What is with this irrational obsession the scientific community has with “putting down” the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know?” The movie never claimed to be a representation of physics, it simply asks the question, are there metaphysical implications to quantum theory, and then interviews physicists and others who believe that there are metaphysical implications. Physicists have been asking metaphysical questions about quantum theory since 1925. Perhaps any scientist that can’t handle that shouldn’t be one.

The latest case in point is the review of the new book “Quantum Enigma” (New Scientist 19 August 2006). The reviewer said that the bleep movie was about changing matter with mind, i.e. Amanda, the lead in the story, had made her thighs thin just with her mind. This could not be further from reality, and is completely incorrect. The story had zero to do with thighs and there never - ever was a case in the movie where any matter was directly changed with mind. The story of Amanda was nothing more than media used to explore a set of philosophical questions around quantum theory, and ask the question “who is the ultimate observer?” Philosophers have been asking this question for centuries.

The information about quantum theory was just that, information, and the question that was raised, “What does all of this really mean to everyday reality?” was just that, a question. A question that has been asked by hundreds of scientists since 1925. Niels Bohr and Edwin Schrödinger just to name two. Niels Bohr said, “there was no deep reality” – Einstein then said, “That would mean that the moon was not there until someone looked at it,” boy that sure sounds to me like mind creates reality. Why didn’t the reviewer say “One of the most scandalously bad theorists is that Niels Bohr? He promotes the idea that the moon does not exist until it is observed. He is a clear misrepresentation of Physics.” But when the bleep movie asks the same question it is some kind of scandal. If the general public is not allowed to speculate on the information that the scientific community is putting out then what good is it? Maybe we should just fire all scientists and go back to getting our information from the Bible. There is clearly some kind of irrational denial going on in the scientific community to let this movie upset them so badly.

The real story of Amanda had little to do with quantum theory and everything to do with Dr Candace Pert’s discovery of the opiate receptor and the tons of research today on the effects of peptides, and other body chemicals on our health and emotional outlook. In the beginning of the story Amanda was sick, then as the story progressed she learned that it was her negative attitude about life that was making her sick. There is zero doubt today that this is quite possible, and there is even a mainstream school of psychology devoted to it, called positive psychology.  Our attitude determines what chemicals we pump into our body and the chemicals flowing in our body determine our health and emotional outlook. In the movie Amanda was flooding her system with stress peptides because of her negative attitude, inducing stress on her body. Just by changing her attitude about life she starts to turn her emotion health around, and infuses herself with health promoting peptides. The only thighs in the movie were at the end, when she looked in the mirror with her negative attitude and in her minds eye, her personal perception, saw her thighs unrealistically large. There is zero doubt that people really do this. There is not a teen alive that has not exaggerated some body part or pimple in their mind, believing it is worse than it is. This was just symbolism of her negative thinking, that when people have a negative attitude they see everything in the world as negative, i.e. her thighs bigger than they really were. That was all there was to the thighs. It looks to me like the reviewer was doing the same thing when he watched the movie, i.e. exaggerating parts of the movie as worse than they were.






O Frank Turner
Author and Speaker
The Science of Spirit: Beyond The Bleep www.ofrank.com