Bleep Do We Know! Written

¶ … bleep do we know! written by William Arntz and Betsy Chasse. Specifically, it will contain a review and reaction to the film. I watched this film in my home on April 24 in the evening; I viewed a copy of the DVD with my family. We watched it in one sitting, without stopping the DVD. What the bleep do we know! is a documentary-style film that covers everything from string theory to a Polish wedding, so it is a bit hard to pin down for the average viewer.

It is part documentary with fourteen scientists interviewed throughout the film, discussing string theory, reality, and quantum physics in detail, along with a story about a fictional woman named Amanda (played by Marlee Maitlin) struggling to come to grips with her own realities in life. The film also includes animation to help introduce certain concepts, (such as going inside a human cell), so it is difficult to categorize and even discuss this movie.

It is so different and so unique that it might seem like a cop-out, but you really need to see it for yourself to really "get" this movie. This is probably one of the most interesting and yet perplexing films I have ever encountered, and I am not really sure what to think about it.

Several aspects of this film opened up new truths for me, including the thoughts that many of the interviewees had about alternate realities where a person might be able to see themselves in many different forms. Another was that people repeatedly reconstruct the same reality in their lives. For example, they take the same kind of jobs, they engage in the same types of relationships, etc., instead of taking control and changing their lives in meaningful ways.

These are very powerful ideas, and they help me and others see the world and how we fit in it in infinitely different ways. This is an innovative way of looking at the world around us and what we see, but most of all, it is a new way of looking at how we react to what we see, and what choices we make about that view of the world.

Frankly, I'm not really sure what I thought about these things before, but I can plainly see now there are many alternative ways of viewing things, no matter how much you think you might "know" about them. I think watching this film will help me I try to look at things more candidly and with an open mind, rather than just accepting that I'm seeing what I'm really seeing.

I think I will question thinks more I think that this film made me think about how we think about and view the world around us, and we take if for granted a lot of the time, when there are really miracles and wonders out there all the time. Comparing this film to what has come before is like comparing apples and oranges. They're both fruit, and that's about it.

Nothing like this film has ever come along before, and that is one of the things that makes it so special. It started at one theater in Washington State, and has become a worldwide phenomenon, so people have shown a great interest in this film from the very start, and they have talked about it and created so much of a buzz that it has spread to books, lectures, and even music CDs. Skeptics would probably view this film quite differently than someone with a more open mind.

The most skeptical part of this film occurred when the mathematicians were discussing quantum physics and how in reality, nothing is as it seems. Everyone recreates their own "reality" according to conformity combined with their own experience. For example, they discussed how the first Native Americans to see Christopher Columbus' ships could note "see" them because they had never seen anything like this before, and so they did not have the experience something like this could possibly exist. The skeptic inside me did not believe that.

These ships were real, they were there, and they existed. There is no way they could be "invisible" because the Natives had never seen anything like them before. They might not have the experience to understand what they were seeing, and they might have been afraid of them because they did not understand, but it just does not connect that because they had no experience, they could not see ships bobbing on the ocean in front of them.

I've never "seen" a million dollars, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. A couple of the other physics concepts can be difficult to comprehend, as well. For example, one concept is that things can exist in more than one space at a time, but people do not choose to see them, and so, when they look at them they disappear. This section of the film might turn away a lot of viewers, because much of the discussion may be over their heads and the might find it boring.

These ideas are some of the most "out there" of the film, and the hardest for the mathematicians to really get across. The talk of what is real and what a person sees vs. what they remember was understandable, but many of the other concepts may just be too odd for people to wrap their heads around. For example, the atom discussion on how nothing is solid, even though it appears solid, could be hard for people to take, too.

Wise people say that it is true, but for most people, if you hit a cement block with your hand, your experience is that it's solid enough to break your hand, and they will believe that experience more than the mathematicians. These are concepts that bear study and discussion, but for many people, they need "concrete" evidence (pun intended), and this film is more about the esoteric than the concrete Honestly, I did not have a picture of understanding this film before I watched it.

I heard about it, wanted to see it, and watched it. After the activity, I think I have a clearer opinion about some aspects of the film, and in other ways it muddied the waters for me. The mathematicians were the hardest part for me to comprehend, and somehow the storyline got complicated for me, but I do think that watching it gave me a more open mind, and I don't think I will ever look at "reality" in quite the same way.

Watching this film really does change your reality, and how you view the world, which is of course what the filmmakers were attempting to do. It is truly a unique and visionary film, and although I would not watch it often, I will probably watch it again, just not for a while. Is this film worthwhile? Yes, it is, if only for the fact that it sets your mind in motion and gets people talking.

I heard about the film from someone who had seen it, and it certainly got my family talking. My kids asked a lot.