three perspectves on “what the bleep do we...

16 V I A VISION IN ACTION VOLUME TWO, NUMBER THREE AND FOUR, 2004

Three Perspectves on “What the BLEEP Do We Know!?”

Marlee Matlin plays Amanda, the protagonist of the story.

THE FILM What the #$*! (BLEEP) Do We Know!?has gained national attention and sparked aquestioning of thorny assumptions such as: What isthe nature of reality? Have science and consciousnessat last become affable bedfellows? Will the scientificworldview more fully embrace the non-materialworld of mind?

Why in the bleep are we at the VIA Journalintrigued by the quantum impact of this film on themovie-going world? Precisely because it is ourmission to engage our readers in provocative inquirythat leads to new insights.VIA is committed to a full-capacity, inside-out exploration of models thatinfluence the fundamental quality of life for allbeings on the planet.

So we were inspired by the film to invite threescientists recognized for being on the vanguard oftheir fields to share with our readers their points ofview based on how they personally experiencedWhat the #$*! (Bleep) Do We Know!? We hope youenjoy these different perspectives and that theyinspire you to your own original thinking on the deepquestions the film raises.

–Anita Rehker, Senior Editor

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V I A VISION IN ACTION VOLUME TWO, NUMBER THREE AND FOUR, 2004 17

What the BLEEP Do We Know!?:

A PersonalPerspectiveBy William A. Tiller

LET US BE VERY CLEAR, the movie phenomenonWhat the BLEEP Do We Know!? is today touching thesouls of the general U.S. public just as it did a decade ortwo ago when that same public reached out to buy—with their own out-of pocket funds—alternative andcomplementary medical services to the tune of billionsof dollars a year. Why? Because the conventionalmedical community was not adequately serving theirneeds. Once again, the public is expressing a deepinternal knowing and need by its response to thismovie, and it behooves our nation’s professional andlay establishment to properly interpret such actions.

The movie highlights: (1) a specific human life storywhere the protagonist is entrained in a personalworldview—supported by almost all mediacommunications—that she is almost powerless tochange the perceived quality of her life; (2) a series oftalking heads with considerable professionalqualifications who espouse another viewpoint that canempower her; and, (3) a wonderful, artistic crafting ofthe blend between these two seemingly dichotomousviewpoints. In this brief article, I wish to provide myown personal experience and perspective on variousaspects of this movie phenomenon.

HOW THIS “TALKING HEAD” BECAME INVOLVEDAbout two to three years ago, I received acommunication from some people in Washington statewho wanted to make a documentary with a verystrange title: What the Bleep Do We Know!?, and would Iconsent to participate by answering a series ofquestions of a scientific/metaphysical/spiritual nature

based on my own longtime experience with suchtopics. Since I have been seriously studying these threetopics for over 50 years and am deeply interested inhelping the general public to personally explore suchpaths, I took this as another potential opportunity to “plant some seeds” in the consciousness of thegeneral public.

So I said yes and we set a date for the filming. Amonth or so later about ten people showed up at mydoor in Payson, Arizona. I didn’t know any of theseyoung people, but I liked the “feel” of them. I invitedthem into our home and we proceeded to embark onabout a six or seven hour video adventure. Most of thatfilm footage is still “in the can,” but a small portionended up in the movie.

I didn’t know there would be a movie and, sincemost of such projects do not really materialize for avariety of reasons, I basically wished them well withtheir documentary efforts and emotionally detachedfrom it, turning my attention to the next item on my to-do list. Imagine my surprise when, about two yearslater, this potential documentary had become a moviewith professional actors (several of whom I was awareof and respected), and was actually about to be shown

Stanford University Professor Emeritus William Tiller is featured in the docudrama.


in real movie theaters. When I had a chance to see themovie I thought that everyone had done a good job andthat it was a worthwhile contribution to our humansociety. I felt there were some important details thatwere in error, but overall I was very pleased andimpressed with the creative expression, the acting, theediting and the production of the movie. Some “seeds”had truly sprouted and showed promise of bearinguseful fruit.

SOME PROS AND CONS OF THE MOVIEEveryone loves the beautiful pictures of the ice crystalsprovided by Dr. Masaru Emoto as serious proof thatspecific human intentions can affect the crystallizationprocess for water in highly correlated and specificways. These striking morphological changes seem tomake it obvious that anyone following hisexperimental procedure can reproduce such results.This is incorrect for at least two reasons. Don’t get mewrong, there is obviously a correlation, but what arethe reasons for the correlation?

As a world-class expert in the science ofcrystallization—one of my conventional science areasof expertise—I know that it is possible for one toproduce this entire array of crystal morphologies byexperimentally adjusting (1) the concentration andspecific nature of the solute species (contaminants)present in the water; (2) the cooling rate of the waterbelow its freezing point; and, (3) the actualsupercooling of the water at which some hetero-geneous catalytic particle present in the water actuallynucleates the water to ice phase transition.

In Dr. Emoto’s experiments, item (3) was neithercontrolled nor measured, a necessary requirement to befulfilled if one wanted to prove that it was the newfactor of specific human intention that was causative.

After stating the above, I feel quite confident in alsostating that Dr. Emoto probably unintentionally“conditioned” his experimental space to a higherelectromagnetic (EM) gauge symmetry state than anormal space through his general intentions so that the“conditioned” experimental space became especiallysensitive to specific intentions. (I provided abundantexperimental evidence to show that this is possible in an article that appeared in (VIA, Vol. 1 No. 4 2003, pp. 30-43). We can now experimentally measure thedegree of elevation of a space above the normalelectromagnetic gauge symmetry level so that, in thefuture, someone trying to reproduce Dr. Emoto’sresults to prove that human intention was the causativefactor involved could do so in a completely scientificand satisfactory manner.

My second main correctness-type of concern aboutthe movie was an unintentional misrepresentation byseveral of the talking heads concerning quantummechanics (QM) and, in its present form, what it iscapable of telling us about any effects of human

consciousness upon the properties and processesoperating at the physical level of reality.

As presently formulated, QM is a very precisemathematical theory whose domain of operation isfour-dimensional spacetime, within the classicalparticle velocity limit of being less than or equal to thevelocity of EM light (v≤c), and involving any of thefour accepted fundamental forces: EM, gravity, theweak force and the strong force. This theory has beenremarkably successful and accurate for particlephysics, small atoms and photons. However, ascurrently formulated, it has absolutely no capability ofpredicting the behavior of any psychoenergetic processin nature. Anything involving human consciousness’effects on physical reality—as metaphorized in themovie—requires an expansion of present day QM. Theworld has spent billions of dollars trying to usequantum electrodynamics (QED) in the military tryingto mimic the remote viewing capabilities of somehumans to see things far away. It has completely failedto do so. Explaining something like remote viewing orany other psychoenergetic phenomenon is completelybeyond the capabilities of present day QM.

THE WONDERFUL WEIRDNESS OF QMMany of the talking heads extol the wonderfulweirdness of QM as if that is what makes it a greattheory. However, most professionals know thatwhatever theoretical model or reference frame (RF) oneuses to predict the behavior of nature’s manyexpressions, there exist built-in constraints,assumptions and other limitations (associated with themodel’s detailed mathematical formalism) for eachsuch model or RF. A different RF choice always yields adifferent perspective for viewing nature, and the goalof a theorist is to find an RF wherein the experimentaldata is straightforward, understandable and relativelysimple. Extolling QM weirdness may be great fun, butit really tells us that the present mathematicalformulation of QM is badly in need of expansion.

SO WHAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH THE CURRENT ESTABLISHMENT SCIENCE?I have been avocationally investigating human innerself-management for almost 50 years and haveperformed serious experiments in the psychoenergeticsarea for about 35 years. My two books in this genre dealstrongly with the importance of directed humanintention, and the second specifically sets out to proveor disprove the unstated assumption establishmentscience firmly held for the past two centuries that “nohuman quality of consciousness, intention, emotion,mind or spirit can significantly influence a well-designed target experiment in physical reality.” Wehave robustly disproven this assumption; it is clearlyfalse and is badly in need of correction. But how doesone effectively do this?

When in 1970 I first began these psychoenergeticsexperimentations in my spare time at Stanford, Iassumed that if I continued my highly expertconventional science studies—for which I wasinternationally recognized and respected—and inparallel performed careful psychoenergeticsinvestigations, my scientific peers would read thissecond stream of papers with some degree ofthoughtfulness and interest. Unfortunately, my initialassumption was quite naïve and, in fact, proved to bequite wrong! Just as in Galileo’s time, the respectedscientific establishment is not willing to “look throughthe telescope” at the data with a clear eye. This is ahuman sociological problem involving many causativefactors. Let’s consider some of them.

First, scientists are mostly just like normal folks butwith much more specialized education and training.Thus, they also operate somewhat on a herd instinct,want security, and are not particularly courageousexcept in areas where they have a great deal ofknowledge. Most of them are followers rather thanleaders, quite subject to peer pressure, and veryprotective of their hard-won professional reputationswhich form their personal-power base. Most work veryhard, are very busy keeping up with digesting all theimportant literature in their particular field ofexpertise, carrying out their personal research, findingthe necessary funding to continue and expand theirresearch, writing scientific papers and books, trying toget these published, making presentations at scientificmeetings to their peers in order to sustain and enhancetheir professional reputations, and serving onprofessional, governmental and university committees.All these things, plus being a spouse and parent, arenecessary activities in the life of a successful scientist intoday’s world. Most have no time left over for innerself-management activities unless prodded in thisdirection by their spouse, or having had somedefinitive, personal inner-life experiences. Most wouldfeel tainted and reputation-threatened to be in any wayconnected to psychoenergetic research.

Second, top-ranked universities have a reputation toprotect, so they vie for the best scholars, researchers,teachers and staff that their money and reputation andlocal environmental quality can buy. Sadly, in today’sworld most have become very sophisticated high techtraining schools for industry and government. Theirreputations attract high quality students andfoundation, philanthropist and government moneyplus financial donations from a wide variety of alumni.They must afford to present a collective image to theworld as a successful, leading-edge, establishment-type, creative organization in order to continue toattract such students and moneys. Maverick professorsin the organization are tolerated so long as they “pushthe envelope” along fairly conventionally acceptedpaths. At present, most would feel reputation-

threatened and tainted by having psychoenergeticstype of research occurring within the confines of theirorganization. Predictably, this attitude will change inthe not too distant future.

Third, the major funding source for research in anation is its government. In the U.S., after World War II,the government planted a great deal of seed corn typesof research during the ‘50s and ‘60s. Political demandsfor practical payoffs from such research began in themid to late ‘60s and, in the 1970s, government fundingshifted more to practical applications of this seed cornresearch. By the 1980s, almost all university researchwas directed towards exploiting the newunderstandings of the ‘50s and ‘60s. This mode ofresearch continued through the ‘90s and is still sotoday. No new seed-corn type of research has beenfunded since the early ‘60s, except for those few thatappear to have advanced military use possibilities. Thepsychoenergetics research of the “remote viewing”type funded by various U.S. intelligence gatheringagencies in the ‘70s and ‘80s at Stanford ResearchInternational is one of the few exceptions.

Fourth, most of the theological organizations in theU.S. professing to promote “inner-work” within theircongregations actually preach secular religious dogmasdesigned to entrain their clientele to a fairly narrowview of theology and its role in the spiritualdevelopment of humanity. Although some types ofbiofeedback tools and inner self-managementprocesses for human self-development have beenavailable since the 1960s, the various religiousorganizations have not pushed to proceed along theselines of personal empowerment seemingly becausethey know—as does the U.S. government—that whenthe public becomes awake to the power within each ofthem they are not so easily controlled.

At the very least, with discrimination of these fourcausative factors, one can begin to see that there is nosimple “fix” for this problem; however, with thepresent availability to publish one’s data on theInternet and to self-publish one’s books, editors ofestablishment journals and publishing companies canno longer completely block the dissemination ofpsychoenergetic science experimental and theoreticalfindings to the general public and interested scientists.

Before closing this section, it is important to pointout that there appear to be three categories of scientificinvestigators when it comes to psychoenergeticphenomena: The largest number form category one.They are strongly entrained with the unstatedassumption referred to earlier: the effect size of anypsychoenergetic experiment must be unequivocallyzero. Any presentation to them of such data with effectsizes greater than zero will cause their eyes to roll andglaze over just before their conscious brain shuts down.This type of behavior is labeled the boggle effect.Category two’s scientists do not suffer the boggle effect so


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long as the experimental effect sizes are small.However, this group suffers from the boggle responsewhen the effect sizes are large. They are also entrainedwith the need for very careful controls and statisticaldesign of experiments to wean out anddiscriminate small effectsize results from thestatistical noise zone of the experiment. Ofcourse, this is a veryimportant procedure thatneeds to be establishedfor any new area of science seeking to estab-lish credibility with theestablishment scientistspopulating category one.The downside for cat-egory two is that theyoften become so entrainedby their day-to-day pro-tocols that they cannot mentally accept large effect sizepsychoenergetic results that do not seem to obey theircarefully constructed protocol rules.

Category three, of which this author is one, neverexperiences the boggle response no matter how largethe result and effect size of the psychoenergeticexperiment being conducted. For them, keyexperimental protocols need to be such that thedominant physics principles operating in theexperiment are sufficient to manifest data signalamplitudes of magnitude strongly above the noise(large effect sizes). This group subscribes to thesubstantial reality of the following reaction equation

MASS ENERGY CONSCIOUSNESS

operating in all psychoenergetic experiments. Theirfaith in the existence of such an equation is significantlylarger than “a mustard seed,” and thus they seek todrive the equation from right to left. Such people thinkthat the next main growth step for humanity is to dosufficient inner self-management work that we alldrive our experimental reality and our manifest worldin this way.

THE ROLE OF THE GENERAL PUBLICIt is time for the general public to awaken to therealization that we are all spirits having a physicalexperience as we ride the river of life together. It is timeto recognize that we can individually become much,much more than we presently think we are by goingwithin to experience and know our “source” via ourdisciplined progress in inner self-management. It is

time to recognize that all humans matter, that they canbeneficially change themselves, their environment andour world. It is time to recognize that we are all one, andthat “the God in me beholds the God in you.” Thus,

right action requires alwayschoosing the right means to achieve the goals we desire in this physical experiencebecause collectively—via ourpresent thoughts, attitudes andactions—we are all co-creatingthe experiential future throughwhich our “river of life” mustpass. It is the time to be coura-geous, to let our inner light shineinto our outer world and becomewhat we were always intended tobe: loving co-creators with thatspiritual “source” within!

Today, the general public of allcountries pay, via their taxes, foralmost all scientific research done

in their nation. Therefore, in democratic societies, thegeneral public is ultimately responsible for thesustaining of outdated paradigms by their scientificsector. When human consciousness has beenexperimentally shown to significantly influence theproperties of, and processes in, inorganic, organic andliving materials, it is time for the general public torequire—even demand—that the scientificestablishment develop a new reference frame forviewing nature that has the capability of quantitativelyconnecting both the seeming outer world aspects ofnature and our seeming inner world aspects of nature.At least qualitatively, this is what the movie What theBleep Do We Know!? attempted to connect. ▼

Book references available upon request.

William A. Tiller, Ph.DWilliam A. Tiller—Professor Emeritus, Stanford University, Department ofMaterials Science and Engineering—is an active research scientist and author,and has published about 250 scientific papers as well as two books:Science and Human Transformation: Subtle Energies, Intentionality and Consciousness and Conscious Act of Creation: The Emergence of a New Physics. He was one of the “stars” in the movie What The BLEEP DoWe Know!? Contact the author at [email protected]


The film’s protagonist becomes aware of what Tiller calls her own “self-management.”

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VIEW THIS FILM AS A ONE-DOSE DRUG. Indeed,for some it was habit-forming; we met several peoplecoming back for a second injection. The main featureis an emotional appeal to a deep-seated need in manypeople to understand their own lives and the reasonfor their existence. Thus the theme of this film is togive viewers a hope that the science of eitherquantum mechanics or of neural networks mayprovide them with the answers they seek.

In my opinion, both of these avenues are illusionscreated in the typical fashion that academia has usedfor centuries to impress their disciples with high-sounding phrases and unprovable theories. It is acommon practice among professors to create hugestructures of theory based upon foundations ofnothing when they think they cannot be caught.

Because of the apparent complexity of quantummechanics—it is very mathematical in its presentform—and the intricacy of neural networks—it isdifficult to experiment on living human brains—these two topics were ideal for the film producers.Several experts (mostly professors, of course) wererecruited as actors to voice the mysteries of their fieldsand suggest to the viewers that just a little moreknowledge and effort might provide answers to thegoals of life.

The film is entertaining and uses elegant screentechniques to illustrate common concepts of neuralnetworks and quantum theory. Striking artisticdrawings of magnified networks of neurons in thebrain zoom in and out stimulating the imaginationwhile offering hope that the meaning of life may befound in the structure of the brain itself. Lights flashthrough the elaborate jungle of brain networks eachtime an expert suggests a possible answer.Blackboards are filled with imaginary mathematicalsymbols. A rabbit from the tale of Alice in Wonderland isenlisted to help the professors. He suggests that therabbit hole into which Alice fell and entered intoWonderland might be the path to discovery. In the lastscene the rabbit asks, “Which hole would you like toenter?”

The present interpretation of quantum waves,which implies a built-in uncertainty in our lives, is

used to simultaneously dazzle the viewer and offerhope that a clever mind can tear away the veil ofuncertainty and find a path to happiness.

It would be amiss for this reviewer not to point outthat quantum mechanics is no longer complex andconfusing. The mysteries in the film were due to theold mistaken assumption that atomistic matter iscomposed of discrete particles. Instead, experimentalevidence shows that Nature has built a Wave Structureof Matter (WSM) in the space around us. The quantumwave universe is very simple—only two rules infact. It is a new perspective of the physical world:Each part of matter—you and I, the galaxy—isconnected to a universe of an all-pervading wavespace. We exist in a sea of quantum waves.

We don't easily notice the space wave mediumbecause our survival and evolution as an animalspecies depends on our ability to fight with otheranimals seeking food, and to compete for mates thatproduce children—skills not closely related to thequantum space medium. However, sensing quantumwaves is not as helpful to the survival of our personalgenes as recognizing apples we can eat and avoidingtigers that want to eat us. Lacking personalexperience of quantum waves, early scientists choseto imagine that the electron is a discrete “particle,”like a bullet or a grain of sand. Serious thinkers suchas William Clifford, Albert Einstein, Paul Dirac,Erwin Schroedinger, and Ernst Mach realized thatthe human analogies were wrong. Professors havehardly noticed. But let me be honest, even though theWave Structure of Matter (WSM) is the truth of reality,the answers to the puzzles of life are still hidden,however true the path may be. ▼

Milo Wolff, Ph.D.Professor Milo Wolff, whose many works can be found within modernscientific literature, is a researcher in physics and astronomy, the originatorof the theory of Wave Structure of Matter, which simply and elegantlydescribes and explains all of the major problems of physics, and has workedfor MIT, NASA, the U.N., and various universities in Indonesia, Singapore,China, Sri-Lanka, France, Ethiopia and Pakistan. Contact the author [email protected]


A One-Dose DrugBy Milo Wolff



An Encounter with a Six-Foot RabbitBy Thomas Brophy

WHAT THE BLEEP STARTS OUT WITH A BANG, the Big Bang, and sets outdelivering blows toward our worldview from there. A mix of drama anddocumentary, What the BLEEP inter-edits several scientists/intellectuals andRamtha—a channeled spiritual teacher—describing the strangeness ofquantum mechanical theory and its relevance to our self-concepts and ourworld. For the drama portion of the mix, heroine Amanda (Marlee Matlin)experiences and begins to transcend frustrations of relationship, self-imageand self-realization.

In 1995 I met What the BLEEP producer-director William Arntz in Boulder,Colorado. He was in the process of completing the sale of his successfulAutosystems software company to Platinum Technologies. I wasinterviewing for a job, and to my surprise, early in the interview Arntzwanted to discuss my interest in esoteric spiritual traditions, and further hementioned his own such interests. Afterwards, to my continuingastonishment, that part of my background appeared to be considered a plus,not a negative, and he forwarded me on to Platinum headquarters in Chicagofor more interviews. Even then he mentioned his hope to at some point getback to his interest in film production.

When What the BLEEP came out I was keen to see the result of this uniquelyintegrative man’s effort. My attempt to write an objective review, though,encountered a minor dilemma of familiarity. As well as having beenimpressed by Arntz, I had dined with, enjoyed the company of, or workedalongside more than three of the scientists featured in the film. So, to gainsome objectivity, I asked six friends what they experienced from the film.

SIX FRIENDSOne friend is a palm reader and Wiccan practitioner. She enjoyed the showimmensely, and though the scientific details went over her head, shebelieved the show was presenting scientific proof of the efficacy of themagic and psychism that she uses in her work. She saw the scientists as alittle dry, vague and unclear, but figured they must have said somethinginteresting that verified her experience of the world. To her, the extensivebiochemical animations in the film seemed disjointed from the point of thefilm. But the emphasis on emotions as the essence of spirituality—Ramthasays, “We are emotions, emotions are us,”—she felt was excellent.

My outlaw biker friend loved it too, to the extent he admits liking

Illustrations by Trish Weber Hall


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anything. There is nothing criminal about this friendmind you—he is only an “outlaw” in spirit andsentiment. He loved the bits of the film that dismissedorganized religions as a hindrance, seeing verificationof his anti-authoritarian approach to the world. He sawthe scientists as recognized authorities and theirdismissal of the materialist paradigm as feeding hisbelief in the central importance of personal power. Heespecially liked the sexual power issues brought out bythe character Amanda, and generally enjoyed watchingthe lovely Amanda, sound or no sound.

Another friend is a Naval officer and devoutChristian. She was turned off by attacks on organizedreligion. Though the religion-bashings are a small partof the film, she experienced them as over-general andunfair. She was intrigued by the scientists’ quotesabout the nature of reality, but was not clear on whatthey were really getting at. She thought the film wasemphasizing sexuality and emotionality as the basis ofspirituality, and felt that was off base.

A friend who is a professor of applied math and anaccomplished judo wrestler was intrigued by thescientists but questioned whether they are really topauthorities in their fields. He disagreed with somepoints they were making, saying they didn’t presentevidence for those conclusions. He enjoyed theorganized religion bashing immensely. He saw theextensive sequences of psycho-neuro-anatomicalbiochemistry as reinforcing his view that we arefundamentally only biochemistry.

This friend agrees with skeptic Michael Shermer,who wrote in Scientific American, “The death of thebody—the disintegration of DNA and neurons thatstore my personal information—spell the end of thesoul..,” and anyone who believes in any existencebeyond the material body suffers from, “hallucinationsof preternatural beings.” This friend liked what he sawin the film, seeing the extensive time spent on amusingbiochemistry animations as indicating that ouremotions are completely chemical and mechanicalprocesses. Thus he saw the quantum physicists’ quotesthat seemed to indicate the contrary as disjointed fromthe rest of the film, and wrong.

Another friend is a Greenpeace coordinator andformer hippie. He absolutely loved the organizedreligion bashing. He saw spirituality in the filmrepresented as essentially emotional-relationshipbased, and liked that. He saw the scientists as verifyingthis view and saw the film as indicating that a systemsapproach to physics is finally in the process of provingthese sentiments as physical reality.

One friend is an accomplished former anthropologistturned independent corporate consultant. She has anamazing skill for understanding organizations andmaking small adjustments that vastly improve theirfunctioning. She is the only friend who happens toknow all the other five friends. She wanted to see what

the film would do for us, how it mightmake our society work better.

She enjoyed theapparent intent of thefilmmakers and theenergy of the prod-uction. She found theorganized religion-bashing to be gratu-itous, even if perhapsdeserved, and notnecessary to get theintent of the filmacross. She noted thatthe film was indicatingthe importance ofspirituality, and thussimplistic religion-bashing seemed dissociative in light of the historical entwinement and complicatedrelationship of spiritual traditions with organizedreligions. But, since that was a small part of the film, inher opinion it didn’t detract too much. She was alsoconcerned about the extensive use of channeledinformation, via Ramtha, in the film. This friendacknowledges that the better channelers can provide apositive experience for some spiritual seekers. But shebelieves a more directly integral approach to spiritualdevelopment is to try to embody our spiritualitydirectly rather than bring in disembodied entities. Thechanneling approach, she thinks, can yield a tendencytoward spiritual authoritarianism—the same source ofthe problem with organized religions that Ramtha decries.

She similarly saw the role of the physicists asproblematic. She resonated with the point thatquantum theory reveals the nature of matter as sofundamentally strange that it can open an expandedcognitive window through which to appreciate themysteries of a participatory universe. But, as alwaysthinking about the broader effect of the film, shequestioned the use of physicists to deliver thismessage. Viewed from other perspectives, like ourmath teacher friend, other viewers of the film might seeit as saying that mathematical quantum theory nowcan explain away mysteries of consciousness, mindand spirit by the simple physics of scurrying atoms.

This friend questioned the implication that emotionsare the essence of all spirituality. She certainly findsproblem with reducing everything to physicality, butemotionality may be just one step further up the spiralwaves of spirituality that will go inclusively beyondemotionality to mentality, and perhaps to theurgical orteleological awareness.

By now, regular Vision In Action readers will haverealized that my “friends” are a bit like Jimmy

Stewart’s six-foot rabbit buddy inthe film/play Harvey. Thoughthey do not exist “out there,” theywere definitely in the theater withme and are quite real as the SpiralDynamical memes, holarchical-hierarchical adaptive intelligencesor value spheres of my ownpsyche. Each sequential memetranscends and then re-includesthe lower ones, operating onthem in a growing spiral ofawareness. Actually, those six arethe 2nd to 7th memes. The firstprimitive survival meme wasthere too, but he was too busymunching popcorn to commenton the film.

So, if I try to operate on allthose six views together to arrive at a meta-review of Whatthe BLEEP, I would be concerned with the global impact of this film: Will it help to pushforward a healthy leading edge ofsociocultural evolution?

SO WHAT OF THIS QUANTUMSTUFF?Firstly, let’s consider a coreconcept of the film: the meaningand interpretation of modernquantum physics.

Sir Arthur Eddington onceopined, “Religion first becamepossible for a reasonable man inthe year 1926.” The founder ofmodern astrophysics, Eddingtonwas referring to the generalacceptance of quantum theory asthe accurate new physicssupplanting classical physics as a

result of international conferencesthat took place in 1926. The

weirdness of quantum mechanics, inEddington’s view, re-opened the deterministicclockwork world of classical physics to a non-deterministic creative universe – once again allowing arole for metaphysics, even to a “reasonable” fullyrational man.

Many of the giants of modern physics who birthedquantum theory in the early part of the last centurycame to voice similar opinions about its meaning.Prince Louis De Broglie, in 1925, showed that the wave-particle duality, known to apply to light, applies tomatter as well. Later, De Broglie supported the ideas ofintegral philosopher Henri Bergson, “Let us add that

this increased body [modern science] awaits asupplement of the soul and that the mechanism demands a mysticism.” Wolfgang Pauli, an equally eminentquantum physicist of the time, came to co-author a bookwith psychologist Carl Jung titled Synchronicity: AnAcausal Connecting Principle, based on the globalconnectivity found in quantum theory.

Niels Bohr, the most influential quantum theorist, wasasked to address a conference of logical positivistphilosophers. The positivists assumed Bohr wouldsupport their empiricist philosophy and reject any rolefor metaphysics. Bohr opined otherwise, saying modernphysics allows that there may be a perfectly good rolefor metaphysics. When Bohr was knighted, he chose forhis coat of arms the yin-yang symbolizing the unitaryinterplay of spirit and matter.

Erwin Schrodinger, creator of the workhorse equationof quantum theory, wrote a profound book in 1944, WhatIs Life? Schrodinger concluded, almost heretically, “Weare here obviously faced with events whose regular andlawful unfolding is guided by a ‘mechanism’ entirelydifferent from the ‘probability mechanism’ of physics…we must be prepared to find it [biology] working in amanner that cannot be reduced to the ordinary laws ofphysics.” It is quantum theory that allows for thepossibility of this “something new” that is beyondphysics, beyond quantum theory, involved with life. In a1991 foreword to What Is Life?, prominent physicistRoger Penrose wrote that [this book is] still blindlyignored by a disconcertingly large proportion of peoplewho should know better. He asks: How often do we stillhear that quantum effects can have little relevance in thestudy of biology?

The great minds that created quantum theory more than 75 years ago came to essentially the same sentiments that we hear from the physicistsfeatured in the film What the BLEEP. Yet they still sound radical because the ideas are not universally oreven significantly held by the majority of working scientists today.

In summary, these ideas are as follows: Quantumtheory, now shown to be essentially correct, proves thatthe physical/material world does not evolvedeterministically as a classical-physics world wouldhave evolved. There must be, quantum theory shows,something weirdly non-local connecting all matteracross space and time, and/or something acausal(without material cause) that affects events, and/orsomething creative involved in the functioning ofmatter; or all three. Quantum theory opens up thesepossibilities, the possibility of metaphysics, but it doesnot explain them, does not explain metaphysics.

So why is this profundity not generallyacknowledged? One key reason is as indicated byPenrose: a belief that quantum strangeness applies onlyto the very small and has no relevance to large things like biology.



QUANTUM BRAIN?Reporting in the February 2000 issue of the respectedjournal Physical Review, physicist Max Tegmark claimedto prove that quantum mechanics could not haverelevance to brain processes. Quantum theory provesthat very small things cannot exist in arbitrarily precisestates of measure such as location and velocity. Thisimprecision of existence is called a “superposition ofstates.” These coherent states are said to “decohere”into an exact state when an object interacts with otherobjects. At the instant of interaction, physicists surmise,the system behaves classically as described byNewton’s equation. So if all parts interact very often,the whole system behaves classically. If not, it maybehave quantum mechanically.

This relates to human consciousness as follows: Thebrain is the locus of thinking. The matter of the braininvolved in thinking exists in ever-shifting superposedquantum states. If the decoherence times are long, then possibly quantum superposition could relate to a mechanism for free will and other aspects of consciousness.

Hameroff, working with Penrose and others,identified specific structures in the brain—microtubules—that, they argue, could be the quantumsuperposed culprits. Microtubule proteins have twonatural structural states similar to how a warped sheetof metal can rest easily bowed in or out. Penrose saysthat a protein in a superposition of both structuralstates is a sort of tiny gravitational blister in space-time.Collapse of these superposed non-local gravitational quantum stateblisters, Penrose and Hameroffemphasize, is like making adecision, at least much more sothan is classical determinism.So Tegmark set about tocalculate whether the super-posed quantum states in brainprocesses decohere so quicklythat the brain must beclassical, or not. His calcu-lated decoherence times areshorter than a billionth of apicosecond, eighteen ordersshorter than the onehundredth of a second it is believed it takes us tothink anything. Therefore,Tegmark’s model states thatthought must be entirelyclassical and cannot bequantum mechanical. ThusSc i enc e Magazine reported,“Cold Numbers Unmake the Quantum Mind,” and other international scientific press

triumphantly reported the death of the quantum brain.In What the BLEEP Hameroff is shown only briefly

shooting basketballs and noting the strangeness andimportance of quantum theory. Yet he is the scientist inthe film working most directly to address the regressivemindset of most scientists, undaunted by 78 years ofphilosophical utterings. Hameroff and colleagues,working doggedly for more than two years rebuttingnumerous dismissive “peer reviews,” finally got anarticle published in the same journal showing thatTegmark’s “proof” of the impossibility of the quantumbrain was severely flawed, and that indeed some sort ofquantum brain is mathematically and physicallyplausible. But this time there were no triumphantinternational press reports. Most working scientistscontinue to think that something like Tegmark’s ideamust apply.

What the BLEEP would have been served by muchmore inclusion of the Hameroff et al. work. As quantumtheory opens the possibility of metaphysics but does notoffer the metaphysics itself, the transformation sought isa psychological one and will not be brought about byphysics arguments. If the untransformed believe thattheir physics has proved that transformation isimpossible, demonstration of falsity of the proof can helpre-open the door to transformation. But a claim that thephysics is the transformation leads to a regressiveconcept of a physically determined material universe.

Bohr once wrote, “Those who are not shocked whenthey first come across quantum theory cannot possibly

have understood it.” I didn’t feel that shockclearly from What the BLEEP. If we did, we

would not get any impression thatquantum theory might explain a

given spiritual or metaphysicaltradition; all quantum theory can dois not disprove them.

When a friend first wrote to meabout the film and the scientistsfeatured, I was curious about thetitle, wondering if a more specifictitle had been the original intent.When followers of a spiritualtradition, teacher or channeler firsthear about the “New Physics” theyoften hear confirmation of theirbelief system. Given the charactersfeatured in this film, as with allprofound thinkers, when oneinteracts directly with them weoften find they don’t say what weexpected at all, and separately theysometimes say things radicallydifferent from the other characters.

In fact, What the BLEEP co-directorMark Vincent said this about the

evolution of the film, “We read the

S C I E N T I F I C V I S I O N T H O M A S B R O P H Y

books, we thought we knew this stuff, we thought we knew what these people were going to say, but when we started the interviews, what they actually said was extraordinarily different. And werealized how much we didn't know.... We cut the interviews down to six hours, then three, then an hour and a half. Then we wrote the story around that.”

AN INTEGRAL FILM?A Sufi teacher I know says the intricate designs ontraditional Persian rugs all contain the samesymbolism. A central “garden” is enclosed by stylizedintricate “walls,” the intricacy representing 125,000“doors.” These stand for 125,000 individuals of historywho have transformed to a deep awareness, each onecreating another “door into the garden” ofpsychospiritual transformation. Could What the BLEEPbecome another door, opening a new way oftransformation for some and leading a new genre ofintegral film?

I applaud the intent of the producers because I thinkthat is what they were trying to do. But as FritjofCapra’s transformatively intended 1990 Mindwalk mayhave hampered itself with overemphasis on possiblyflawed eco-systems-science, What the BLEEP mayhamper itself by the appearance of suggesting that physics explains the consciousness, along withoveremphasis on an emotional-sexual stage oftransformation. As the film opens with the Big Bang, itdoes vault the mind out to cosmic and in tomicrocosmic realms, and that helps. But the really

important role of connecting micro-quantum tomacro-biology wasn’t developed. And the physics ofthe Big Bang or the physics of quantum theory, nomatter how radical, don’t themselves create thepsychospiritual transformation that is the door intothe garden. What the BLEEP is tugging on the wallthough, and it may help pave the way for more trulyintegral films to come. But then again, what the bleepdo I know? ▼

Article and book references available upon request.

Thomas G. Brophy, Ph.D.Thomas G. Brophy has worked with the NASA Voyager Project, theLaboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, and the JapaneseSpace Program, and has taught at The Colorado College, University ofColorado, and California Institute for Human Science where he wasalso Dean. His scientific articles have appeared in premier journalsincluding Icarus, IEEE journals, and Science. His work was alsoreported in Nature. Contact the author at [email protected].


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