{"id":5694,"date":"2009-11-07T00:19:21","date_gmt":"2009-11-07T05:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/?p=5694"},"modified":"2021-06-09T06:02:27","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T11:02:27","slug":"movies-mindwalk-1991-vs-what-the-bleep-2004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/movies-mindwalk-1991-vs-what-the-bleep-2004\/","title":{"rendered":"Movies: Mindwalk 1991 vs. What The Bleep 2004"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, I came across the movie<\/span> Mindwalk<\/a> <\/strong>on Showtime. I thought it was funny how this came out in 1991 when so few were ready for the topic of<\/span> quantum field theory<\/a>. Yet a scant 13 years later in 2004,<\/span> What The Bleep Do We Know?!<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0was made and the public embraced it.\u00a0 (<\/strong>Also see June 2021 Horizons featuring Betsy Chasse, co-creator of What The Bleep<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.)
\nFilmed entirely at<\/span> Mont Saint Michel, France<\/a>, Mindwalk<\/strong> serves as an introduction to systems theory and systems thinking, with insights into modern physical theories such as quantum mechanics and particle physics.\u00a0 Below is<\/span> a synopsis of this excellent and thought provoking film<\/a>.<\/p>\n

MINDWALK (1991)<\/span><\/strong>
\nPHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES<\/strong>: Philosophy of science, holism, environmentalism<\/span>
\nCHARACTERS:<\/strong> Jack Edwards (Sam Waterston; politician), Thomas Harriman (John Heard; poet), Sonia Hoffman (Liv Ullman; physicist), Kit (Ione Skye; Sonia’s daughter).<\/span><\/p>\n

SYNOPSIS:<\/strong> \u201cMindwalk,\u201d like \u201cMy Dinner with Andre,\u201d is a dialogue-driven film, which explores basic philosophical questions. In this case, the principal subject is holistic vs. atomistic ways of viewing the world. The film was directed by Austrian-born<\/span> Bernt Amadeus Capra<\/a>, a Hollywood production designer. He also wrote the story behind the film, which he adapted from the popular book The Turning Point (1983) by his brother<\/span> Fritjof Capra<\/a>, noted physicist and environmentalist. This is<\/span> Bernt Capra<\/a>\u2019s only film as director. The film\u2019s setting is an island monastery in France, the Abbey of<\/span> Mont Saint Michel, France<\/a>, where three vacationers meet and engage in discussion. Jack, a \u201cconservative Democrat\u201d presidential candidate, was just defeated and, disillusioned, awaits his forthcoming campaign as a senator. Jack\u2019s poet friend Thomas is himself disillusioned from his fast-paced life in New York City. Now living in Paris, Thomas reluctantly invites Jack to France. Touring the monastery, they meet Sonia, a disillusioned physicist who advocates a holistic view of physics and the environment. She explains her views to the two men, who find them compelling. Thomas, though, is too self-consumed to do much with the ideas. Jack continually asks for ways to put Sonia\u2019s views into practice, and even invites her to join his staff. She refuses, wishing instead to remain in the ivory tower of the monastery. Jack leaves wondering if this is a critical turning point in his life.<\/span><\/p>\n

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

1. A monastery tour guide makes the following statement regarding the town\u2019s graveyards: \u201cThis is why the dead are placed in the middle of the town among the houses; death is a part of life, not separate from it.\u201d This is similar to Heidegger\u2019s point that human nature is defined by our movement towards death. Heidegger also feels that we all too often ignore this fact, and thus live improperly (or inauthentically). Is it really so important to continually have death before our minds, and, if so, would graveyards scattered throughout town really facilitate this?<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Meeting the two men in the monastery bell tower, Sonia states that the clock \u201cbecame the model of the cosmos, and then they mistook the model for the real thing. People got the idea that nature was just a giant clock, not a living organism, but a machine.\u201d She says that Descartes was the primary architect of this view \u2013 particularly his conception of the human body as a machine. Would Descartes plead guilty to this charge?<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Sonia argues that many of life\u2019s problems \u2013 starvation, rainforest depletion, health problems \u2013 are interconnected, and they can never be solved by looking at each in isolation. Jack responds \u201cSupposing you\u2019re right and everything is interconnected with everything else as you say. Still you\u2019ve got to start somewhere, don\u2019t you. So that\u2019s the real political question here: where do you start?\u201d Sonia answers \u201cBy changing the way we\u2019re seeing the world. You see, you\u2019re still searching for the right piece to fix first. You don\u2019t see that all the problems are fragments of one single crisis, a crisis of perception.\u201d Why can\u2019t Jack\u2019s approach serve as a solution to this \u201ccrisis of perception\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Jack argues that the non-holistic model of things works just fine in many areas, such as medicine. A man complains of gallstones, has the gallbladder removed, and his pain is gone. Sonia responds that the problem might have been avoided by emphasizing prevention \u2013 more exercise. Is Sonia\u2019s solution really \u201cholistic\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Jack feels that, even if Sonia is correct, it would be politically impossible to initiate dramatic holistic agendas. For example, a special tax on beef might decrease its consumption and thus reduce health and agricultural problems. However, this would hurt businesses, which would lobby hard against such proposals. \u201cSo I do what everybody else does from the lowliest congressman right on up to the president of the United States. I pick a few crucial issues \u2013 that I think are crucial \u2013 a part of your whole, and I persist and persist until I get somewhere if I\u2019m lucky. And for the rest I mark time, I wait, I go along, I trade off.\u201d Isn\u2019t this the best that policy maker can do \u2013 even Green Party politicians?<\/span><\/p>\n

6. Sonia notes Francis Bacon\u2019s view that \u201cscientists with their new mechanical devices had to torture nature\u2019s secrets out of her.\u201d Don\u2019t holists also have to \u201ctorture nature\u2019s secrets out of her\u201d to understand how everything is interconnected?<\/span><\/p>\n

7. Playing devil\u2019s advocate, Jack offers several standard criticisms of extreme environmentalism. Perhaps human-caused damage isn\u2019t nearly as harmful as that which nature herself causes, such as with the ice age. Perhaps nature has a built-in healing mechanism, which allows it to bounce back from problems such as increased ultraviolet light through ozone depletion. How might a holist such as Sonia respond?<\/span><\/p>\n

8. Sonia argues that there are two fundamental principles in nature, one male which is aggressive and dominating, the other female, which is nurturing and gentle. In the past they were kept roughly in balance, but now men \u201chave created the tools, the weapons \u2013 both intellectually and physically \u2013 to bring these two principles way out of balance. We have been placing mechanistic tools in the hands of power-oriented patriarchal people. I\u2019m saying you men are out of control now. I, you, we \u2013 we all are the victims. So what\u2019s the risk? What\u2019s wrong with giving the female principle an opportunity?\u201d Is environmental destruction really a guy thing as Sonia suggests?<\/span><\/p>\n

9. Thomas gives two quotations from William Blake: \u201cMay God us keep from single vision and Newton\u2019s sleep,\u201d and \u201cIf the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is: infinite.\u201d What\u2019s Blake\u2019s point?<\/span><\/p>\n

10. Sonia explains what matter consists of at the subatomic level: there is only empty space with probability patterns of interconnections. She states, \u201cThe essential nature of matter lies not in objects, but in interconnections.\u201d As these interconnections extend out from objects, all things are then interconnected at the subatomic level. \u201cUltimately, whether we like it or not, we\u2019re all part of one inseparable web of relationships.\u201d Even if Sonia\u2019s view is true, we nevertheless draw clear moral and legal boundaries between ourselves and others, such as regarding property and bodily integrity. Once we grant individual moral autonomy, doesn\u2019t Sonia\u2019s rigid holistic view of things collapse?<\/span><\/p>\n

11. Sonia states that she gave up her job as a physicist because, as she states, \u201cI got tired of seeing my work fed to the U.S. Defense Department.\u201d Most scientists would not opt out of the system as Sonia did. Is there a more realistic way for scientists to address concerns such as Sonia\u2019s?<\/span><\/p>\n

12. Sonia states that, as a physicist, she feels responsible for the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima \u2013 and more directly for the military uses of her own discoveries in physics. Jack responds that neither she nor other physicists were responsible for such consequences: \u201cscientists are supposed to figure things out; its up to the rest of us to figure out what to do about it.\u201d Is Jack right?<\/span><\/p>\n

13. In defense of her view that scientists are responsible for the consequences of their discoveries, she notes that some Native American tribes made all of their important decisions with the seventh generation of their descendants in mind. This, she believes, is how scientists should think about their work, instead of simply as pure research. As with utilitarianism, doesn\u2019t the Native American perspective fall prey to the problem of omniscience, namely, that we need to know a lot about how the future of the world would be affected by our various choices?<\/span><\/p>\n

14. Kit, Sonia’s daughter, says to her mother, \u201cI can\u2019t stand you talking about what\u2019s wrong with the world, and your new vision of reality, when what I hear and what I think is that you\u2019re talking about your own problems, and how you yourself feel disconnected. I mean you can\u2019t even relate to me.\u201d Is this a reasonable assessment of the psychology behind holism?<\/span><\/p>\n

15. Jack asks Sonia how her ideas translate into politics: \u201cwouldn\u2019t it take some kind of totalitarian regime to put ideas as comprehensive as yours into effect?\u201d Sonia responds with more theory (specifically \u201csystems theory\u201d which espouses ecological interconnectedness). Eventually, though, she says that we should always act with future generations in mind. Considering that businesses are oriented towards the short term, wouldn\u2019t Sonia\u2019s future-looking approach require a totalitarian regime as Jack suggests?<\/span><\/p>\n

16. Life, according to Sonia, is self-organization. By this she means that it is self-maintaining (depends on one\u2019s environment, but not determined by it), self-renewal (replacing new cells), and self-transcending (evolutionary change). Isn\u2019t this definition of life more Cartesian than holistic?<\/span><\/p>\n

17. Jack walks away feeling compelled by Sonia\u2019s views. \u201cEven the parts I didn\u2019t understand felt right. So, should I just go with it? Is this one of those turning points?\u201d The scene has an almost religious tone in which a sinner is wavering on conversion. Is holism the kind of thing that can be accepted in a conversion experience \u2013 or a \u201cturning point\u201d as Fritjof Capra titles his book?<\/span><\/p>\n

I saw<\/span> this movie<\/a> once, after sleeping through the first run.\u00a0 I think sleeping through it the first time helped peak my interest in<\/span> quantum field theory<\/a> and particle physics<\/a>.\u00a0 I completely enjoyed<\/span> the movie<\/a> that followed, and thought the dialogue was a great primer.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, it was in the thinking of “more people should know this stuff<\/em>” that I became involved a year later with<\/span> Horizons Magazine<\/a>.\u00a0 I thought, if I had my words on paper where thousands of people would read it, I could share these ideas and suggest books and movies that addressed these topics<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

17 years later, here I AM.<\/span><\/p>\n

And the rest is history.<\/span><\/p>\n

\ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/span><\/strong> Betsy Chasse, co-creator of What The Bleep Do We Know?! in the June 2021 Horizons<\/a><\/p>\n

Visit <\/span>www.horizonsmagazine.com<\/a><\/span>
\nEmail\u00a0\u00a0horizonsmagazine@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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