The Quantum Pontiff

Yesterday I saw a showing of the movie “What the #$*! Do We Know?”–a film that advertises itself as “a spiritual film that combines quantum physics, multi-dimensional visual effects and animation, a dramatic story and interviews with leading scientists and mystics?” Sounds like some good fodder for the Quantum Pontiff, eh?
The film is basically three films in one. One film talks about quantum physics, and in particular the interpretations of quantum physics which lead people to utter sentences like “quantum consciousness” and “parallel universes exist.” The second film is about our brain, conditioning, and consciousness. Both of these first two films are narrated by a series of “leading scientists and mystics?” (How can mystics become leading if they can’t get tenure?) The third film is the story of a northwest based photographer whose life serves as a way to talk in concrete (or not so concrete) ways about the points of the first two films.
My reaction to this film was a lot like my reaction to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11: I love the subject but can’t stand the arguments put forth in the movie. I mean, I love quantum theory, in all its strangeness and usefulness and all that good stuff, but the interpretation presented in “What the Bleep” is just way over the top. Similarly, I agree with Moore on the problems of the family Bush, but his arguments were about as shallow as the arguments I hear in middle America (whoops, I didn’t really mean to say that, did I? Damn elitist liberal.)
The quantum consciousness interpretation presented in this movie is an off shoot of the many-minds interpretation of quantum theory, which is in turn an offshoot of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory. Personally I don’t understand any of these interpretations. Many-worlds is the world’s largest cop-out. Many-minds is nearly humankind’s most anthropocentric theory, except that the quantum consciousness interpretations take this anthropocentric point of view to an amazingly mind-numbing height. Roughly, as needed for commenting on this film, many-worlds says something like the different states in a superposition are all real states. Many-mind’s say that the choice of which state corresponds to reality happens in the human brain: the measurement problem is resolved inside our heads. The quantum consciousness interpretations take the many-minds interpretation-that the collapse to what is real happens in our head-and makes claims that our brain, or our consciousness, or our soul, can influence this collapse.
Loosely, the film uses this argument. Many-world’s says anything is possible (why do we choose a particular basis for resolving what is real?), even if that possibility is nearly impossible. Thus (1) anything is possible in quantum theory. Many-minds says that the resolution of what actually happens occurs in our brain. Thus (2) what is possible is chosen by our brain. Finally, in the quantum consciousness interpretations, a thing called free-will or the soul or some other useless word comes into play and allows you to consciously decide which of the possibilities will occur. Thus (3) you are your own god and can choose to influence the collapse of the quantum wave function.
Now, I’m not saying that this isn’t a possible way in which quantum theory might work, but there just isn’t any evidence for any of these speculations (by the way, here in Santa Fe at the local Borders bookstore they have a whole section called “Speculations.” Awesome.) In fact I’m not even sure if the way in which these interpretations are phrased whether they are even valid scientific theories (falsifiable, making novel predictions, etc.) That withstanding, this line of reasoning, is at best, eager speculation. But the movie doesn’t portray it that way: it argues that this is what quantum theory must be telling us.
The arguments in the film lead to lots of funniness. For example, if (3) is true, then clearly we should be able to walk on water. One narrator indeed claims that it is quantum theory which explains how Jesus could walk on water. Well, at least this is an attempt at an explanation.
Another example of the silliness is dialog of another narrator who totally misinterprets a current quantum experiment. There are today experiments where one puts a system into a quantum superposition over different position states which are macroscopically distinguishable. Roughly this means that we can put a system into a superposition over two states which when we look at this system with a powerful microscope, those two states are really two distinct positions under the microscopes resolution. The narrator for this particular part of the film claims that one can indeed look and see this superposition state. But this is silly. One never sees the superposition: for a single shot one sees only the the system being in one of the two states. The narrator elevates this seeing of a superposition to some religious experience: but it’s not. You just see one of two outcomes. What has probably happened is that the narrator has misinterpreted the photos one sees in journals about such experiments: here one usually shows the result of thousands or millions of experiments and one sees the resulting probability distribution. But surely not the superposition!
Another amusement follows from the quantum consciousness crowd. If you want to support this version of quantum theory, where do you look for evidence? Well to the studies of the effect of meditation on crime in Washington D.C. (the rate of crime “adjusted for temperature” (I shit you not), using from what I can tell 8 data points, not necessarily done in a double-blind fashion) Of course the meditation in the study is shown to decrease the rate of (temperature adjusted) crime. Now, of course, this could be true. But one study a result does not make. Especially when this study comes from the “Maharishi University of Management.” Voodoo science? I judge yes.
O.K., so you are skeptical of the meditation influence the world evidence: what about the water evidence? This part of the film focuses on the work of Masaru Emote who took bottles of water, put labels on them, then froze them, and took pictures of them and got different crystallizations. Amazingly the pictures he took seem to be correlated to the words he wrote on the bottle. Now I’m not saying that this was not a scientific study, I’m just staying that this wasn’t a scientific study. But to hear this film, this is clear evidence that these words (does the universe read Japanese, English, Yiddish? I’ve always wondered) influenced the crystals formed. I vote Voodoo.
O.K. enough knit picking about the quantum part of the film (I could continue, but shall refrain.) What did I think of the rest of the film. Well I have to tell you that the sections of the film discussing the biology of the brain are very funny. I mean, laugh out loud funny. This is because this part of the film has animations of cells. Not cells of animation, no! Animations of living cells! And these animations are quite humorous in there interaction with the main storyline (remember that northwest photographer.) The main storyline is not what I would call a blockbuster storyline. But it does serve its purpose, although I gained no particular empathy for the main character.
Well what’s the bottom line then about “What the Bleep…”? Well I would recommend this to a scientist in a second. Mostly because I know a good scientist will separate the speculation from the scientifically sound in exactly 2.2 seconds. And then, what one is left with, is a movie which tries to ask big questions: questions about free will, questions about what god could be (the size of the box to which god has been reduced), etc. And in this respect this movie is like a lot of popular science. I gain a lot from reading popular science, but not from the actual content of the books–which is mostly atrocious–but from the fact that reading good popular science puts my brain into a speculative mode. Similarly watching this movie gave me a bunch of the speculating endorphins.
What if you’re not a scientist? Well if you’re a deeply religious Christian I would recommend this film. Why? Well because it basically puts some deep nails in the traditional western god. Now I’m not saying the arguments put forth are the best arguments, but a few of them are pretty good. Especially notable is of of the mystics’ arguments that human sin must be insignificant in a universe as large as our own. Basically this is the same reason I would tell a Republican to go see Fahrenheit 9/11.
What about others? Well, don’t go to this movie to learn quantum theory. Take classes, read textbooks (and also read the popular science to see how they do and do not accurately reflect the textbooks!) and, well, goddammit learn what we know about quantum theory for yourself. This movie gives a highly distorted view of quantum theory, so take what it says with a grain of salt.
So what the bleep do we know? We know that this film is distorting. But this doesn’t make it not fun. So go, be distorted, love it, hate it, but please don’t troll my comment section.
P.S. One of the most interesting narators in the film, and by far my favorite, is Ramtha which is the name of the entity channeled by an American woman, JZ Knight. Ramtha, or should I say, Knight, delivers a stunning amount of charisma on the big screen…she is exactly the reason why I am skeptical of spiritual leaders! At least scientists come across as bumbling fools (and at one point in the film you can actually see that one of the scientists is lying, or at least his body language is highly indicative of deceit.) But Ramtha’s charisma reminds me of why religions with severe cults of personality can exist. Scary.