Religion, SF, and Other Speculative Fictions.


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What the &*%$ do we know?

Posted by John on December 15th, 2004 at 10:56 pm · 2 Comments

Just got back from the documentary movie What the &*%$ do we know?. Jana and I were attracted to it because it covered quantum mechanics, and our family likes watching shows like Nova, Cosmos, and BBC specials on science. If you plan on seeing it, let me say this about it: it is less a movie about science and more a movie about non-traditional (new age) spirituality. I don’t really buy the (pseudo-) scientific connection between quantum mechanics and the spirit, but I suspect that the scientists and doctors interviewed for this documentary read quantum physics like a text and find similar metaphors that Christians find in the Bible, and that others get from their sacred writings.

For anti-religious but highly spiritual people who aren’t fierce skeptics/cynics (like me), by al means, go see this movie. Otherwise, I suggest waiting for the rental.

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Tags: Doubt

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 jam // Dec 30, 2004 at 5:39 am

    i love your blog. i really enjoyed reading some of your entries.

    if you’re an atheist posing as a devout mormon, i am an existential a/theist (depending on the time of day) who’s trying hard to find buddhism in my catholic faith. yeah i know, it confuses me too.

    a book sugestion: the dance of the dissident daughter. it started my journey into feminist (actually i prefer feminine) spirituality.

    thanks.

    a fellow insomniac

  • 2 Nam Hoang // Jan 10, 2005 at 12:58 am

    I think you’d be intersted in this, it’s a documentary on string theory that was playing on PBS but they have the whole segment available online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/ I thought it was pretty cool especially since physics is so greatly aided when you can visualize these things that generally hard to comprehend. I tried to read Green’s book “The Elegant Universe but it was hard to understand, but now I’m reading his book “Fabric of the Cosmos” which is an awesome book. It’s like Hawkings “A brief history of time” but with wit and humor to keep things interesting. How often do you get to visualize partical wave duality using The Simpsons as an example.

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