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Grex > Cinema > #68: Grex goes to the movies - The Summer Movies Review Item |  |
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rcurl
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response 288 of 323:
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Sep 13 16:25 UTC 2004 |
It is totally sufficient to consider consciousness as a physical function
of the brain. That's what "mind" is too, so why invoke something else?
What's "spirit" made of and where does it come from and go? Be real. I can
understand ancient humans with little understanding of how the universe
functions inventing mystical qualities to explain complex facts, but we
don't need them anymore.
What's different about emotions? They are functions of mind, which is a
function of the brain, which is biology, which is chemistry and physics.
Nothing else has ever been found. This understanding does not, of course,
in any way make the functioning of mind less awesome (to us emotional
creatures). In fact, what I consider most awesome is how the substances
created in the nuclear furnaces of stars have properties that led to the
initiation of life and the evolution of the brain (and supporting
structures). Of course, if they didn't, we wouldn't be observing it.
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twenex
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response 289 of 323:
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Sep 13 16:40 UTC 2004 |
There is evidence (not proof) that certain people have memories from past
lives; indeed, there are accounts of a writer writing fictional books set in
Ancient Egypt whose details have been corrobated by independent experts as
correct, without doing research but simply by remembrance of such lives.
If such accounts are true, then the only reasonable explanation for the
existence of a non-corporeal spirit is that the person in question "wasn't
quite dead". Given that in this case we are talking not only of a span of
thousands of years, but of people whose birth within living memory can be
proven, which is more likely?
When one does not have proof, one uses evidence which one does have to come
to a reasonable conclusion. The only other option is to deny that something
is true in the face of evidence to the contrary, which is surely less "real",
if you want to be nasty about it, than reaching a conclusion based on the
available evidence. We have discovered that even ideas that were arrived at
by "the scientific method" have been proven wrong, whilst even that Giant of
Scientists, Albert Einstein, is most famous for something which has not even
been proven: The Theory of Relativity. If it were proven, it would in
accordance with scientific nomenclature be called a "Law".
Now, denigrate Einstein on the basis that his theory is not proven, if you
dare.
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twenex
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response 290 of 323:
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Sep 13 16:45 UTC 2004 |
Corrobated=corroborated, of course.
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marcvh
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response 291 of 323:
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Sep 13 17:07 UTC 2004 |
There exist a lot of explanations of that "evidence" other than the
existence of a spirit, although that is certainly one possible
explanation. There is also "evidence" of several billion people who do
not have memories of past lives. How shall we interpret this? Maybe
people with souls are rare, and most folks don't have one?
I don't accept your "law/theory" distinction as meaningful in this
context, but there is certainly much to condemn Einstein for, such as
his rejection of much of quamtum mechanics. But that's OK, science
is a process and it doesn't depend on individual people to be perfect
in order for it to work.
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gull
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response 292 of 323:
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Sep 13 17:14 UTC 2004 |
Re resp:285: Evidence is stacking up that some animals have a primitive
form of consciousness, too. Many species have been shown to have
reasoning and problem solving abilities, and a few have even been shown
to have self-recognition and body image. If consciousness is evidence
of a "spirit" or "soul", how do you reconcile this with the religious
belief that only humans have souls?
Re resp:289: Much of the Theory of Relativity has, in fact, been tested
with experimental observations. Can you suggest an experiment that will
test the theory that God exists?
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twenex
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response 293 of 323:
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Sep 13 17:16 UTC 2004 |
"science is a process and doesn't depend on individual people to be perfect".
True. I also believe that, if we ever develop an ultimate, all-encompassing
theory of the Universe/Reality, it will include evidence for the spiritual.
It may be that we are never able to produce a theory that explains everything,
(and i mean, /everything/), but that's just a function of how small and
limited we are. You'll probably find that if it were possible to link the
knowledge and/or consciousness of everyone who had ever lived, the knowledge
thereby gained would be "greater than the sum of its parts".
I don't believe that anyone has no soul. What I do believe is that some
people, or at least their conscious, "intellectual" mind, are divorced from
it.
As for "condemning" Einstein for being wrong about quantum mechanics, I hope
you'll be as sanguine if anyone in the future decides to "condemn" you for
theories which were proven false.
The fact is that the true nature of reality either depends on your point of
view (which would seem to fit with the Theory of Relativity, or at least my
limited understanding of it) or simply hasn't been discovered yet. If it had
there would be no need for philosophers, artists, and poets to explore it,
or philosophers, politicians, and scientists to debate it anymore.
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twenex
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response 294 of 323:
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Sep 13 17:19 UTC 2004 |
Re: #292. I don't believe that only humans have souls. If what I have said
implied it, then that was bad wording.
No, I can't suggest a scientific experiment that will prove that God exists.
But then I can't suggest a (practical) scientific experiment that will prove
that you're not a computer, or that homosexual marriage is either beneficial
or detrimental to society, either.
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gull
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response 295 of 323:
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Sep 13 17:27 UTC 2004 |
A practical experiment to prove I'm not a computer would be to obtain my
address, visit me, and punch me in the nose. Computers don't bleed. ;)
Homosexual marriage is a social issue, and that's an entirely different
realm of science. If you're going to compare religion to the Theory of
Relativity and to Quantum Mechanics, you're saying that it's a basic
component of how the Universe works. As such, it ought to be testable,
just like those theories are.
The interesting thing about scientific theories that are widely
accepted, then proven wrong, is that they often turn out to be correct
for certain situations. For example, the equations derived from the
Theory of Relativity agree quite nicely with Newtonian physics if you
assume an unaccellerated frame of reference. Newtonian physics wasn't
*wrong*, it was just limited. I suspect some day quantum mechanics and
relativity will both turn out to be similarly limited explanations of
something more complicated. There really isn't much overlap (and hence
conflict) between them; quantum mechanics deals primarily with very
small scale effects, and relativity with large-scale ones.
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twenex
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response 296 of 323:
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Sep 13 17:31 UTC 2004 |
I don't know if "religion" is a basic component of how the Universe works,
but that part of religion that attempts to explain Man's connection to his
wider world is, in my opinion, just that.
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gregb
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response 297 of 323:
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Sep 13 17:33 UTC 2004 |
C'mon guys! This is the MOVIES thread. How 'bout creating a
metaphysics thread for this discussion.
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twenex
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response 298 of 323:
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Sep 13 17:34 UTC 2004 |
Good idea.
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marcvh
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response 299 of 323:
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Sep 13 17:34 UTC 2004 |
There are some who say that Einstein's rejection of much of quantum
mechanics was not driven by scientific skepticism but religious
superstition ("God does not play dice with the universe.") I see no
problem with criticizing others for being irrational and would want
others to do the same to me.
Yes, Newtonian physics is correct for those limited frames of reference
where it is correct. So is phlogiston theory and flat Earth theory.
And a broken clock is right twice a day. So what?
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twenex
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response 300 of 323:
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Sep 13 17:42 UTC 2004 |
This discussion has been moved to Item #1041.
Religion plays to emotions. It's arguable that without emotions, much of our
society (it's ills and its boons) would not exist. I have never understood
the presence of religion and mysticism in Vulcan philosophy, as it's
supposedly based entirely on logic (not that it matters, Vulcans being
fictional), but I believe that true harmony can only exist with a balance
between the emotional and the rational.
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rcurl
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response 301 of 323:
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Sep 13 17:49 UTC 2004 |
The Special Theory of Relativity follows from Maxwell's equations for
electromagnetic fields if you insist that they apply in the same form in
different inertial coordinates. The intermediate concept was the Lorenz
Contractions. The experimental support for this came from the
Michelson-Morley experiments. I would say that General Relativity is a
Law, if you want to be fussy. However scientists are not hung up with what
they call a theory and what they call a law. After all, the existence of
atoms is called the Atomic Theory. These are just word games of no
significance. Scientists know what the supporting evidence is for their
"generalizations", whether called laws or theories.
The central scientific quandry currently is reconciling General Relativity
and Quantum Theory (which should be called a "law", as it is vastly more
precisely confirmed (to something like 11 significant figures) than
General Relativity or anything else that is called a "law").
In regard to people having memories from past lives...I go along with
Thomas Paine who wrote "Is it more probable that nature should go out of
her course, or that a man should tell a lie?" (from Paine's "Age of
Reason", Part I).
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twenex
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response 302 of 323:
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Sep 13 17:56 UTC 2004 |
Past lives neither require that nature "go out of her course", nor that people
who have them are telling lies, if one defines lie as "a statement made with
deliberate intent to deceive". It could be (a) that they are mistaken, or that
(b) the connection to past lives is a normal part of nature. One would expect
nature, by our reasoning, to always "work", but the fact that I am disabled
doesn't prove that I don't exist.
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albaugh
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response 303 of 323:
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Sep 13 19:06 UTC 2004 |
Finally saw Harry Potter 3 at the Village Theater in Ann Arbor. Well worth
the $3 and the drive from Plymouth. Now will read the book...
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richard
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response 304 of 323:
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Sep 14 02:40 UTC 2004 |
Getting back to movies, I saw Vincent Gallo's "THE BROWN BUNNY" over the
weekend. Vincent Gallo is a very talented young director who lives here
in Brooklyn. He directed the wonderful if quirky "BUFFALO 66" among
others. In this movie, he stars as a professional motorcycle racer
driving across country from New York to California for a race. He is a
lonely introvert haunted by guilt over an old relationship, a guilt which
makes it impossible for him to commit to relatonships in the present. So
he races motorcycles, a metaphor for racing from his past. The movie is a
cross country roadtrip where he is heading home to california and back
into his past, and meeting women along the way, whom he wants to be with
but can't because of his overwhelming guilt over this past relationship.
It leads to where we meet his old girlfriend, Chloe Sevigny, and discover
the reasons and source of his guilt. The key scene in the movie is a
graphic oral sex scene involving Sevigny and Gallo, and while it sounds
er..excessive if you read press reports...the scene is artfully done and
key to understanding Gallo's character and the demons he hides within.
This is a dark movie about how some people are trapped in the past and
can't ever escape it, they can never live in the moment, in the present,
because the past is always there.
"BROWN BUNNY" is a really good movie, not as good as Gallo's earlier effort,
"BUFFALO '66", but Gallo remains one of the best, most cutting edge directors
out there working today IMO. Worth seeing.
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tod
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response 305 of 323:
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Sep 14 15:12 UTC 2004 |
re #304
Is that the one with John Doe, Iggy, Tim O'Leary, etc?
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gelinas
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response 306 of 323:
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Sep 15 02:23 UTC 2004 |
On Morning Edition today, one of the stories was on film restoration. 'Twas
noted that Star Wars was so popular that so many copies were made from the
negative that the original is now unusable. There is so much dirt and so
many scratches on _every_ frame that restoration is impossible.
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twenex
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response 307 of 323:
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Sep 15 09:15 UTC 2004 |
Oy.
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gregb
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response 308 of 323:
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Sep 15 14:11 UTC 2004 |
That's bull. From what I've seen on Bravo and other channels, the
original is used only to create a master copy which is used to make
distributed copies. Also, if restoration was impossible, that means the
DVD set coming out would be pretty crappy, and you know that's not gonna
happen.
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gull
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response 309 of 323:
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Sep 15 17:33 UTC 2004 |
The DVD set is based on the 1997 release, not on the original one.
I still think Lucas has a good copy stashed away somewhere that he'll
trot out when it's financially convenient.
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gregb
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response 310 of 323:
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Sep 16 16:19 UTC 2004 |
I doubt it. He was never really happy with the original outcome, which
is why he kept fiddling with it. To go back and re-release the
original would be like selling a draft version, in his eyes.
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mcnally
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response 311 of 323:
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Sep 16 17:04 UTC 2004 |
re #310: Consensus opinion seems to be that when George Lucas's
artistic integrity has to duke it out with conflicting financial
incentives the artistic integrity rarely wins the fight. I believe
if there's enough money involved he'll overcome his perfectionist
streak.
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richard
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response 312 of 323:
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Sep 17 03:45 UTC 2004 |
#311...McNally, that is ridiculous. George Lucas is a billionaire or close
to it. Why would he pick financial incentives over artistic integrity when
he doesn't need the money? He'll never be able to spend the money he has now
in his lifetime. His motivations are artistic, these films are his legacy
and he wants both trilogies to fit together so that future generations will
see the films as a WHOLE six film arc. So he tampers with the older films
to make them fit better. It makes artistic sense.
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