Mindwalk (Must See) A Film for Passionate Thinkers

[DeSwiss]

MsMilkytheclown1·Published on Jun 16, 2013

A Very thought provoking movie. Fantastic (in my humble opinion). Link to full video HERE: http://tinyurl.com/khd6dbg

If you have 1 hour 48 minutes to spare and want to watch a Great film, be sure to catch this one! It's about the interconnectedness of everything, from a subatomic level to a universal level. I liken it to the movie What the Bleep Do We Know?, except better. Based on the book "Turning Point". A film for passionate thinkers.

A politician from the USA visits his poet friend while in France. They walk through a medieval island discussing their philosophies of life when they happen upon a woman named Sonja, who is a scientist in recluse, she then joins in their conversation. The two men listen to this brilliant woman's ideas and discuss how her ideas can work in their own political and poet lives.

Starring Liv Ullmann, Sam Waterston and John Heard. 112 Min. First time on DVD.
http://www.findraredvds.com/mindwalk-19911991.html

Symphony of Science - 'We Are All Connected' (ft. Sagan, Feynman, deGrasse Tyson & Bill Nye) http://tinyurl.com/ykp35v3
Lyrics:

{deGrasse Tyson}
We are all connected;
To each other, biologically
To the earth, chemically
To the rest of the universe atomically

{Feynman}
I think nature's imagination
Is so much greater than man's
She's never going to let us relax

{Sagan}
We live in an in-between universe
Where things change all right
But according to patterns, rules,
Or as we call them, laws of nature

{Nye}
I'm this guy standing on a planet
Really I'm just a speck
Compared with a star, the planet is just another speck
To think about all of this
To think about the vast emptiness of space
There's billions and billions of stars
Billions and billions of specks

{Sagan}
The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it
But the way those atoms are put together
The cosmos is also within us
We're made of star stuff
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself

Across the sea of space
The stars are other suns
We have traveled this way before
And there is much to be learned

I find it elevating and exhilarating
To discover that we live in a universe
Which permits the evolution of molecular machines
As intricate and subtle as we

{deGrasse Tyson}
I know that the molecules in my body are traceable
To phenomena in the cosmos
That makes me want to grab people in the street
And say, have you heard this??

(Richard Feynman on hand drums and chanting)

{Feynman}
There's this tremendous mess
Of waves all over in space
Which is the light bouncing around the room
And going from one thing to the other

And it's all really there
But you gotta stop and think about it
About the complexity to really get the pleasure
And it's all really there
The inconceivable nature of nature

- ''Omnia sint unum.''

[longship]

1. You compare it to "What the Bleep..."?

Do you mean the film produced by the lunatic JZ Knight who claims to channel Ramtha, a Lemurian warrior who fought the Atlantians some 35,000 years ago. Of course, she does this with the obligatory cheesy Indian continent accent, like Peter Sellers on The Goon Show, only cheesier. At least Sellers had experience, and did for humor's sake. JZ Knight (AKA Judith Darlene Hampton) does it to get rich from the naive, ignorant people who believe in Atlantis, or that Hampton has any fucking idea about quantum field theory, let alone about anything else.

Please, save us all from such Wackalunacy as "What the Bleep...".

Sorry, I have never seen the movie you mention. But just the "What the Bleep" citation and all the scientist quotations makes me very skeptical about the intentions in this post.

And Fritjof Capra? He might have been involved in physics, but as any modern physicist would admit, he barked up the wrong tree. No physics today is based on anything like what Fritjof Capra, let alone that lunatic JZ Knight, let alone any other quack who invokes quantum to further their agenda. (Deprak Chopra, do you hear me?)

The real quantum field theory is being played out at the Large Hadron Collider and at Fermilab, and at physics departments at universities all over the globe. And all the pretenders are just that.

I get tired of bullshit based on ignorance.

Sorry for the rant.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Guess you missed this post, then.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/122819874

[longship]

4. Nope, I did not miss it.

But there's nothing in that post that says anything about Ramtha, or Fritjof Capra, or the pseudo-scientific claims of Deepak Chopra, as espoused on the queen of Woo's own Televisionary program, the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Plus, we haven't seen this claim pass peer review. And as we all know, one paper does not make it fact. But that doesn't stop those with a woo woo agenda from connecting a single paper about a putative quantum connection to a biological process from exploiting it to advance their woo woo.

And about all those quotes in the OP. There is no personal authority in science. It doesn't matter if one is Einstein, Feynman, or fucking Steven Weinberg. All were brilliant and made big discoveries. But the test of a theory isn't the person who made the theory, it's how the theory stands up against nature herself. Nature is the ultimate arbiter of truth.

So people can cite quotes by famous scientists to pitch their woo woo bull shit. But people who pretend to channel 35,000 year old Lemurians (with cheesy Indian continent accents) are still either self-deluded lunatics or criminal scammers.

I opt for the latter.

I am suspect of this paper on principle, as should anybody versed in science. As should be the person who wrote it. The primary attribute to the scientific method is skepticism. If you lose that, you'd probably believe somebody who claims, on authority, to channel Ramtha.

[secondvariety]

9. I've never heard of What The Bleep

but the guy that does the Symphony of Science videos takes clips of interviews and puts them to music. I don't think he has an agenda-he's just being creative.


I love this one;

[longship]

10. Symphony of Science is great.

"What the Bleep..." is the work of an evil religious cult, the cult of Ramtha, headed by one J Z Knight (AKA Judith Darlene Hampton) who channels (whatever that means) a 35,000 year old Lemurian (???? sounds like Gozer from Ghostbusters) named Ramtha. Of course, she uses a cheesy Indian continent accent.

And people fall for this scam!

Yup! That's who made "What the Bleep..."

It's rubbish, just like Fritjof Capra and all the rest of the quantum woo woo apologists.

You want to know about quanta?

Ask any number of actual working physicists. Or, better yet, go to a university and study it. Just don't believe what you hear or read about it. Not even from me.

[longship]

12. My favorite Symphony of Science clips.

"We are all Connected" featuring a drum line by physics Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman himself.

"Children of Africa" with a great theme and Jacob Bronowski, Alice Roberts, and the wonderful Carolyn Porco with the refrain.

"The Poetry of Reality" with a huge cast of characters.

Here's one you might not have seen.
Mr. Rogers:

It always brings tears to my eyes because this guy is gone from the world. John Boswell brings him back to life as only his Symphony of Science could. I first saw this on my local PBS station as a filler and I immediately recognized it as Boswell's work.

Thanks for the response.

[Merlot]

23. Thanks for posting this clip

Hadn't seen that before - Carlin & Hicks - how great is that!

When I watched the OP clip, first think I thought of was Bill Hicks.

[thesquanderer]

5. There are two groups of people I can't fathom

... people who think George W. Bush was a good president
... people who think What the Bleep was a good movie

[sweetloukillbot]

16. The What the Bleep Phenomena started in Phoenix

I was at the paper and was friends with the reviewer who raved about it starting the hype in the press. The sent everyone in features a screener of that film. He enjoyed the Quantum Physics for dummies part of it and completely ignored/glazed over/ was lulled asleep by the cult stuff. Everyone else gave him crap about endorsing the movie, which was essentially an advertisement for Ramtha's cult. (I remember Heaven's Gate jokes being prevalent in the newsroom). I think he regretted that review a year later when everyone was talking about that piece of crap and it was STILL in theaters.I was fine with it till it started talking about water reacting to feelings and ionizing in certain directions or whatever that crap was. It was about 20 minutes into the film. The Ramtha started talking and I ejected the DVD and threw it angrily across the room.

[sweetloukillbot]

17. In fairness - the first ten minutes or so of What the Bleep are kinda similar

As I said downthread, I knew the movie reviewer who wrote the first national review of that POS and I recommended he check out Mindwalk for a much better explanation of quantum physics. I think in the numerous followups to his What the Bleep (or What the FUCK???? as I like to call it) stories he made mention of Mindwalk and recommended it to readers. He really picked up on the quantum physics and tuned out the woo in What the Bleep. Which doesn't really leave much of a movie.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. "We're made of star stuff "

All the quotes in your OP is what defines my sense of spirituality.
And I am overjoyed that my 2 sons "got it" at a very early age.
We all adored listening to Sagan, back then.

and now there is deGrasse Tyson.

Thanks for movie rec. Will be sure to look for it.

[DeSwiss]

7. Those quotes were edited by the video poster, MsMilkytheClown1......

....and to which I whole heartedly agree. Carl Sagan also said:



- The movie is great. Do check it out....

[Moostache]

11. I miss Carl Sagan more and more every year...

The plunge of the Republican Party into outright hostility to science over the last decade has become truly frightening...its not just that they don't understand basic truths and facts about the universe, its that they don't care. They have chosen to ignore rational thought and the entirety of the enlightenment in favor of demagoguery and anti-rational fear mongering.

Sagan was a man who had the gift of explaining the complex in ways that did not make people feel smaller than him. His death was an immeasurable loss for us all.

[DeSwiss]

15. The Republican Party is dead.

- They just haven't noticed yet.

Every fact of science was once Damned. Every invention was considered impossible. Every discovery was a nervous shock to some orthodoxy. Every artistic innovation was denounced as fraud and folly. The entire web of culture and progress, everything on earth that is man-made and not given to us by nature, is the concrete manifestation of some man's refusal to bow to Authority. We would own no more, know no more, and be no more than the first apelike hominids if it were not for the rebellious, the recalcitrant, and the intransigent. As Oscar Wilde truly said, Disobedience was man's Original Virtue.

~Robert Anton Wilson

[suzanner]

6. I loved this film back when.

Then it disappeared from the video rental place. Thanks for the reminder. I would recommend it, also. But perhaps, the list of quotes is a bit overdone.
For those who don't want to watch it, I'd reconsider; it is a discussion between a politician, his architect friend, and a physicist they meet accidentally, set in France, with just a touch of character/story development. The discussion evolves from science of the past into several Einstein/Plank/et al concepts while exploring historical sites as the background. I loved this film.

[DeSwiss]

8. Yep, I love it as well. I just viewed it again today.....

...and it seems even more meaningful than when I watched it ten years ago.

{BTW - The ''architect friend'' is actually the ''poet friend' who was once the politician's speechwriter.}

[sweetloukillbot]

18. My ex and I found it at this hole-in-the-wall video store in 96 or so.

The next year the place was closing and holding an inventory clearance sale - we snatched it up along with My Dinner With Andre. I still have both of them even though my VCR is long dead.

[felix_numinous]

13. I have been searching for this film

I loved it the first time I saw it-- and recommend it highly. It is timeless.

Thank you DeSwiss

[DeSwiss]

14. De nada.

[center]''Changing one's response to the story's narrative, is how
the story is changed, and therein lies our power.''

[/center]

[jtuck004]

19. "Must we starve our children to pay our debt?" It's a line in the movie.

Given what's on TV about Congress right now, that seems worth thinking about. Even if we do have the Large Hadron Collider.

[DeSwiss]

21. I believe that it's a self-correcting feature of Gaia's.

- When the DNA goes screwy and acts like we do, the result in self-destruction. Then She just starts over again......

[jtuck004]

24. Or maybe "she" just figures, like the computer in War Games, that there

is no solution that is ever going to win, and quits.

Or maybe we kill her. We have gotten awfully good at that, despite all our so-called learning.

[DeSwiss]

25. We can't kill Her.

That's why the world is so f!%kd-up now, because some assholes think they can.



- Talking monkeys with nukes......

[jtuck004]

26. " Talking monkeys with nukes......"

ability to turn this into a barren hunk of rock hurtling through space, wherein it would take the next Big Bang to start it all over again.

We do value our overachievers, eh?

[DeSwiss]

28. ''....ability to turn this into a barren hunk of rock hurtling through space...''

- In theory.

[jtuck004]

27. One of Waterston's lines in the film points out the well-known fact that we only have 6%

of the population, yet consume 40% of the world's resources to keep our lifestyle up.

Now everyone wants to be like us. That's killer math.

[DeSwiss]

29. Agreed.

- Here's some math that is even more mind-boggling:

If Everyone In The World Lived In Texas

If you divided the square footage of the State of Texas by the world's population, what would be the square foot area available per person?

Texas land area is: 261,232 square miles

1 square mile = 640 acres: 261,232 x 640 = 167,188,480 square acres

1 acre = 43,560 square feet: 167,188,480 x 43,560 = 7,282,730,188,800 square feet

World Population: 7,000,000,000

Thus: 7,282,730,188,800 square feet divided by 7,000,000,000 people = 1040.39 square feet per person

Conclusions:
It occurs to me that if the world's population could fit inside an area the size of Texas giving each person 1000 or so square feet each to live in, that would put the ratio between all the people of the world to its resources in a mind-boggling skew in favor of people, thousands and thousands of times over. We are all billionaires. So why does this planet have poor people? At all?

~DeSwiss

[jtuck004]

30. That's astounding. And kinda sad. n/t

[sally5050]

20. IF you liked this movie

you should read Fritjof Capra's book "the Turning point".

but another reason this is one of my favorite films, is that it shows how women are eons ahead of men in terms of understanding the interconnectedness of the universe, but by and large the research and funding for basic science goes to men (largely white men).

imagine what would happen if we paid women for their patents, their ideas, their basic research? imagine how much clearer we'd be about how the universe really is?

[DeSwiss]

22. I remember when this book came out.....

...and I wanted to read it but was otherwise occupied (new baby showed up) and never did. Then I saw the film about 10 years ago and was blown away at how the sentiments mirrored my own.

Everyone always lauds science's benefits and the supposed improvements it gives our lives. Yet they almost never talk about the damage, death and destruction it does. We blame a company for EDCs or GMOs, or the government/military for the damage they to humans with bombs, weapons of mass destruction, chemical death, cancer from radiation -- but who made ALL this possible? Science, did it. And as haughty and arrogant as they can be, even those successes come to them by standing on Nature's shoulders. We may be able to ''modify'' an organism, but have yet to figure out how to make one from scratch.

- It's now on my Wish List.....

[sally5050]

31. that's because science is dominated by funding of males

and males have a much easier time destroying nature than females.

they don't have the connection that we do.. our cycles, our ability to birth babies.. the overall understanding of the moons, tides, sun power.

i always know i'm in a room full of males when I bring up how the psychic/spiritual world predicted quantum energy long before the male scientists did.

even last night I had 2 guys say psychic energy or intuitive healing energy was a joke.

and yet women have been healing thru intuition, crystals, meditative energy for years.

[DeSwiss]

32. I couldn't agree more.

And it used to be my mission (left-brain) to open people's eyes. Until I realized (right brain) how arrogant that idea is. Because we all must awaken in our own time. Which is sufficient. But the time of the patriarchy is over. All over but the shouting.

- The shouting is what we're starting to hear now......

[silverweb]

33. Finally got to watch this last night.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Now it's on my short list of favorite movies ever.

Thanks so much for posting.

[DeSwiss]

34. De nada. ;-)

[center]CAPITALISM WARPS EVERYTHING
According to a study published by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Americans waste about 40% of all food produced in the United States. It is also estimated that 70% of all fresh water consumption in the US is attributed to the agricultural production; which means that food waste alone accounts for one quarter of ALL the water consumed within the US. Furthermore, given that the average farm requires 3 kcal of fossil fuel energy to produce 1 kcal of food (before accounting for energy requirements of food processing and transportation) wasted food accounts for roughly 300 million barrels of oil per year. link

[/center]