Mindwalk

"We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results" - Herman Melville

In a recent experiment, physicist Alain Aspect discovered that subatomic particles can remain in communication with each other regardless of the distance between them, violating Einstein's theory that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light. Some scientists believe that these particles remain in contact because their separateness is an illusion and that all matter is infinitely connected at a deeper level of reality. This organic approach to Systems Theory and the interconnectedness of all living things is the subject of the film Mindwalk by Bernt Capra. Based on the book The Turning Point by Fritjof Capra (The Tao of Physics), the film is a 90-minute conversation between a scientist, a politician, and a poet, each having taken a step back from their profession to ponder the direction of their life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnBRfFetZx0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfUCqp66DDM

From Wikipedia:

Mindwalk is a 1990 feature film directed by Bernt Amadeus Capra, based on his own short story, based in turn on the book The Turning Point by his brother Fritjof Capra, the author of the book The Tao of Physics.

The majority of the movie is a conversation among three characters: a Norwegian scientist, Sonia Hoffman (played by Liv Ullmann), "the only woman in my department, the first in Norway doing quantum field theory"; an American politician and former presidential candidate, Jack Edwards (played by Sam Waterston); and poet Thomas Harriman (played by John Heard), a former political speechwriter, as they wander around Mont Saint Michel, France. The movie serves as an introduction to systems theory and systems thinking, while insights into modern physical theories such as quantum mechanics and particle physics are also given.

Political and social problems, and alternative solutions for them, are another major focus of the film. However, specific problems and solutions are not the main focus; rather, different perspectives are presented through which these problems can be viewed and considered. Sonia Hoffman's perspective is referred to as the holistic, or systems theory, perspective. Thomas Harriman, the poet, recites the poem "Enigmas" by Pablo Neruda (based on the translation by Robert Bly) at the end of the movie, concluding the core of the discussion.

The film was filmed on the mount, and thus has great views of many structures there, especially approach over the tidal flats, the cathedral, the walkways, and the giant and ancient clock mechanism.

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Has anyone here seen this film? If so, what did you think of it after watching it? To those who haven't already, I recommend this movie for watching- it's quite interesting and imho educational.

Thanks for mentioning this movie, Denis -- I haven't seen it, but I'd like to at some point now that I'm aware of it. I also liked this clip with a discussion about Descartes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=zO9HDvWt0dU

This reminds me of a book that I'm just finishing, Massimo Citro's The Basic Code of The Universe, which also discusses Alain Aspect's work. There are many points that it has in common with Lynne McTaggart's The Field, Michael Talbot's The Holographic Universe, and much of Rupert Sheldrake's work, and the major thrust of it reminds me of the part of Ark's Barcelona presentation where he discusses the 'extra' dimensions of information and organization:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=b3gnV09j3Vc#

So if you like this aspect of Systems Theory, you might enjoy it.

Thanks Shijing for sharing the video of Ark's Barcelona presentation, I haven't watched it yet but I certainly will when I find more spare time.

I think the movie Mindwalk has some really interesting dialogues among three (the ONLY three) main characters. At one point in the movie, Sonia the scientist is asked by the poet Thomas Harriman what is life and she answers that in the systems language the answer would be "the essence of life is self-organization". I won't reveal more so as not to kill the pleasure of watching the movie, but there are some things that I don't agree with in relation to Sonia's (Norwegian physicist in the movie) train of thought- mostly the part where she claims that every living organism has the potential for creativity. Psychopaths (similar to some bacteria and viruses) are highly adaptable to the environment they occupy, but they have zero potential for creativity- as far as I know, at least.

Excellent, thank you very much for starting this Denis.

"You, or I, we need a more comprehensive vision of the world, and we need a more comprehensive more inclusive SCIENCE to support us".

"Instead of concentrating on building blocks, the systems view concentrates on PRINCIPLES of organization."

"I" feel that Systems Theory, is part of the SCIENCE of the 'future."

Watching this brought to mind a quote, "Relationships are structures."

Watch the whole thing here: http://stagevu.com/video/eoypxvcvnrem
You will need to download divx if you don't have it.

bngenoh said:

Excellent, thank you very much for starting this Denis.

"You, or I, we need a more comprehensive vision of the world, and we need a more comprehensive more inclusive SCIENCE to support us".

"Instead of concentrating on building blocks, the systems view concentrates on PRINCIPLES of organization."

"I" feel that Systems Theory, is part of the SCIENCE of the 'future."

Watching this brought to mind a quote, "Relationships are structures."

Watch the whole thing here: http://stagevu.com/video/eoypxvcvnrem
You will need to download divx if you don't have it.

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Right, thank you bngenoh. Also, the whole movie can be watched on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8s0He0560g

I just watched this movie on youtube. Pretty good movie. Great ideas expressed in it. With just a couple of reservations about misinformation concerning man made global warming, red meat being the biggest cause of heart attacks (with no qualifications of how the meat is raised and slaughtered, etc.) the scientist, Sonia, really expressed some very profound ideas.

Thanks for the youtube link, Denis!

I found the movie to be excellent, thanks. Interesting questions and inspiring perspectives presented.

**Spoiler'ish**

Really enjoed how the poet outed the scientists inherent reductionism despite her appearant wholistic system theory, which exposed the ivory tower trap of intellectual types. Whereas the poet had his values in emotionality and being, he perhaps was sheltered from knowledge in the larger sense. As much as he (poet) wishes to be and sense the beauty of the goddess's dance, his citations left me thinking that he represents the perhaps usual stance of romantics, that nature or reality is too plentiful to know and build an accumulative picture of or even approach Truth. I think it did a good job of sketching for me an important balance that I mostly miss, between a reductionism in knowledge seeking and letting the infinite be infinite.

In the language of the movie, I felt my mind and the movie was interconnecting and facilitating a dance of my two lobes represented in the two characters. Of course the politician character was important for the dynamic too, making the power of 3 visible in different configurations.

Pablo Neruda's "Enigmas" said:

You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with his golden feet?
I reply, the ocean knows this.
You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent bell?
What is it waiting for?
I tell you it is waiting for time, like you.
You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?

Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know.
You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal,
and I reply by describing how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies.
You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers, which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides?
Or you've found in the cards a new question touching on the crystal architecture of the sea anemone, and you'll deal that to me now?
You want to understand the electric nature of the ocean spines?
The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks?
The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out in the deep places like a thread in the water?

I want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its
jewel boxes is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure,
and among the blood-colored grapes time has made the
petal hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light
and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall
from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl.

I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead
of human eyes, dead in those darknesses,
of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes
on the timid globe of an orange.

I walked around as you do, investigating
the endless star,
and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked,
the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.

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Denis said:

I won't reveal more so as not to kill the pleasure of watching the movie, but there are some things that I don't agree with in relation to Sonia's (Norwegian physicist in the movie) train of thought- mostly the part where she claims that every living organism has the potential for creativity. Psychopaths (similar to some bacteria and viruses) are highly adaptable to the environment they occupy, but they have zero potential for creativity- as far as I know, at least.

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Psychopaths create mayhem... and more psychopaths. Its what they do best.

Rabelais said:

Denis said:

I won't reveal more so as not to kill the pleasure of watching the movie, but there are some things that I don't agree with in relation to Sonia's (Norwegian physicist in the movie) train of thought- mostly the part where she claims that every living organism has the potential for creativity. Psychopaths (similar to some bacteria and viruses) are highly adaptable to the environment they occupy, but they have zero potential for creativity- as far as I know, at least.

Click to expand...

Psychopaths create mayhem... and more psychopaths. Its what they do best.

Click to expand...

By creativity, I believe the scientist Sonya (in the movie) meant the ability/phenomenon whereby a person creates something "new" that has some kind of value to everyone- for example the invention of the refrigerator, washing machine etc. Creating mayhem has no value to conscientious/empathetic beings, AFAIK...

SeekinTruth said:

I just watched this movie on youtube. Pretty good movie. Great ideas expressed in it. With just a couple of reservations about misinformation concerning man made global warming, red meat being the biggest cause of heart attacks (with no qualifications of how the meat is raised and slaughtered, etc.) the scientist, Sonia, really expressed some very profound ideas.

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Second that SeekinTruth, you said what "I" was about to post. Overall, her ideas were amazingm and were just what "I" needed to understand my questionings.

parallel said:

Really enjoed how the poet outed the scientists inherent reductionism despite her appearant wholistic system theory, which exposed the ivory tower trap of intellectual types. Whereas the poet had his values in emotionality and being, he perhaps was sheltered from knowledge in the larger sense. As much as he (poet) wishes to be and sense the beauty of the goddess's dance, his citations left me thinking that he represents the perhaps usual stance of romantics, that nature or reality is too plentiful to know and build an accumulative picture of or even approach Truth. I think it did a good job of sketching for me an important balance that I mostly miss, between a reductionism in knowledge seeking and letting the infinite be infinite.

In the language of the movie, I felt my mind and the movie was interconnecting and facilitating a dance of my two lobes represented in the two characters. Of course the politician character was important for the dynamic too, making the power of 3 visible in different configurations.

Click to expand...

Yeah parallel, the 3 dynamic was really perfect to express what was being presented in the movie. The poet was just amazing throughout, especially at the end, when he says " where are the other people in your systems Sonya, with all their faults." That really touched me and brought it home. It also reemphasized to me that SEEING our world as it is, and pointing out the problems and possible solutions is not enough, we must ACT, that is DO, or nothing will change.

The politician added a very critical ingredient to the mix, and the dynamic would not have worked with out him. He functioned as a sometimes naive child, which really spoke to me because "I" act that way too sometimes. He was a politician who actually understood the role of the politician in society "Politics is the art of getting people to agree on a certain course of action" & "the politics of the impossible." The movie also showed that people like this absolutely cannot survive within the system of politics as it exists.

It is just as Sonya said "We must change everything simultaneously" (The Wave anyone) if we are to have any hope of survival as a species.

Rabelais said:

Denis said:

I won't reveal more so as not to kill the pleasure of watching the movie, but there are some things that I don't agree with in relation to Sonia's (Norwegian physicist in the movie) train of thought- mostly the part where she claims that every living organism has the potential for creativity. Psychopaths (similar to some bacteria and viruses) are highly adaptable to the environment they occupy, but they have zero potential for creativity- as far as I know, at least.

Click to expand...

Psychopaths create mayhem... and more psychopaths. Its what they do best.

Click to expand...

Whose to say that mayhem is not what Consciousness needs in order to create what "before" the mayhem lied only in the realm of probabilities and possibilities. They also have a purpose from a higher point of view "I" think, though they themselves do not know that. "I" think that their purpose is something like this: to give Humanity's individual and collective Consciousness such a shock, that it will awaken en masse (Wave again anyone) in response to such a pathogen invading it, and progressing uninhibited for so long. With this awakening, a simultaneous immunity will be established so that this never happens again. But just my thoughts on this matter FWIW.

Denis said:

Rabelais said:

Denis said:

I won't reveal more so as not to kill the pleasure of watching the movie, but there are some things that I don't agree with in relation to Sonia's (Norwegian physicist in the movie) train of thought- mostly the part where she claims that every living organism has the potential for creativity. Psychopaths (similar to some bacteria and viruses) are highly adaptable to the environment they occupy, but they have zero potential for creativity- as far as I know, at least.

Click to expand...

Psychopaths create mayhem... and more psychopaths. Its what they do best.

Click to expand...

By creativity, I believe the scientist Sonya (in the movie) meant the ability/phenomenon whereby a person creates something "new" that has some kind of value to everyone- for example the invention of the refrigerator, washing machine etc. Creating mayhem has no value to conscientious/empathetic beings, AFAIK...

Click to expand...

Interesting that u mentioned a value to everyone, but what that everyone means? For example invention of refrigerator has contributed to diminishing of our ozone layer since invention the better part of its time cooling units have used freon as substance which is known to have devastating effect on ozone molecules. So if u define creativity as ideas that have value to everyone the question arises what are those everyone?
If you count only one species than that is not everyone, not by far, maybe putted as "everyone" has more cling to it.

Another thing that you mentioned is "but they have zero potential for creativity". I don't know are bacteria and viruses creative but, again if you define creativity as something that has value to "everyone" we come across several bacterias and viruses without who our bodies wouldn't function properly so we share symbiotic relationship. Namely comparisons show that mitochondria could be descendent from bacteria more so the alpha-proteobacteria. Also e. coli produces vitamin K, but excess of that bacteria can be very harmful, furthermore syncytin 1 and 2 a protein that helps by its source is not human from gene at all but as all data points out could be from one of the viruses.

So if we take creativity as something that has value to everyone we would very fast establish that something like that is rare but if u take it as something that has value to "everyone" than you can find large number of examples of that, a man of generosity builds home for homeless but doesn't pay attention to the other species that have lived on places where now houses lie or did he cut down forest for that and so on...

But than again in relation to whole planet maybe that "everyone" is the whole and everyone as bngenoh pointed in here:

"Whose to say that mayhem is not what Consciousness needs in order to create what "before" the mayhem lied only in the realm of probabilities and possibilities. They also have a purpose from a higher point of view "I" think, though they themselves do not know that. "I" think that their purpose is something like this: to give Humanity's individual and collective Consciousness such a shock, that it will awaken en masse (Wave again anyone) in response to such a pathogen invading it, and progressing uninhibited for so long. With this awakening, a simultaneous immunity will be established so that this never happens again. But just my thoughts on this matter FWIW."

When I watched move this was the one of the lines that bugged me. I mean what those everyone means. Since we had seen how our "creative" ideas have done for some of that everyone. Seems to me that when we have something like this in mind we often forget thing that relate to it. So if we are going to have something as creative in real sense than we must know what goes under that everyone but Sonia did mentioned something else that could relate and explained her point of view. Namely she mentioned in relation to everything else so that relation thing could bring into perspective all that EVERYONE, but than again how much we know in relation to that we so we could say, we are creative species...

ShadowSelf said:

Interesting that u mentioned a value to everyone, but what that everyone means? For example invention of refrigerator has contributed to diminishing of our ozone layer since invention the better part of its time cooling units have used freon as substance which is known to have devastating effect on ozone molecules. So if u define creativity as ideas that have value to everyone the question arises what are those everyone?
If you count only one species than that is not everyone, not by far, maybe putted as "everyone" has more cling to it.

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Hey ShadowSelf (sooo, you've changed your forum name)! :)

Euhm... yup. Now that you've brought this to my attention, my definition of "everyone" as I posted it here before, was totally anthropocentric as I have ignored and left out all other species besides us, humans. Thank you for correcting me and reminding me to pay more attention to my wording. Obviously, I still have so much to learn.

Yeah I changed it hehe.

I'm still bugged when people say everyone and I do have habit to ask what they mean by that everyone, sure to say many different answers were given. In the whole of my internet research so far i did not came across any site that has took that everyone into account for what it means except this site when we talk about hole system. That is the reason i keep coming back to this site. And as far as learning goes, you are not alone in that one for sure, I know I am there...

ShadowSelf said:

I'm still bugged when people say everyone and I do have habit to ask what they mean by that everyone, sure to say many different answers were given.

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IMO, it is good that you have developed the habit to ask when something is not clear to you, and it is possible that you expose someone's subjective blind spots (in this case my) that were not obvious to the person at first. This is why objective networking is important and beneficial, we can both learn and correct our statements/assumptions/conclusions from each other. Question everything, this includes "your" thoughts, feelings and emotions- it's how we learn more, about ourselves and the world, IMHO.

ShadowSelf said:

In the whole of my internet research so far i did not came across any site that has took that everyone into account for what it means except this site when we talk about hole system. That is the reason i keep coming back to this site. And as far as learning goes, you are not alone in that one for sure, I know I am there...

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Same here. That is why I am still here. This forum and the network of people is a priceless gem to me, great platform for learning and soul growth.
No words could express my sincere gratitude for the Work that is being done here on a daily basis (such a vast repository of knowledge!), it is providing me with the much needed help on my own path. And so, the Quest for Knowledge and Truth continues... ;)

Oh, I forgot to ask: have you enjoyed watching the movie? What is your impression of it?

Denis said:

Oh, I forgot to ask: have you enjoyed watching the movie? What is your impression of it?

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Yes, I did enjoyed watching it. As far impression goes it was interesting combination of that three. Sonia had hers arguments, Edwards too but character that had really my attention was the poet. Through whole movie he is like voice of philosopher who is some reason in debate of scientist and politician. And in the end of the move from song by Pablo he had quoted was the moment that left biggest impression on me when he questions both of them and thanks them for helping him in his healing "Healing of the universe is an inside job".

To me that "universe" reflects what we have done on this planet an our lack of responsibility and so on. He for me sums it up in that one sentence "I feel just as reduced being called a system as I do being called a clock." In book The Secret History of The World proposal is made to take best from science and mysticism and try that approach. And I thing that those two come nice hand in hand. But Sonia did had point in that long time ago was clock, now is system perhaps in future it will be that what Thomas has talked about, its progress I guess, but personally cant free of feeling that someone is trying to steer our species, great deal of that is exactly discussed in Laura's book I mentioned...

Anyway its for sure one of movies that I can watch many times over.