The Reality Check Episode 51

What the Bleep Review + Richard Saunders Interview + Usa Myth

Part 1:

What is "What The !@#$ Do We Know"?

"What the !@#$ do we know" is a 2004 film that combines documentary-style interviews, computer-animated graphics, and a narrative that posits a spiritual connection between quantum physics and consciousness. The plot is basically follows the story of a deaf photographer; as she encounters emotional and existential obstacles in her life. Then she comes to consider that idea that individual and group consciousness can influence the material world. Her experiences are offered by the filmakers to illustrate the movie's thesis about quantum physics and consciousness.

Scientists who have reviewed the movie have described distinct assertions made in the film pseudoscience. Amongst the assertions in the film that have been challenged are that water molecules can be influenced by thought, that mediation can reduce violent crime rates, and that quantum physics implies that "consciousness is the around of all being." The film was also discussed in a letter published in Physics Today that challenges how physics is taught, saying teaching fails to"expose the mysteries physics has encountered and reveal the limits of our understanding." In the letter, the authors write "the movie illustrates the uncertainty principle with a bouncing basketball being in several places at once. There's actually nothing wrong with that, but it's recognized as pedagogical exaggeration. Then the movie gradually moves to quantum 'insights' that lead a woman to toss away her antidepressant medication, to the quantum channeling of Ramtha, the 35000 year old Atlantis God, and on to other nonsense." It went on to say that "Most laypeople cannot tell where the quantum physics ends and the quantum nonsense begins, and many are susceptible to being misguided," and that's "a physics student may be unable to convincingly confront unjustified extrapolations of quantum mechanics," a shortcoming which the authors attribute to the current teaching of quantum mechanics, in which "we tacitly deny the mysteries physics has encountered. 

According to Margaret Wertheim, "history abounds with religious enthusiasts who have read spiritual portent into the arrangement of the planets, the vacuum of space, electromagnetic waves and the big bang. But no scientific discovery has proved so ripe for spiritual projection as the theories of quantum physics, replete with their quixotic qualities of uncertainty, simultaneity and parallelism. "Werteim continues that the movie "abandons itself entirely to the ecstasies of quantum mysticism, finding in this aleatory description of nature the key to spiritual transformation. As one of the film's characters gushes early in the proceedings, "The moment we acknowledge that quantum self, we say that somebody has become enlightened," A moment in which "the mathematical formalisms of quantum mechanics are stripped of all empirical content and reduced to a set of syrupy nostrums".

Basically, The Reality Check doesn't recommend this movie. The best place to watch this movie is in a critical thinking class, to discuss all the strange things in it. 

Part 2:

Listen to an Interview with Richard Saunders here: The Reality Check Episode 51

Science of the Week:

There's a brand made in Japan called Usa, which is an actual place in Japan, but it does not stand for U.S.A., so don't get that messed up.