Journal Entry!!

Journal Entry – “What the Bleep do we know?”

When in an unpredictable situation, we often tell each other that look at the “bright side” of the situation or think ‘optimistically’. This is what the movie ‘What the bleep do we know’ also conveys to us. Through the life of a depressed and dejected woman called Amanda, it teaches us that just by believing in things, you can make your belief reality. The main theme of the movie is consciousness and quantum physics which each try to convey that, our beliefs about who we are and what is real, are not simply observations, but rather form ourselves and reality.

Mausara Emoto, in his work on water crystals, tries to convey that our attitudes can literally affect us on a cellular level, as demonstrated with water molecules. It is fascinating as to how just by taping words on a bottle of water, the entire perception and attitude of a person can be changed. The water in the bottle is chilled and forms into crystals that describe the words taped on the bottle. For example when the word ‘love’ is taped on the bottle, beautiful crystals form. On the other hand, when the words ‘you make me sick’ are taped on the bottle, ugly crystals form. This clearly shows how our minds can be made to believe something. We cannot be sure that just because the word ‘love’ was used pretty crystals formed because we don’t know whether Emoto had previous knowledge about the word being used or no. If he doesn’t know the word (which I doubt), then we can question the whole procedure as to if he dint know the word, then this means that there is no correlation between the crystals formed and the words taped on the bottle.

Another idea that was discussed in the film was whether the universe is constructed from thoughts or from substance. In the movie it was portrayed that the world is made of thoughts. The example that shows this is the one about Columbus. When Columbus arrived at the West Indies, the natives were literally unable to see the ships. The reason given by the Directors of the movie was that, because the natives had never seen ships before, so ships did not exist in their reality. In my view, this example is not entirely true as it is impossible to believe that the natives actually did not see the ship. Yeah, it might be true that they not see the ship as a ‘ship’ but some other object or creature, but that does not mean that they dint see it at all! According to me, the world is constructed of substance and thoughts just complement them. Had we being living in a world full of thoughts, the world would be just a ‘make belief’ world, constructed of our dreams and aspirations. Every person would just be building castles in the air with no ground to it. But that’s not true, cause why else will be talk about the world being ‘materialistic’?

Another aspect of the movie that fascinated me is how peptides in the brain cause bodily reactions to emotions, resulting in new perspectives. I always thought that emotions were governed purely by how the person ‘feels’. But it amazed me to see how emotions are actually stimulated by peptides in the Hypothalamus that send out these peptides to cells, where they attach themselves, and give rise to emotions. So we can’t really blame people who are over emotional, because their emotions are governed by their abundant peptides! For example, when a person remembers a sad incident that occurred in the past, chemicals in the neurons present in the brain are triggered in the brain. These chemicals are transferred via neurons to the Hypothalamus, resulting in peptides being released. These peptides which attach themselves to the cells of the body, stimulates the cells of the body to feel the emotional state of ‘sadness’ and so the person as a whole becomes sad. This was the case of Amanda as well. When she thought of weddings, she was reminded of a sad incident of her husband cheating on her. Therefore, on being reminded of weddings, she always felt the emotion of ‘sadness’ as this incident had left an imprint on the neurons in her brain. So just the thought of it triggered signals in the brain that resulted in the peptides of ‘sadness’ being produced again and making Amanda sad.

In the movie, the unpredictability of the subatomic world, as explained in the quantum theory, has been used as a means of explaining mystical notions and spiritualism. The general idea is that quantum mechanics supposedly says that there isn’t one single reality, but an infinite number of possibilities. Therefore, if one is aware of these possibilities, one can make their own reality. For example there are many theories regarding the origin of the Universe. The Big Bang theory explains that the universe only came into existence after the massive explosion of small highly dense particles. Since then the universe has continued to expand as time goes by. Another theory is that the universe always existed and there have been no changes in it. Both these theories are different possibilities of the same situation but depending on which one you believe, that becomes your reality. This is what the movie conveys through the explanations of quantum physics that reality is what is created by you and believed by you.

In totality, the movie consists of various aspects and the way these different aspects were connected is what makes the movie unique. The movie cum documentary, was a unique mix of interviews with various biologists, physicists, scholars, psychologists, ingenious animations and a sensational narrative of the life of a divorced photographer whose life breaking experience causes her to question the essence of human knowledge.