What the Bleep Do We Know?

I went to see What the Bleep Do We Know this evening, and I wanted to love it, and I tried really hard to like it - but ultimately I was disappointed.

First, the things I liked about it. The animation was cute and some of the visuals were pleasing. The connections drawn between the physical reality and consciousness were sometimes quite interesting (even though I've heard it all before), particularly the ways in which habitual thoughts and feelings cause structural changes in interneuronal connections and cellular structures which then reinforce the very same tendencies: e.g. if you practice being angry, you will become structurally more predisposed to anger over time, ditto for lust, joy etc. That was very vividly illustrated, and in my opinion the best part of the movie, particularly a sequence showing the main character becoming aware of her pattern of self-hatred and transforming it into a pattern of self-love and care. That was wonderful to see (that she implicitly realized she did not need a man to feel that way was also cool).

The movie also had a number of quotes and visual illustrations serving to remind one of how wild and wonderful the kosmos really is, how weird this existence is despite how we take it all for granted. In this vein I liked, for example, the parts about how matter is for the most part empty space, and how the quantum particles that make everything up are continuously popping in and out of existence, according to quantum theory.

Now for what I didn't like about it. The movie was full of lots of mystical quantum babble that reminded me of arguments that go something like: well, quantum mechanics has lots of weird stuff that reminds me of all this other weird stuff that I like to believe, therefore my weird beliefs are true and science proves it! Wow, man. Far out. We all create our own realities, blah blah blah. I think there is a grain of truth in this, but after reading the book Quantum Questions years ago I no longer believe that quantum mechanics supports mysticism directly. Here's a quote from a recent talk Wilber did on materialism on the website www.integralnaked.org:

I did a book called Quantum Questions which was an anthology of the great founders of quantum physics – all fourteen of whom were mystics. Fourteen out of fourteen! The common belief was sort of the Fritjof Capra belief, which is the tao of physics, that they are both talking about the same thing. Fourteen out of fourteen said that quantum physics in no way supported mysticism. Period. Fourteen out of fourteen. And they're right, they're absolutely right; but they had different reasons for being mystics, and that was they took the anomalies seriously. They said physics doesn't cover all of reality and they pushed so far into physics they knew it didn't. So it wasn't that physics and mysticism were doing the same thing. And so because of that they let go of physics, they became meta-physics or metaphysicians – and it was really wild to see all fourteen of them saying that same thing.

I think what quantum mechanics and other bizarre modern theories do is point out how weird and dreamlike the underpinnings of reality are - and that sort of points you in a certain direction, or gives you a justification for questioning the materialist view of reality. But if you want to get into that spiritual dimension or reality you are going beyond physics into metaphysics.

OK, back to the movie. I also felt troubled by an implication of moral relativism in the movie - one person said something to the effect that "there is no good or bad, there is only what helps you evolve or blocks your evolution." Again, I see a grain of truth there, but if something that helps me evolve causes suffering to someone else, or blocks their growth, well as far as I'm concerned that is bad. Along these lines the movie was bashing traditionalist religious belief - not too difficult to do these days, with a bunch of crazy fundamentalists running around (some of them in the white house) - but this is a simplistic view. The same man I just quoted parodied the tradionalist view of religion and then called it blasphemous. Instead, we are to believe that we are all gods and create our own reality.

I have two problems with that. First, it alienates the traditionalists, which is not helpful. That sort of traditional worldview is a necessary stage of the evolution of consciousness (as Beck and Cowen make clear in their wonderful book Spiral Dynamics) Secondly, the view "we are all gods who create our own reality" is partial at best. In my opinion it puts way too much emphasis on the individual, and not enough on the ongoing act of co-creation which involves the entire kosmos. Formulated in this way, that sort of New Age "we are gods" doctrine elevates the narcissistic ego to godhood, rather than going beyond ego which is what we really need. With all the incredible challenges the world is experiencing today, we need more than people thinking positive thoughts.

For people who are acquainted with spiral dynamics and integral theory I would say this about the movie: I think it is coming from an unhealthy green meme (Boomeritis) perspective in a way that will alienate blue and orange; it is not integral and would not help anyone move up the spiral - in fact I think it would help keep people stuck at green.

Also, a note on the word kosmos. "kosmos" is to be contrasted with "cosmos", which refers to the entire physical universe. "kosmos" includes that and also the interior dimensions of reality, i.e. individual consciousness and shared culture. This term was created by Ken Wilber.