BEFORE: When I started this blog, I did it to catch up on classic films - I didn't expect that I'd be asking questions about the nature of reality itself. Yet that seems to be where I find myself tonight.
For linking tonight, I'm relying on some character actors - Gregory Itzen from "Life or Something Like It" was also in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" with Larry Brandenburg, who plays "Bruno" in tonight's film. Considering this is a documentary with a few staged scenes, that's about the best I can hope for.
THE PLOT: This film plunges you into a world where quantum uncertainty is demonstrated - where neurological processes, and perceptual shifts are engaged and lived by its protagonist - where everything is alive, and reality is changed by every thought.
AFTER: There are a couple of things I know about quantum physics, one of which is that we don't know very much about quantum physics. It's a bunch of theories that explain how electrons and quarks work, but it's largely, umm, theoretical, right? For one thing, we can't be sure of what's happening at the sub-atomic level, because the act of observation often changes that which is being observed. And we don't know where most of the matter in the universe IS, and light is both a particle AND a wave, etc. etc. Oh, and the rules about time and space don't seem to function consistently, nothing to worry about.
BUT, can those rules about quantum physics be applied to our daily lives? That would mean that reality itself would be subjective, and by observing it, even by THINKING about it, we could be changing it. Come to think of it, what is reality - is it just what we perceive and recognize, or are things that we believe to be real also real? And if not, do our brains even know the difference? Here we go again, it's the "we're all just brains in jars" theory, which can't be disproved - but that doesn't necessarily make it true.
You can view life as a series of choices, big and little. Lots of people get up at the same time every day, eat breakfast, travel the same route to the same job and come home to the same person, making a series of choices that, over time, can make them feel as if they have no free will at all. But people change habits, jobs, even spouses, all the time. Those are the ways that we DO change our realities. You can think it, then do it.
We ate at a new restaurant last night in lower Manhattan. A series of choices brought us there - I decided to get a new phone, I decided to download the Yelp! app, I decided to search on what was near my wife's office. We chose to meet there on THIS day at THAT time, and it turned out to be right on the river, behind some buildings I'd seen but never walked around before. So, quantum physics might suggest that the restaurant did not exist in my reality until I walked into that neighborhood for the first time. But that's ridiculous, because the restaurant has been there for years, we just never went there. Should I be so arrogant to think that it popped into existence just to feed me dinner?
Which brings me to the following problems with this documentary, and its attempts to apply quantum theory to human existence:
Problem #1) The rules on our plane are different. According to these theories, nothing is real (and nothing to get hung about...) but I KNOW what's real. The things I can touch, hear, see and taste. Maybe my brain can't perceive everything that's happening, maybe my eyes are limited to the spectrum of visible light, but I'm going to believe in the tangible over the intangible. Anyway, a documentary needs to be about real things or events, and not all this theoretical stuff.
Problem #2) Since the film favors the power of thought over, say, math & real-world physics, it tends to get a little hippy-dippy. No matter how much I might want to walk on water, it's just not possible (unless water is frozen, of course). I think the recent news stories about people being burned at a fire-walking seminar prove this - I just knew that was a scam, somehow. Some of the "scientists" here include a chiropractor (more junk science) and someone who channels.
Problem #3) It also includes some "scientists" ready to give their views on religion, which is akin to your high-school math teacher trying to teach an English class. I was glad to hear that some of these science folk seem to be agnostics, or they believe in a God that cannot be defined by human terms or the rules of organized religion (which were written by MEN long ago, for archaic reasons). I have to agree with the guy who says that anyone who states what God wants or thinks is committing blasphemy of a sort. Why can't we just keep this a mystery until we need to? Because it keeps the masses in line, apparently, and prevents chaos while it promotes ignorance.
All that being said, how much of our reality is real, and how much is perception? People once believed that the world was flat, or that a god carried the sun across the sky in a chariot each day. People were wrong then, and filled in their knowledge gaps with guesses - how do we know that we're not doing the same thing? Evolution, the big bang, there are still big holes in those theories (not as big as the ones in creationism, but still...)
How did we come to achieve awareness, is it just a by-product of evolution? How did our cells know to come together to create the conscious beings we are? What is consciousness? Is it just a bunch of neurons firing in a particular way? Or, as Kurt Vonnegut suggested, are we all just bags of chemicals walking around? As this film suggests, are our emotions just chemical reactions, along with our addictions? Make up your mind, hippie scientists, are we spiritual beings, or chemical factories?
To illustrate the scientific concepts, there are scenes of everyday life in this film, showing a woman struggling for the meaning of reality. But I often found a disconnect between the scenes and the concepts - what does a woman drawing hearts on her body, or yelling at herself in the mirror have to do with anything? Besides, the world is not your personal holodeck, nor is it The Matrix.
Here's what I think the true takeaway should be - the best advice I can draw from the film is the stuff that any good therapist would tell you. Life is short, so try and enjoy it. Do the things that make you happy, but if things aren't going the way you'd like, try to make some positive steps to improve your situation. Accept the things you cannot change, etc. etc. Be excellent to each other. Oh, and don't invite a neurotic photographer on anxiety medication to your wedding and let her drink, because things are bound to get weird. And if you eat at P.J. Clarke's, try the walnut fudge brownie, it's really wonderful.
Synchronicity comes from seeing some of the filming locations, and recognizing places I've been. I spotted the Goose Hollow train station in Portland, OR - right near an animation studio that I've worked for and visited twice. And one expert was being interviewed right in front of the Palace of Art in San Francisco, which I just photographed last month.
Starring Marlee Matlin, with cameos from Elaine Hendrix, John Ross Bowie, Barry Newman, Armin Shimerman.
RATING: 4 out of 10 basketballs
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