11-23-2004, 08:34 AM
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#4 (permalink)
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Psycho
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More From RogerEbert.com:
Quote:
Q. Regarding your Answer Man item about "What the #$*! Do We Know" being a hoax perpetrated by the Ramtha School of Enlightenment: Did you or your readers go out and sign up for Ramtha's school? No, and neither did I. Instead I walked away absolutely astounded by the insights into my own life experience and the direction that I needed to go in order to affect my life in a positive way.
Whether the scientists in the film are "experts" or not (who defines these terms, anyway?), I found their insights and perspectives extremely helpful. The filmmakers encourage us to begin to understand the theory of quantum physics and start to ask ourselves questions that will lead us to a mindful life.
Kiara Lee, Berkeley, Calif.
A. I also received a sharply worded letter from Mark Vicente, Betsy Chasse and William Arntz, the co-directors, defending the stature of their experts and the integrity of the film.
"What the #$*@!" has turned into a sleeper hit around the country, drawing repeat audiences and generating strong word of mouth. I felt a certain affection for the film, although as my original review indicated, the "movie that attempts to explain quantum physics in terms anyone can understand. It succeeds, up to a point. I understood every single term. Only the explanation eluded me."
Among the experts on the screen, I wrote, "only one seemed to make perfect sense to me. This was a pretty, plumpish blond woman with clear blue eyes, who looked the camera straight in the eye, seemed wise and sane, and said that although the questions might be physical, the answers were likely to be metaphysical. Since we can't by definition understand life and the world, we might as well choose a useful way of pretending to."
This woman, I later learned, was the psychic JZ Knight, who channels a 35,000-year-old mystical sage from the lost continent of Atlantis. Still later, a letter to the Answer Man from an actual physicist, Rubin Safaya, informed me: "The individuals who are quoted are pretty far from qualified experts on the field of quantum mechanics."
The film is what it is, a group of people trying to explain the nature of reality. The confusion comes if you think they are discussing physics, when in fact they are discussing metaphysics. There is nothing wrong with having a belief system and using it to fashion your worldview; the error comes in ascribing scientific truth to what is by definition a matter of faith.
The argument between Darwinians and Creationists is similar: Darwinians use science, Creationists use faith. "Creationist science" is laughed at by reputable scientists because it tries to use its easily refuted "science" to explain a belief that grows from and depends entirely on faith. By the same token, although the Ramtha School may indeed have valuable insights into the nature of reality, it is misleading to present them as science.
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