that is, if I had had to choose between Freud’s and C.S. Lewis’s. I was slightly taken aback by that reaction, because, although I find Freud fascinating and even “correct” about many things, I am more of a dyed in the wool Jungian. One of Jung’s major disagreements with Freud was over the need/meaning of religion. Freud said it was neurosis and Jung thought it was an essential human drive like sexuality. I realized that I didn’t like Lewis’s style of spirituality, a conventional Christian battle with faith and why God lets bad things happen to good people (that’s theodicy, right?). The options in that paradigm are either reject God out of anger (for His betrayal/failure to be a good parent), or accept God more or less unquestioningly without any comprehension whatsoever.
C.S. Lewis wavered in his faith. When things were bad, his faith dwindled, and when the wounds started to heal, he started to regain his faith. But the process seemed unconscious to me. Freud, on the other hand, did not waver in his faith, because his faith (in the theories of psychoanalysis) was not blind, but one based on actively examining all the evidence he had and trying not to draw conclusions based on taboos. He was an unflinching dissident, a real intellectual hellion who decided he wanted to look into the Pandora’s Box of human consciousness without granting it any of the species worship and mystification it was normally afforded. He was, despite his reputation, a very clear thinker. But he just didn’t go all the way. He saw the biological and animal (Oedipal) precedents in religious symbolism, and he concluded that the nobility of human consciousness was a sham, turned around, and went home . . . with the notion that civilization is the defense against that painful realization. But at that level, I think his argument was a fallacy based on the Enlightenment era dichotomy of the wild and the civilized or the base and the exalted. He deconstructed the defense that disguised that sham, but not the language it was founded on.
Consciousness, under the Jungian paradigm, is not a dichotomy of base and noble, it is not a dichotomy at all . . . unless one lives in a neurotic, artificially polarizing condition. For Jung, the psyche was a natural organ, a process guided by a natural principle like equilibrium, which our neuroses throw out of whack by putting all our psychic eggs in one very small basket (the ego). But the psyche wants to be one thing that ebbs and flows, that cycles, so it unconsciously compensates an opposite but equal force against the overstuffed basket. This build up of pressure that seizes up what would naturally be a fluid system of recycling energy is perceived (by the ego basket) as a destructive force. The battles along the border line between the two create the manifestations of neurosis. For Jung, the drive for religiosity was a hunger for the unconscious, undiscovered self (the God Imago, as he put it), which was made into an other due to the egg hoarding that our socialization requires of us (i.e., mass-mindedness, obedience, rigidity, etc.).
Anyway, “What the Bleep” was not as loopy as I worried it might be, but it was loopier than I would have liked. I thought there were going to be interviews with a variety of people professing different viewpoints . . . all expressing different perspectives on that spiritual hunger. Instead, it was more like a promotion for quantum theories, was disappointingly one sided and, not surprisingly, a bit too self-congratulatory and evangelical regarding its “keen new idea”. I’m not saying the application of quantum physics to psychology and spirituality is “wrong”. In fact, Jung believed his psychology and modern quantum physics were running on parallel tracks and would some day cross over into a unified thread. My main gripe was that the theological thinkers with equally profound, but other opinions were suspiciously absent from the dialog the film presented. In other words, the Quantumites are interesting, but they are babes in the woods theologically speaking. They may be experts in their own field, but they are judging theological thinking by its mainstream fundamentalist manifestations, not by the more meditative examinations of real theologians.
Still, something occurred to me after I watched the film and wrote my “review”. I think this spiritualist application of quantum physics has a historical precedent in alchemy. Pre-chemistry, the alchemists could project their spiritual ideas and psychic substance into the mysterious mutable material of metals and other chemicals. They could see in chemical reactions, symbolic parallels to psychic processes involved in the pursuit of consciousness. Quantum physics strikes me as today’s alchemy: half science, half speculation . . . and it throws open the doors of the imagination to see meaning in these mysterious processes. Alchemy for the most part could not survive the advent of chemistry (although it did survive thousands of years), which demystified much of the processes and elements . . . but we don’t have a “hard science” yet to substitute for fledgling quantum theories. This leads me to suspect that quantum physics (especially in its most speculative applications) has more to say about the human psyche than it does about the physical universe. And really, that interests me more, anyway. And it makes for a great genre of science fiction.
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