Has anyone seen the movie "What the bleep do we know"?

[LaurenG]

I saw it today and I really liked it.

[xchrom]

1. ramtha likes it too.

he channeled me today and said so.

[LaurenG]

3. lol

Tell me you weren't interested in the thought process theory. The way a mind works according to the MD's and professor's who study quantum and mechanical physics? How emotion rules our world.

[Cha]

2. My friend at work was talking

about it last Thursday. She had seen it with her husband and some friends and then they discussed it with a bunch of other peeps at a meeting..thought I would really like it.

http://www.whatthebleep.com/

I must have it!

[LaurenG]

4. It is quite profound

If you can get beyond JZ Knight's channeled Ramtha. That stuff doesn't bother me in the least. According to this film, we can effect molecules by our thoughts. It's pretty deep actually.

[Zorbuddha]

16. I bought the dvd, but the Ramtha stuff is a bummer

I gave the dvd to my mom, and neither of us have watched it yet, but the concepts involved are compelling. I just have a hard time wrapping my mind around the context of Ramtha - I'm not big on the whole channeled entity thing. But the quantum realm is a tough one to translate to ordinary thinking. If this worked to explain the subtle influences on our reality, ie the work of Wm. Tiller etc, it is no wonder so many are awed by it.

I need to get over the JZ Knight factor and just watch the damn movie.

[FM Arouet666]

83. But more importantly, molecules can effect our thoughts...

:hippie: :smoke:

[Cassandra]

5. I really enjoyed it...

and there's a book coming out in the fall.

[longship]

6. QM is pretty simple

WTBDWK in some respects misuses scientific statements to extend the precepts into the metaphysical realm. I'm not too comfortable with that. The part of QM that makes it interesting is that in the macro world, none of the quantum effects are apparent. The universe would be a lot different place if what they claim in the movie was fact.

It's an interesting take and it's fun to watch, but I file it under pseudoscience because QM theory specifically forbids the effects that are claimed.

[Zorbuddha]

17. "QM is pretty simple"?

Richard Feynman said "If you think you understand QM, then you don't."

[rwenos]

7. Look a Little More Closely

The film is thinly-veiled propaganda for a New Age guru/channeler, the woman in the film with the weird voice. That weird voice, she says, is an ancient guru named Ramtha, who speaks through her.

The physics is superficial but apparently (based on what I was told by physicists) essentially correct.

The problem is in the final credits. Look at them again. This is cult material.

[suziedemocrat]

8. I HATED that film - light on science - heavy on new age BS.

If you are interested - the BBC did an hour long show called "Parallel Universes" - which is ALL science and many times more mind-blowing. Also, PBS did a three hour long version called "The Elegant Universe." You can watch it online here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/.

For spirituality - I don't think anything compares to Michael Newton's books "Journey of Souls" and "Destiny of Souls." http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1567184855/qid=1118542469/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/102-1551860-5210507?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[rwenos]

9. Thanks -- Thought I was a Voice in The Wilderness There

I'll check out the link. Amazing what people will see as "profound," just because some charismatic "prophet" is selling it.

"Beware of false prophets, who inwardly are ravenous wolves."

Good old KJV. VERY unfashionable in inerrantist circles, don't you find?

[suziedemocrat]

10. You lost me for a while - KJV = King James Version?

I had to look up "inerrantist" - and I guess it is someone who thinks the bible is without error.

Maybe I passed myself off as being a lot more educated than I really am. But - yes - I sometimes think I am the only one who hated that movie too. I had only read terrific reviews, and I was very disappointed. I had already watched the BBC and PBS shows, so the science wasn't new. The movie also stopped short of the really cool new scientific theories like string theory and M theory - and multiple realities is hardly new - so the science in the movie wasn't worth much - IMO. And my brother belongs to a new age church similar to what this movie seems to espouse. I think that stupid religion contributed to his decades long drug problem. :shrug:

[onager]

37. No, you're not the only one

Pathetic New Age claptrap. See my old rants about it below.

Nice to see another contrary view! Thanks!

:hi:

[LaurenG]

11. It's amazing how frightened some can be

Over metaphysical questions and the thought processes behind it. If you take what you like and leave the rest it is profound. It's amazing what goes on over peoples heads huh?

"These things and more shall ye do also"
Jesus Christ when speaking about his gifts.

[Orrex]

30. Two-edged sword

It's amazing how frightened some can be over metaphysical questions and the thought processes behind it.

With due respect, it's equally amazing how otherwise intelligent and reasonable people can totally abandon all semblance of critical thinking when presented with a soothing "metaphysical" message.

The perennial criterion for acceptance is always: "It sounds good to me."

And the perennial defense is always one of the following:
"You can't prove I'm wrong, so that's the same as me being right."
"You have no right to tell me what I can and can't believe."
or
"Your 'belief' in science is just as irrational as my belief in a 40,000 spirit prophet."

I've seen enough of this cult propaganda, and other materials like it, to recognize it as the bogus tripe that it is. If you found it entertaining, that's fine, but don't ascribe to it any deeper meaning than a desire to boost the prophet's profits.

[trotsky]

31. "You can't prove I'm wrong, so that's the same as me being right."

Yep, that's about it.

[intheflow]

14. Thanks for the PBS link.

Very cool to be able to watch it online! :hi:

[Dervill Crow]

12. I went to a class and the people there were talking about how wonderful

that film was. They were very new agey college students, which is fine, better educated and probably smarter than I am, but it sounded like a load of crap to me.

[trotsky]

29. Beware that which tells you what you want to believe. n/t

[onager]

13. Wow! People even more gullible than Fundie Xians!

Ramtha, like Christ, ascended into heaven, after his many conquests, including the conquest of himself. He said he'd be back and he kept his promise by coming to Knight in 1977 while she was in her pyramidiot phase.

She put a toy pyramid on her head and lo and behold if that wasn't a signal for Ramtha to return to the land of the living dead...

Review of "What The Bleep Do We Know" from SKEPTIC magazine. ("Ramtha’s School of Quantum Flapdoodle" by John Olmsted.)

http://skepdic.com/channel.html

If you want to learn about REAL quantum physics, as opposed to Deepak Chopra's Bullshit Quantum Physics, just do a Google on "Victor Stenger."

Stenger spent his whole career in the field, and participated in the experiments that proved the existence of the quark, neutrino and other sub-atomic particles.

He's also a professor of philosophy, and has the gift of being able to explain quantum physics to ordinary folks.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

15. Yeah

its a good companion to the 1990 film "Mindwalk" which talks of some of the same things, but adds a geopolitical angle.

[greyl]

19. Mindwalk is different, and better. nt

[sweetheart]

20. mindwalk intellectualizes

And does not delve in to the ulitmate subjectivity of all human experience.

Mindwalk, for that genre carries a poor second to "my dinner with andre"
that probes the same issues of mind, more eloquenlty, IMO, many years learlier.

But both films are "entertainment" whereas bleep is a invitation to question
the fundamentals of how you perceive the world. Bleep is not designed to give
you solution, but to leave you restless with questions, something mindwalk left
little of. Mindwalk did not challenge orthodoxy, that is why nobody is out
there being paid to write skeptic slander. The orthodoxy is the same republican
orthodoxy we discuss in other forums, and the orthodoxy movies want everyone to
buy in to the sucker game of voting for the 2 party status quo, that the system
CAN be changed from the inside... just perk up and keep canvassing the neightborhood
for the next election.

But, being a religion forum, can we dispense with the great importance of "duty"
"flag" and "country" in reviewing our relationship with reality. Bleep does
not introduce politics, as the illusion of politics is totally irrelevant to
individual awakening. Obviously mindwalk then, is not about individual awakening
as much as it purports, for all the superstring talk... its all based on collective
objectivity of a false society... a false idol as they say in some religions,
certainly not something worth keeping on an alter.

Wheras, the frame of bleep, questions the root methodological approaches
of our knowledge frame as living beings, something i've not elsewhere seen explored
in film at this quality. Much kudos to the persons who made the film. It has
shaken the treee of swiftboaters to put up websites and get to work spinning up
all the reasons you should not see the film... oo be afraid, a film that ends with
the words: "think for yourself."

[greyl]

23. Mindwalk doesn't include any bs, though.

I don't think there's anything in it that any scientist would disagree with.

Again, What the... is about personal salvation.
Mindwalk is about saving the world.

[sweetheart]

25. What is the world

This entire issue seems to me, "near echatology", as by immediately confronting
someone with a world view that denies their individual existance, either by death,
by future death, by cataclysm or by dissolution, that to say, "all is god" is to
erase a person's ego, to totally threaten it by denying its power... that god is
the only power in this world.

A far eschatology, might be that god will come in the year 2012 and cause a
destruction of humankind according to the aztec calendar. THen we are confronted
with our destruction from a comet or an expanding red sun, and in comptemplating
our utlimate destruction, we are safer from it, so far removed in time, and it
is more easy to confront... a less direct allegory.

But all of them are allegorys, yes. And all of them are about saving the world.
The outer world and the inner world are one, when you save yourself you save the
world. When you discover god, god can use you as an agent on earth. Maybe Bin
Laden is an agent on earth of god, and that the common man in the arab world will
live with more freedom and liberty by the acts of this zealot, however much his
acts are deplorable, bush has now killed ten times more, and claims the moral
right of an equally false god. What if they balance each other out? In a world
without WMD's and people met face to face, bush and bin laden would just knife
each other in a street fight and we'd have long ago been rid of both. But they
both hide behind the claim to a "one god" that is not the same as the other guy's
"one god". And here we have a real issue of divide between the allegory and the
actual comprehension of the allegory.

Al queda is just another eschatological device, that lets us confront a population
through propaganda, with their death... and use the endorphins of pushing someone
to confront death, to imprint them via the propaganda medium to become dissociative.

Why not expose ones self to all sorts of eschatological scenarios in life,
that we are wise to how these frames are used to program media using
a psycho-religious device and the brain-peptides of feelings of oneness. It is
not to necessarily adopt the world views, but to see the world views of successful
persons in this world. It does strike, that the producers of the bleep film, are
multimillionaires from business entrepreneurial work, and in economic terms, they
are more successful by miles than any persons critiquing their film. I look to who
the smart persons are in all this, and the bleep filmmakers have made an underground
hit that is shaking the swiftboaters out like cockroaches... and it just burns up
the cockroaches that the filmmakers are successful with such a brilliant composition.

Their mindset, could donate millions to a political cause, that many of us common folk
are not rich enough to contribute. Perhaps if more persons were of that success,
wealth mindset, it would transform the cause as well, by distributing wealth to those
who claiim to give a shit.

Both films are explorations of truth, and i have both films in my library. The world
view you express divides the world in to "inner" and "outer". That itself is a worldview,
is it not. To save the world, in the religion/theology forum surely is to recognize
what the world is.

[greyl]

26. The "world" is all that stuff that we are a part of.

You know, reality on Earth.
The material existence we share and inhabit together.
The community of life on Earth.
I don't think it's necessary to draw a distinction between "inner" and "outer" to understand what I mean by "the world", much like it not being necessary(or advised) to distinguish between natural and un-natural.

"To save the world, in the religion/theology forum surely is to recognize
what the world is."

That's nearly in agreement with where I'm coming from, I think. ;)
It's just far too pat for me to throw my weight behind.

[sweetheart]

27. The world is what you perceive n/t

[greyl]

148. Is a dragonfly's perception not of the world because I don't

perceive it? Is a dragonfly's world invalid?
As a human, I can't sense all a dragonfly can iow, the dragonfly is sensing some stuff that I can't, so how can THE WORLD be what I, a lone mammal, perceive?

Are you saying that nothing exists of the world beyond what I already perceive of it?
"The world is what you perceive"

Aren't you forgetting that our human senses are abstractions upon abstractions of limited data?
"The world is what you perceive"

[greyl]

147. I just noticed something.

I was too close to see it before.

In the middle of a "rational" conversation at a like-minded forum(du) about a capatalistic movie, you share that you aren't sure what reality is, that none of us are sure.

Yet you proclaim between, within, and on top of the lines, that those who are coming from a different direction than you are wrong. In fact, you demonized them as swiftboaters.

I agree that the idea that art and science are separate, and never the tween shall meet, is inadequate, but "Dumbo" is a more honest movie than "What The...".
Put the white feather in its place.

The best paths are those that don't cover your feet with bullshit.

[greyl]

18. quantum nudge

[Goldensilence]

21. not a bad flick

I liked it. But I like Waking life better.

I'm currently readinga real interesting book on Quantum physics and buddism and how they complement each other quite well actually.

[Arianrhod]

22. That wouldn't happen to be Fritjov Capra's

The Tao of Physics, would it?

[Goldensilence]

24. The Quantum and the Lotus

by Matthieu Ricard and Trinh Xuan Thuan

Really facisnating book and i still really suggest if you can find Waking Life on DVD give that a shot as well. But that's morea dreamer's take on the universe...guess that's why i like it so much. Sleep walking though a waking life or wake walking through our dreams.

[Arianrhod]

28. I love "Waking Life".

Much better, IMO, than "Bleep".

Capra's book was written in the 70s. He's taken quite a bit of flack for it. :)

[Goldensilence]

32. hmm haven't heard of it

but i'll give it a shot. Ever looked into anything pertaining to the "Gaia Theory"?

[Arianrhod]

34. I don't know a lot about it, and haven't studied it.

My understanding is that it views the Earth essentially as a spirit or organism. From an emotional standpoint, I like this idea, and I tend to behave towards the Earth as though it were true. Weird, I know.

I was just thinking about something of this sort not so much as 10 minutes ago, before logging on here. I have an ivy in my living room, which was doing very poorly. I kept it on the floor in front of a picture window, where it got lots of sun. Still, it had browned out badly, and looked as though it were nearly dead. I had cleaned it of dead leaves a while back, only to have it brown out again. So this was a recurring thing. Two weekends ago, I cleaned out the dead leaves again and moved the plant up to a table in front of the same window. Since then, it has pushed out new shoots and new leaves, while older stringers have grown at least 6 inches. The only thing that changed was that the plant was now in full view from anywhere in my living room, instead of hidden on the floor behind the furniture. It continued to get the same amount of food, sun and water as it always had. Yet now it is thriving, whereas before it was dying.

I deduced that it had felt ignored, and just wanted to be considered a part of the family. LOL

This kind of thinking is lunacy to most people, but I'm convinced that other organisms do react to our behavior--including the attention we pay to them.

[Goldensilence]

36. I don't think it is lunacy much as it is seeing a bigger picture..

I was first introduced to the idea by a movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within....good movie btw. This link should give a fundamental understanding of the theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis

I heard of another experiment done using two plants. One was brutally cut up by a person with the second next to it. They hooked up the remaining plant to a polygraph monitor. They then had people parade in, including the first plant's "murderer", and strangely the plant reacted strongly when the first plant's killer came near. The graph went crazy. The experiment went something like that i read about it some time ago. Sometimes fact is stranger then fiction perhaps.

[Arianrhod]

40. I'm familiar with that experiment.

It was first done in the 70s. Obviously, plants aren't conscious the way we are, but I think they're more aware of their environment than most of us would like to believe. I have a strong affinity for plants, and I've encountered some interesting things out in the wild.

As to Final Fantasy, I was going to mention that film in my earlier post! :D I've watched it at least half a dozen times. Not only is it artistically marvelous, but it has a great message, too.

[Goldensilence]

41. a part of QM

is about the relationships of electrons to each other and smaller particles. The book i'm reading right now in a chapter talks about how our relations affect us. That we primarily get who we are as a result of our relationships with others. So it's important on how we view each other.

In another thought our relationship to our environment. IF we view the relationship in our household as most important then we take out perspective. If we take into account for our realtionship far as our neighborhood iour view increases. To our city it increases exponentially. Keep moving onto a statewide view. Then it leads to a national view. However I think what is the most imporant relationship is mankind's with Earth.This view raises us to see the whole Earth as a community of life and us as a PART of it, not at the top. Not created just for us and our pleasure.

I've seen the Final fntasy movie numerous times. Sad how it got panned bad by most people for not being along classic final fantasy plot lines. Wild things huh?.....man i need to start hiking and camping again. Maybe when i get out of this god forsaken state. If things go well in the next 2-3 months i'll be gone hopefully.

[Arianrhod]

42. What you describe

has been codified into a genuine philosophy called Spiral Dynamics. I forget who came up with the idea, but it's strongly promoted by Ken Wilber (Integral Institute). The basic teaching is that human beings evolve spiritually through stages of awareness and interconnection, with each level corresponding to an arc of a theoretical spiral. So we move from individual consciousness to tribal consciousness, national consciousness, global consciousness, etc. There are currently 8 defined levels, with more possibilities being considered. Not everyone is at the same stage at the same time; in fact, at present there are only a handful at the top stages--the most spiritually advanced.

I'm not big on the presentation (it's very New Age-ish and, IMO, a bit hard to follow), but the primary concept has been discussed by anthropologists for some time now. Still, it does go a long way towards codifying a structure for the understanding of how communities evolve, and has been used by several social organizations as a basis for their reach-out programs.

[Goldensilence]

43. hmmm

i'll have to give that a look into. Some of my thoughts have been greatly influenced by The book Ishmael and a few other of Daneil Quinn's writings. I've found quite a few of his writings quite profound in a different sort of way. But then again....I'm now big into Ecology and how it influences us and how we influence it.

You wouldn't happen to be a Tool Fan woud you?

[Arianrhod]

44. No, I'm afraid not.

I had to go look them up. Cool Website. :)

Interesting lyrics. Unfortunately, I can't listen to a sample.

Is this what people my age might call a "Heavy Metal" band? I'm rather into Metallica, and my daughter recently introduced me to Disturbed. Any resemblance to Tool?

[Goldensilence]

46. yes and no

I don't think so much heavy metal depends what album you listen to. At toolband.com if you go to the albums section at the top there is an audiosampler icon that should let you listen to some. Lateralus is really quite a work of art lyrically and musically. Far as compared to disturbed.... I think you really can't compare the two. David Draihman of disturbed has come quite a way i will say but don't really think they reach the plateau that Tool and Maynard James Keenan have reached.T

Parabola
We barely remember who or what came before this precious moment,
We are Choosing to be here right now. Hold on, stay inside...
This holy reality, this holy experience. Choosing to be here in...

This body. This body holding me. Be my reminder here that I am not alone in
This body, this body holding me, feeling eternal all this pain is an illusion.

Alive

This holy reality, in this holy experience. Choosing to be here in...

This body. This body holding me. Be my reminder here that I am not alone in
This body, this body holding me, feeling eternal all this pain is an illusion...
Of what it means to be alive

Swirling round with this familiar parable.
Spinning, weaving round each new experience.
Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this
chance to be alive and breathing
chance to be alive and breathing.

This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality.
Embrace this moment. Remember. we are eternal.
all this pain is an illusion.

[Arianrhod]

51. Wow. I can get into that. :) n/t

[banana republican]

33. Yes I did & I purchased a copy

There is too much in the film to digest in one sitting. I intend to watch it over & over digesting its more salient points.

For me the whole crux of the film centers on one issue; when does the observer of an event effect the outcome of the event. If it is true that the mere observation of an event is effects it outcome; then conciousness is more profound than anyone has ever concieved.

As a Christian, my concerns are not so much with wether or not it is a "new age" peice of propoganda; but rather is any of it true. Since I believe in life long learning ( I have a BA is philosophy; a BA in psychology; a BA in business admin; graduate work in theology & a masters in tax) i have little reason to doubt some of the films statements. Indeed I find that this film is strangely compatable with my faith.

Take for example the films depiction of the psychological concept of cognative dissonace ( the difference between what you see and what you believe about the world). Martin Luther (the original not the King) had a doctrine of the two kingdoms. That we lived between the current state of affairs in the world and the Kingdom of God. This Twilight Zone reflects a state of tension between what we see and what we believe to be true about the world in short cognative dissonance.

I am still pondering this film.....

[greyl]

35. Use the following link as an important viewing companion...

http://skepdic.com/ramtha.html#bleep , I beg you.

Thanks to trotsky.

[sweetheart]

47. swiftboat

The skepdic reviewers are a bunch of hacks. None of them are as qualified as
the persons in the film, and rather they are paid to shit on things. That
website would shit on you too if you made a movie saying the earth was round.
Its the purpose of the website... swiftboat.

They do not challenge the film's intentionality premise, and this premise matches
a lifetime of testing in my own life. Sure its subjective, but so is skepdic and
greyl, trotsky and the others.

It seems this forum is patrolled by diehard antireligious people who's purpose
on every thread is to dump and swiftboat religion.

What exactly did ramtha say in the film that offends? The reviewers are so busy
swiftboating, that they did not actually address what ramtha said.

THe film discusses "faith". It is all about having faith in your own power to
act, far beyond any mental limits you might think bind you. It asks the viewer
to interoogate their own life to see what is truth, so people are inspired to
discover faith, something religious persons have known about since time began.

But when people have no faith, nothing will give it to them, so the ride around
in swiftboats jelously attacking faith as a fraud, driven to waste their time
shitting on another's religion because they have lost the plot.

How, well they can't get their science around the fact that life is entirely
subjective, something that facts prove if those persons are less dissonant.
And as it is entirely subjective, what you create is all that exists.

If you live in a world of doubt, then you see nothing else. If you see
god in all things, there is nothing but god. Its not that either frame of
mind is particularly better, but having tried on both hats, the latter is much
more a key to communion with profound joy.

[salvorhardin]

48. If life is entirely subjective

Then wouldn't your opinion of skeptics as "swiftboaters" also be entirely subjective, and therefore have no real truth value?

Anyway, the Skepdic review by John Olmsted states pretty clearly what offends about the film.

The film is the latest effort by religious, mystical, and New Age gurus ... to cloak their views in the mantel of science.

http://skepdic.com/ramtha.html#bleep

Unlike peanut butter and chocolate, religion and science don't mix well together. As for why the reviewer did not challenge the film's "intentionality premise", it's precisely because skeptics don't care about your religious beliefs. However, when you attempt to mangle and distort science we do. Ramtha's Religo-Scientifi-Cups just don't taste very good although they're as much junk food for the brain as Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are junk food for the body.

[manic expression]

50. Not really

The poster's opinion on the skepdics (I think they are spelled this way on purpose) is an opinion. You also expressed an opinion. The issue is whether there is truth expressed by that opinion.

On subjectivity, many things drawn from the same subject can be simultaneously true. In fact, truths are expressed in infinite ways. Think of a circle; how many lines can be drawn from the perimeter of a circle to the center (the truth)? However, opinions can be wrong and have no real value. Again, the issue is whether the opinion holds any. That is why people put out their opinions, as you did. In conclusion, your question over the poster's opinion is quite misled.

By the way, that goes for other things as well (not just opinions).

As you said, anyway....

Religion and science do not conflict, and they can actually support one another with accuracy. The same truths that are shown by one field can be seen in another. This is evident in many instances. Could you specifically say WHY it is "distorting science", or WHY religion and science can't mix well together?

The reviewer, if s/he was genuine about criticism, should have challenged the premise of the film. If not, it is nothing but meaningless commentary that has nothing to do with the actual idea. THAT, indeed, is junk.

[beam me up scottie]

53. "Junk food for the brain"!!!!

:spray:
PRICELESS!

That would explain why woo woo brains can't keep up!
They're all too fat!
:rofl:

Besides, they got the name all wrong.

If Ramtha were able to talk without a lisp, you'd know his real name is RamSa.

[Arianrhod]

60. mmmm. Maybe.

Unfortunately, the Copenhagen School of Quantum Mechanics holds that intentionality is the very fabric of the Universe. What we look for is what we find. This is the principle behind the double-slit experiment. It is also why Einstein--who, as secular as he was, had a lot of trouble leaving behind his Jewish roots--rejected QM.

The evidence is growing, both in physics and neuroscience, that the Universe exists precisely in the manner in which we perceive it. That is, if we see a Universe of materialistic mechanisms, then that is how it presents itself to us. But if we see a Universe of consciousness, then it takes on the characteristics of intelligence.

This is not an easy thing to accept. I sympathize with those who cannot accept it. But it cannot be ignored, either. This is no longer the rantings of ancient, uneducated mystics; it is the position of the most highly educated, intelligent men to ever live. To wit, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Feynmann, Jung, Penrose, Chalmers, Edelman, Damasio.

Unless you can produce credentials equivalent to theirs, then I see no reason to view your argument as anything other than the informed opinion of someone who isn't an expert in the field. And I have no problem with informed opinions; I just don't accept them as inarguable stances, is all.

BTW, "mantle", in the sense of "cloak", is spelled M-A-N-T-L-E. So much for education. . . .

[manic expression]

116. Well

Einstein rejected the QM precicely because of your conclusion. He knew that QM because it would mean that there is an absolute and relative truth to everything, and that is in conflict with Judaism and the Judeo-Christian worldview.

That means that we may be able to express something in many different ways, but there is an absolute truth to all things. It's like a circle: there is an infinite amount of lines that can be drawn from the edge of a circle to the center. In this way, there is an endless amount of forms a truth can take (how we percieve it), but it does not change its basic self.

(is that understandable?)

I definitely agree with the gist of what you were saying, but I think I just added a few things.

[trotsky]

135. You're veering way off from what those individuals say.

You are taking the science of quantum mechanics and applying all sorts of unwarranted philosophy to it. What exactly are YOUR credentials that would cause us to view YOUR argument as anything other than the (un)informed opinion of someone who isn't an expert in the field?

[Arianrhod]

136. I'm not so far off, actually.

QM is, in ways, more like a philosophy than a science, in the sense that many conclusions can be drawn from the same evidence. Unlike, say, Galileo's formula that insists all objects fall at the same rate in an equal gravitational field, the equations of QM have multiple valid answers. A good example is a simple quadratic equation, which has both a positive and a negative answer. Thus, some of Einstein's equations implied that time travel is a possibility, while some others indicated there was no way to exceed the speed of light (and thus turn time backwards). He tended to assert those of the latter variety, but NASA currently employs scientists whose task it is to prove that wrong. (See the article on FTL photon tunneling in a back issue of Discover Magazine, around 2003 or 2004 I think).

As to my credentials, I'm simply an interested layman with a Bachelor of Science degree, who happens to read a wide range of literature in physics, philosophy, psychology, history, and religion. Some (like Penrose's works) are more technical and math-heavy than others, but all of them are by accredited science authors (people like Sagan, Gould, Davies (both Norm and Paul), Penrose, Damasio, Edelman, Eisenmann, Fromm, Jung, Greene. . . .) I have a fairly good foundational understanding of what's going on in those fields. Moreover, I've been trained in critical thinking, so I know how to put these ideas together--and how to tell a charlatan from an expert.

I have never indicated that I'm anything more than that.

In his series Cosmos, in an episode about Immanuel Velikovsky, Sagan stated that the real problem with his theories was not that he was wrong. Rather, it was the way the science establishment treated him. He was denounced preemptorily, without anyone really bothering to investigate what he had to say. Sagan concluded by asserting that we never know where the next scientific breakthrough might come from, so we ought--until evidence substantially proves the idea wrong--to consider everything.

The things discussed in Bleep do seem quite outrageous, but I suspect that most of the naysayers on this thread are rejecting it more out of contempt for channeling than for the scientific basis of the material. Because much of what the film says is being considered by scientists--even if the producer's conclusions aren't.

[trotsky]

138. Multiple valid answers doesn't mean you get to pick the one you want.

Or even create one of your own. That's the problem I think you're getting into. Certainly there are philosophical implications of QM, because it's entirely counter-intuitive. But you are reaching much farther and putting far too many metaphysical assumptions on the science. I could easily put together a massive list of experts that agree with me and disagree with you, but where does that get us?

Bottom line is, just because "the establishment" may have rejected some visionaries in the past, doesn't mean that every visionary of today has something of merit.

And no, we're not rejecting it out of contempt for channeling, but for the PROVEN TRACK RECORD of fraud and deceit by the participants and producers, and the total lack of evidence to support their position.

[Arianrhod]

150. You misunderstand the math. BOTH answers are CORRECT.

No "choosing" is taking place.

[trotsky]

151. Naw, I'm just misunderstanding your misguided philosophy.

That's all.

[Arianrhod]

154. Since I have nowhere here expounded my personal philosophy,

you are simply once again jumping to a false conclusion.

[trotsky]

158. On the contrary, you've made it quite clear...

exactly the kind of philosophy you're trying to apply to the science of quantum mechanics. It's not my fault that it leads to such absurd conclusions you have to label them as "false."

[Arianrhod]

160. Whatever. n/t

[Silent3]

155. It's the New-Agey interpretations of QM that bring "choice" into this

...along with a lot of unsubstantiated and completely unscientific wishful thinking.

Throw a pair of dice. There are 36 different possible outcomes, but only one actual outcome. You can muse about the purely philosophical and metaphysical, NOT scientific multiverse interpretation of QM and imagine that the act of throwing the pair of dice spawns 36 different universes, one for each possible outcome... but even then, what of it?

Does your mind only occupy one of those 36 universes, and you get to wish your way into the one you want? Do you place yourself into the one universe you "need" to be in for the "journey" you're on? Or are there 36 new "yous", each dealing with a particular outcome?

This is all fascinating speculation, but it simply feeds on some interesting concepts coming out of science. It's not science in and of itself, and has not been subjected to any sort of experimental validation. While their is reason to speculate on the role of consciousness in all of this, there's absolutely no basis for asserting any particular role or effect of consciousness. Using the dice analogy, consciousness, if involved at all, could easily be nothing more than the table upon which the dice land, powerless to effect how they land.

It's a big, and completely unjustified, leap to go from what we know about QM to believing that reincarnation happens, that chakras are out there and waiting for proper alignment, that people can "channel" the words of ancient warriors, etc. Ooooh! QM is so fascinating and deep! All sorts of things are possible! Let's pretend that this means whatever I want to believe is true!

[Arianrhod]

159. Not true from the Copenhagen viewpoint, but

I understand people's reluctance to accept the radical outlook they proposed.

The concept that conscious thought and "choice" (and here I will finally inject a piece of my own philosophy, in that I don't accept the assertion that human beings genuinely make "free" choices) affect the environment is hardly a new one. As a philosophy, it extends back to the 18th Century, from Hume through Berkeley to Sartre. As a religion, it may be one of the oldest beliefs on the planet.

What I've done in this thread is take issue with the cavalier attitude a lot of posters have adopted. I agree with Sagan: we ought not to dismiss ideas simply because they don't fit in with conventional views. We should examine them as seriously as we would anything else. To do less is not to adhere to the objective goal of the scientific method.

[Silent3]

162. Neither Copenhagen nor "Many Worlds" buy starry-eyed New Agers anything

I understand people's reluctance to accept the radical outlook they proposed.

I rather doubt you do understand it. I think you conveniently classify objections to this "radical outlook" as nothing my than traditional resistance to "bold new ideas". My objections are far more substantial.

The concept that conscious thought and "choice" (and here I will finally inject a piece of my own philosophy, in that I don't accept the assertion that human beings genuinely make "free" choices) affect the environment is hardly a new one. As a philosophy, it extends back to the 18th Century, from Hume through Berkeley to Sartre. As a religion, it may be one of the oldest beliefs on the planet.

My conscious mind decides to move my arm, my arm moves a rock, et voilà, the environment has been affected. Astounding, no?

That there has been a long history of wishful thinking to bypass the arm and connect the mind directly to the rock to make the rock move provides no credence. There are plenty of bad ideas, utterly lacking in evidence, with long and "illustrious" histories.

What I've done in this thread is take issue with the cavalier attitude a lot of posters have adopted. I agree with Sagan: we ought not to dismiss ideas simply because they don't fit in with conventional views. We should examine them as seriously as we would anything else. To do less is not to adhere to the objective goal of the scientific method.

There's a whole lot more to my dismissal here than something merely not "fit[ting] in with conventional views". First of all, I don't dismiss any of this as impossible, I just don't think any of this stuff has earned any more credence than any other mystical claptrap out there, merely by trying to anchor itself to QM.

My dismissal is based on lack of evidence. My dismissal is based on the lack of logical cohesiveness in that which is proposed. My dismissal is based on the enormous similarity between QM-based mysticism and all other types of non-scientific mysticism. My dismissal is based on lack of any substantially impressive results garnered by anyone following QM-based mysticism.

[WhollyHeretic]

49. This is a parody, right?

You keep insulting people, calling people swiftboaters incessantly. Do you see the irony here? Maybe your frontal lobe is off visiting the astral plane.

[sweetheart]

54. maybe i saw the film

If you watch the film, and notice how you feel after watching it.
That would be the state of mind of the artwork.

Then read the swiftboat article end to end.
Notice the state of mind at the end of that artwork.

The makers of the film clearly open up new ideas and empower the
viewer to consider that their impact in life may indeed be far
greater than they ever considered.

The swiftboat thing, by contrast, has taken over this thread,
because people can't seem to discuss the film itself. It is an
excuse to avoid being open and discussing the ideas of the film
to rather discuss other ideas not in the film, pretending that
we're discussing the film. And i find it wholly unsatisfying,
as nobody can discuss "intentionality" and why it rings to true.

You can pretty much see it in this thread, post by post, that
persons are either open and considering the ideas of the film,
discussing them, or they are seeking to "close" discussion to
stop people from exploring the ideas in the film, to poopoo
the whole idea of a person having power beyond their physical
form to transform the world.

Have you noticed, that any time that swiftboat website is
introduced, that it kills discussion, and produces a bunch of
snide freeper remarks? It is the state of mind of that swiftdic
artwork, really not worthy of being in the same thread as a discussion
of the film. So, i'm insulting no person here, rather pointing
out that the lowlife swiftboaters will always be out there dumping
dirt on people and slandering religion... and i am willing to call
a spade a spade.

[WhollyHeretic]

56. "i am willing to call to call a spade a spade" So what do you call someone

who thinks they channel a 35,000 spirit-warrior, besides bat-shit crazy?

This is pretty sad. You are using the classic republican technique (including the swiftboat veterans) or repeating the same nasty insults and accusations against people until there ears bleed.

swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat swiftboat

You accuse other people of wanting to stifle discussion but what do you think you're doing when you continually hurl the same moronic insult incessantly. If you are going to continue the insults at least change it up a bit.

[Name removed]

59. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[WhollyHeretic]

62. So calling people swiftboaters and freepers isn't aggressive slander?

:eyes: I was just responding to your repeated attacks on the skeptics of this forum. I really don't give a shit about seeing this movie from what I've read here (both by proponents and opponents)

[sweetheart]

64. endemic - you haven't even seen the film...

My point. You aren't here to discuss the film,
you haven't seen it, and you don't plan to, you're
just here to take a troll-dump... it shows.

[WhollyHeretic]

65. So I'm not allowed in this thread since I haven't seen the movie?

Did I say anything about the movie? I was responding to YOUR insults, so don't try whine and act the victim. Please point out where I said anything about the movie besides that I really don't care to see it...

[Arianrhod]

61. What is actually presented in the film,

using QM as its basic premise, is a version of Sartrean existentialism. This philosophy (expounded in 1958 by a member of the French Resistance to Nazi domination) is a humanistic explication of the human condition, positing that human minds determine the state of the world through the application of absolute freedom. QM, of course, substantiates this view, in the Copenhagen School of thought (which Einstein considered to be little more than a religion), by implicating human influence on subatomic events. Schroedinger asserted that the Heisenberg Principle affected macro events just as much as it did micro ones. The mathematical problem arises in the transferrence of subatomic determinism to macro-determinism (Penrose). In this transferrence lies the absolute statistical nature of reality. And in those statistics (says Penrose), resides the unaccountability of human free will.

But if human freedom is unaccountable, and if human perception determines the existence of the Universe, then reality is not an absolute linear function, but is instead a result of statistical probabilities (Heisenberg) influenced by the interaction of other statistical probabilities (Schroedinger). These interactions are not presently explicable (Feynman), but instead are part of a "black-box" process that science cannot yet address.

But if science cannot address it, then it cannot be summarily dismissed.

You do greatly err.

[WhollyHeretic]

63. I wasn't referring to the film I was responding to a ridiculous post

that hurled constant repetitive insults. I thought it was pretty funny that someone would refer to other people as "swiftboaters" while making continuous attacks.

I'm not sure what the point of your post here was since I said nothing about the film in my post. Try reading something before responding.

[Arianrhod]

67. I read everything before responding, thanks.

You decided to mount an ad hominem attack on the poster, apparently without understanding the underlying philosophy of what s/he was expounding. The poster, OTOH, was replying to a link that was obviously prejudiced against the film, and that sought to dismiss it by (again, in an ad hominem attack) ridiculing the supposed source. S/he was pointing out that the critic was not actually addressing the message of the film itself, which is exactly what the "Swiftboaters" did to Kerry. A viable analogy, IMO.

Perhaps in future you might respond to the subject of a post, rather than simply attacking the poster.

[WhollyHeretic]

68. Delete. Not worth it.

[Arianrhod]

70. No ability to defend what you said, eh? :) n/t

[WhollyHeretic]

71. Sure, that's it. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. n/t

[trotsky]

77. Actually, if you read the Skepdic review,

they are mocking the "scientists" in the movie but also pointing out the bad science in it.

So no, it's not actually a viable analogy at all.

[sweetheart]

87. Its not bad science

That is quite an abuse of language.

The science is coherent. They've put forward several theories
in the film, and you choose whether the evidence matches the
theory. That is the scientific method.

There are no foregone conclusions, and the only bad science
here is people who are so attched to "other" theories that
they won't accept that theories are not "truth"...
and are instead calling their theory "right" and the others
"wrong". And then the bad science has turned in to the
fundamentalism of the "right" way to interpret theoretical
schools of quantum physics... something laughable indeed.

[trotsky]

92. You didn't read the review.

Or at least you only read the parts you wanted to bash.

Are you a swiftboater of skepticism?

[sweetheart]

96. the review is trash

I read it end to end, and was not impressed.
It did not address the film's core points.

By trying to have this discussion about an attack
article, you are distracting totally from discussing
the premises of the film, of intentionality, of
creating your own world and looking at the deep seated
presumptions we carry in our minds about life. At the
very interesting point that physics does not really
distinguish between forwards and backwards in time,
that if the future is indetermined, why shouldn't the
past be as well.

[trotsky]

99. Because those concepts don't follow.

You are applying a personal philosophy to a principle of physics. It doesn't work that way.

[manic expression]

117. And how

does it not work "that" way?

[beam me up scottie]

114. The "intentionality" is to promote RSE.

Wow, how good WAS that kool aid?

[beam me up scottie]

52. You obviously have "faith beyond" your "mental limits".

"since time began", eh?:eyes:

And how the hell does one "interoogate" their life?
By using a spootlight?

#12. Always claim that the other guy is "closed-minded" and that you're as free-thinking as a newborn baby. Other woo-woos love the concept of "open-mindedness" and will take you into their inner circle without question. They have no tolerance for those "mean old nasty" types who demand evidence for everything.

#22. Refer to anyone who does not immediately agree with you as being uneducated on the matter, lacking in important information, or just plain too stupid to understand your magnificent statements.

Wow, you managed to use #12 AND #22 in one post!

[sweetheart]

55. self effacing reflection

is how you look at your life, meditation, observation of the thoughts
in your mind on a moment-to-moment basis. The film does indeed introduce
and discuss the observer and how it is influenced by the body's chemistry.
Through meditation, one might come to similar conclusions, as introspection has
known about sense-addiction since before they knew about neuro-peptides.

I accuse the swiftdic article of not challenging the actual film's theme,
and as such, is a rather useless commentary. In the film, are physicists,
professors and persons who are not teachers in a junior college like the
reviewer. So, hmmm, i think the real problem is that peole on this thread
are not referencing the film because they can't see the manuscript, and
are instead reading a stupid article with little bearing to the film.

The reviewer tells of how they took a photo of a child with downs syndrome
to bill arnst, the producer, and asked "where is his choice." Mr. Arnst
apparently told the person the old hindu idea that it is due to bad karma
from a previous birth. That be his religion apparently. But this is not
expressed, none of those ideas in the film. But the reviwer, desperate
for attack material seeks to tar the film by tarring a producer with
old-caste-religious views.

That example is a typical case, where the film's ideas are not discussed,
and the reviewer is instead selling his own wares on the credibility
of every person involved in making the film, regarding things that are
entirely off camera. If it weren't a film and were rather a democratic
poltiician, most of y'all would be very clear on the swiftboating...
but as many here equate religion with republianism, the swiftboat style
is deemed acceptable.

[beam me up scottie]

72. Uh huh. Blah blah blah swiftboat blah blah blah swiftboat blah blah blah

That's all you've got, eh?

Attacking dissenters by claiming they're the ones using Republican tactics IS swiftboating, and that's all you've done in both of these threads.

Pot, meet kettle.

If you are incapable of discussing the subject of your threads with people who disagree with you without whining and attacking them, post in one of the echo chambers that ban disagreement.

[Name removed]

73. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[beam me up scottie]

75. So now we're trolls for pointing out your hypocrisy?

Predictable behaviour, not to mention against the rules.

I guess I'm supposed to feel sorry for you, insults and accusations seem to be all you've brought to this forum and you can't understand why nobody will engage you.:nopity:

[sweetheart]

88. tripped

You guys are trying to make this personal, and its
not. Still no point though from you except another
personal jab. You still can't discuss the actual
film, and until you can, i'm done with the trash.

[trotsky]

93. Oh, really?

Seems to me you're the one who launched into the attacks on the Skepdic editors, and then the skeptics on DU.

And now you call us "trash" while pretending to take the moral high road. Classy.

[sweetheart]

95. trash

trash, personal insinuations, trash, trying
to distract discussion from the film to a load
of trash talkers on a trash-talking website.

Have you anything to discuss about the film?

[trotsky]

100. I think you summed up my thoughts on the film with that one word.

Thanks.

Try the Salon review, if you're interested.
http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2004/09/16/bleep/

[WhollyHeretic]

102. That's just trashy swiftboating

Anyone with half a brain can tell that the scientist saying
his words were twisted is channeling the spirits of one of
Ramtha's defeated foes. 




















You darn swiftboating swiftboater.

[beam me up scottie]

121. Yeah, what do you have against Ramtha, anyway?

He's just trying to make a living.

So what if he chose to channel through a bimbo that everyone laughs at?

She's rich now, isn't she?

I'll bet she laughs all the way to the bank every time someone buys this movie.

So there.:spank:

[trotsky]

58. May I just say...

how proud I am to be grouped with greyl and the folks at www.skepdic.com in the same sentence?

And one correction to your post. You said:

If you live in a world of doubt, then you see nothing else. If you see
god in all things, there is nothing but god. Its not that either frame of
mind is particularly better, but having tried on both hats, the latter is much
more a key to communion with profound joy.

To make this a true statement, you need to append two words to the end of the last sentence. "for me."

IIRC, one of the big criticisms most wishful thinkers level at the skeptics is that we don't consider things from another point of view. Reading your post, I can only think of the proverbial pot and kettle.

[sweetheart]

69. well and good

I don't add "for me." to things i say... its bloody obvious. english.

That's pretty much consistent with the tone of the trashers in this
thread. Respect is lacking from the outset in the approach, and
by this, no moral ground is gained. The skeptic articles are just
a collection of personal attacks. So, what you've contributed
is not skepticism, but ad hominem disruption of civil discourse,
introducting ad hominem websites and pounding it on like a drum
along with some of the other lads.

A flame is light, heat, a chemical reaction, AND all of them at the
same time. Analysis breaks down when it approaches reality, as
breaking everything in to little peices to study it is an intellectual
time-centric activity of ego and self. So what the skeptic pov really
defends is absolute egotism, that the island of the self is permanent.

So it really is you just sharing your religion of isolated selfhood,
dressed up in fancy clothes. Pot meet kettle, indeed, but we knew that
already, just you're not being honest about the ego-immortality
religion behind your preaching.

[trotsky]

74. Not obvious in that situation at all.

You said:

If you live in a world of doubt, then you see nothing else. If you see
god in all things, there is nothing but god. Its not that either frame of
mind is particularly better, but having tried on both hats, the latter is much
more a key to communion with profound joy.

If speaking only about yourself, why did you use the word "you"? You are clearly attacking skeptics ("you") for living in a "world of doubt."

Talk about contributing ad hominem. :eyes:

[beam me up scottie]

76. Watch it, if you point out the hypocrisy. he'll call you a troll.

He likes to use #9 too:

9. Accuse your opponent of being a liar, or try some other tactic that will (hopefully) make him angry. If he responds in kind to your endless taunts, change the subject to his anger, and accuse him of name calling. If he accuses you of provoking him, then you have changed the subject of the debate. If he stays on topic, keep the heat up. The Believers in the audience will forgive the worst verbal attacks you use, but they will think even the mildest replies he makes to you are personal attacks that undermine his argument.

[sweetheart]

86. selecting different quotes now, eh?

You are nitpicking words and as i've written a fair number,
you can always find some for your pet projects.

"world of doubt" is all you've contributed here;
Some asinine remarks and nothing about the film;
hyjakking a thread on a film to talk about pronouns
and personal attack articles.

I have no problem with a skeptic. But that website
is not skepticism, and sadly some persons can't seem
able to distinguish a character ad hominem attack on the
film producers and its actors, for a discussion of a film.

You are presenting a religion in your posts, an endemic
frame of an illusory social self and a false objectivist
frame for seeing subjectivity.

[trotsky]

90. Um, no, that was the *exact same quote*.

Tell me, when certain people have been proven to be swindlers and charlatans, do they deserve the benefit of the doubt upon launching their next scam?

Should we be nice to them when they have been convicted of fraud, or demonstrated to be con men (or women)?

You're lucky the Skepdic review wasn't MORE harsh on them.

And if you really feel the need to label my desire to review evidence before accepting a claim as a "religion," go right ahead. Doesn't make sense, but then if you think "Ramtha" was a real person, I guess things don't have to make sense.

[sweetheart]

94. moving on from personal

swindlers and charlatains? Good question. My response would be to
do a full discovery, to meet the persons and meditate with them. Then
i'll know if they are for real. But with religious persons, it seems
we step away from that, because we are *afraid* of them. Then we
indict them in the media, not in a court of law. The person you refer
to is not a swindler or a charlatain until i see some proof, and given
that it is a spiritual teacher, then that proof is only fairly a personal
meeting.

Do they deserve to benefit from their next scam. I define a swindler as
anyone who purports that this world is permanent and that achievements
of ones ego are important. They are cheaters and liars, and they should
not be listened to by the public... but they *are* the public. The public
is the phairasee jeering at jesus christ's suffering, because they have
tried him in the media as a heratic, because they are afraid of meeting
jesus face to face and disovering that their entire lives are a fraud.

Our culture has a long tradition of attacking heratics, and this thread
and the skepcic articles are just a web based modern witch hunt. The
witch hunters are afraid of the republicans, the real charlatains out
there destroying ther world, os instead, the invective is focused on a
middle aged woman who channels a spirit "ramtha". Howard stern is
less trustworthy, and will give you less wise guidance. Why doesn't
swiftdic attack him? There really does seem a rather ugly lynching
vibe in all this ramtha hate... witch hunt... Why do you think that is?

[trotsky]

98. Because "Ramtha" is a fraud.

A fake. A phony.

Ditto for Hagelin.

These people are good at one thing: taking money from people who don't think to question them.

[sweetheart]

103. Have you met her?

How do you know? Perhaps she charges money to keep away
those persons who would be a waste of her time. Clearly
anyone who reads the internet hate on ramtha AND who
is a student of Ramtha has done their own thinking and
believes they know better. That is what freedom of religion
is about, and then why isn't skeptdic attacking every single
church in america, why single out ramtha.

Last time i checked, dancing around with a rattle snake could
be seen as nuttier than simply believing you have a connection
to a long-dead wise person. If ramtha had a church, it strikes
me from this web-hate that someone would try to burn it down.

I find your summary judgements on poeple you haven't met to
be a bit hasty. Its a good think real justice does not fly with
the kangaroo justice of the witch hunt. Its a good thing freedom
of religion suggests that Ramtha has every right to our respect.

[trotsky]

107. Ramtha is a fraud.

Do you believe everything you're told?

No?

Then provide me with some evidence that Ramtha is genuine. Like explaining why a 30,000-year-old spirit speaks in Hollywood-style Elizabethan English.

I have no patience for people like Knight who are SUCKERING PEOPLE FOR THEIR MONEY. I will insult them and bash them until the cows come home, because they are cheats and swindlers and liars who TAKE ADVANTAGE OF people like you in order to take your money.

[beam me up scottie]

115. Sure, and the people who are suckered in by scientology have done

their own thinking as well.:eyes:

They're both cults and they both target superstitious and gullible people.

Cultists don't deserve respect.

[greyl]

169. How many of us have met George W Bush?

Using your illogic, our opinions that he's a piece of shit lying fraud are meaningless.

This illuminates my theory that you are just clutching your ideas of Knight and Ramtha, being desperately defensive of them, and throwing any 'argument' that streams into your consciousness onto the table without judging its value first.

[trotsky]

101. Hey, you used the list again!

You said:

Our culture has a long tradition of attacking heratics, and this thread
and the skepcic articles are just a web based modern witch hunt.

Lookie lookie!

27. When questioned, be sure to exclaim "They laughed at Galileo, too!" or perhaps "They laughed at Columbus, until he proved the earth was round!"

[sweetheart]

104. And you're still on the warpath

You see this as a zero-sum fight to be right.

You carry around your list so you can keep up
witch hunting and noticing that every witch you
try to burn seems defended by people who don't
believe in witch hunting... rather obvious.

Now that you've done everything else, discussing the
film could be worth a go, or do you have any other
websites on how to distinguish a witch, so we can
see if she floats. :-)

[salvorhardin]

105. Don't forget the swiftboatin'

Those damn swiftboatin' witch huntin' skeppers.

[trotsky]

106. Um, sweetheart...

Let me clue you in on a little history.

It wasn't the skeptics that burned witches. It was the people who rejected the common sense evidence in front of them in favor of mystical bullshit they couldn't prove.

[manic expression]

118. Try history

It wasn't mystics that burned suspected witches. They were fundamentalists. You should understand the difference.

Good job lumping virtually opposite mindsets into the same pot, though.

Oh, and the other poster is right about the review.

[beam me up scottie]

113. Um, gullible and superstitious believers were the ones who burned witches.

Glad to see your grasp of history is as tenuous as the one you've got on science.

Care to revise anything else while you're at it?

[manic expression]

119. Um, indeed

it was a metaphor to show how much of this argument is quite reminiscent of those types of tactics. Don't interpret things too literally.

[greyl]

149. MIRROR

[beam me up scottie]

78. Did her "faith" absolve her of the moral obligation to stop pedophiles?

'Ramtha's channeler' can't testify

She says she was in a trance during alleged sex-case confession

Tuesday, October 10, 2000
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

YELM -- The woman who claims to channel a 35,000-year-old warrior spirit called Ramtha says she can't take the witness stand against a couple accused of sexual misconduct with a 15-year-old girl.

J.Z. Knight said she doesn't remember the confession of voice instructor Wayne Allen Geis and his partner, Ruth Beverly Martin; the confession is said to have occurred about a year ago in front of about 800 stunned students at Ramtha's School of Enlightenment on Knight's Yelm estate.

Knight said she was in a trance at the time -- that it was Ramtha who questioned the couple and elicited the confession.

***

Geis, 55, and Martin, 37, are charged with 10 counts of first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor. They pleaded not guilty at their September arraignment.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/ram10.shtml

And if this was really about "faith" as you claim, why would Ramtha want to be copyrighted?

Copyrighted Spirit

VIENNA -- A medium and author has won the sole right to "contact" a 30,000-year-old spirit.

Judy Z. Knight, an American, claims to have close spiritual ties with Ramtha, who she says has relayed messages to her since 1978.

But in September 1992, she claims, her psychic channel became ''disturbed'' by Judith Ravell of Berlin, who says she started contacting Ramtha about that time.

The legal battle has been dragged through Austria's courts for three years.

The country's supreme court has awarded copyright to Knight and ordered Ravell to drop her claim to be in contact with Ramtha. Ravell has held several seminars and festivals in Salzburg at which she has passed on what she claims to be the spirit's messages.

Ramtha, said to be the leader of the sunken continent of Atlantis, is much sought after in esoteric circles in Europe and the United States. Knight secured her U.S. copyright in the late 1970s after claiming that he told her she was the only medium with right of access to him.

The court told Ravell that her psychic interruption over the past five years had left Knight "hanging in spiritual limbo," and it ordered Ravell to pay $800 in damages. Knight's lawyers are looking for thousands more. Ramtha was unavailable for comment.


Medium wins channeling right, The Guardian (England), June, 1997

And I suppose you think Carl Sagan is a hack, too.

And if Ramtha came from the “high civilization” of Atlantis, where are the linguistic, technological, historical, and other details? What was their writing like? Tell us. Instead, all we are offered are banal homilies.

Face it, this movie is nothing but an infomercial for Knight's million dollar business bilking woo woo's.


And you all fell for it.

[salvorhardin]

79. But why are you avoiding her 'intentionality premise'?

You're just swiftboating her! :evilgrin:

[beam me up scottie]

80. That wasn't me.

That was Hunk Ra.

[sweetheart]

91. Have you seen the film?

I could cut all the ramtha scenes and still the film would be
very much coherent. I am not afraid to listen to ramtha and
think for myself. Rather what i'm reading here are all the
reasons that i should not hear ramtha and think for myself.

I did not know who ramtha was, or that "it/she" was in the film
until reading on DU, and i watched it again since with a friend
focusing on those bits. Really, ramtha says some pretty basic
stuff there. So basically, your post is just suggesting
ingnoring the greater composition because you've sorted out
ahead of time what the film is really about by some research
on one of the actors. That is just silly.

[beam me up scottie]

111. You mean the infomercial for the RSE that you were suckered by?

If you took out the cult and its members, the infomercial would not exist.

Really, you should be ashamed to promote a religion without doing any research.

[FM Arouet666]

81. Wow, that wasn't very sweet Sweetheart

Such emotion, you mentioned swiftboat five times! A mix of ad hominem, ad ignorantiam, ad populum and I am sure the list goes on for anyone interested in mining your treasure trove of logical fallacy.

Swiftboating?

Swiftboating is American political jargon for an ad hominem attack against a public figure, coordinated by an independent or pseudo-independent group, usually resulting in a benefit to an established political force.

Ok, so I guess you mean to say that the skeptics are not confining their arguments to the topic at hand, instead, you allege that the skeptics are engaging in ad hominem. Interesting notion given your vitriolic rambling.

It would seem that Sweetheart is not so sweet, resulting in Heartburn. Burp.

[sweetheart]

89. The term fits perfectly

Per the swiftboating definition, then on looking at the skepdic website
that is the ONLY argument put foward by some persons, that argument fits
your definiition to a tee... in attacking all the "now public" figures
who are actors, and producers in the film.

So i'm for a fair discussion of the film and i shoot down poor discussion
like the swiftdic, and am suggesting that people consider watching
the film and discussing its premises instead of focusing on an ad hominem
slander of the film.

Our culture attacks some fring religion visciously, wrongly. And i feel
that in these compositions. If we are to treat the film's religious
approaches with a tiny bit of deference, then we could listen to what
the people in the film say, and discuss their points. Have you noticed
that not a single person who's introduced this swiftstuff has been able
to do this?

I do indeed find that many here are so fundamentalist about their views,
that this film shakes their world so much, that they react like fundamentalists
do, by lashing out. And its pretty much a maxim, when fundamentalists are
out there going for a trash, that they are fighting against truth and
people thinking for themselves. As thinking for yourself is a core theme
in the film, then it seems clearly, that many persons on this thread
have not seen it.

[beam me up scottie]

120. RSE is a new age version of scientology.

This "film" was made by its promoters to recruit new followers.

Why are we supposed to respect it, again?

[FM Arouet666]

130. Oh my

You certainly seem to hold strong feelings regarding this film. Again, I really know nothing about it, save for the discussion at hand. You have piqued my interest, I just purchased it on Amazon. I am burning with anticipation. :evilgrin:

[onager]

38. Can I point something out...

...without offending you, which I really do not intend. You wrote:

Since I believe in life long learning ( I have a BA is philosophy; a BA in psychology; a BA in business admin; graduate work in theology & a masters in tax) i have little reason to doubt some of the films statements.

Your educational credentials are impressive, but not one of them is in a real scientific field, and certainly not physics or quantum physics. Without that background, I don't know why you would "have little reason to doubt some of the film's statements." I don't think you're qualified to know whether or not the statements are true.

Neither am I. But if I want to learn a little about quantum physics, I'll read or attend lectures by people who are Actual Physicists. I certainly wouldn't ask a woman wearing a pyramid on her head and talking to a 35,000 year old warrior.

The tendency to think we are smart in all areas because we are smart in some areas often gets us in trouble. It often gets me in trouble, too, so I try to keep the story of William Shockley in mind. Shockley was a co-winner of the 1956 Nobel Prize for inventing the transistor. Later in life, Shockley decided he was an expert in genetics--a field in which he had no training or experience. He embarassed himself for years by spouting blatantly racist nonsense that would have been right at home in the Third Reich.

(edited for spelling...)

[Arianrhod]

66. mmmmm. Maybe.

"I have a BA in philosophy; a BA in psychology"--"not one of them is in a real scientific field"

You're saying that psychology is not a scientific field? I think such psychologists as Damasio, Johnston, Jung, Freud, Rogers, and Fromm would disagree with you.

And while philosophy may not be science, it certainly is influencing the pursuit of science (Popper). Meanwhile, I think Hume, Berkeley, Russell and Sartre would find your insinuations insulting.

The film follows the basic premises of the Copenhagen School of Quantum Mechanics, which included such luminaries as Schroedinger, Heisenberg, and Bohr. Without them, QM wouldn't even exist today.

I think you're really stretching here to dismiss the credentials of the poster, when you might do better to examine some of the underlying sciences and philosophies of what s/he is talking about.

[Silent3]

39. Yes, but what *kind* of effect does observation have?

For me the whole crux of the film centers on one issue; when does the observer of an event effect the outcome of the event. If it is true that the mere observation of an event is effects it outcome; then consciousness is more profound than anyone has ever concieved.

Painfully technical: A quantum system can be viewed as being in an indeterminate state until that system is observed or measured in some way. The act of observation causes a "collapse of the wave function" of that system into a specific, concrete state, in line with the probabilities the wave function defines.

A hopefully less painful, if not utterly accurate, analogy: Imagine you're shaking cup containing a pair of dice. Only when you stop shaking the cup and dump the dice on a table will you know what your roll is going to be. The act of dumping the cup causes the dice to go from an indeterminate state (in which you can only speak of the probabilities of various outcomes) to some very specific roll.

There's no doubt that the act of dumping the cup effects the outcome. In fact, there isn't anything you can call an outcome until you finally drop the dice. Nevertheless, simply choosing to drop the dice doesn't give you any control over the specific outcome you get.

I think a lot of starry-eyed New Age nonsense about QM derives from a simple failure to distinguish between the having an effect, and having a controlling or correlated effect. Even if you take it as a given that your consciousness has a QM effect on events in the world at large, there is absolutely no good reason to think that your emotional states, wishes, desires, karma, chosen journey in life, etc. ad nauseam, will in any way control or be correlated with the specific outcomes of those events, any more than shouting "Lucky seven!" when you dump your dice has an effect on increasing the odds of rolling a desired seven.

[onager]

45. Thank you!

Excellent brief explanation. Expect it to be stolen.

Do you think we could get a mainstream movie made about how Quantum Physics really works? (insert SARCASM smiley...)

I just found a quote that reminds me of this movie...

--Metaphysics is a refuge for men who have a strong desire to appear learned and profound but have nothing worth hearing to say. Their speculations have helped mankind hardly more than those of the astrologers...

The accumulated body of philosophical speculation is hopelessly self-contradictory. It is not a system at all, but simply a quarreling congeries of systems.

The thing that makes philosophers respected is not actually their profundity, but simply their obscurity. They translate vague and dubious ideas into high-sounding words, and their dupes assume, as they assume themselves, that the resulting obfuscation is a contribution to knowledge.--H.L.Mencken

[Arianrhod]

57. Excellent analogy.

However, you've left out one significant part. The collapsing of the wave function depends closely upon the kind of observation that is taking place. Thus, if one is looking for a particle, then a particle is found. Conversely, if one is looking for a wave, then a wave is found.

This seems to indicate a measure of control in the observation.

[muriel_volestrangler]

110. Can you explain what you mean by that?

How does one look for a wave rather than a particle? Can you give an example of an experiment in which one gets what one is looking for? If you mean that using, say, visible light photons, rather than electrons can produce different results, then I can understand that. But I don't see that as saying one is 'looking for a particle'.

[FM Arouet666]

146. An interesting quote by Richard Feynman

Now we know how the electrons and light behave. But what can I call it? If I say they behave like particles I give the wrong impression; also if I say they behave like waves. They behave in their own inimitable way, which technically could be called a quantum mechanical way. They behave in a way that is like nothing that you have ever seen before. ... Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there. ... It will be difficult. But the difficulty really is psychological and exists in the perpetual torment that results from your saying to yourself, "But how can it be like that?" which is a reflection of uncontrolled but utterly vain desire to see it in terms of something familiar. I will not describe it in terms of an analogy with something familiar; I will simply describe it. ... Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, "But how can it be like that?"... Nobody knows how it can be like that.

Link to the source...

The link provides some info on the topic. Quantum mechanics is a difficult topic, and the wave-particle duality of light is tormenting, even for a giant in the field of physics like Professor Feynman.

[muriel_volestrangler]

157. But that's not about what "one is looking for"

It's about what one sees in certain situations. The distinction is important in the context of this thread, because the "What The ..." film claims your consciousness can alter your life in ways that are basically supernatural, and that claim is based on this idea that "you get what you look for". It's wrong.

[FM Arouet666]

170. I must see this film to get a better understanding

I was going to buy the thing, but saved my 10$. Block Buster has the film but it is always checked out. Perhaps one day I will attain enlightenment............. ;)

[Arianrhod]

152. The double-slit experiment.

When two slits are open, a photon interferes with itself, as though it were a wave. This is like "looking for a wave", because that's what the experiment measures.

When one slit is open, a clear band of light gets through, as though it were a particle. This is like "looking for a particle", because that is what is expected from the experiment.

There are other, much more esoteric experiments, but this one is the most famous.

http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/15/9/1

A good picture of it (although not on a single-particle level) is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment#Explanation_of_experiment

IOWs, when we set up our apparatus in an attempt to measure a wave, a wave is what we measure. Same for a particle.

[muriel_volestrangler]

156. No, that's not 'like "looking for a wave"'

And neither is one slit 'like "looking for a particle"'. You are, frankly, misusing the English language by claiming that is "looking" for a result. They are 2 separate experiments. Tell someone to expect a different result, and it won't magically change.

And with one slit, you can observe single slit diffraction, if the slit is narrow enough. Would you expect that?

[Arianrhod]

161. The conclusion drawn from Young's experiment,

by every scientist who has ever examined it, is that particles behave like waves when we set up the conditions to measure a wave, and like particles when we set up the conditions to measure a particle. Schroedinger and Heisenberg described this situation as "it depends on what you're looking for". I simply used their terminology.

The point is that nobody understands this stuff, but to summarily dismiss ideas we cannot comprehend, simply because we don't like them, is not science.

[greyl]

163. You're misinterpreting the wave/particle duality of light,

and trying to apply it where it does not apply.

There is only a faint poetic similarity between:
- expecting to have a nice day and having one because of a positive mental attitude
- easily finding Prell on the grocery shelf because you were scanning for light green
- light behaving like a wave because of the instruments we choose to measure it with

I think you're really talking about confirmation bias, and skeptics know it well. http://www.seducingthebuyer.com/MT/archives/2005/06/confirmation_bi.html

There are plenty of people who wanted, expected, and paid to see a good movie, but didn't.
Mindblowing, huh?

[muriel_volestrangler]

164. Really? They said "it depends on what you're looking for?"

That is their terminology? Can you give me a reference for that, please. See post #157 for why I think this is important - you are talking about human consciousness altering the result of an experiment. Did they say that is what happens? I'm not 'summarily dismissing ideas', I'm saying that photons, electrons and other particles have both wave-like and particle-like behaviour. What we observe does not depend 'on what we're looking for', it depends on the experiment done. There is a difference. When Young did his experiment, some people thought lights was particles. They would observe the same as Young. The photoelectric effect was observed although the consensus at the time was that light was a wave. You said "This seems to indicate a measure of control in the observation". We do not control what we see. But any method used to extract information from the experiment does affect the particles in the experiment.

[Silent3]

165. Please spell out these "ideas we cannot comprehend"...

...which are being "summarily dismiss[ed]".

I dismiss the idea that QM provides any good reason whatsoever to believe that people can "channel" the curiously bland wit and wisdom of 35,000 year-old sages from Atlantis. Am I being terribly close-minded here? Running in fear from "new ideas"?

I'll admit that the weirdness of QM could mean channeling works, but only to the same degree I'll admit that QM could mean that sea otters are controlling the stock market via telepathy. Both are possibilities, both with equal amounts of supporting evidence.

[trotsky]

166. Underestimate these crafty critters AT YOUR OWN PERIL!!!

[FM Arouet666]

84. Bingo

I was too lazy to crack open my old QM texts, and probably too stupid to understand the nuisances after ten years. But I think you hit the nail on the head.

The disconnect comes with the 'observation of an event.' I see a number of posts suggesting that observation requires little more than a thought, neglecting the physics behind an "observation" and the effect on the system being observed.

[salvorhardin]

85. Exactly!

The reason the observer affects the observed is because there has to be *some* kind of physical interaction. Even if you're only seeing an object, there's still photons bouncing off of it and imparting some of their energy to it. Put a voltmeter on a circuit, you're changing the electrical properties of the circuit in the process. In order to measure, you must interact. Just thinking about measuring or observing something doesn't get you anywhere.

[FM Arouet666]

82. Little reason to doubt some of the films statements?

You see that is the problem, I agree with Onager, your background is lacking in science. 'No reason to doubt', you have every reason to doubt. Science is full of doubt, I read science and medical journals all day long and do so with the notion that the articles are full of bunk. However, I would have to suspend judgment on the film, having never seen or heard of it until reading this thread.

[trotsky]

97. Here's an excellent review.

(You have to watch a brief commercial to read the entire review.)
http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2004/09/16/bleep/

From physics Professor David Albert, who was interviewed in the film:
I was edited in such a way as to completely suppress my actual views about the matters the movie discusses. I am, indeed, profoundly unsympathetic to attempts at linking quantum mechanics with consciousness. Moreover, I explained all that, at great length, on camera, to the producers of the film ... Had I known that I would have been so radically misrepresented in the movie, I would certainly not have agreed to be filmed.

Another critical view is at http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/04/what_the_bleep_.html:
The second example was of the supposed “Maharishi Effect.” John Hagelin of the Maharishi University, described how in 1993, violent crime in Washington D.C. was reduced over a two month period, by 4000 people practicing transcendental meditation (TM).

There were many problems with this experiment. One was that the murder rate rose during the period in question. Another was that Hagelin’s report stated violent crime had been reduced by 18% (in the film he says 25%), but reduced compared with what? How did he know what the crime rate would have been without the TM? It was discovered later that all the members of the “independent scientific review board” that scrutinized the project were followers of the Maharishi. The study was pseudoscience: no double blinding, the reviewers were not independent, and the experiment has never been independently replicated. Hagelin deservedly won an Ig Nobel Prize in 1994 for this outstanding piece of work.

[sweetheart]

108. Its an artistic composition

I really think the trouble with some reviews is that they are basically
failing to grasp that it is a work of art, a film the film makers suggest
is an alternative to mel gibson's blood soaked killing of christ. The
film makers are getting rich on discovering a huge market of nontraditional
spiritualism around the world that is untapped in the cinema market.

And it is much more pleasant to watch indeed! And the film makers are
out with a new one "down the rabbit hole". I'm sure this one will stir
up a similar hornets nest.
http://www.whatthebleep.com/

I've now done some searches and read a pile of reviews. They seem to all
follow the same pattern. I think this one is best, as it has links to
all the reference material.
http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/bleep.html

[trotsky]

109. I'm glad you admit it's a work of art.

Rather than approaching ANYTHING resembling a science lesson or reality.

[beam me up scottie]

112. It's an INFOMERCIAL for a CULT.

What part of their "message" did you not get?

It's even spelled out for you on the infomercial's FAQ page.

Egad.

How gullible can one be? :banghead:

[jonnyblitz]

122. the rick ross institute that keeps info on cults has quite a bit of stuff

on this group.

http://www.rickross.com/groups/ramtha.html

[beam me up scottie]

123. Nice work, Jonny!

Oh, no! Dawkins is a swift-boater too?

Richard Dawkins

This film is even more pretentious than it is boring. And it is stupefyingly boring - unless, of course, you are fooled by its New Age fakery, in which case it might indeed be - as many innocent dupes have stated - "life-changing". The one redeeming feature is the enigmatic charm of the deaf heroine, whose depressive journey down the rabbit hole of life is punctuated by gobbets of bogus sagacity from a dozen talking heads. But no amount of charm could redeem the unforgivable phoniness of the script.

Over-use of the word "paradigm" is a pretty good litmus for inclusion in the scientific equivalent of Pseud's Corner, and the film's "expert" talking heads score highly. Perhaps the leading one is "Ramtha", a dead warrior from Atlantis who addresses us (in a fake accent) through his "channeler", a woman called JZ (Judy) Knight, founder of the Ramtha Cult which sponsored the film. Thirty-five thousand years in the grave have not dulled Ramtha's business sense: he charges $1,000 per counselling session. Poor JZ has her work cut out.

The authors seem undecided whether their theme is quantum theory or consciousness. Both are indeed mysterious, and their genuine mystery needs none of the hype with which this film relentlessly and noisily belabours us. Not surprisingly, we get no enlightenment on either topic, nor on the alleged connection between them. Instead, we are told that indigenous peoples were "literally" unable to see early European vessels arriving off their shores - presumably because the ships lay outside their "paradigm". We are told that "All emotion is holographically imprinted chemicals"; that "Each cell has a consciousness"; and that "God is the superposition of all the spirits from all things".

What drives me to despair is not the dishonesty of the charlatans who peddle such tosh, but the dopey gullibility of the thousands of nice, well meaning people who flock to the cinema and believe it.

Richard Dawkins FRS is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford. His latest book is The Ancestor's Tale.

Simon Singh

I have spent my entire working life either doing science or conveying its meaning and beauty to the public. Consequently, I despise What the Bleep Do We Know!?, because it distorts science to fit its own agenda, it is full of half-truths and misleading analogies, and some of its so-called scientific claims are downright lies. Worse still, having achieved cult status in America, this film has already duped millions into mistaking pure claptrap for something of cosmic importance.

For example, WTB explains how quantum physics implies a crucial role for the observer in any experiment - so far, so good, except it requires several years of study to appreciate the subtlety and true significance of this statement. However, WTB is not too bothered about the truth. The water experiment is junk pseudo- science of the worst kind and has never been replicated by a mainstream scientist. Nevertheless, WTB carries down its illogical path by suggesting that if observing water changes its molecular structure, and if we are 90% water, then by observing ourselves we can change at a fundamental level via the laws of quantum physics. Thanks to WTB, this kind of ridiculous balderdash is being peddled by the likes of Drew Barrymore on the David Letterman Show.

And if you are still considering going to see this film, then please bear in mind the credibility and motives of the interviewees in the film. John Hagelin, one of the PhD physicists, is from the Maharishi University of Management. Take my advice and do not see this film. I repeat, do not see this film. I repeat again, do not see this film. If you do, then you will leave the cinema misinformed, L8 poorer and having wasted two hours of your life.

Simon Singh has a PhD in particle physics from Cambridge University. He is also the author of The Code Book and Big Bang, and reviews What the Bleep Do We Know!? for Front Row on BBC Radio 4, Thursday, 7.30pm.

Cult Science
Dressing up mysticism as quantum physics

Popular Science/October 11, 2004
By Gregory Mone

Beware: A ridiculous new science movie is coming to a theater near you. What the #$*! Do We Know?, an independent film slated for national release this month, pretends to be an exploration of the grand questions of science, reality and life. It jumps between a fictional story about a divorced photographer and snippets of interviews with authoritative-looking individuals. Although several of them have big bookshelves in view behind them, it quickly becomes clear to the attentive viewer that few of these talking heads are making any sense. They speak of "infecting the quantum field" and refer to bio-body suits and antigravity magnets without explanation. Not until the credits roll, when the "experts" are finally introduced, do we learn that the two people who do most of the talking about neuroscience and physics are not actually scientists. One is a chiropractor. The other is a 35,000-year-old warrior named Ramtha, who is being "channeled" by a blonde woman from Washington. Oh, and the chiropractor is one of her devotees. As are the filmmakers. In short, what we've got here are the musings of a cult masquerading as a science documentary. If the movie even has a central message, it could best be summarized as, "We don't know #$*!"

Not everyone finds this amusing. One of the few legitimate academics in the film, David Albert, a philosopher of physics at Columbia University, is outraged at the final product. He says that he spent four hours patiently explaining to the filmmakers why quantum mechanics has nothing to do with consciousness or spirituality, only to see his statements edited and cut to the point where it appears as though he and the spirit warrior are speaking with one voice. "I was taken," Albert admits. "I was really gullible, but I learned my lesson." Yet the real shame with this film is that it plays on people's fascination with science while distorting and misrepresenting that science. Before its national release, the film packed theaters up and down the West Coast. Instead of stoking the curiosity of those moviegoers, What the #$*! numbed them with mindless quantum drivel.

Damn those swiftboating scientists!
And to think they went to school their whole lives just so they could trash this film...
:rofl:

:loveya: Jonny!

[jonnyblitz]

124. sadly facts don't matter to people enthralled in this sort of thing.

here is a section on a "factnet" discussion board that deals with mind control, brainwashing and religious cults that deals specifically with Ramtha.i just glanced at some of the posts and one guy claims he left his family and spent 7 years with these people and he believes he was brainwashed. :shrug: interest stuff. i kind of want to see this movie just for shits. i might check torrent sites.

http://www.factnet.org/discus/messages/3/779.html?113152356

[beam me up scottie]

126. Dude!

You should post here more often, seriously- you've got an impressive arsenal.:thumbsup:

[jonnyblitz]

128. getting sidetracked by silly shit like this sucks all my energy

up and I get nothing else done so I often force myself to abstain. :shrug:

[beam me up scottie]

129. Know what you mean.

I hate to see science pimped for profit, though.

I'll have to remember to pick your brain next time.

[FM Arouet666]

131. Like a bloody accident on the side of the road

I am with you, I want to see the movie just for shits. I fear I will have to wear a diaper.:evilgrin: Oh, and I like the Rick Ross motivated shot at the movie, great page, always full of useful info. I had a friend who pressured me on a self help group called 'Life Spring', I bulked at the $400 charge and mentioned that Life Spring is listed on Rick's page. Never took the course and my friend is now an ex-friend. He is probably consuming Kool-Aid in a foreign country as we speak.

[jonnyblitz]

132. it's amazing how angry people get when you question their

belief system. and then they lose every cent they have plus their sanity to some charlaton.

[FM Arouet666]

134. Die hard belief

I just don't understand the tendency of our species to accept a proposition with little or no supporting evidence, defending the proposition with intense emotion. Killing the messenger I guess. Yes, people get very angry when confronted with facts and rational thinking. Or as P.T. Barnum once said "There is a fool born every minute."

[salvorhardin]

125. Fantastic reference!

Thanks so much for that link. I was not aware of it.

[jonnyblitz]

127. rick ross used to be known as a cult deprogrammer.

I remember reading about him in the 90's. he is very controversial and has been the victim of smear campaigns by cult members, scientologists etc...you can find lots of "anti" stuff about him, too. Considering the source is often a good idea. but anyways..here is a an interview he gave to a newspaper..

http://www.wittenburgdoor.com/archives/rickross.html

[FM Arouet666]

133. Thanks for the info

I have been reading Rick's page for years, but never really delved into who was behind the page. Interesting stuff. I am pleased, but somewhat surprised, that he has not met the same fate as the purveyors of 'The Cult Awareness Network', now a front for scientology after L. Ron's minions forced them into bankruptcy with endless lawsuits.

[sweetheart]

144. rather unbalanced, that

The endemic presumption of the article is that enlightenment does not
exist and all this new age stuff is fluffery. Then the author pens in the
names of some lineages of meditation and enlightenment, leaving out others
like Rajeneesh and Rama, Dr. Frederick Lenz who both had many thousands
of devotees in many countries.

I've met a few persons who could light up a room, who were obviously very
enlightened when i met them. One is Adi Da, one of the guru's left out
of that article, surely slandered elsewhere. He attained enlightenment in
as a devotee of swami muktanada. As well, Armando Acosta, "ganapati" was
able to transmit the "shakti" of muktanada, and could, just by meditating
put a few hundred people in to a samadhi bliss. All the teachers i'm discussing
can do this. Others do not.

So I find muktanandas lineage to be the real deal, and i would NEVER denigrate
his lineage Nityananda/muktananda/chitvala (sp - the woman in that article).

I haven't met ramtha, so cannot say. As most persons have not a shred of
actual experience medtating with enlightened teachers, their articles are rather
uninformative. They seek to define the teachers based on who was a student, sorta
like stalking hollywood stars without every meeting one face to face.

My approach has been to meet some face to face. And I would recommend the
lineage of muktanada if it appeals... there is real gold in that mine. Maharishi
is not authentic, IMO, and has been a poor influence on the reputation of meditation
in the west by being a flake. Ramtha, i have not met, and after seeing how the
slander game works against alternate religion. Adida is 5 star enlightened,
in my opinion, the most powerful living enlightened teacher on earth. www.adidam.org

Gangaji is not mentioned there, because she's hard to slander. www.gangaji.org
But she too, teaching all across teh western united states on cable TV and such, is
a modern lineage, going back to her lineage "ramana maharshi/HWL poonjaji/Gangaji".
Rajeneesh was quite authentic as well, too bad he let his students take charge of
the ashram in deer junciton? oregon, renamed rajeneeshpuram using some very dodgey
gamesmanship that was not directed by Sri Rajeneesh. But he's blamed for it, of
course, as the presumption of such articles is that seekers of enlightenment are
blind fools who do not discriminate when they listen to their guru.

I find that a gross mispresentation of what the enligthenment process is about.

To guage a master, it is best to look at the students around them, and see if they
are spiritually evolving people, or if they are stuck in fundamentalism. Chinmoy
went down hill in the end, and his jamaica queens operation flopped when he lost
his way on the path, taking his devotees on a lost voyage with him to the shapeshifter
realms.

I guess my point though, is that each lineage must be understood in its context,
with its own 1000's years old religious roots... as that article grossly miscomprehends.
It is not just a coupla guys, but a lineage of gurus (in some cases) as authentic as
the tibetan sakya, nyingma and gelugpa gurus.

They generally lay off the tibetans because they are "covered" by buddhism and people
are afraid to attack an established religion. That is also the case then with hinduism
and muktanada, ramana maharshi, yogananda, ramakrishna/vivekananda and other lineages
that have sent a enlightened gurus to each in western countries.

Those enlightened people are the wrong people to screw with, not for physcial issues,
but for karmic reasons. To attack profound enlightened teachers who are helping other
souls discover englithtenment is the most heinous karma, worse than any crime in the
books of any laws of any nation. And why should there be a law? The forces of nature
are already law enough. To attack an enlightened lineage is to make a profound wish
for ones own life to become the direct opposite of enlightenment.

The proper ettiquette rather, would be to respect each guru lineage as a religion
like buddhism, and to respect freedom of religion and mature adult's choices in how
they practice their religion.

Common to all enlightened masters i've met is absolute libertarianism... that they expect
their devotees to be 100% responsible for their choices. There is no coercion in that
sort of game, rather free will and the pursuit of happiness; these things being sooooo
american, i'm really suprised at the hatred of these non-christian religions in this thread.
.. amongst progressives... i mean wouldn't progressives be the ones to protect civil
liberties, human rights to freedom of religion and all that good stuff.

[sweetheart]

145. the devotee's wish opens the door for god

My ego does not want god to be all. It is as threatening as death,
as the experience of god-all is ego-death, immaculate and ecstatic, but
not under the ego's control at all, or its adgenda. And for every ego-death
is the ego reborn like in the tibetan rebirth process, outlined in the tibetan
book of the dead. Penetrating the cultural mythology of the "bardo" transition,
you can see how it describes a "death" as falling in to the clear light.
If a person be blessed, the rebirth process ends there. But if the ego reasserts
itself, a slightly less clear light is then presented and so-on, and so-on until
the mind-state dropps in to the darkest hellstate of craving and hunger.

There is always hell states of mind, where you are eternally hungray, the ultimate
consumer who eats a million super sized burgers, who's craving is never satiated.
And that state of consciousness, in bred in us all as our animal-part need not be
our superior. The hunger of the stomach, is hardly the basis of consciousness, and
to build an edifice on the hunger of the stomach is the fallacy of worldly life.

Enllightened masters often presume worldly life is working for you, and that you've
figured out everything about everything, gotten all your Ph.D's, won all your medals,
had as much sexual stimulation as you can possibly imagine, cut as much underbrush out
of a texas ranch even... but when people are done with all that, and found all of it
totally empty and spiritually unfulfilling, and no aspect of conventional relgion
fills the aspiration, they feel perhaps empty of divinity, or perhaps "empty" is
the state of mind of someone who realizes sense experience is not god.

But even realizing something intellectually is not enlightenment. It is thinking, which
involves the mind, a sense of self, ones semantic dictionary and its frame of an ego-self
that once learned that dictionary out of fear of survival, as a child, crying to mommy
"feed me" and "acting" to get fed in the world, by learning to talk, read and speak, so
carrying this child modus in to adulthood is absurd, but it is framed in the sematic stone
An adult recapitulates their modus based on the inevitability of death. And when this
recapitulation is spiritually complete, i would say a more
intellectual way of conceiving of enlightenment.

I like sheeptramps frame of enlightenment, "blessed".

To accept death's inevitability, or "become humble"; in another allegory; to "open the door to god",
or to " ask jesus christ's forgiveness", all these things are allegories for being willing to accept,
within your heart, eschatological death ;-), to surrender and "die" before dying... ego-death.

Then each moment is state of mind of the ego. And at the end of the moment, the ego dies and your
consciousness passes in to the clear light.. and reincarnates in the next moment, without ANY
causative connection to the previous moment. I think that fits quantum physics. Karma is
rather the religion. Quantum physicas does not make cause and effect so childish. The human
of the lower species carries baggage from moment to moment, living life through the rear view
mirror... and experiencing the suffering of only knowing the joy of god, indirectly through
the creation, rather than directly through communion. Perhaps that's what plato was referring
to with his allegory of the shadows on the cave wall, and coming in to the light.

[Arianrhod]

137. Good points.

However, Professor Albert has here declared himself to be directly at odds with Sir Roger Penrose, who has written two very scientific books asserting just the opposite. Indeed, Penrose thinks that, without QM, consciousness wouldn't exist at all.

As a reminder from another thread on this subject, Penrose collaborated with Stephen Hawking on black hole theory. He's no slouch in the physics department.

Just pointing out that scientists disagree on things just as much as we do on here. :)

[trotsky]

139. But you claimed you didn't agree with Penrose's ideas either.

And no, no one is claiming Penrose doesn't know physics. Consciousness is where he ventures off into uncharted territory.

Weird territory, at that. Neurons - even parts of neurons - are far, far too large to be subject to significant quantum effects.

[salvorhardin]

140. Microtubules

Microtubules are very small structures that exist throughout the body, including within individual neurons.
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/C/Cytoskeleton.html#microtubules

Penrose has made some great leaps about the possibility of microtubules maintaining quantum coherence within a single neuron. Although microtubules have been shown to alter synaptic strengths, there is nothing to suggest that A) quantum mechanical effects play an operative role in the support function of individual neurons or B) that such effects could be transmitted between neurons.

It's an interesting idea, but it is untested as of now. Furthermore, how could you test it? And, as a hypothesis, it's not very well stated. Until such time as a better hypothesis is generated, tests are conceived and carried out this all remains pseudoscience at best. For someone to use it as justification of their religious beliefs does disservice to both science and their faith.

[trotsky]

141. Thank you.

Another interesting commentary on Penrose's theories is found here: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/quantum.html

And a quite appropriate summary is given:
Consciousness appears to be an extremely mysterious phenomenon. It is not clear how a collection of molecules whose chemical composition is not unlike that of a cheese omelet could be aware of anything, to feel pain, or see red, or dream about the future. Quantum mechanics also seems to be very mysterious -- particles going traversing two paths at the same time, for example. So perhaps they are the same mystery. Nobody phrases it that way, of course, but this seems to be a line of intuition that motivates many people. It is often argued that mere neurons could not be conscious or aware, and this seems to be because one can imagine all the working of of a neuron, or even a large group of neurons, without seeing how consciousness could be implicated. But because the mechanisms underlying quantum mechanical phenomena are less viaualizable, or comprehensible, or whatever, it seems not to be as clear that something as mysterious as consciousness couldn't work its way into the machine somehow. Clearly, this intuition survives only as long as the mechanisms of quantum mechanics are mysterious to the person making the argument.

[salvorhardin]

142. Yes! That's perfect!

"Here's two mysterious processes. Maybe they're the same?" It's an honest question, and Penrose has perhaps asked it in the best way possible so far, but to make the leap from this to quantum flapdoodlery (and worse yet, to base your core philosophy around it) seems to me to be, well, idiotic.

[Arianrhod]

153. You missed my point again.

I stated clearly why I posted that particular message:

"Just pointing out that scientists disagree on things just as much as we do on here."

[sweetheart]

168. intentionality at work

Your point is missed because people are looking for particles
of their rhetoric, and your waves are not recorded.

;-)

[Desertrose]

143. Awww...someone bored without the ol' meeting room...?

evidently bored enough to kick up old stuff for some fresh fodder.....
:evilgrin:

[Silent3]

167. Scientist unhappy about Bleep's editing of what he really had to say...

From this review of the movie here: http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/04/what_the_bleep_.html

Quoting the review author quoting David Albert from a Salon article (whew!):

...Even if it were true, extrapolating to "we literally create reality by out thoughts" is applying reductionism to an absurd level.

Don’t believe me? You don't have to because David Albert, the professor from the Columbia University physics department who was featured in the film, is quoted in Salon.com saying:

I was edited in such a way as to completely suppress my actual views about the matters the movie discusses. I am, indeed, profoundly unsympathetic to attempts at linking quantum mechanics with consciousness. Moreover, I explained all that, at great length, on camera, to the producers of the film ... Had I known that I would have been so radically misrepresented in the movie, I would certainly not have agreed to be filmed.

(My bold.)

But what's a little dishonest editing if it helps you make the unsupported point you're trying to make?