Is the universe deterministic, or random? Not the first question you'd expect to hear in a thriller, even a great one. But to hear this question posed soon after the opening sequence of "Knowing" gave me a particular thrill. Nicolas Cage plays Koestler, a professor of astrophysics at MIT, and as he toys with a model of the solar system, he asks that question of his students. Deterministic means that if you have a complete understanding of the laws of physics, you can predict with certainty everything that will happen after (for example) the universe is created in the Big Bang. Random means you can't predict anything. "What do you think?" a student asks Koestler, who says, "I think...shit just happens."
He is soon given reason to doubt his confidence. (From this point on, there are spoilers.) "Knowing" begins 50 years ago with a classroom assignment; grade school children are asked to draw pictures of what the world will look like in the future. Most draw rocket ships. Lucinda covers her page with row after row of deeply-etched numbers. All the pages are buried in a time capsule, and when the future comes around, Lucinda's sealed envelope ends in the hands of Caleb, Koestler's young son.
The page seems meaningless, a work of madness. But by chance Koestler notices these numbers in a row: 91120013239. Koestler sees 9/11/2001, and when he googles 9/11 he finds that 2996 people were killed. The numbers were written down in 1959. In a fever, the scientist extracts other numbers and finds the precise dates and fatalities of major catastrophes during the previous five decades.
Koestler and the music of the spheres
How can this be? By now Koestler is in the state of mind that Nicolas Cage evokes so perfectly: Profound, heartsick worry. He turns to his MIT colleague, a cosmologist named Beckman (Ben Mendelsohn). Beckman thinks he must be mad, and warns against the superstition of numerology. But when recent numbers turn out to be correct predictions, and when Koestler realizes that some of the numbers are coordinates of latitude and longitude, it is impossible to dismiss the sheet of paper. It poses a threat to our very understanding of the universe. Shit doesn't just happen.
As I watched these scenes, I became aware of synchronicity in my own life. It happens that I am still immersed in the never-ending debate about Evolution vs. Intelligent Design on my Ben Stein blog entry (currently 1,530 comments and counting). Only a day or two earlier, a reader named Randy Masters asked me what, in my mind, would constitute proof of intelligent design. Fair question. I replied: "I wouldn't expect the Big Banger to manifest in the skies like the Four Horsemen or anything. I would expect him to enlighten scientists so they would learn how to find evidence of his working."
Now, in this movie, a secularist scientist is apparently being furnished with such enlightenment--for how else to explain the numbers? There must be a Design. We learn Koestler is long estranged from his father, a clergyman who serenely believes he will be in heaven with his wife. Aren't these numbers evidence of a higher power? More importantly, what do they mean for the lives of Koestler and Caleb? And for Diana (Rose Byrne), the daughter of Lucinda, and Abby, the granddaughter (Lara Robinson)? Koestler has tracked them down with feverish intensity.
"Knowing" is a superbly crafted thriller in any event, but that it brings basic philosophical questions into view was more than I could have hoped for. The film is by Alex Proyas, whose "Dark City" (1998) was also about the hidden nature of the world men think they inhabit. "Knowing," which could not be a more different film, seems to reveal a similar secret.In that film, the hero discovered the occult powers by which an alien race controls the world of men. In Proyas's "I, Robot" (2004), a robot, whose programming is rigidly deterministic, evolves to the point where it is able to ask, "What am I?"--which of course leads to a discovery of the true nature of the world it inhabits.
Of course it isn't that simple. The professor offered a false choice to his class. No one thinks the universe is random, except possibly at a quantum level, and let's not go there. Gravity doesn't randomly switch off. Light doesn't randomly alter its speed. The classical philosophical choice is between determinism and free will. Is the future already predestined, or do we have a role in the outcome? Can lower orders like dogs have degrees of free will? Is it already written when the dog will bark, or is it only strongly suggested by its instincts?
The numbers on Lucinda's page are rigidly deterministic: On this date, in this place, these many people will die, and there is nothing to be done--a fact illustrated when Koestler tries to prevent a subway tragedy, and fails spectacularly. From this I believe supporters of Intelligent Design will take comfort; it appears that Koestler has been given the sort of proof I requested.
These numbers are not random
But it's not quite that simple. For one thing, how do you conveniently get an exact count on a death toll via a cable news flash? It often takes days to find bodies (after an earthquake, for example), and some victims may linger for weeks. And were the numbers dictated by a supernatural power, or by a higher order of natural power? That leads directly to a question at the end of the film.
As you know, there have been appearances all though "Knowing" of mysterious figures standing at a distance. Men in overcoats, alone or in groups of four, regarding the children who can hear them "whispering" in their ears. At the climax, these figures manifest at the site of the house trailer Lucinda lived in as an adult. At first they seem to be human, but then they divest themselves of human appearance and become glowing, transparent, figures of energy and nerves. They beckon Caleb and Abby to follow them as they enter a shimmering vessel that seems to vaguely suggest a geodesic dome or elements of the Martian crystal structure in "Watchmen."
The vessel takes off, and we see that it is joined by other vessels from all over the globe. Then the sunburst takes place, and the special effects are merciless as the firestorm rips across the planet. The two children are deposited by the vessel in a sun-washed wheat field, join hands, and run toward the only tree on the horizon. A new Adam and Eve in a new Garden of Paradise?
At the moment the mysterious figures cast away their humanity, I fully expected them to sprout wings and manifest as angels, etc. But no. They seem to belong to the natural world, in a form we cannot imagine. The fact that their vessels take off from earth and physically move through space seems to indicate they are meant to be real, no matter what worm hole they may use to arrive at the new planet. (Or do they travel back through time, and start the process on earth all over again?)
If we assume the aliens are real in some tangible sense, how did they produce the numbers? Is Lucinda's sheet of paper proof that the universe is deterministic, and that the aliens simply possess the intelligence and information to predict the future, as in theory they could? And if so, isn't their existence a refutation of the existence of God? Strict determinism implies an absence of free will, and free will is a necessary component of all spiritual belief systems.
In this scenario, the aliens would have known they would dictate the numbers to Lucinda, that Caleb would be given them, that Koestler would have behaved exactly as he did, and that the outcome would have been exactly as it was. No suspense for them. And the aliens and all of their actions would have been foreordained from the instant of the creation of the universe. That leaves the possibility that a higher power created the universe, but denies that power any role in its subsequent behavior.
My guess is that many audience members will experience the film as an affirmation of religious belief. Few will bother to think through the implications, which seem to make religion irrelevant--except as a comfort to those like Koestler's clergyman father.
All of my considerations are probably irrelevant to enjoyment of the film. But the film inspired me to think in these ways, and not many films do. It was exciting while watching "Knowing," and while trying to puzzle it out. Just on the fundamental level of a movie-going experience, I think Proyas's film is a great entertainment, one of those Bruised Forearm Movies where you're always grabbing the friend next to you. Nicolas Cage, a remarkably versatile actor, embodies the role. He internalizes doubt and fear, until they gnaw at his character. He plays a man of action always fearful of inadequacy, a hero by the seat of his pants. The young actors Chandler Canterbury and Lara Robinson (who plays both little girls) are uncommonly good at projecting deep solemnity, not easy for children. "Knowing," as I sometimes like to say, is what going to the movies is all about.
¶
Footnote: The names of the characters inspire some associations.
Koestler. For Arthur Koestler (left), of course. After writing such novels as Darkness at Noon, Wikipedia notes, "mysticism and a fascination with the paranormal imbued much of his later work." His The Roots of Coincidence is "an overview of the scientific research around telepathy and psychokinesis and compares it with the advances in quantum physics at that time."
Lucinda Embry. "Lucinda," to quote from thinkbabynames.com, "is based on Lucine, the Roman goddess of childbirth, giver of first light to the newborn." Her surname "Embry" needs only one more vowel.
Caleb. Is of Hebrew origin, and its meaning is "dog." In the Bible, "Caleb, a companion of Moses and Joshua, was noted for his astute powers of observation and fearlessness in the face of overwhelming odds." And, "dog" spelled backwards is...
¶
Why critics hate "Knowing": Do wings have angels?
¶Philosopher David Sosa on determinism and free will
¶
Alan Watts on freedom from determinism
¶
Daniel C. Dennett on free will and determinism
¶
I have no intention of seeing this movie, but what you describe about its ending reminds me of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".
As though rather than a sheet filled with numbers, it might as well read "42".
4 stars, holy crap!
I expected this to just be another crappy recent Nic Cage movie, sounds awesome now!
Interesting points all. Here's another possibility.
Perhaps the aliens are able to view, experience and interact with time in a non-linear fashion. That would give them what would appear to be omniscience. And maybe Lucinda was able, for a moment, to have that kind of ability as well. Or the aliens were able to provide her with the knowledge.
And it would preserve free will as well. Although the aliens could view the future results of past events and have knowledge of them, those results would have come about as the result of the free will of humans who experience time in a linear fashion.
I think determinism v. free will comes down to a matter of perspective. For us to be handed a sheet like that where disasters are predicted with unerring accuracy, it sure looks like determinism rules the day. But that's because we cannot perceive time in any other fashion.
Ebert: Do the aliens have free will? Does free will mean anything if they experience time in a non-linear fashion? Don't ask me.
I'm curious to know what you made of the film's look. It's a typically-great effort by Proyas, but one scene in particular jumped out at me, the [mild spoiler] plane crash sequence (which I didn't realize until afterward was done in a single shot). I think the shot holds up against other classics in the long shot genre ('Touch of Evil,' 'Children of Men,' etc.), all the moreso because of its impact on the viewer: it's one thing to show the horrific consequences of the crash, it's another entirely to immerse the viewer so totally in the tragedy by way of removing cuts. (Proyas himself talked about the shot some over at /Film earlier this week.) Thoughts on the impact of that shot in particular, or the look of the movie more generally?
Ebert: I thought it was stunning. The timing after the look of horror on the cop's face drove the thought of effects out of my mind, and it seemed very much like what one might actually experience.
With the subway crash, on the other hand, there were obviously special effects, but done well. With both that and the advancing global line of fire, and velocity seemed higher than in some f/x of catastrophes.
I read a fascinating book (though finding the title and author now that my notes are lost....sigh) that suggested that, by framing the debate as "free will 'versus' determinism," the phrasing of the question itself leads to an erroneous conclusion no matter how it is answered!
"Free will" operates at the level of the individual (will I press submit when I finish writing this entry, or will I edit it some more first?); "determinism" operates at the level of society. Since they operate on different levels, they are not mutually exclusive; each can be valid in its own area without necessarily negating the other.
One interesting example is life insurance actuarial tables (don't tune out yet...). In the short run, we each have choices in our life; yet aggregated together, the number of people who die in a year generally falls within a predictable range. But wait! actuarial tables do evolve over time, the one from 1956 was updated in 1980 and that one was updated again in 2001. Over time as people collectively make better choices about their health, the "deterministic" tables do show a gradual lengthening of life expectancy (the 1980 table went to age 100; the 2001 table goes to age 120).
In this model, the aggregation of individual free will changes the deterministic outcome for society. Thre are similar examples in economics and in politics (and hopefully in environmental science as well!) in which there is a dynamic interplay between these two concepts in actual operation.
As far as the other matters, the idea of beings who inhabit a world with more dimensions than we can access directly through our senses is pretty well developed in geometry (check out the classic book Flatland for an enjoyable and mind-blowing read), science, and of course science fiction.
Sounds like a great movie. Thanks for sharing your enthusiasm.
I haven't seen the film yet, so I only read the beginning of your article until the spoiler warning and skimmed the rest, but it's actually piqued my interest in the movie. The marketing didn't really do it any justice.
Wow Mr. Ebert, this whole time I thought you were a relativist. After seeing your review of Know1ng and reading this blog I'm glad to see I have been overlooking your true philosophy.
Ebert: I'm not sure I know what that makes me.
"And if so, isn't their existence a refutation of the existence of God?"
What if God is simply a being we call an alien?
Ebert: What if an alien is simply a being we call God?"
Those familiar with the biography of Einstein know that he long struggled with the idea that, at the quantum level, the universe is probabilistic. In a sense, one could consider the entire second half of his career a long discussion with those who subscribed to the Copenhagen Interpretation (Niels Bohr, in particular) of quantum physics, which holds that quantum entities exist in an indeterminate state until one gets around to measuring them. In this interpretation of the world, there is a probability (albeit a very, very, very small one) that, say, an electron that you just caused to be emitted from a charged plate could found to be over by Saturn or it could be at the other end of your laboratory when you get around to measuring its position a fraction of a second later.
Einstein could not bring himself to accept the idea that a particle could be an indeterminate "blur of possibility." Instead, he held out hope that, at some deeper level, there might be some "hidden variables" at play that just made it look that way.
Alas, the very challenge that he posed to the Copenhagen Interpretation- in a paper authored by Rosen and Podolsky- became the basis for one of the most incredible not-widely-known experiments ever- John Bell's test of what was known as the EPR Paradox.
Amongst other things Bell showed that, indeed, particles do NOT have a "hidden" state before we measure them. Instead, he showed that the measuring process forces a particle to adopt one state from the infinite possibilities it has. Moreover, if two particles are "entangled"- that is, the state of one determines the state of the other- the forcing of one of the two into a given state, instantaneously causes the other to settle on the right state that the other one (which hadn't made up its mind what to be until the measurement forced it to) dictates.
In other words, if I create a pair of particles such that one always has, say, the opposite charge of the other- but neither one settles on a given charge until I measure it- the simple act of measuring one forces the other to assume the opposite charge. Einstein thought this absurd, but Bell showed it to be exactly what happens.
In other words, as best as science can tell, the universe is NOT deterministic.
Kinda' makes one's head spin.
Ebert: It may make your head spin. It ,makes mine explode.
There is quick parallel that can be drawn between this blog and the one about Watchmen. Remember you provided link that explained the nature of the atom.
Remember also that in these videos we learn that the position of any electron at any given moment cannot be known. We can kinda guess where it is but not where it will be...or something like that, I'm only going on memory here.
So if we can't be sure about electrons, which is at the core of everything in this universe, doesn't the debate about free will and determinism becomes completely irrelevant...
Ebert: But not to us. To us, the electron is irrelevant.
Incidentally, Waking Life is one of my favorite movies. I disagree, however, with David Sosa's preference for the "gears" of determinism over the "randomness" of Quantum Mechanics. This is because while the randomness, deep down, is confusing and uncertain, in aggregate (in the macroscopic world) it produces a mostly predictable world. I know that if I drop a ball, it will almost certainly fall- despite the fact that there is a very, very, very, very, very, very, very (etc,.) remote chance that all of its atoms materialize in the dresser drawer of Richard Linklatter. That is, while such a thing is (technically) possible, it is so unlikely that to consider it would be an absurdity.
Thus, the randomness doesn't bother me too much. I consider the randomness which percolates up to our awareness, a tiny bit of grit in the gears of our deterministic world that makes the machine behave in a slightly unpredictable- that is "individual"- way. It's the thing that makes us NOT cogs in a machine. Beholden to the wiles of the universe, yes, but not entirely predictable.
This reads very much like a Great Movies article. Which means I'm going to have to go see it just as soon as "Exotica" arrives on my netflix.
Having not yet see the film, I can only tell you this: Alex Proyas is on my list of directors to emerge in the last decade or so whose new films I await in great anticipation. Even his biggest failure, "I, Robot," was interesting on a superficial level. "The Crow" was a visual masterpiece, and "Dark City" is just about the greatest work of science fiction since Kubrick gave us "2001." I'm delighted to hear that "Knowing" is a worthy follow-up. Proyas has established himself as one of our treasures.
Arguably, God(s) and religion are human constructs, subconsciously construed so that the uncertainties and uncontrollably events that occur become more endurable.
Karen Armstrong's A Short History of Myth is a tacit briefing about the evolution of spiritual beliefs and practices, stemming all the way back from nomadic hunting rituals to the Crusades to modern day religious conflict; unsurprisingly, the book has brewed some controversy, but the most intriguing argument Armstrong presents is that religion changes and evolves to accommodate the specific society's (or group of people) social and environmental needs. For instance, Islam evolved in the harsh desert, and consequently strict rituals became necessarily to maintain a level of communal harmony within an unforgiving environment; anything otherwise could potentially result in unnecessary internal conflict that would only compound to problems from the severe external backdrop. When the stakes are down and everything seems to be going straight to hell, it's comforting to believe in something, anything, than to feel utterly alone and victimized. That said belief can be anything from religion to the Beatles and whatnot.
So perhaps it isn't so much a question of determination or random, but more of a question of how much we truly come to understand ourselves and the surrounding world and how well we come to terms with our lack of understanding and control of everything else – at least, on a human level. Like you said, everything cannot be completely random – oxygen and carbon dioxide levels are relatively stable since I am still breathing easily while typing this – but at the same time, it is perhaps human folly that we only understand a minute fraction of how the universe truly operates. The second question comes to bear: are we simply predetermined or is there a level of free-will?
I'd argue that it's a mutant child of both, that one's sense of free-will affects another's, and vice versa – that for every action there is consequence, micro- or macroscopic, seen or unseen. Shit happens, and we all have to deal with it one or another. How we deal with it is our personal choice, action and consequence.
Though I haven't seen this movie, your article reminded me of the novel "The Light of Other Days" by Aurthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. Instead of being able to predict the future, the characters find a way to look into the past. The novel brings up very different issues than this film about our place in the universe and how a person's sprituality can be tested by knowing things that were once thought unknowable. I only mention it because it is also a great thriller that works even if you don't think about the questions it raises-proof that a good storyteller can deal with profound issues without boring people. Same with, say, 'Rear Window' where I think you wrote that "what was once thought to be entertainment is today revealed as art". That's often the case with great fiction.
DearER,
I find you have started extending the film criticism to an area of unlimited space, and vision.
If the review of "Knowing" and your journal is read one after other, it gives rise to a third, mutually exclusive unwritten yet intended spectrum of thoughts. These thoughts lead to a question: what ultimately is a great movie's moto? Only elevation? Only timelessness? Or a combination of all inert feelings and visions where homosapians can reach. Are you aware of the "third" elevated world your "review"s and "blog"s are leading to? I am mesmerised !
It may be interesting to note here that the intersection of determinism and randomness is chaos (as in "chaos theory", aka "the butterfly effect").
As for me, I choose to believe in free will. Self-fulfilling or predestined, either way it is at least logical. I can't very well CHOOSE to believe in determinism, can I.
Ebert: With free will, you can.
My own opinion: If I don't have free will, you could have fooled me.
From above:
What if God is simply a being we call an alien?
Ebert: What if an alien is simply a being we call God?"
Then in neither case would we have a being worthy of worship and adoration. Which is all that I - as an atheist - need worry about. ;-)
Ebert: The alien might eat you.
I'm also reminded of Asimov's Foundation novels, which feature the made-up but completely plausible science of psychohistory, "which equates all possibilities in large societies to mathematics, allowing predictable long term outcomes" (from the good people at Wikipedia).
In a nutshell, at civilization's collapse, the father of psychohistory, Hari Seldon, creates an isolated colony on the edge of the galaxy and is able, through mastery of psychohistory, to mathematically predict crises facing the colony far into the future. He leaves the colony time-triggered messages that intervene into each crisis and allow the colonists to survive and perpetuate and preserve the combined efforts of human achievement, eventually becoming a galactic empire itself. One of the primary points, is that the colonists are chosen and stacked with scientific experts, but no psychohistorians are included. It seems that knowledge of predicted events can prevent their fruition....at least in these stories.
By Anonymous on March 19, 2009 12:08 PM
4 stars, holy crap!
I expected this to just be another crappy recent Nic Cage movie, sounds awesome now!
ditto
i think its kind of arrogant tho, that of all the planets in the universe that aliens would take time to warn us
unless the aliens are the life that dr manhattan created
The world of humans is in constant flux, that's what makes life interesting. The urge to "know" is better than the "knowing", to ride off into the sunset, seeking new horizons, now that's a good movie.
How would you feel pardner if you ever reached the real end?
Ebert: I'm not sure I would know.
This journal entry and each of the youtube discussions are fantastic fun, fun, fun. My brain is bubbling. The serpent just winked at me.(Alan Watts - youtube) And I am now proud of my skill as an avoider of catastrophe (Dennett - youtube). Dennett observed that we don't have a good parallel verb, on the positive side, for "an avoider" used in the evolutionary sense of survival. The closest we have is "an enhancer" which is not used in situations of survival.(I am assuming some of his meaning as he speaks in a shorthand) I wonder if one of Roger's journal readers from across the globe might be intimate enough with a language, dead or alive, that does use "enhance" as a verb of survival and in a parallel role to "avoid" and share that knowledge here.
Can't wait to see this film
ps. latest FARK headline "Hamas threatens Shalit; Ebert, Roeper moved to undisclosed, secure location"
Strict determinism implies an absence of free will, and free will is a necessary component of all spiritual belief systems.......But not to us. To us, the electron is irrelevant.
Gravity is deterministic and electrons aren't...but as you rightly,electrons are irrelevant and to quote Albert Camus:
Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories - comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer the fundamental question. If I ask myself how to judge that this question is more urgent than that, I reply that one judges by the actions it entails. I have never seen anyone die for the ontological argument. Galileo, who held a scientific truth of great importance, abjured it with the greatest ease as soon as it endangered his life. In a certain sense, he did right (That is, from the point of view of the relative value of truth. On the other hand, from the point of view of virile behavior, this scholar's fragility may well make us smile.). The truth was not worth the stake. Whether the earth or the sun revolves around the other is a matter of profound indifference. To tell the truth, it is a futile question. On the other hand, I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living.
More important than whether or not our lives(forget those electrons)are predetermined is what belief we hold in the depth of our life. Even if free will exists the person who disbelieves in it would not be free. And conversely.
I strongly believe in determinism of the kind which says that we have vast power to determine our future and of the environment we occupy.
Otherwise we are like the two characters in Persona, a spiritual wasteland encompassed by a magnificent roaring sea.
I read an excerpt from a book recently (I regret to have forgotten the title and author) about 10 things in science that we still don't understand. One of them is free will. The chapter goes into detail, but one passage stuck out. Each morning, we are tested by the dilemma of determinism vs. free will. Once we wake up, we might get right up out of bed or we may stay lying down for an undetermined amount of time (excluding working mornings when you have to get up by a certain time to make it to work punctually.) Arbitrarily, at some point we get up, maybe when we think we feel like it. But why then, and not earlier, or later? Nothing really changed between that time to determine why we get up at one point instead of the other.
This is a very crude paraphrasing of that passage, and I know I've missed the true intent of the author. But it was something along those lines, and it got me thinking.
Ever since taking a college course on philosophy several years ago the subject has become sort of a hobby of mine, but this argument of determinism vs. free will is one that I've never gotten into and am frankly tired of. I ask, what does it matter? Does it change anything one way or the other? Does it change meaning?
Though on the subject, my thoughts have always been that life is not really "predetermined," but rather "inevitable." I say we do have free will (or at least we think we do, which to our minds is probably an adequate enough answer), but I think the way life unfolds is certainly inevitable. I've never tried to flesh out this argument beyond that point, because I'd rather be thinking about other philosophical questions that interest and matter to me more, but I do think inevitability is different than determinism, and also compatible with free will.
I tend to be a little too cynical about any new Nicholas Cage thriller, but I think you've convinced me here.
I loved Minority Report, but was disappointed that the Future-Telling-Machine was just plugged into an albino psychic, and not, say, a computer with such a deep understanding of physics that it would simply know when crimes will be committed, no supernatural mumbo-jumbo required.
Ebert: The alien might eat you.
Always preferable to taking a ride on the pod train.
My science professor once said that one of the oldest elements in the universe is Carbon (I believe) and that some believe it even dates back to the big bang. Before matter even began expanding. I am not a science expert or philosopher but a lamen. I can only discuss these matters as they pertain to my own experience.
I asked him what was before matter. Before Carbon and Hydrogen. Indeed how can human beings comprehend "nothingness" or "lack of matter"? How can we comprehend infinity? The answer is, while it may be theoretically possible to obtain infinity, it is astronomically unlikely that infinity is possible. In order for something to have infinite value or dimensions it would have to go on indefinitely. With this comes the inclusion of parallel dimensions and fragmented time. Things that I will not get into. I guess what I'm trying to say is that for all their technology all their wisdom and all their foresight; scientists don't really have a damn clue as to how far the universe expands or whether or not everything is deterministic. Perhaps it is. Maybe someday there will be a way to harness the energy of dark matter and we will be able to propel ourselves to the far reaches of the galaxy.
What will be discovered there? Will our bodies implode and become structures of infinitesimal size? Capable of joining with unknown cosmic energy sources thus achieving consciousness itself? A higher state of being? Is the body simply a device for importing the soul, or is it that consciousness itself is a phenomenon of nature and that the existence of it does not constitute that we inhabit a specific soul or personality; rather what makes up ourselves is whatever body or vessel we seem to be in at the time. Scientists have said that all matter once came from exploded stars. Perhaps we were all stars. Maybe there is a part of us hidden in each, and when we manage to go past the outer stretches of the universe we will once again reunite with our creators. Ourselves. Did you ever feel that you were the only person on Earth? In your entire existence? Consciousness is a funny and unique thing. Specifically, we gaze at our surroundings as if the eye of God. Everything else is simply passing by or window dressing. Indeed, what do we know other than ourselves?... I'm getting carried away though.
Still, consider this. Maybe infinity or eternity isn't possible, maybe it’s just a really big, big number that it might just as well go on forever. Imagine if every single grain of sand in the desert represents a zero on the number scale. Put a 1000 in front of those zeros... That's a really big number, now multiply those zeros by the number of electron particles in each of those grains of sand (there are trillions of zillions of electrons in each atom). For all those zeros, add the number of each organism on Earth, from insects to humans, add the number of water molecules in the Pacific Ocean. Once you have that number, add the number of atoms which make up the whole planet, the entire galaxy, the whole known universe. Take that number, times it by all the numbers we've got to the 1,000,000,000,000,000 power. Times that number by the number of thoughts each human being received during the entire lifespan of humanity (that's got to be a big one!). Now imagine the surface area of the entire universe in distance of small paperclips. Add our number to the number of paperclips and then times that number by a billion........ As you can see, that number would still be VERY, VERY, VERY small compared to the size of our entire galaxy. There's something to be said about understanding the vast concepts of mathematics. I just don't believe we've scratched the surface of that yet. Perhaps someday humans will. I am reminded of that great scene from "A Beautiful Mind" where Alicia Nash asks John Nash how far the universe goes on. He says infinite. He gives her that crystal which can reflect every possible color. I was just thinking about whether there were colors we haven't seen yet, shapes we can't comprehend and sounds that are unknown. Human beings are so very limited by their mental representations of known matter that we cannot even begin to comprehend what is possible. At the same time I'm pretty sure certain things are impossible. Traveling back through time in a DeLorean sports car might be one of those.
I've never understood atheists. Why do they have to proclaim that they don't believe in anything? Isn't that an incredibly arrogant stance? In fact, it is always nicer to believe in the concept of something greater than yourself, no matter what that may be; even if you aren't totally sure? I for one would like to think so. That is the whole point, respecting the vastness and greatness of the world you live in. How could you ever hope to understand it? It is so, so large. By totally not believing in anything, you deny yourself the human privilege of exploration. Isn't that what being human is all about? To deny this is not only arrogant but pessimistic. There's nothing more depressing than a person who doesn't believe there’s a god. Even if that god isn't Buddha, Jesus, Satan, Allah or Zeus. My reckoning is, there's got to be something out there that's greater than me, I just haven't found them yet... Some wishful thinking. Instead of saying “I know I don’t believe” or “There isn’t a God”. Isn’t it better just to say: “I don’t know?” Trust me when I say this: You don’t know and probably never will. At least, not in this lifetime. And there's nothing at all depressing about that, in fact, it's rather liberateing. It forces you to be humble and not put yourself on a pedestal, which is what man has done since the dawn of time. Maybe when he discovers other beings on other planets who are smarter than him he won't do that so much. That would be an interesting thing to see.
About the movie "Knowing", I haven't seen it yet but from what I understand you're the only critic in the country who liked it. I am interested in seeing it because of your recommendation. I noticed that part of why you enjoyed it was because it was directed by "Alex Proyas". Who of course directed one of my favorite and many others' favorite sci-fi films: "Dark City". Proyas also made "I, Robot" a similar post-apocalyptic tale about robots running amuck. All of Proyas' films seem to have this overwhelming struggle of humanity in them. Our right to survive and claim our dignity. Such stories are what we are all about, we should rejoice in those films which try to show more than simply formulaic romantic plots or screwball comedy. I know some people that think those films are the end-all of their movie universe. With all the deep thoughts, power trips and feelings running amuck in today's world, I don't blame them. Dark City and Knowing may be cool, but thank god for movies like Role Models. Those are important too. Humans are ugliest when we are at our most serious and intellectual. When we laugh... Well, that's where our true beauty and love comes out. In all his years of deep thinking and math, it's good to know that Einstein laughed once and a while. In the end, I think love and laughter will ultimately prove greater than mathematics and science. It is how the aliens will know that we even existed in the first place.
Ebert: Hubble can now just about glimpse the outer edge of the universe, which is to say, the beginning. Who's to say what lies beyond that? If you could stand there and look outward, what would you see?
Earlier this week I did a double acrostic with the bookends spelling OBSCURE DESTINY (see URL link). Eebs, I am certain you were unaware of my modest effort to impose Intelligent Design on a two-dimensional surface--yet there are so many difficult-to-explain parallels . . . is this the proof the Creator is trying to provide you?
Ebert: Didn't the double acrostic evolve from the crossword puzzle?
Dave said something earlier that I found intriguing; he talked about the aliens perhaps being able to see all of time. This is very familiar to me, because I am right now reading Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, in which a group of aliens kidnap the main character, who has begun to become unstuck in time (he shifts back and forth in time). The aliens (Tralfamadorians) see life in the fourth dimension, and so they see people at one time throughout all times (the book describes their visions of people as giant centipedes, with baby legs at one end, and old-age legs at the other). The main character, Billy Pilgrim, asks them about free will, something they consider odd, and that, they say, only humans have ever asked about. The Tralfamadorians tell how the universe will end by an alien hitting a button that simply decimates the entirety of everything, and Pilgrim asks wether or not, since they know how it will happen, they would try to stop it. The response: "He has always pressed it, and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way." Kind of odd. I guess it goes to show that, no matter how someone may attempt to change something, they will never be able to. It is the same, in fact, with time travel; someone who travels to the past would not be able to change anything, because all of time is already written. He was already in the past when the event occurred, and he has always been in the past and the future, and the present at the same time.
I guess this is why peoples' heads begin to hurt when they discuss stuff like this.
Savvy
Then in neither case would we have a being worthy of worship and adoration. Which is all that I - as an atheist - need worry about. ;-)
Ebert: The alien might eat you.
I don't understand that response. Are you saying that one should worship/adore something out of fear?
Ebert: No, I'm saying you wouldn't want to worship/adore an alien that might eat you.
"Interesting points all. Here's another possibility.
Perhaps the aliens are able to view, experience and interact with time in a non-linear fashion. That would give them what would appear to be omniscience. And maybe Lucinda was able, for a moment, to have that kind of ability as well. Or the aliens were able to provide her with the knowledge.
And it would preserve free will as well. Although the aliens could view the future results of past events and have knowledge of them, those results would have come about as the result of the free will of humans who experience time in a linear fashion.
I think determinism v. free will comes down to a matter of perspective. For us to be handed a sheet like that where disasters are predicted with unerring accuracy, it sure looks like determinism rules the day. But that's because we cannot perceive time in any other fashion.
Ebert: Do the aliens have free will? Does free will mean anything if they experience time in a non-linear fashion? Don't ask me."
Ask Dr. Manhattan. :) What Dave described is pretty much exactly how Dr. Manhattan perceives time and reality. He exists/lives in/experiences all the subjective moments of his life at once. Can he be said to possess free will?
Ebert: And if he does, when does he practice it when it all happens at once? Yet at the end of the film he does seem to make a decision.
I'm not very interested in the whole "is there fate?" debate.
On the subject of fate, I read about a theory that the world was determined, no matter what, so even if I went backwards in time and say, shot Hitler, a similar Nazi would just take his place.
'That leaves the possibility that a higher power created the universe, but denies that power any role in its subsequent behavior.'
That agrees with deism. 'God' created the universe, but does not meddle in human affairs.
Another facet of the idea that everything is foreordained is the idea of telling the future. If there are multiple possible scenarios leading up to one absolute end (we will assume that [insert deity here] has a plan for the universe), how far does their [the aliens'] foresight extend? Do they see it as some sort of "all roads lead to Rome", or is it like necessitarianism, where free will is scratched out, for all things in the universe are determined by antecedent events and natural law? That means that there would only be one line of foresight.
If the aliens could tell the future, would there be any point in existence? What if one of them had a pivotal role in said future and decided to commit suicide? Going back to my earlier point, perhaps another alien would step up in their place... or would the suicide be determined itself?
See, trying to tell the nature of the universe is like running in circles to me. XD. I just go the easy route and say that the only thing 'real' is myself, and that everything else is merely a construct of my own subconscious mind. Yay solipsism. ;)
- A kid.
Ebert:
A philanthropist known for his altruism
in supporting old masters of cubism
found in conclusion
their work a delusion
or an over-priced outcome of solopsism
I thought this would be another terrible (though he has had many good films) Cage movie. your review has influenced me and interested me in this movie.
how are thoughts created? are thoughts created? did the big bang "create" this world or just precede it?
how did David, Alan and Daniel explain their position or understanding? by using models. what is our reproductive capability a model of? what is our ability to have thought a model of?
I'm pretty sure the aliens were in fact angels. Just when they start ascending into the ship, you can see the vague outline of what appear to be wings on their backs. So, what does that make of it then? Are angels aliens or aliens angels?
Ebert: Anybody else see wings?
I like Dave's comment that free will vs. determinism is a matter of perspective. I agree. I believe that God does not view what happens in time linearly because He exists beyond the boundaries of time (His creation) and therefor is not limited by it. we escape the limitations of time when our earthly body dies and our spirit exists apart from time
Roger,
I'm wondering who will be "the" next James Bond when time runs out and the world ends? And who will the Bond girl be and the Bond villain? Have they even been born yet?
Does this mean I am superficial?
Guess I'll kick back, put on "The Best of ABBA" and look for meaning in the electric blue depths of my lava lamp.
kerry of inframan
I remember the first time I thought about determinism. I was 15 and was studying physics, when it crossed my mind that since everything in the universe can theoretically be described with equations, including my brain, such thing as "free will" can not exist. My life is predetermined, and every choice I'll ever make in a sense is made already. The realisation filled me with genuine terror and even some kind of awe.
I was very disappointed to find out that on the quantum level some processes are genuinely unpredictable, and what's worse, many processes in the "big", non-quantum world are chaotic, which means that they are theoretically predictable, but to do that you'd have to take into account enormous amounts of absolutely precise data. (The classic example, of course, is weather: to make a precise long-term prediction you'd literally have to know the precise position of every atom in the atmosphere and every electron in every atom, otherwise after a very short period of time prediction would become incorrect. And even if one had such data, quantum effects would still mess things up.) So, for all intends and purposes chaotic processes are completely unpredictable, and since they pop up everywhere: in biology, geometry, physics, computer science, etc., there must be some in my brain too. This makes some parody of a free will possible.
But what a disappointment it was for me! The idea of determinism was so beautiful, so attractive. Nice, safe, law-abiding universe with predetermined, inevitable future... I miss living in it.
I disagree with your assertion that the existence of a sheet of paper that accurately predicts future events would constitute a "proof" of Intelligent Design. I don't see that it has anything to do with the mechanisms of creation -- at most it merely provides evidence that there are beings who can, for whatever reason, predict the future.
It seems to me that in order to "prove" Intelligent Design, you need to formulate the ID hypothesis as a statement that can be tested scientifically. How can you possibly do that? How can you test for the existence of a plan in the mind of God?
Of course, it's a different question to be asked, "What would *convince* you that the world was intelligently designed?" For that, it suffices to be satisfied that the alternative is implausible. It's quite reasonable for people to become convinced of things that haven't been proved. And a lot of such people will even be scientists. But a good scientist will always be aware of the difference.
Ebert: What would convince you of Intelligent Design?
proof of determinism? death.
proof of free will? you're not dead yet.
"I'm not dead, yet!"
Roger,
I suppose it would be valid here to pick up the discussion from 2 posts ago regarding your question on free will (though in answer to your last response... sure that's cheap enough, but who has the ability to take off work for 14 days?) I LOVE that clip from 'Waking Life' a film that has made a deep impression upon my memory. Determinism vs. free will seems to battle the psyche of religious and secular man. You are right, determinism seems at first to affirm God, because it means 'someone' is controlling things. But, yes, what is religion then but a base comfort for the inevitability of death and corruption? Then there is free will. But doesn't this merely lead to self determination? If you are able to make your own step in one direction free of any divine or natural lead, what is to make any other step unfree to do so? If each step is free on its own, every one is and makes God unnecessary. But I believe that what makes sense is our own participation in the freedom of God. God is free and his freedom allows his determinism to make our own pre-determined actions plausible and, yes, 'free', because they are free as a part of God himself. Our actions are part of God's action for the world. As unfree, we must seek participation in the life and action of a completely free being. We must overcome the determinism that we learn leads to a senseless slaughter and death of all beings. We must instead understand our will as subsumed in an entirely free will... 'the goal of human life is not death but resurrection' Karl Barth. If God determines our existence, is it not comforting to know that he determines them from an infinite stream of existence?
As always, an excellent blog, sir. Regarding determinacy, Mr Hoehne is correct that at the quantum level all things are indeterminate. You should not have concluded, however, that this realm can be safely ignored on the macro level. Quantum events indeed bear on macro events, and anything (even at the macro level) that can happen by external pressure can also happen spontaneously (such as a cannon ball appearing inside the castle without first passing through its walls). Because of this no hard determinism is possible. One invidious distinction in this discussion is determinism versus free will, as if they were disjunctive. The choice is not one between chaotic free will and abject determinism. The most required is that the macro and quantum worlds bear on our decisions if for no other reason than that they create the situations in which decisions live and move and have their being. But that kind of "determinism" does not foreclose the possibility of a free choice given the circumstances. Perhaps nothing is ever as free as it seems, but neither is it completely determined. As a question in philosophy and logic one can perhaps ponder whether complete determinism is a coherent concept and, if so, whether it is compatible with free will. But as existing humans the question is moot, and this raises a problem with the movie (which I have no doubt is famously entertaining). The issue with the movie, however, seems to be that it in effect sets up an impossibility (the completely accurate predictions into the far future with no regard to inherent uncertainty) and then trades on the resulting factitious conundrum. Chasing the implications of an impossibility is hardly philosophically fruitful. Nor, as the philosopher Richard Rorty has observed, is there any point in asking questions that would require us to climb out of our heads to answer. And positing angels or aliens or gods or God as explanatory hypotheses is doing just that. (This is not the same as saying there is no God, merely that that is not what God is.) Naturally movies can trade in what is otherwise impossible, and indeed specifically for the purpose of raising interesting philosophical and existential conundrums. A complete disjunction between determinism and free will can be run as a logical possibility, but we do not inhabit a realm of pure logic. We are stuck in our heads, in this universe, and a logical discussion along these lines, however diverting, does not bear on our existence.
I cannot refrain from adding one comment about the ongoing kerfuffle over your Ben Stein blog. The answer to the question "What proof of intelligent design would you accept?" is exactly of the sort to which you allude. It would be a structure of such complexity and adaptation of means to ends that it could not have arisen through any plausible natural process. Clearly no such evidence is forthcoming. All the creatures of the world can be seen as the products of random mutation and natural selection over a vast frame of time (some 3.5 billion years for the earliest prokaryotes discovered). That life in its complexity could arise naturally given enough time is, of course, why those who advocate intelligent design typically also deny that the Earth is over 4.5 billion years old. (We need not be detained by the fact that such a fantastic assertion flies in the face of the most basic scientific understanding of the universe.) But the point against intelligent design and in favor of random processes combined with natural selection is not so much what proof you would accept for the former, but what evidence there is against it. As the great paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has observed it is not the elegant designs that demonstrate evolution. Those indeed smack of intelligent design. It is, rather, the oddball features that no designer in his right mind would employ that are the evidence of evolution. Examples include the horse's hoof, which is the nail of its middle toe, the other toes having become vestigial, and the panda's "thumb," which is a bizarre extension of the ulnar bone of its wrist. The examples can be multiplied, and unless we want to say that the designer took part in some designs but not others we are forced to give up the whole idea of intelligent design.
Ebert: Back to foretelling the future: Don't you find it astonishing that psychics make a living?
When I was growing up in the ’60s I was quite good friends with the parish priest (NO, not that way). He was an avid reader of Science Fiction and he, I , and a couple of other guys would go to movies, pass books around, and have great discussions about the past and possible futures. One afternoon in about 1972, after seeing the original Planet of the Apes again at the local repertory theatre, we were sitting in a Bob’s Big Boy going over the drubbing that organized religion took at the hands of Serling’s screenplay and whether predestination or karma or just bad luck caused things to work out as they did for mankind in the movie.
After the other guys went home I asked the priest what WAS the true nature of God. He laughed long and loud and said that that was a very good question that had no exact answer. He said that the answer you get depends on who you ask and when you ask it.
OK, no major revelations there – just more weasel words.
He was quiet for a moment and then leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “ It is probably not anything at all like the popular perception of a white-haired man living on a cloud who hurls thunderbolts down to earth from time to time to fry the unwary sinner.” Again, laughter. Well, I had figured as much – this was nothing new in my mind.
Then he goes on and tells me about the advanced concepts class he had as a senior in seminary. As an exercise in non-traditional thinking, they were tasked with coming up with a simple description of a being in an environment who would have God’s well-known characteristics (eternal, omnipresent, omniscient, etc.). A naturally occurring being… who could be God.
There were many heated discussions far into the night. Many in the class, rigid in their thinking, could not possibly “bring God down to a level that could be described, much less understood, by mere man” and did not participate further. God was God, and that was that.
The others, however, had a grand time considering the possibilities and arguing over and working out the details. This was about 1953 or so, near the end of the golden age of Science Fiction, and such details, of course, were best imagined/supplied by the two SF geeks in the class.
“So what did y’all come up with?” I had to know.
He said to imagine a being that lived on a different plane of existence – perhaps an upper dimension – that intersects our dimension of time at all points (eternal), and that intersects our three spatial dimensions at all points (omnipresent). Such a being would not need to be supernatural, just governed by the laws of a different nature than we.
What about omniscient? “If you think about it, anyone who could see all moments in time and all points in space at a glance would have a pretty good idea of what was going on.”
What about omnipotent -- how could he/she/it create the heavens and earth?
His answer was simple: “Who says he created anything?”
I have thought about all of that a lot over the years and it has given me perspective.
Some kind of alien as God? Works for me.
Ebert: "Who says he created anything?" In that case, who says he's God? Of course, the assignment did not ask for a description of God.
> What would convince *you* of Intelligent Design?
Some sort of religious epiphany.
But it's extremely unlikely that I'll ever be convinced that the Intelligent Designer didn't include evolution as a part of the plan. The evidence for evolution is just too overwhelming.
Reply to: Only a day or two earlier, a reader named Randy Masters asked me what, in my mind, would constitute proof of intelligent design. Fair question ,,,Ebert: What would convince you of Intelligent Design?
OK, the short answer: intelligent life on earth has the appearance of design. That's because, over time, the more successful organisms shoved the less successful ones aside. Isn't that a workable definition of "design"?
but the reason "Intelligent Design" has been proven FALSE is the time frame. If it took TWO BILLION YEARS for a design for a HOX gene to appear, then it wasn't put there by a "designer." It happened by random chance.
So, a proof of an Intelligent Designer that I would accept... would be animal life with complex brains produced from non-life in ONE generation. And if you show me proof of any number greater than one, I would be glad to explain why it's not good enough.
Reply to: Ebert: Back to foretelling the future: Don't you find it astonishing that psychics make a living?
CBS has a hit show on Tuesday nights, following NCIS, called "The Mentalist."
The title character is Patrick Jane, who used to be a... celebrity medium? We've seen flashbacks to his home in Malibu, where he delivers messages from deceased relatives, in return for a sizable check. The messages are things like "Your mother forgives you" and they're accurate because Jane is an expert at reading people and figuring out what they want to hear.
From chicago Trib: Most of the time, he merely uses his powers of observation – looking for the revealing details that most other people miss. There’s little of the con man about Jane. There’s an alert, interested and kindly look in his eyes: He’s a man who would probably be pleased if human behavior ever surprised him.
Now, let's think about this. If a con man appears to be dishonest, how many people could he con? The most important thing for a con man is to "have little of the con man about him."
That's how psychics stay in business. If you can fake sincerity, you've got it made.
Same with God. If people can say "I believe in God" without laughing or appearing dishonest, they can fool a lot of people.
There is no God. God does not exist. But in order for the con men to stay in business, they have to appear totally sincere and honest when they give you the Sales Pitch.
Now, the list of numbers in "Knowing"... obviously faked. Maybe not in the context of the movie, but if a college professor found such a list in real life, he would be 100% certain that it was created by a con man. Because that's exactly the kind of "impossible thing" that con men love to fool people with.
When I was in high school, Alex Proyas' The Crow came out. Unfortunately I didn't see it in the theater. However, I remember the cool gothic imagery from the tv spots and music from the soundtrack being played on the radio.
I bought the soundtrack (or rather, my parents bought ;-P), and I liked it. But then I finally saw the movie on VHS (funny, as my blu-ray collection grows, I wonder what will replace that someday...) It blew my teenage mind! Without question, The Crow made me believe...in angels...just kidding, that's what the movie poster says, likely written by the marketing people to "lighten things up" a bit.
Not only did I think the movie's imagary was startling, but after watching it...no, experiencing it (great description in your Watchmen review Mr. Ebert), my developing brain had ideas swirling around in there that I didn't really consider before. What is the true nature of love? How can life be so unfair and fragile sometimes? Who was really to blame for the tragedy (at multiple levels)?
While I haven't seen Know1ing yet, I certainly plan to check it out. I have seen the rest of Proyas' films, even his lesser known Garage Days, and can state confidently that he creates films that are simultaneously entertaining and artistic.
My question for Mr. Ebert is, do you believe that the central theme(s) in a film, like a Proyas film, is purposely designed to be partially interpretable? In other words, does the writer/director decide that the themes he/she wishes to explore are going to be subject to interpretation and ambiguous?
The reason I ask is that as a science teacher, I depend on the logic and reason of the scientific method daily (on multiple levels). I find it very difficult to build lessons in chemistry that can successfully bring my audience (ages 16-18) to that deeper/special level of interpretation. It would be wonderful to bring that feeling we get for those special movies to my lessons. Inquiry based lessons aside, mathematics generally squashes ambiguity in interpretation at the level of high school science. It makes me think, from the perspective of a director of sorts, is this life we have and world we live in, perhaps/perhaps not, crafted by a 'director'/'lesson planner' that intends for us to think and wonder, like an Alex Proyas or good teacher does but on a much, MUCH larger canvas. This 'director' of sorts would have to be a master of both science and art to pull this job off. Perhaps the issue of free will/determinism was thematically set to be ambiguous? I don't know, I guess it makes things interesting...which is the point, maybe. Life is a lot of things, but it's never lacking for beauty, ugliness, or matters to think about. The great movies do that too. Hmmm, I wonder...?
Regardless of the debate over evolution, creation, fate or life being deterministic. I think that this is one of the most interesting blogs I have ever read. As a Christian I find myself leaning toward the more faith aligned comments, but as a fan of Proyas, and his work I love the debate. The fact that this movie has yet to be released and it has such a lively discussion brooding is awesome. Seeing a four star review for this movie reminds me of when I was a kid and every Friday morning I would get up and read the reviews for whatever movie I was looking forward to. "Holy Shit!" I would yell at the site of 'Dark Cuty' getting four stars. The guy that directed one of my all time favorite movies, The Crow received four stars...my personal dream come true. Thanks Roger.
First, I have always respected - though not necessary followed or agreed with - your views on movies over those of other critics, so I will go ahead and dish out the 7.50 to see a movie rated soo poorly on Rottentomatoes.
As to the argument of free will vs. determinism, is it possible that it's a false argument?
Assuming there's a God that controls our actions and knows everything, I am forced to ask why an omniscient being seems to have a pattern of random and occasionally unfortunate decision making. For example, would a kind God allow "Deuce Bigalow 2"?
Free will to me assumes actions may be based on influences - though not directives - from external sources or internal ones. What motivates them? Culture, experience, biology, etc. If this is true, how to explain addictions? Why risk death for sake of a smoke?
Is it possible that enough individuals exerting free will create an inevitable and predictable, hence deterministic, result? Global Warming anyone?
For my part, I really hope there's a greater controlling agent to explain this bizarre existence. I doubt anyone has or will find out the truth until it's way too late to share it with anyone else.
I dunno, philosophy always made my brain drowsy. Too many images of old guys with long beards in white robes and not enough work to do, lol.
-Mark
Ebert: I am astonished by the negative reviews. I believe it is a genuinely great thriller. No doubt the readers will star correcting or supporting me very soon.
Roger, please. This is like What the Bleep Do We Know all over again. Or, that one movie about philosophy that is a cartoon and is obnoxious. What is it called. Oh yeah, "The Waking Life." The opposite of what happens when you watch it.
However I liked Nicholas Cage in Con Air so I'll probably still see this.
NS
Okay. I just read more of the post and realized that you actually acknowledge the similarity to the Waking Life. Gawd, what an awful, pretentious, mind-numbing film!
NS
Ebert: I guess you didn't enjoy my Great Movie piece, then?
Yes or no? Life or Death? Republican or Democrat? Science or religion? Free will or determinism? Change the exclusive "or" to an inclusive "and" and replace the question mark with a period. New meanings emerge.
I could not read the whole article because of the many spoilers, but in what I did read you seem to be asking totally nonsensical questions. "How does a fictional character know such and such a thing? Does knowing this (fictionally) mean there is free will, or randomness, or that the nature of reality is determinate? And so on." These are utterly unserious questions, i.e. not real questions at all.
Somewhat more to the point, when most people (and you seem to do here) pretend to ask, "What is the nature of the 'world' or reality?" generally they project an assumption of that nature in the very process, without being the least bit aware they are doing so. Any answers are cut from the same cloth as the questions, in other words. The materialist comes up with material answers, and others come up with different ones. These things prove nothing, it's just a thought process wandering around trying to validate itself.
To get beyond this problem it is necessary NOT TO PROJECT anything at all, obviously. And if you do not project, neither questions nor answers emerge. What abides is the Reality. Otherwise, you are enclosed merely in a solipsistic dream/thought process that has no conclusive endpoint, as you may note, given that neither yours nor the most brilliant of scientific thought processes have come to any such conclusion, nor will they ever.
We all know now that the Universe is a hologram at the very edge of the Universe. None of us is real. We are all just holograms.
/This is a serious theory. You could look it up.
I'm not kidding. The Universe is a hologram:
http://twm.co.nz/hologram.html
Ebert: I read this. There has to be something wrong with it, yes? Someone please tell me what it is.
Mr. Ebert, I am starting to believe that you feel, as I and many others do, that this is quite an era in which to exist as a member of the human race. We are beginning to see widespread evidence of the evolution of human consciousness beyond the trappings of unquestioning belief in god(s) and the real possibility of a future free from the bondage in which we have so willingly (inevitably?) placed our minds throughout our species' history. We're growing up at a more rapid pace than ever before, slowly but surely realizing that we cannot continue to carry this dead weight on our backs if we want to survive to tell our own unfolding story. It's a show worth waking up for everyday, that's for sure.
I really enjoyed the Daniel C. Dennett clip. I'm also eternally grateful for making me aware of Dark City many years ago when it hit theaters (first DVD I ever bought with a commentary that I actually listened to on first viewing), and can't wait to see this film.
Strict determinism implies an absence of free will, and free will is a necessary component of all spiritual belief systems.
It gets very involved. It does imply that, but - well, read for yourself what Spinoza, and what the Stoics, came up with. They attempted, kind of endearingly, to reconcile determinism with free will, so far as they reasonably could. The thing is, anyone who really thinks about it - then or now (though the quantum stuff has implications that may throw all this overboard - finally) - can't help but admit that the universe is strictly deterministic. But this obviously, as you say, by implication destroys free will. You might be interested in how Spinoza and the Stoics dealt with that problem. Now, as we learned more and more about the physical basis of thought (tho there is soooooo much more to learn) and mind and will, it seemed even such small solace as Spinoza and the Stoics were able to find would be lost irrevocably - because hey, even a thought is a physical event.
But as I said, there is hope in certain branches of science for an overthrow of this oppressive, perfectly reasonable way of looking at things - and I say 'overthrow' even if these sciences only give freedom, free will, choice, and randomness a mere inch. That inch is everything.
As for the film, I've enjoyed Proyas's two sci-fi films that I've seen (Dark City and I, Robot), and found them both thoughtful, and found that they both inspired this sort of reflection and discussion - even I, Robot, which was a Will Smith vehicle/Hollywood blockbuster entertainment. I still have unanswered questions about the plot of that and just what the main robot had actually been up to all through the film, especially in light of the ending. Proyas is a very smart filmmaker, besides being a just plain good filmmaker, and when he means to, he can make you think. I'm glad he's still out there making films. And I'm glad Will Smith is not in this one.
A few days ago I was reading Dennett quotes on Wiki, and whaddya know, I remember one that applies.
Experience teaches...that there is no such thing as a thought experiment so clearly presented that no philosopher can misinterpret it..." Daniel Dennett
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I think Dennett should expand his quote to include astrophysics professors.
I don't agree with the character's initial question, that it's a choice between fate or free will. Of course we have free will, but so what. Imagine each of us in a car driving through a vast open space, the speed is set at 50mph, the wheel is locked dead ahead. Well, sortof set and locked. We can actual choose to speed up or slow down 2mph, and we can turn the wheel left or right by 2 degrees. That is the only influence we have on the car. That influence is our 'free' will.
However human beings are so ego-centric that we assign much more power to free will than it deserves. Meanwhile the universe is saying 'go ahead (chuckle), make your little choices (harhar), whatever makes you feel good'. All the while it's plodding on through it's determined course, benignly tolerating our little tugs at the wheel and taps on the pedals.
Ebert: In other words, free will is insignificant in the greater scheme of things? Nothing we do amounts to a hill of beans in this crazy world? And if the world ceases to exist, it has a negligible impact on anything beyond the solar system?
But having free will pleases me. And when you get down to it, I'm all that counts. And you're all that counts for you. And she for herself, and him for himself, and dogs like to pee when they damn well feel like it.
Totally agree Roger. Went to my press screening on monday, and I have been thinking about it a lot since then. I love the question it raises on time, and are we in control? Are things pre-determined? These were great questions that I felt were covered for the first time in Knowing which to me makes it original. I don't get the hate for the movie, 19% on rottentomatoes. While I do have a few problems with the movie, I kind of thought Rose Byrne was under developed, I still look at it as original film making and one of the best movies you can see right now- besides Watchmen though. This is exactly why we go to the movies- be thought provoked, entertained, and shocked. The movie had a lot of surprises in store, and I thought I was spoiled by the trailers- they held back which is for sure a good thng. An element of surprise is rare in today's movies, and its finally nice to have one that does just that.
Ebert: RT is now at 25%. Baffling.
But having free will pleases me. And when you get down to it, I'm all that counts. And you're all that counts for you. And she for herself, and him for himself, and dogs like to pee when they damn well feel like it.
This is what may be called the Copernican view of things----man/woman is the measure.
Of course we have free will, but so what. Imagine each of us in a car driving through a vast open space, the speed is set at 50mph, the wheel is locked dead ahead. Well, sortof set and locked. We can actual choose to speed up or slow down 2mph, and we can turn the wheel left or right by 2 degrees. That is the only influence we have on the car. That influence is our 'free' will.
If what occurs in the mind (and this includes sub-, un-, or whatever other- consciousnesses you would name) has a physical basis, and the physical world is as rule-oriented, domino effecty perfect as all scientific inquiry prior to the past century had led us to believe it is, then - you would not have even that much input. No influence on the car. And, in that scenario, you would not even have any solace in knowing you had no influence - because even your having found that out, and feeling self-satisfied at understanding it, would have been determined at the beginning of 'time'.
As I say this is a dreary, oppressive topic. The answer arrived at by intelligent, good faith inquiry had seemed for a long time to be inevitable, and its case airtight. Again, I just want that one little crack. How about it, science?
Yes, there are wings.
Ebert: There are wings? Still used, or like the appendix?
I think we're in a bit of chicken/egg scenario here. I lean toward free will, but I see its problems. If I decide to rob a bank, I can't go back and wisely choose not to, or rob another bank. Looking back, I was fated to rob that bank (and get away with it? one can dream).
So, I choose not to ponder that black hole of thought. I agree with Karl, with what little free will I have, I choose to ask the far superior question, if free will exists, what is its purpose?
That sound you hear is me falling into another black hole...
I don't think film is suited to the former as it is to the latter.
Recently films such as Watchmen and the Dark Knight have raised the question, what is the true nature of man? I think a better question is, if we do find out what will we do with that information. Film seems a good medium to tackle that one.
I always wondered how random is random ? Can something be more random than others ? In other words, is there a degree of randomness ?
If there is, I believe being deterministic should be in one end of that spectrum.
But I highly doubt it !!! But if there is no varying degree to randomness, can we figure out the so called randomness if given enough resources and time(almost infinite). May be the person (or the thing) who understands this randomness is god ?
How different is my question from what the film asked ? I have always resisted the urge to google this May be you or your readers can put me out of this misery !!!
I was two seconds away from mentioning that scene in Waking Life. Was that link destined to be posted here?
I don't know what's real anymore @_@
irony: animated movie. Wait...sort of.
Also meant to add:
As far as determinism and human free will goes, not many people will raise objection to basic scientific causality -- albeit a tad more abstract, I think most people accept action-reaction as self-evidently as they do gravity, and all them other smart things what Icabod Newton done thunk up.
I think, then, it takes an especial sort of human quality (whether it be arrogance or philosophical courage; pick your poison) to go:
"The entire universe is governed by causality. Except for me; except inside my head...and the heads of a bunch of people I know...and my dog's. Because that idea makes me uncomfortable.'
Firstly, I am not the Karl who thinks free will is pointless.
"Knowing" looks comparable to Shyamalan's "Signs" (but with destruction instead of aliens of course). I liked "Signs" so I'm there.
But I have to admit I wrote "Knowing" off as another one of those terrible Cage-action movies. (Don't get me wrong, love Cage, get made fun of all the time for liking him, wish he would stop doing National Treasure flicks and stick to the quirky dramatic roles, not waste time as an action-hero.) Yet, after your review and the fascinating responses this blog has got, I'm now intrigued by "Knowing". I'm also a fan of Proyas, because of "Dark City" and was perplexed by his choice to make this film because, as I said, I wrote it off as an action extravaganza based on an absurd premise a la "Da Vinci Code".
And it seems like that's what the critics have done and what many audiences will do. A friend of mine was telling me how, when the "Knowing" commercial came on TV, her friend said "How does Cage even get movies anymore?" As a Cage fan - I'll sometimes say he's my favorite actor - I often run into Cage-haters. I know people loathe him just because of those silly National Treasure flicks/ Next/ Bangkok Dangerous/ because of his dopey, slow way of talking (except in "Adaptation." or "Matchstick Men" which apparently still doesn't sell the haters... who tend to find are boring people who have not been neurotic once in their life and have an allergic reaction to eccentric behavior, but I digress). And Alex Proyas is such an undervalued director by critics historically.
And critics, as much as they like to think they're supporting open-mindedness and deeper thinking by telling people to see flicks other than thriller where a bunch of things blow up (or the latest thriller with a mean Samuel L. Jackson that 'ends conventionally' just because it ends with a shootout) are really just writing off any flick that doesn't, on the surface, fit their schema of an unconventional movie. They're really not that different than people who just wanna see explosions and don't care about a quiet drama.
I think all these factors - Cage-hating, Proyas undervaluing, that the movie has explosions so critics want to dismiss it easily (also because, you know, they have a quota of negative reviews they give out at this time of the year... remember initial responses to "In Bruges" vs. how it's rated today) - all these factors thrown in with the movie's intelligent design premise, which will not go over well with left-leaning, atheist-leaning critics, has resulted in "Knowing" being almost universally trashed by critics.
But, then again, that's just me writing off their negative reviews because it fits my schema to think most people don't actually think about what's right there in front of them. Sadly, history backs me up on my assumption... "2001" premiere, "Citizen Kane" booed at Oscars, "Peeping Tom" disturbing audiences, all the talk about sex in "The Silence" when there's so much more to talk about... but maybe most critics just honestly had their issues. I guess I'm in a cynical mood after the hate that "Watchmen" got for being too much like the comic book or not enough like it depending on who you're talking to, all ignoring discussion of the movie itself...
End rant about herd mentality/ hope some commenters out there can see what I'm talking about cause, locally, 'nobody believes me' so to speak...
I was just about to write that you didn't give a spoiler warning and therefore HOW DARE YOU ROGER but no, there it is in black and white. Oh well.
My two cents is that I think that there is no pre determined future and only one outcome, as opposed to all these parallel universes I hear about for each different choice we make or something like that. I don't believe that there will ever be an answer to the creation of the universe or the other major questions involving quantum mechanics and such. Well, there may be an answer we can formulate but there will never be a guarantee it is correct. We can give it a name and explain in our best of ways how it happened according to us, but it is still just that: according to us only.
I don't mean to imply a higher power or even that we are powerless. I guess if anything it just poses more questions, or maybe I have little faith in those trying to find the answers ( Large Hadron Collider; friend or foe?).
Roger -- I note one thing you didn't address is that the aliens inspire Koestler to believe in an afterlife.
HUGE SPOILER
After Rose Byrne's character has died, the aliens say "she's safe now." Koestler knows she has died, and it seems to be at this moment that he accepts the notion of an afterlife, emphasized when he agrees with his father that death will not be the end.
It may open up a whole new kettle of fish to think about that. If there is an afterlife, and the aliens know that, why does anyone on Earth need saving? Then again, if there truly is a happy afterlife, why would God make us live through the harshness of the world to begin with?
Food for thought, anyway.
Victor I. Santiago isn't the only one - I'm definitely seeing wings as well.
I'm not so sure that they're not supernatural beings just because they occupy physical space. Biblical angels seem to do so, and let's not forget that Christ ascended to Heaven.
Is there really a natural / supernatural dichotomy to be had in the first place? Or is it just a nice way of keeping science and religion into separate 'magesteria' so no one gets their feelings hurt?
I thought this debate of whether the universe was deterministic or chance was over?
Quantum Mechanics (ie, CHANCE) won the argument, and Einstein's world view was shattered.
Answering your question, Roger: Double acrostics antedated crossword puzzles by at least 50 years according to my 5 minutes of research. The first crossword puzzle was published in 1913; double-acrostics have been constructed since at least the mid-1850s. Supposedly Queen Victoria herself made one, but to her it was a word game.
In fact, loosely speaking, there are two types of Acrostics, one a word game and the other a piece of writing dependent on the placement and/or periodicity of letters to make a sort of meta-message. Examples may be found in the Old Testament; poems of Lewis Carroll, Edgar Allan Poe and your humble narrator; and by sheer dumb luck (see the clever but bogus bestseller THE BIBLE CODE, for instance).
As for free will--"Do what thou wilt is the whole of the Law." Further, deponent saith not.
Questions about determinism vs. free will, the omnipotence of god ("can god build a wall he can't jump over?"), or even the one I mentioned in the Ben Stein thread about how objective scientific proof about god would destroy faith...these all, imho, illustrate the illogicality of religion. If you take pretty much any religion and take its core tenets and follow them logically to conclusions, you get something that makes no sense whatsoever.
Although, I always have to remember that one of my three favourite sayings is, "Logic is a way to go wrong with confidence."
Here's something to think about Mr. Ebert.
I minored in philosophy in undergrad and I was fascinated by the idea of determinism. If you really understand the nuances of it, it is very hard to argue against. When my professor first explained the idea to us, more than one student attempted to demonstrate their free will by suddenly hitting their desk with their hand. They claimed that this supposedly random act proved that they had free will. My professor explained that their act was merely an effect caused by being exposed to determinism. It was already determined that they would do that since they were brought up to believe in free will. Since they were taught that, they would naturally attempt to demonstrate it when it's existence was challenged, specifically through what they perceived to be a random act. Of course, it was clearly not a random act as it could not have happened if the students had not desired to hit their desks with their hands, and sent the signal via nerves to their muscles causing their hands to do so. There were several times in which I explained determinism to my friends who were not in Philosophy courses. I was always amused when, like my fellow philosophy students, they would attempt to demonstrate their free will by striking something (or someone) with their hand. I never failed to elicit that type of response. It is odd that so many believe that free will and randomness are the same thing.
Mr. Ebert,
Do you think that a lot of the reason we spend so much time analyzing this subject goes back to the fact that all of us, on some level, are very scared that there may be "nothing" after we die? And worse, that the last moments of a possibly meaningless life could be filled with pain or fear. I certainly am.
Now, I confess that much of this is over my head. That's not to be confused with an inability to comprehend it you understand, but rather, that I struggle to grasp "what" is being said for want of being on more familiar terms with all that science jargon. Alan Watts was the easiest of the three - but that's because he drew a damn PICTURE.
And because I think in terms of images, that’s the only way I know how to talk about this stuff, and what I think.
There’s a bunch of guys standing around wearing blindfolds. And each one is touching something they can’t entirely grasp. Let’s call it an elephant named “Mrs. Everything”. The blindfolded represent various religions while others areas of academic, philosophical or scientific study. And each makes a case for their particular take on what the thing is. And because it’s a bunch of guys it quickly dissolves in a never-ending clusterfuck of passionately held points of view. Then one day, a little girl walks into the room. She knows nothing and for that reason is not blindfolded; for she don’t know what she’s supposed to think or believe.
She sees Mrs. Everything and ignoring the noise, walks right over and introduces herself and says “Hi. Do you want to play?” And Mrs. Everything smiles and replies “Okay.” And so they do. They play for hours and hours, all sorts of games, some easy, some hard, some silly some not. And in the end, exhausted but content for having enjoyed the time spent with the elephant, the little girl goes to sleep. When she wakes up, she finds herself sitting on top of Mrs. Everything! She looks down and now sees all these people arguing. “Why are they arguing?” she asks.
“Because they’d rather do that with me than play”.
“Well that’s just stupid!” The little girl says.
“Yes, it is.”
And they both laugh.
"...I can define varieties of freewill that are incompatible with determinism, but they're pointless. They don't give you anything that matters - they aren't needed for moral responsibility, they aren't needed to give your life meaning, they are completely gratuitous - they're sort of bizarre metaphysical conceits that don't pull their weight, you don't need 'em. Who cares?" - Daniel C. Dennett on free will and determinism
There's an old line from Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" that sums up much of the thoughts here about the movie. It's spoken by Jubal Harshaw to Ben Caxton after Ben's been 'rescued' from the FN forces:
"The predestinationers and the free-willers were still tied in the fourth quarter, last I heard."
Just a thought... or maybe not.
Excuse me, but how can you derive the identity or nature of a supreme being existing in a very real universe from watching a sci-fi thriller? This has nothing to do with knowing and everything to do with hypothesizing.
I do agree, however, that the idea of an inescapable timeline of events is mind-exploding at worst, though-provoking at best.
Is my typing this post a product of my free will or a higher plan? God knows. And I mean that.
Ebert: I can't derive such an identity. The movie is a thriller, not a polemic, and I was intrigued by what it derived. In the larger scheme of things, of course, its conclusions are all entertainment-based.
By Creth Davis
proof of determinism? death.proof of free will? you're not dead yet.
"I'm not dead, yet!"
Profound, profound. Ergo, if one who believes in determinism is not dead, he doesn't really believe in it.
I may be totally off base here but this reminds me of my childhood when my friend (her name was Ariadna) and I used to lay on our backs on summer nights and look at the stars and discuss ethereal things like the universe....she had a theory (and I am sure it has been said many times by others) that we were just like bugs in a jar and the stars were holes in the top of the jar. That scared the heck out of me at 9 years old....maybe we are all god's elementary school experiment.
I'm really reminded of Pi, in that maths can predict the future. Though I haven't seen Knowing I have to say I probably prefer the ending of Pi - is it all in Max's head? I also liked the way that in Pi, Max's migraines are linked to his talent and worsen when he makes his predictive breakthrough; if his brain is processing information that Man Was Not Meant To Know, this *will* screw your head up. And then there's the stockbrokers vs. Cohenim angle, too, just illustrating the conflicts between different organisations who'd want to make sure they had exclusive access to such an incredibly valuable individual.
Incidentally, are these aliens Laplace's demon?
It seems to me that there is a balance between the two points. I like to imagine that free will exists within a certain range. Much like a persons potential IQ falls within a certain range, but their actual IQ is determined by the nurturing and education they receive, I think our actions are predetermined to some extent, but we have a specific range of outcomes to choose on our own. After all we cannot exist outside the circumstances that we find ourselves in (we don't choose our birth parents, as far as we know anyway), but we seem to have the ability to choose how we interact with those circumstances.
Roger:
I posted this previously, but you've really got to read "I Am a Strange Loop" by Hofstadter from 2007, I think.
He takes up the issue of free will by starting with the question of how we can experience ourselves to be free when the neurons in our brain are totally deterministic. No need to drill down to the sub-atomic particles, even the cellular level is deterministic.
Where does this experience of free will arise from?
His main consideration, as suggested by the title, is our sense of "I", but that's tied up with free will.
tmk
I'm thinking "not a hologram." (For one thing, how big did the two lasers have to be to make it? Worse, in how many dimensions would they have to exist?)
Here's the thing: according to M-Theory, sort of a compendium of String Theory variants, the universe exists in either 10 or 26 dimensions. (There is still debate on this.) We only perceive three or four of those--if time isn't really a "dimension" then it's just three--and the others are rolled back on themselves into such a tiny volume that they're just too small to detect directly. Certainly the particles involved in the EPR-style experiments, as interpreted by Bell's Theorem which invalidates hidden variables, could be communicating along those hidden vectors. So, given a 26-dimensional universe, when one of the particles in an EPR-like experiment is measured to have a spin state of "up," a message is fired along (shall we say) dimension 17 to its quantum-entangled partner nine, or nine-billion, kilometers away, which tells that particle to become spin "down." The process can avoid violation of Einstein's General Relativity rules for two reasons:
1) We don't know that the principles of GR apply unmodified, or at all, to the dimensions we can't see, and
2) If unmodified GR applies, the travel distances in the "rolled-up" dimensions are so small that lightspeed is certainly fast enough to make the interval seem instantaneous. (It may not be instantaneous--we might not have good enough clocks with which to measure it.)
This might lead to hologram-like behavior, but that doesn't make the Universe a hologram. It just means they have some things that seem to be in common. The table might have four legs, and the dog standing next to it might have four legs, but you are not likely to confuse the two.
Where Karl Pribram (quoted in that article as believing the brain is a hologram) is concerned, I have only this to say: when you stick your fingers into a hologram, they don't come back wet and goopy. When surgeons do brain surgery, they're not operating on a photonic interference pattern. When brains experience severe damage, information and functionality is lost. Such as been demonstrated over and over; ever met any stroke victims? Such claims fly in the face of ordinary experience--but they look good when presented in small-face Times Roman.
I wonder if Karl Pribram spends time trying to place a drink on his dog and take his table for walkies.
Pure free will kinda crumbles under Skinnerian behaviourism. Dr. Phil and the cognitive behaviourists say the child cannot choose, but the adult can. Free will as a form of mental maturity.
The guy above who says "not 'this or that?', try 'this AND that!'" is helping. To that I would add "to an extent", as in fuzzy logic.
And what about The Weather Master guy? If it's true, I am glad it's a secret!
This article is one of several blog entries that point to an interest in transcendence (or Elevation) on your part, one that I and, I believe, most people share. Yet it is unimaginative at best and dangerous at worst to surrender one’s natural feeling of awe to a religious institution, and to start believing that yes, you will be saved when the end of the world (which may only be your own death) comes along. Christian mythology has brought many believers to look forward to an end of times, when they, the right thinking people, will be delivered and the non-believers will burn in the fires of etc.
And now I read that the end of Knowing is proposing a believer’s wish fulfilment as the resolution to the question of Chance vs. Fate. Isn’t it one of the core beliefs of the creepy people at Scientology that men were created by aliens? I remember ‘Believers’, a straight-to-video release by Daniel Myrick (co-director of The Blair Witch Project), where a doctor is kidnapped by a sect, only to see, at the very end of the film, that their horrendous visions have indeed come true. Isn’t that sort of twist giving rhetorical leeway to things like the Jonestown massacre? Because what if the crazy preachers were right?
I think it is sad to be thrilled by the extinction of our planet, just as it is sickening to see human beings being splattered like bugs on a windshield just for the purpose of a novelty effect shot. In that sense Knowing is an exploitation film, and just because it may be more entertaining than say “Shuttle” or “The Last House on the Left” (just to name two recent reviews), does not make it less unethical.
Four stars is a mighty statement. Is a film good just because it inspires reflection on the part of the audience? More than that, is it good just because it’s thrilling?
Bill Maher’s speech at the end of ‘Religulous’ is a political warning. Michael Tolkin’s film ‘The Rapture’ is a philosophical warning. But when spectacle meets mawkish faith those are forgotten. It dawns on me that maybe the title of this film is not only referring to determinism but to an arrogance of the mind.
Years ago I was doing research on coincidences for a book I was writing at the time, and happened to learn that Roger Ebert and Paul McCartney were born on the same day and year (June 18, 1942). Just a few hours after stumbling across that fact, I happened to be sitting in the lobby of a building downtown, listening to the sweet Muzak sounds of Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" emanating from the P.A. system--when I looked over and saw, seated next to me, Roger Ebert. (I didn't mention the birthday coincidence, alas; we wound up talking about Apocalypse Now instead.) Chance, fate, synchronicity--call it whatever you like. But I've often wondered about the weird chains of circumstances that lead us to do the "random" things we do--and much as I'd prefer to think otherwise, find myself coming back to Carl Jung's cryptic comment that "free will is the ability to do gladly that which I must do." Ha!
I did eventually get that book published, incidentally ("The Waking Dream"), and while I couldn't find a way of inserting the coincidence about Roger and Paul, alas, I did continue to notice other curious coincidences around this pairing--such as the fact that both you and Paul lost significant partners around the same time (in Paul's case, Linda; in Roger's case, Gene). And on a slightly different note, I was intrigued to learn that songwriter Brian Wilson was born just two days after you and Sir Paul, on June 20, 1942. I don't know what possible connection you might have to Brian, if any, but those two certainly wound up having a profound influence on each other, musically. Like I say: chance, fate, synchronicity--call it whatever you like.
Thanks for the thoughtful blog, Roger. I look forward to seeing this movie.
Ebert: Speaking of coincidences, go to the "Slow Boat to anywhere" entry and search for "Aer Lingus." And that is a true story.
Interesting. However, it should be noted that determinism does not equal the existence of a god (or God in the Christian or other relgious sense), and randomness does not equal "free will" or individual human control of his or her fate.
Another explanation for determinism/inevitability is to remove the single-direction nature of time. This is somewhat suggested in the image of the devil at the end of Arthur C Clark's "Childhood's End". If time is laid out flat and everything happens at the same time but we only feel (falsely) that time is sequential, we could mistakenly think the future is "uncertain" at the moment of now. If all the past and future and present are "simultaneous" (like we see a 2-dimensional surface as "simultaneous") ...
And even if time is sequential and single-directional and future is not already determined, the question of whether an individual has free will, or conscious free will, remains unanswered. I think no, no one truly has free will in the traditional sense, but that's because our mind patterns are "determined" in fetal stage and in the first few years of life, none of which we can control. That is the neuropsychological determinism.
Hi Roger.
I saw that in your review and again here that you admired the movies visual style. As I understand it, the entire movie was shot on the Red One digital cinema camera. Did you notice anything obviously digital about what you were seeing (besides the SFX)? Were you aware that it was digitally shot going into your screening? Also, did you see it digitally projected or from a film print?
Sorry about the abundance of questions. But I, for one, (despite my love for shooting and viewing images on film) am becoming increasingly excited with the recent advances made in capturing images digitally. Looking forward to your thoughts.
Ebert: Digital has improved enormously, which proves that I was correct 10-15 years ago after that Texas Instruments demo at Cannes when people told me it was "already as good as film." These days the only systems superior to all others are 70mm, classic IMAX, and Maxivision *sigh*.
My suspicion is that there really isn't any plan (or planner) for the universe and us as individuals. What is the evidence for predestination? There is so much suffering in the world. Innocents have died the worst possible deaths since I started writing this sentence. Humans as we know them have only existed in the smallest fraction of time, as compared to all the other species which have become extinct.
I've been on mission trips to Peru and Trinidad. I was also a CPS worker before I started teaching. One of my students was murdered in broad daylight a few years ago. Another killed someone and himself while driving drunk. It is very hard to believe in a knowing, loving and omniscient Planner after seeing some of the stuff I've seen.
Still though, it makes us feel comforted that someone or something is in control, doesn't it?
As our unresponsive car speeds past Rick's Café we can agree that Yes, free will exists and it is very pleasing. We are presented with an amusing sight outside our window and decide (freely) to enjoy it for the few moments it remains in our vision. We may even decide to slow our car down the 2mph we're allowed, to enjoy the vision a little longer. It's no wonder we invented gods with real and omnipotent free wills. We like to fantasies about having the same power over ourselves. But our free will choices are mostly chance. We can't take credit for the greater portion of our success or failure, that was to a large extent 'determined' long before we introduced our will into the equation. Let's take for example two white men, born into rich countries, cared for by parents, provided with an education and given a long list of chances. Before they ever made a choice they found themselves in that small group that was destined to succeed. Compare that to two young girls, born in a third world country, war torn and parentless, unable to read or write. All four of us will decorate our lives with our free will but the major portion of who we are and what we will become is already determined.
I've never understood atheists. Why do they have to proclaim that they don't believe in anything? Isn't that an incredibly arrogant stance? In fact, it is always nicer to believe in the concept of something greater than yourself, no matter what that may be; even if you aren't totally sure?
It does seem rather harsh that we atheists are criticized for simply saying what we believe...especially when this time I was saying I didn't consider aliens worthy of adoration and worship. ;-)
I don't believe in something greater than myself because I consider myself to be a piece of the whole. How can something be greater than itself? The rose is an integral part of the rosebush - how can the rosebush be "greater" than the rose?
By Ray Grasse on March 20, 2009 8:39 AM
Years ago I was doing research on coincidences for a book I was writing...
One of my all time favourite coincidences is the story of an editor working for a publishing house in London. He was working on a manuscript by a well-known author, and was taking it home with him to work on in the evening. He stopped off somewhere, and thieves stole his car...with the manuscript in it.
The joy-riding thieves were eventually caught and the car returned, but the editor found that when he searched his car the manuscript had vanished. He asked the police to inquire, which they did, and the thieves replied that they had thrown the manuscript out the window of the moving car at some point during their joy ride, and they couldn't remember where they had done it.
Heartsick, the editor called the author to apologize for losing the manuscript, but before he could begin his apology, the indignant author asked why the publishing house had arranged to have the manuscript thrown over the fence into his front yard.
Told as a true story in one of the "Uncle John's Bathroom Reader" books, if memory serves.
Roger,
I just scanned this blog and what I have to say might have been already said, but here it is anyhow. Regarding ID, it seems that everybody is missing the point completely, even ID adherents.
Yes, it is easy to see complex intelligent design in nature. Everybody then looks outside of nature for an explanation. It must be either some kind of god, or be random. How about neither?
Hasn't it ever occurred to anyone why god has never been seen? There must be a reason. What if god is the one doing the seeing? That would explain everything. We are god. We can change our DNA with our thoughts (explains why olympic records keep getting broken, and has been proven by nobel scientists).
So what are we evolving toward? Perfection of course. Omniscience, omnipotence, all that god stuff. We are the intelligence. We are the designers. God is everywhere, in everything. It is us. We evolve because we want to be more than we are.
I attended the same screening you did and while I find that Proyas and crew did an amazing job, the film was hijacked and derailed by Cage. It starts with such a geat X-Files type premise and then after the plane crash, the script and the acting takes a nosedive as well. Koestler's characterization started out very interesting. He's clearly haunted by the death of his wife, is doing his best to raise his only child, and has gotten to the point where he is teaching without any solid belief or passion (likely connected to his wife's death). Right away I thought this could be good. We could actually see Cage acting again. But then, after the crash, Koestler's behavior becomes simply unrealistic and unbelievable at just about every turn.
When he finds out where the next disaster is going to be, he leaves his only child and what....what is he gonna do when he gets to the location? Sure, he tried to alert the FBI by calling them but.... that's it. Now what? How does he go from an MIT professor to an action hero with (yet again!) a flashlight? We see him (and eventually Rose Byrne's character) more than once leave their children alone in their vehicle while they investigate their numerical mystery. Real nice.
And what of these "whisper men"? They had a little girl scramble off some numbers that would predict 50 years worth of catastrophes and....then what? Nothing. It gets locked away in a time capsule and all these numbers come true. Millions die. So why did these whisper men care? What was the purpose of ruining Lucinda's life? What was the purpose of those smooth little black rocks? Handy keepsakes? Why did one show up on the phone booth where Diana was and then in the debris of her accident? So, she'd be safe....where? Why her and not Koestler?
Since all the Lucinda numbers were coming true and we're revealing the end of the world (surprise, how many times have we seen NYC destroyed?) then what were the numbers Caleb was scribbling out? What did they represent? What were they for? Gah!
And the ending where we see many other crystal ships taking off. Who "whispered" those inhabitants into those ships? I guess Lucinda and her lineage and Koestler and son weren't all that special after all.
When I have this many questions coming out of a screening, that means the plot holes and/or the acting (in this case, both) have superceded anything I enjoyed from Proyas. He made a visually stunning film with some very intriguing themes....that dwindled and ultimately lost itself. In the end, the themes of randomness and determination became secondary to Cage's gape-mouthed action prof.
It's great that the themes in this movie made you think but looking at the movie on many levels....it just doesn't hold up. It seems with this 4 star review and your review of "Watchmen" that when you are really moved by a certain aspect or element of a film anything about the film that doesn't hold up is irrelevant. I'm a sci-fi fan, a comic book geek and a film enthusiast and in all the films I've seen I've found that what really matters is a great script and then solid cast to uphold that script. After that, everything else should fall into place (ideally) and that didn't happen here or in "Watchmen".
Ebert: It's a strange thing. Some movies, I get started on ripping the logic and can't stop. Other movies, I don't care.
Why do some people dislike Nicolas Cage? I find him more alive than many actors, more present, willing to let go. Who but Cage could have played the role in "Moonstruck?" "Leaving Las Vegas? "Weatherman?"
What's the plural of deus ex machina? I haven't seen the film, but from the descriptions, that's what the angel/alien/beings sound like in terms of story-telling. But they obviously supply enough ambiguity to generate some fascinating observations. Many thanks!
He takes up the issue of free will by starting with the question of how we can experience ourselves to be free when the neurons in our brain are totally deterministic. No need to drill down to the sub-atomic particles, even the cellular level is deterministic.
The crux of the problem, so, bold, not italics. Thanks for stating it more succinctly than I could. This should be the starting-point thought for anyone trying to deal with determinism/free will arguments.
Hey Roger, I plan on going to see this movie. Out of all the critics, I think you are one of the few that I almost always tend to agree with ("300" being one of the exceptions). However, across the board, the movie has been getting bad reviews. Why do you think it is? I know you cannot read someones mind, but take a wild guess.
Ebert: My guess is, they didn't like it. :)
No conspiracy theory. Maybe some animosity toward Nicholas Cage.
From the time of Newton until the 20th century science believed in a totally deterministic universe: If you knew the exact position and exact velocity of every particle in the universe, you could predict the exact future state of the universe for any future time. Of course no human could ever know that much, but in principle it was possible. In that universe there was no free will. Everything that was going to happen was already determined, including arguments about free will.
In the last century that view of the physical universe collapsed. Quantum mechanics and more specifically the Uncertainty Principle, which states that it is impossible, even in principle, to know both the exact position and exact velocity of a particle at the same time. The more you know about one, the less you can know about the other. More than that, elementary particles do not even have an exact position or velocity. Even God can not have exact knowledge because there is no exact knowledge to be had. She can, however, know the probabilities perfectly.
This does no mean there is free will but it leaves open the possibility, a possibility that would not exist if Newtonian physics were correct. Einstein never totally accepted this, and said famously that God does not play dice with the world. Actually, God does nothing but play dice with the world.
Moving from science to religion, I believe that God made the world like this so that we can have free will. But I cannot prove this. My reasons for believing it are mystical, not scientific. The Big Questions are scientifically unanswerable.
At the screening the other night, several of us commented about how we saw wings on the other-worldly beings. As their "bodies" appeared ethereal, so did the "wings". I interpreted it as Proyas' modernization of humankind's interpretation of something they do not fully understand. I.e., what someone may refer to as an angelic being is merely a reflection of that person's own vocabulary and world view. By rendering wing-like structures on the Strangers, he is offering another view on what an angel is. Angels are considered to be messengers of (and emanating from) God. As an emanation, would they be limited in shape or form?
The ending pulls from (and provides a modern illustration of) the story from Ezekiel where different types of angels are described, including, most notably, the Ophanim, the angels that are "wheels within a wheel" and the Seraphim, the angels that are burning flashes of light, continuously ascending and descending.
Since an alien is usually referred to, in this context, as anything not from this planet, aliens and angels are not always mutually exclusive. There could exist aliens that are not angels, but would we know the difference between the two if we saw them. Is there a difference between the two or is it just human semantics? If you lived hundreds of years ago (or more) and believed in a [G/g]od of some type, with messengers that had superhuman characteristics as well as forms that were not necessarily human in likeness, you may very well describe what you saw at the end of the movie as angels. If you lived today and had been influenced by pop culture's representations of aliens and UFOs, then you may well interpret the Strangers as aliens.
I tend to see that the strangers could be both (the are one and the same), but our limited experience and collective vocabulary apparently doesn't tend to determine that sort of interpretation. :)
Ebert: Is it true that, as Howard Hawks thought, only angels have wings?
I've never understood atheists. Why do they have to proclaim that they don't believe in anything? Isn't that an incredibly arrogant stance? In fact, it is always nicer to believe in the concept of something greater than yourself, no matter what that may be; even if you aren't totally sure?
I had to respond to this one too Liz.
Atheists don't proclaim that they don't believe in anything, we're simply waiting for the religious to finish their sentences. If someone proclaims they believe in god, I could reply 'really?why?'. And they wouldn't be able to produce one logical answer.
By all means we should believe in the concept of something greater than ourselves but you don't need Theism for that. Theism attempts to fill the vast void of unknowns with proclaimed truths. Truths that don't have a basis in anything other than human imagination. That is truly an arrogant stance. Atheism is simply a response to this arrogance.
It you said the universe is vast and magnificient and unknowable, atheist would nod approvingly. When you say 'I believe a god did this and that on such and such a day and that's what the universe is and that's why it was created', you lose anyone who is willing to think critically. And you create Atheists.
Ebert: Back to foretelling the future: Don't you find it astonishing that psychics make a living?
I do Roger. But there is a kindly lady who lost her 30 year old son to a freak heart ailment. The man literally stood up from a chair and died before he hit the floor. She, understandably, is devastated. She relies on going to psychics in order to "talk" to her son, to see how he is doing, and to offer encouragement. Even though I think she knows its complete b.s., it simply makes her feel better. The psychics are cheaper than psychiatrists, and I think the psychic provides a certain amount of closure that the psychiatrist cannot in such devastating circumstances (not knocking the profession, but where a psychic offers immediate comfort, the psychiatrist attempts to heal deeper wounds which I think take longer).
This universe creates intelligence so that it can come to better understand itself.
At this time we are part of that intelligence.
But all structures and forms are unstable.
There is no guarantee a species will ever sufficiently evolve to totally comprehend the mystery of the life form that they are.
There is no guarantee that intelligence in and of itself assures survival.
Our species must eventually accept that random chaos is part of any cosmic divinity.
Re: Universe as hologram by Michael Talbot. Mr. Ebert says there must be something wrong with it, and he is correct. It is cobbled-together gibberish, not worth anyone's time. If you are looking for concrete errors of fact, here is just one: "Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole." This is simply not true.
Think of a holograph as a window onto a 3-D scene -- a person's face, for example. If you cover up one-half of the hologram, yes you can move off to the side and still see the whole face -- sort of. There are parts of the face that you can't see (the cheek behind the nose, the ear on the far side, etc.) that you would be able to see if you were to uncover the other half of the hologram and move to the other side. In other words, there is information in the right-half of the hologram that is not contained in the left-half of the hologram, and vice versa. If you shatter the hologram into a million pieces, you would never be able to discern from any one individual piece what the whole hologram looked like.
Talbot's logic about entangled subatomic particles is similarly strained. Yes, entangled particles behave as if they are just one particle -- until you measure something. At that moment of measurement, the entanglement is broken and the particles go on to live very happy, fulfilling lives completely independent of each other.
Now there's an idea for a relationship movie (except for the "very happy, fulfilling" part)!
You're right. Those three movies you mentioned would NOT have been the same without Cage. That's what's frustrating. Is in those movies he is so good and then he does a string of let-downs. I liked him in "World Trade Center" but I think the last movie he really stood out in for me was "Lord of War". Once he won the Oscar, he suddenly became Nicolas Cage: Action Star! Then, almost every action movie, he was either morose and cool or over-the-top and aloof. What happened to stories showcasing versatility, like "Birdy", "Raising Arizona", and "Adaptation", I don't dislike Cage, I just hate to see a capable actor take crap roles and then interchange approaches to those characters each time around. Cracked did a funny lil rip on Cage which is sadly kinda true.
http://www.cracked.com/topic/118-nicolas-cage/
Maybe Herzog will bring something out of Cage, I hope!
Much of what I commented on is in my review....
http://www.fanboyplanet.com/movies/djf-knowing.php
Ebert: My guess: Cage and Herzog will find themselves suited to one another. Both are happy to take big chances.
The aliens could possibly be angels. Is there any reason why a spiritual being wouldn't actually move through material space? Or why they wouldn't use a starship of some sort to transport the children?
One of the other readers commented that it was possible that the aliens were simply able to see the future-- the mechanics of that being irrelevant. Perhaps they could travel through time. Who knows.
But the first idea to come to mind is that of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Do we know that Cage's character is the only person with access to numbers such as this? Perhaps there are others around the world. And maybe that's not even relevant. Consider the scene in which he tries to stop a subway accident, but fails. Had he not been there that day, would the events have unfolded in exactly the same way? Of course, had they not unfolded that way, the numbers on the page might have been different, if they would have showed up at all.
For anyone who's read The Foundation Trilogy by Asimov, he talks of something called "psychohistory," a branch of mathematics/science/sociology that uses the events in history to generate mathematical formulas to predict the future. Because history is cyclical, and because human nature almost always reacts in similar ways to similar stimuli, this ends up working out.
As the trilogy nears the end, the reader begins to realize that these prophecies are not only self-fulfilling, but that the original "prophet" (in quotations because it's mathematics, not religion) knew that this would be the case, and sets into play alternate routes to circumvent this.
Of course, the self-fulfilling prophecy is something that has been quite common throughout literature and media over the years, but to men, that's always been at the forefront of my mind when I consider Free Will vs. Determination. Namely, if you already know what will happen in the future, could your actions (Free will, perhaps?) inadvertently cause those actions to happen? (Determination, then.)
When it comes to prophecies of Armageddons and such things, I am much less worried about the possibility of the Armageddon than I am about the people who believe in it, and how they might bring it about.
We all know now that the Universe is a hologram at the very edge of the Universe. None of us is real. We are all just holograms.
Just like the "aliens put us here" theory, the problem with the hologram answer is that it is not an answer. The question just becomes, "who put the hologram there?"
Oh, how I enjoyed Alex Proyas' "Dark City". From what I'm reading this film almost seems like a continuation of the thought processes of that script, on a grander scale. "Dark City" was about intelligent design, but not as we commonly define it, and I'm getting the impression this one is similar. The intelligence that designs "Dark City" is another race of beings. They also appear as men/woman/children in coats and hats, always observing. It would take alot for me to go to a film starring Nicolas Cage but this one would be it.
Roger:
Re: whether or not the creatures had wings. I think the beings had what looked like glimpses of wings - almost a wisp of the glow that surrounded them. That wisp seemed to be in the shape of the wing, but to the movie's credit, it left the fact ambiguous. Much like the ship at the end, I think, was supposed to remind us of the ship from the Ezekiel drawing, I think the alien creatures' glow was supposed to remind us of wings. The glow certainly maintained the shape of a wing, but was it really wing-shaped, or just the way we impose shapes on things that may not need them?
In other words, the Ezekiel drawing/book might have been a primitive rendition of these events.
And did you notice that there were FOUR creatures? All they needed were horses...
Ebert: What I can't find is the blasted engraving. Wanted to use it with the entry.
There is a fatal flaw in the logic behind films like "Knowing", "Signs", "Contact" or any work of fiction that attempts to posit an answer to the question "is there anybody out there?" That flaw is that they all try to answer that question.
Fiction, by its very nature, can not provide that answer. It can only speculate. A film like "Signs" puts forth a premise or a debate: Is the universe random or deterministic (are there only coincidences, or is there a larger, conscious force behind it.) But rather than dwell on how this fundamental debate affects us as humans (which a good work of art would do), it instead presents illustrations that lead up to the screenwriter's already determined conclusion to the question. Shayamalan, in "Signs", clearly falls in the deterministic camp, so naturally he's going to write a film that strains credulity and displays very carefully crafted (the opposite of "observed")examples to support his conclusion.
The problem is, it's all made up. Yes, Shayamalan or Proyas or Zemeckis can end their film by saying "There IS a God", but only in the same way a film like "The Matrix" can end with the assertion that there IS an alternate reality. In the end, it's all just speculation. It's easy to prove a point when you can invent the proof.
These films may make good escapist entertainment, but I think it's a bit intellectually irresponsible to use them as any basis for sound reason.
Note to Roger and Mr. Hoehne:
If you can only prove a postulate by mathematics, no matter how sophisticated, have you proved anything? Einstein's comic rant "God does not play dice with the universe!" has been interpreted to the benefit of the interpreter almost since its utterance. To ask the Heisenberg-Einstein question in simplistic language but not simplistically, if you use a thermometer to measure a miniscule object's temperature have you altered the temperature? Are you getting truly accurate data?
Note to astrophysicists: Read the above, and remember the number of dimensions mathematically provable at the "Big Bang" is now eleven. Conundrum, ain't it?
Note to Roger and Mr. Hoehne:
If you can only prove a postulate by mathematics, no matter how sophisticated, have you proved anything? Einstein's comic rant "God does not play dice with the universe!" has been interpreted to the benefit of the interpreter almost since its utterance. To ask the Heisenberg-Einstein question in simplistic language but not simplistically, if you use a thermometer to measure a miniscule object's temperature have you altered the temperature? Are you getting truly accurate data?
Note to astrophysicists: Read the above, and remember the number of dimensions mathematically provable to have existed at the "Big Bang" is now eleven. Conundrum, ain't it?
The shortest distance between two points is a tesseract.
I wrote something to a previous thread that you included. With the Watchmen entry, this, and many of the others, I'd thought I'd try to expand here.
The packets of energy and mass-stuff move through time-space. The movement is due to a process (within the 4 forces). The tangible and the process (both historic states and future states) are all there is. Because of the nature of the forces, the process is minutely deterministic, but is probabilistic at any measurement point.
That future states are dependent upon previous states is obvious. Does that mean that the future is known? Yes. But it isn't useful unless you know the process by which the minute will transition.
Knowledge is the measurement state which suffers from Heisenberg.
Free will is a projection of deterministic events based on knowledge. Because we are aggregate cells made of matter, we are, indeed and thought, part of the process. That isn't useful either, except in conversations among friends that extend the knowledge ether.
"Ebert: My guess is, they didn't like it. :)
No conspiracy theory. Maybe some animosity toward Nicholas Cage."
Ahh, duhh on my part. Why would there be animosity towards Nicholas Cage though? Is it his ever growing receding hairline?
Ebert: Is his hairline relevant?
Mr. Ebert, I just watched the movie on your recommendation. I was entertained and unsettled.
In your blog entry you say, "[1] Strict determinism implies an absence of free will, and [2] free will is a necessary component of all spiritual belief systems." The first claim is questionable: many (perhaps most) philosophers have thought that determinism and free will are compatible. The second claim is pretty clearly false. Martin Luther, for example, seems not to have believed in free will. Yet he had a "spiritual belief system." I myself know people who don't believe in free will, but who are religious and believe in God, in the meaning of life, etc., and who organize their actions accordingly. Whether that position is ultimately defensible is a very difficult question. But that hasn't stopped some thoughtful people from opting for it. I don't see why they couldn't reasonably "experience the film as an affirmation of religious belief."
Ebert: Let me ask this. Say you believe in predestination. Does that mean you go to heaven or hell regardless of what you do in life?
Ebert: Why do some people dislike Nicolas Cage? I find him more alive than many actors, more present, willing to let go. Who but Cage could have played the role in "Moonstruck?" "Leaving Las Vegas? "Weatherman?"
Yes, and if we were talking about that Nicolas Cage I would agree with you. The present version of Nicolas Cage is somehow wooden and over wrought at the same time. As much as an accomplishment as that is, it is not a worthy feat. And neither is the National Treasure franchise. Once you've seen either of those two, say, on a long flight where there was no escape except Morpheus, it stays burned into your brain.
Hi Roger, some thoughts. Have you ever seen David Twhoy's Grand Tour: Disaster in Time, aka Timescape. Its been some time since I've seen the film but there seemed to be some mining from the little seen gem's story; whatever the case the two would make a fine double feature (although I think Knowing might ring hollow next to GTDIT.) Chalk up another one who saw wings. The film felt a little too much the hodgepodge when all was said and done, and when compared with Spielberg's recent sci-fi trilogy, too neat and underwhelming. Your enthusiasm makes me wish I saw a better film. But we can agree on Cage always interesting and never seems to take a role for granted. Herzog/Cage Bad Lieutenant 2, the mind boggles.
Roger - You are the best critic out there! Once again, you are spot on with this film. I loved it, and you are right, I did find a religious theme in it. However, I am sure there are more layers to digest upon further reflection.
This may be a dumb questions, but what was the story behind the necklace that Cage gave his son at the end and said "Someday you'll understand"?
The issue of free will vs. predeterminism is far from settled in even mainstream (read: western)Christianity, but the roots of the argument, for what it's worth, stem from the writings of St. Augustine in opposition to the Pelagian heresy which suggests, in effect, that human beings not only have free will, but are not affected by original sin and do not necessarily even need salvation, and if they do, are able to achieve it through hard work and their own good acts. This is a far cry from Augustine's own Damascene experience of conversion. Once again, the architects of orthodoxy remake religion in their own image.
Let me ask this. Say you believe in predestination. Does that mean you go to heaven or hell regardless of what you do in life?
But Roger this very thing has been a major - at various times THE major - point of contention between certain Christian sects, all of which are, or adhere to, spiritual belief systems. That it seems stupid and oppressive to believe certain people are hellbound from birth doesnt change the fact that many Christians have believed it, in one way or another. Imagine though growing up believing fully in a religion that for all you know might have never given you a chance to avoid eternal damnation. But people did it. Apparently, for many people, thought was not invented until the Enlightenment, or afterward - it has since gone missing again, in many quarters.
Ebert: Okay, let me ask you this: Were there many people who believed they (as opposed to others) were predestined to hell? Did that affect their behavior?
Here we go again with the Intelligent Design debate. :P
I try to steer clear of absolutes. The notion that life is composed of some mixture of free will and determinism makes far more sense to me than an all-or-none outlook. I have to say, though, the more I read your blog the more convinced I am that film is the best medium in modern society for exploring these ideas. It isn't because traditional resources are irrelevant (like, God forbid, books) so much as film is more readily accessible to the everyman as a means of self-discovery. Though maybe that's just a defense mechanism to protect the self-esteem of a borderline illiterate culture.
As long as the use of numbers as a catalyst for philosophical implications isn't as absurd as that Number 23 flick, I'm curious and will probably see "Knowing". I've always been a fan of Cage as an extremely versatile actor, though admittedly some of his more recent efforts have been on the crappy side (*coughGhostRidercough*).
I, like you, thought is was one of the best science fiction films I'd seen. Other critics simply don't seem to get the basic ideas of the movie. One talked about global warming (did he miss the part about the solar flare?), others bashed it for its religiosity. The point of the movie was religion was irrelevant; the angel wings were just another way of showing, along with prophesies and surprisingly correct biblical illustrations, that the aliens were simply what man had mistaken for god and angels.
I thought the movie did a wonderful job getting it's point across: Even if we know that our lives serve no higher purpose and the nature of god is less grand than we imagined, it doesn't make either insignificant. It doesn't change the reality of our lives; it doesn't dilute love or happiness, or remove the horrors of the world. We are what we are with or without our illusions of meaning.
Roger,
I have long-appreciated your site's habit of posting your reviews late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning (depending on the time difference) rather than having to wait all the way to Friday (the day most films are released) before getting to read your thoughts. I was so intrigued by your four-star review of Alex Proyas' "Knowing" the other day that I decided to go and see it this afternoon. The thing is, this blog was also posted yesterday and BOY AM I GLAD I didn't bother reading this before seeing the film... Spoilers, indeed!
That being said: I too found the questions of determinism vs. randomness in the universe fascinating and certainly more thought-provoking than we would expect from a Nicolas Cage action-thriller with sci-fi under (and eventually, over) -tones. When the young man came in to clean the theater during the ending credits as I sat and let the experience wash over me and digest a bit in my heart and mind, he asked what I thought. I told him that I liked it, that it reminded me a bit of Proyas' "Dark City" (1998) in certain ways - which he'd never seen/heard of - and then I told him to see that asap.
P.S. Was I the only one who thought the final scene strongly resembled the Strangers from that film dumping the kids from this film into first Vincent Ward's "What Dreams May Come" (1998) only to then pan as they moved off into Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain" (2006)?
The core of the scientific method is the testing of hypothesis by experiment. This must be done by selecting a dependent variable for the experiment. However, with no free will, there can be no dependent variables. We are not free to set whatever we are testing for to any value and check the results. The implication is that it is impossible to test/prove that the world is clockwork. Testing or proving that would require conditions that are impossible if the hypothesis is correct.
Your blog comments added to the interest created by your review. It's been a while since I've seen any film featuring Nic Cage reviewed so positively. I'll go see it on the basis of both e-docs.
The movie outcome described in this blog evoked the fabulous ending of Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. In the book, and this is from memory so I apologize if it's not altogether correct, a group of 'caretaker aliens' descend in large vessels over the large cities of the world and deal with one human emissary throughout to several ends. Over the course of many generations, they end war, abolish religion to create a stable pacific society, but never reveal themselves.
They're waiting for an evolutionary signal that they've witnessed before when the species/race they're overseeing will "jump" to their next level of existence. They have been in this role for countless millenia, and are trying to sort out how they themselves could make the jump.
When the "jump" occurs for Earth, a generation of children seem to evolve into "junior gods" (sorry; raised a catholic, living as a lapsed one, can't think of a better analogy), the planet becomes their plaything, is destroyed and the story continues beyond the borders of the novel. If I'm not mistaken, the aliens either abandon the planet knowing the events about to take place, or transport the children like they do in this movie.
In the novel, time operates a "loop" in which, you sometimes get glimpses of the past or the future, but you have no way of knowing which. The reason that they never reveal themselves is that in one of those glimpes from past to future centuries before, they were spotted and demonized. Benevolent in the extreme, revealing themselves to a superstitious/religious population would have been counter-productive since they look exactly like many historical/biblical representations of the devil. Oops.
Re: determinism and free will - based on the loop idea and a few others in the novel, I think that book sides with determinism. It affected me profoundly.
Much as I wouldn't know that this was "the end", if, in fact, energy cannot be destroyed, and we are re-constituted in any way as sentient energy (there's that Catholic upbringing again), I hope I would be able to look at the "evolution" benevolently regardless of how violently my physical world was ruptured to accomplish it.
Thanks for the review, the ensuing thoughtful blog and by design, the forum for the many comments I read. They brought back good memories of that novel and will ensure at least one great conversation on this subject this weekend.
Among other things, it's good to live in society that can present such provocative thoughts with no undesirable consequences.
Reply to: There is a fatal flaw in the logic behind films like "Knowing", "Signs", "Contact" or any work of fiction that attempts to posit an answer to the question "is there anybody out there?" Fiction, by its very nature, can not provide that answer. It can only speculate. The problem is, it's all made up... I think it's a bit intellectually irresponsible to use them as any basis for sound reason.
This is exactly how I feel whenever someone quotes the Bible as an answer.
It's intellecually irresponsible to use the bible as any basis for sound reason.
GIGO Garbage In, Garbage Out
Reply to: Ebert: At the moment the mysterious figures cast away their humanity, I fully expected them to sprout wings and manifest as angels, etc. But no.
http://www.angelsghosts.com/angel_terms_definitions.html
Dynameis: Greek word for "powers," the invisible force of gods, stars, elements, spirit beings, etc.
The word "angel" comes from Angelus (Latin); Angelos (Greek) and from Hebrew for “on going” or “one sent” - a divine or human messenger
Daimones: Ancient Greek word for "divine beings" believed to be between God and man, benevolant, ministering spirits, who later were transformed into the modern day "demons" by bible translators.
Devas: Celestial beings, also known as Dharma Alas or Dharma protectors in Buddhist and Hindu religion.
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/luschnig/GTC/1L.htm
When we speak of Greek tragedy we are talking about the plays of only three men who lived and worked in Athens all in the fifth century B.C., Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides... The very first named writer of tragedy was Thespis (from his named we get the word thespian which means "actor"). The word thespian implies he also acted in his plays.
In Oedipus, Antigone, Hippolytus we have a messenger who reports what happened offstage, deaths and self-mutilation, and mangling. ..these messenger speeches often contain some of the most brilliant and exciting writing in their plays.
Is there a connection here?
If a messenger was a convention of Greek tragedy...
If a messenger appeared to report events happening offstage... and Hermes was the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology...
I think it's easy to see where "angels" come from. They come from the theater. They were messengers in a Greek tragedy before they were recruited to announce the birth of Jesus, or Caesar, or whatever deity requires some PR.
Cage was in a film with Meg Ryan called "City of Angels" where he played an angel... sans wings, as I remember.
Ebert: Inspired by the wonderful Wedners film "Wings of Desire."
Do you know when angels were first said to have wings?
Roger,
I had not planned to see this movie until I saw your review today and just had the opportunity to see it. It was an amazing film and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought I saw wings, but as a non-believer, I was not looking for them. Many people who see the film will see it simply as a thriller and it will not spark any higher philosophical discussions for some. I agree with a previous comment - wings were present...or were they? Angels or aliens? Hard to say, so everyone walks away satisfied with their belief systems. The same thing with Lucinda's daughter and the "She is safe now" comment. You can believe that she went to heaven or that a car wreck was prefereable to massive amounts of solar flares, radiation, and mass chaos.
In response to a previous comment regarding the numbers that Caleb started writing near the end of the film--I belive he was starting over with the sequence of numbers that Lucinda wrote in order to write the very last numbers that were missing (Lucinda's house). I do not believe they had gone to the school to get the door from the janitor's closet at that point in the film.
The children do not join hands at the end. As they were running to the tree (or was it the logo of another film studio?), I expected them to start holding hands, but they didn't, which was an slightly eerie touch. All in all, I like the film quit a bit, especially the music (you can't go wrong with Beethoven's 7th) and the marvelous photography (the smallness of the shack was captured very effectively).
Hey Roger and Company,
So just saw Knowing, and I firmly agree that this is one of the better sci-fi films in years (my favourite still being Dark City). Anyway, at the end of the movie, Yes the celestial beings had wings. I thought that was a classy touch by Proyas.
Many critics have lambasted this film. I find that when a film or piece of work in general presents ideas that are out of our comfort zone, critics are the first jump down it's throat. You don't have to believe any of it to be thoroughly enjoyed by it. An older couple behind me, during the spaceship scene at the end, could be heard uttering "crap", as the "beings" finally disclose themselves. That's what happens when you come into a film like this with the baggage of your beliefs. No one is asking you to believe anything in this film. Just suspend your disbelief to "suppose".
To Roger, I have been reading and watching you for years now...I think I am going on 15, and I find you to be the most intelligent of the bunch. A big fan. Except for your review on Mortal Kombat which I though rocked!
Roger, I'm sorry to leave an off-topic comment here, but I just read your review of "I Love You, Man" and just wanted to say: if you liked Segel in that flick, you *need* to see "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." To be honest, I thought "Knocked Up" and "40-Year-Old Virgin" were slightly overrated, so I had small expectations for "Marshall"; but -- primarily thanks to Jason Segel's empathetic performance, as well as a strong cast of supporting characters (and a script that avoids "good-guy"/"bad-guy" character role cliches of rom-coms) -- it was one of the most delightful surprises (for me, anyway) of 2008. The thing I admired most is probably the fact that Segel didn't paint his character as a perfect person -- all the characters have their faults. And Russell Brand was hilarious in it. It's one of the best romantic comedies I think I've ever seen -- at once entirely refreshing, not altogether predictable and held up by some daringly realistic performances considering the genre. It's a feel-good flick that, because of its lack of compromises, doesn't leave a schmaltzy aftertaste.
Again, sorry to post an off-topic comment in regards to this blog entry (and I won't be offended if you choose not to approve this comment because it's unrelated to the topic), but I felt an urge to recommend the film! Cheers.
The idea that aliens would rescue only the children is ludicrous on its face. If the world is indeed headed for transformation and resurrection in 2012 as I believe it is, we are all in it together. The New Age will be real for all of us or none of us. There is no logic in singling out some and leaving others to their fate.
Mr. Ebert, regarding your question at 4:03pm. I don't believe in predestination, but I can understand how some religious people might while still believing in traditional heaven and hell. They could concede that we don't *deserve* heaven or hell (we don't deserve punishment or reward for actions for which we aren't morally responsible, and predestination cancels moral responsibility). But they could instead believe that a person goes to, say, heaven if her character is *fit* for heaven, i.e., if her stable mental and behavioral dispositions are of the right sort for whatever tasks heaven might involve.
Compare with the parable of the vine and its branches. If a branch's stable disposition is to produce fruit, then it's fit to remain on the vine. But if the branch is disposed to be fruitless, then the gardener cuts it off from the vine and throws it into the fire. Does the branch *deserve* to remain on the vine (or to be thrown into the fire)? No, because the branch isn't morally responsible; it doesn't freely choose whether or not to bear fruit. But is it *fit* for the vine (or for the fire)? Yes, because it's fruitful (or it isn't).
So to answer your question: a free will denier might say that a person's being sent to heaven (or to hell) doesn't depend on what her actions deserve, but rather on whether her character is appropriate for a heavenly (or a hellish) life. That might or might not be orthodox, but it seems like a coherent (and not completely implausible) religious view to adopt.
And of course there might be better, more clearly orthodox ways of reconciling religious belief with belief in the nonexistence of freedom. I, for one, would be interested in hearing about them. To me, at least, it isn't obvious that the two beliefs conflict with one another.
I really enjoy your blog; thanks for writing it!
Dang it Roger, don’t you realize I’m busy allowing the essentially lazy side of my nature to rule my embarrassingly over-analytical (not to mention excessively verbose) inner demons? If you keep waking the demons like this, how am I supposed to get all of my usual sleepwalking done? I mean, seriously… there’s only so much room in my skull for all of these brain bugs.
I’m not a mathematician, a scientist, or even a philosopher. I don’t even play one on TV. That being said, I do fancy myself a fan of all three disciplines, and this definitely seems like a conversation where the history and basics of chaos theory (the real scientific theory, not the weird hoogey-moogey version we usually get in the movies) may prove helpful:
You see, although scientists and theologians both speak of “determinism”, they define it a bit differently. Theologians (and most other secular philosophers) see determinism in terms of a universe where everything in both space and time is already set in stone – God knows all ends past and the future because in some sense he’s already created them. He doesn’t have to extrapolate the facts, he can just “know” because for Him they already exist. All of our individual thoughts and actions (including the feeling that we’re action of our own volition) are simply aspects of his already completed creation.
When scientists speak of a “deterministic universe” they mean something similar, but different in a key way. Rather than assuming that the whole space-time universal enchilada has already been completed, they assume that the universe is unfolding in a way that is governed by a set of laws/principles that are always consistent, which means that their operation is always predictable. If you have good data on the current state of things within a particular domain, and you understand how the laws that govern that domain operate, you can then predict the exact state of anything and everything within that domain at any point in time, past, present, or future.
Seems reasonable, right? (Those wily scientists always do.) Although this idea has been around a long time, it really got enshrined as holy doctrine when Newton proposed his laws of motion. We can look in the sky, and tell exactly where each celestial body will be at any given time. Aside from being incredibly useful in a practical sense, this notion also appeals to people very strongly on an emotional level. Seeing the Sun, Moon and Earth dance into each other’s arms precisely on our cue during an eclipse is a very powerful rush – we’re so clever even the heavens obey us.
This may be why determinism (in the scientific sense) has proven to be a very persistent notion. So persistent that it continues to endure quite widely among the general non-technical population, and remains popular even among many of our best and brightest scientific minds. This despite a lot of very clear evidence to the contrary. As early as the 1800’s, scientists and mathematicians working on various classical physics problems (things like orbital motion between three or more bodies, or the movement of turbulence in liquids and gasses) observed that these systems did not behave in the entirely predictable way that they should. They seemed “erratic” and “unstable”, with bits and pieces moving in ways that didn’t jive with the Newtonian models. In short, they seemed less obedient to us than the cooperative planets. They didn’t always end up in the “right place” at the “right time”.
These sorts of systems were even given a name (non-linear) and a lot of work was done in the early 20th century working out some fiendish differential equations to describe how they worked in mathematical terms. Although nobody was really able to work out precisely what it would take to make these naughty non-linear systems predictable like those nice law-abiding Newtonian citizens who play so nicely with the other children, but still a general philosophical consensus (that served that very persistent ideology of determinism quite nicely) did arise. Clearly (said the faithful determinists), the “slipperiness” of these systems could be chalked up to:
1) An incomplete understanding of the laws governing the system in question
and/or
2) An incomplete/inaccurate set of data describing the nature of the system in question
In short, although the universe was still a lovely and inviolable deterministic clockwork, our schematic of the clock simply wasn’t complete yet. Surely as we developed more accurate ways of measuring the universe (collecting ALL of that data) and we tied up a few loose theoretical ends (firmed up ALL of those laws), we’d find that we really could make ALL of the trains run on time. This delightful, humble little cop-out assuaged the doubts of pretty much everybody, expert and layman, for some time. The quirks of non-linear systems could be comfortably attributed to human frailty and faith in the in Almighty and Inerrant Determinism could comfortably endure.
Unfortunately for the devout, the development of the digital computer in the mid 20th century made it possible to execute very rigid deterministic commands very quickly, on increasingly massive piles of data. This enabled people who wanted to learn more about how complex natural systems operate to create microcosmic but very formal mathematical models of those natural systems, let them run for lengthy periods of time, and observe what happens. This has many advantages over simply observing “real life”:
- It allows very complicated experiments to be created and executed in a controlled and inexpensive way
- It enables us to watch complex processes unfold at speeds much faster than “real time”
- It allows us to do things like freeze-frame, rewind, replay, fast forward, etc., as we observe the processes.
But even beyond making science more like TiVo, the great advantage of the computer models is that they can be “clean”. They’re idealized formal environments free from those messy human limitations in understanding and accuracy that (according to the articles of deterministic faith) allowed all that untidy non-linear unpredictability to creep in and sully our conclusions. How do these models accomplish this? By allowing the creator of the computer models to literally “play God”:
1) Since the programmer created the laws governing the model, a complete understanding of those laws was possible.
and
2) Complete and accurate data about the state of the system was obtainable because all data points in the system were also created by the programmer.
In short, the creators of these models can (at least within the domain of the model environment) be like Dr. Manhattan – they could have a complete understanding of how the entire “world” interacted, because they themselves put it there.
As it turns out, one of the great heroes of the chaos theory graphic novel was not a Watchman, but a weatherman. His name was Edward Lorenz, and although he was also a mathematician by training his real vocation was meteorology (not high energy quantum physics or anything as ethereal as all that… and as far as we know he didn’t paint himself blue and run around naked either).
In the early 1960’s Lorenz was using the computers of the day to assemble all of the weather data coming in from observation stations around the world and crunch it through computer models that could be used to predict what the atmosphere was going to do next. (early versions of the same models the TV weatherman is always going on about on the nightly news).
In the course of working on these models, Lorenz noticed that when he adjusted the number of decimal places the model used for incoming data, the same model would produce drastically different results. For example, if he rounded his wind speed figures to three decimal places instead of five (making something like 10.56609 read 10.566), he’d get markedly different weather predictions across the board, even though in “real life” a change of a few hundred-thousandths would be essentially imperceptible/un-measurable: no more than a single flap of a butterfly wing (hence “The Butterfly Effect”, fabled in song, story, and sub-par Ashton Kutcher movie).
He double-checked the calculations of the program, expecting to find an error somewhere, but there wasn’t any. The models ran fine time after time, yielding the same result for identical data, but much different results from the tiniest alteration in even one item of data.
He wrote about his findings in a 1964 paper with the catchy title “The Problem of Deducing the Climate From the Governing Equations”. If you’re looking for a riveting summer pool-side read you can download it for free at:
http://eapsweb.mit.edu/research/Lorenz/The_Problem_of_Deducing_1964.pdf
In a nutshell, Lorenz concluded that the determinist orthodoxy was fallacy – Even in a closed artificial system in which you have absolute control over both the “Laws” and the “Data”, there exists what he called a “sensitive dependence on initial conditions”: infinitesimal (if not immeasurable) variations in what appear to be statistically insignificant individual data points can dramatically alter the predicted outcomes.
The implications of this are pretty huge. First off, if we see these sorts of variations in the closed atmosphere of the computer model over which we have a complete control of both the laws and the data, think of how much more prevalent these tiny variations must be in the REAL atmosphere surrounding the planet. The computer model is mathematically discreet – as far the model knows, the only atmospheric conditions that exist are represented by the figures from the weather stations. However, we know that the real atmosphere fills all the space around and in between those weather stations, and that the data set in the model is only a tiny sampling of the actual state of the atmosphere. For every fart, sigh, and butterfly flutter that occur within a inch of a weather station where they might be detected, there are bejillions more butts and butterflies out there disturbing the air every second, the vast majority of which the model doesn’t even take into account.
Second off, we have a devilish little Macro-scale parallel to the whole Heisenberg Uncertainty/Schroedinger’s Cat problem in quantum physics land: Weather measuring instruments (and the people who operate them) will have a much greater effect on atmospheric conditions than even the most hyperactive butterfly. If data variations this small matter this much (if they’re really this “sensitively dependent”), then the simple act of taking the measurements is altering the data WAY beyond the “butterfly threshold” of changes that radically alter the predictive outcomes.
Thirdly, the better we get at bringing these same analytical tools to bear, the more we’re coming to understand that Newton’s tidy linear universe of physical motion was the exception, and Lorenz’s chaotic non-linear atmosphere is the rule. MOST natural systems, including biggies like the Earth’s water cycle and pretty much every biological function (genetics, ecosystems, species populations, individual physiological functions within organisms, you name it) are functioning on the chaos theory plan. Even more fun is the fact that a lot of systems we tend to think of as being invented and supposedly controlled by humans (the most visible example these days would be the economy) are also playing by the non-linear rules (such as they are).
The bottom line? Mix this stuff in with some Einstein, some Heisenberg, some Kurt Goedel, and it’s pretty clear that scientific determinism, generally speaking, is a big fat lie. A false doctrine. It’s not just that we don’t know everything yet, it’s that we can’t know everything, ever. It doesn’t matter how clever we become, we don’t get to be the boss of everything.
This may sound bleak to those of us still wanting to be the boss of everything, but if we can come down off of our high horses for a bit, I think we’ll find that this isn’t so bad. While we don’t get deterministic certainty, what we do get is still pretty darn useful (and, I think, a lot more fun): The excitement of the probabilistic guess. The proverbial 70% chance of rain beloved of Lorenz’s meteorological peers. We can’t ever know EXACTLY what’s going to happen, but we can put in some pretty solid guesses about what’s LIKELY to happen.
So this is what we do, and it has served us pretty well. This is how life gets lived, and why (at least in my quasi-humble opinion) the concept of free will continues to be such a compelling draw for us. We all know on a very instinctual level that we really don’t have much of a handle on how things work and what that means for us in the future. If we’re being honest with ourselves, we know we’re not really solving for X every time we make a decision (either individually or collectively in terms of things like public policy). We’re just giving it a lick and a promise, taking our best shot, and hoping for the best. We belch and the twister takes out Lubbock (unless we fart later and redirect it to Ponca City), but we’re none the wiser either way. We make our best guesses and choose what we feel or think, because we cannot truly know.
This is not as random or non-scientific as it sounds. One of the great observations Lorenz made was that not only were all weather predictions fated to be expressed in these terms of probability (the old 70% chance of precipitation…), but that this probability was inextricably linked to physical and temporal proximity: Where we’re personally at in space and time matter a lot when navigating non-linear systems like the ones that make up our world.
Think about it: Even a complete idiot who knows nothing about meteorology can look around and make an 99.9997% accurate prediction about what the weather will be like over the next 60 seconds within a 100-foot radius of himself. Stretch the time frame out to just a week, or the distance frame out to just the size of a local TV market, and all of the best brains and tools in the world struggle to average any better than about 65%. Watch the Weather Channel during hurricane season and this becomes painfully obvious – all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can never really tell you EXACTLY where the eye will make landfall until just shortly before it actually does (at which point, just about anybody probably could).
Funny thing is, just about everybody does, all day long, in every action they take. For all the uncertainty in the world, we’re still here, surviving, and often even thriving, even if we are just operating by the seat of our pants most of the time. Understanding chaos theory doesn’t change that very much. Just because we can’t hold back the tide doesn’t mean we can’t still learn how to surf.
Kowabunga!!!
Ebert: Thank you for spending so much time on this. I can see in theory how the butterfly's wings work, but, given the number of butterflies...
Ebert: Hubble can now just about glimpse the outer edge of the universe, which is to say, the beginning. Who's to say what lies beyond that? If you could stand there and look outward, what would you see?
I believe the correct phrase for the geometry of the universe is: finite but unbounded. There are no edges, even though the universe is of a limited--albeit very, very large--size. It doesn't make sense to ask what's outside of it...there is no outside.
The analogy is an insect crawling on a globe. To the insect, the globe is of finite size--if he walks long enough, he'll eventually cover all of the terrain. But it has no edge.
To put in SAT terms... insect::globe is as us::universe
If the insect is the two-dimensional case (twisted into three dimensions), ours is the three-dimensional case twisted into a fourth dimension we can't directly experience.
P.S. Love your writing, though don't always agree. You've introduced me to some wonderful films I might otherwise never have seen. Thank you.
Um, intelligent? In my experience, I've found that those who bandy the word "relativist" around so readily are Manichaean/Straussian types who view the world in the simplistic and absolutist terms of good/evil. Ya know, Bushies.
The aliens definitely had ethereal wings.
I saw it this afternoon and I didn't know what to think. There are things in the movie that just don't work, and things that are brilliant. Here, four hours after leaving the theater, I haven't stopped thinking about it. I can easily see this film becoming a cult classic in its own right.
Is that an original Ebert, or a cut and paste? It's solipsism.
Ebert:
Solipsism is a belief egotistical
Leading to concepts quite mystical
But its cheerful misspelling
Tempts the mind to rebelling
At a universe merely statistical
I'm pretty sure the aliens were in fact angels. Just when they start ascending into the ship, you can see the vague outline of what appear to be wings on their backs. So, what does that make of it then? Are angels aliens or aliens angels?
Ebert: Anybody else see wings?
I saw streams of light trailing from their backs in ways that I thought could easily be mistaken for wings by people who are more inclined to see angels than aliens.
You got someone else on your side, Roger- Chris Alexander of Fangoria just posted a blog titled "In Defense Of 'Knowing.'" Not as long and in depth as yours, but the budding comment section there indicates that perhaps the critics have completely dropped the ball on this one, excluding yourself, of course.
http://fangoriaonline.com/blogs/chris-alexander/1794-in-defense-of-knowing.html
Ebert: I read this. There has to be something wrong with it, yes? Someone please tell me what it is.
I can't see anything wrong with it either. Of course, they do put these theories out there for a specific reason, and that is to test them against fact and the scrutiny of other scientists. I'm sure somebody will come out and say "Wait a minute!" any day now.
It's fascinating to think that we are just a hologram of something happening on the edge of the universe and that the reason things are able to seem to be done simultaneously at a distance is because they aren't being at a distance, they are the same phenomenon. We just see it as being at a distance because of a distortion in the hologram or something. It's INSANE. Somebody tell me that I'm not a reflection of an action that somebody else is doing.
Ebert: My guess: Cage and Herzog will find themselves suited to one another. Both are happy to take big chances.
Hahaha! And they both seem to be a little nuts!
That will be a great movie, I predict right now. It may not do great box office, but it will be a great movie.
In his autobiography, "In My Own Way," Alan Watts wrote of how he became fascinated with B.F. Skinner's deterministic behaviorism until he discovered its flaw to be the mistaken belief that a human being is separate from his environment and that the separate environment causes or determines his behavior. But, argued Watts, if you understand that the human being is ultimately inseparable from his environment such that he and his environment constitute an "organism-environment field" and that his choices and actions are the expressions of this unified field, you conceptually transcend the false dichotomy of free will and determinism because, in a unified universe, there is no determiner or determinee. There is only the unified universe acting as it inevitably does as a unified field.
I say it acts "as it inevitably does" because the universe is an impossibly vast and complex configuration of interdependent or, in Buddhist terms, "mutually arising" things and events, and, given the universe's configuration at a given time, the things and events comprising its unified field must be what they are and occur precisely as they do at that time.
This doesn't mean that if one knew enough about the initial configuration of the universe and were smart enough to make the necessary calculations, one could accurately predict everything that happens in the universe from that point on, because randomness and causality interact in ways that preclude a theoretically predictable causal chain of events. But everything that happens, including human choices, is the inevitable and partially unpredictable result of this unified field of interacting randomness and causality.
Whether or not this admittedly abstract exposition is correct, one commenter suggested that it really doesn't make any difference to our everyday lives. But I'm inclined to believe, as I think Watts believed, that if we deeply understood that everything that happens, including our choices, are the inevitable manifestations of a unified universal field, it could radically change the way we see ourselves and the universe and behave toward both, and have far reaching effects on our philosophy, religion, science, art, criminology, and virtually every other discipline.
I'm not sure how much any of this has to do with a movie I haven't even seen yet, but how I look forward to seeing the movie and to being spurred by it to give further consideration to the issues being discussed here.
I also found the movie extremely powerful and have enjoyed rerunning it in my head since viewing it. I see the many spiritual and biblical references, but the one piece I can't put into the puzzle is the purpose of the numbers. I understand the calling out of the kids to be the chosen ones, (much like "Close Encounters"), but what does giving children, for five decades, specific dates, coordinates, and body counts of disasters got to do with qualifying them for extraction before the oncoming destruction? How did the children benefit from that knowledge? How did anyone benefit from that knowledge? The deciphering of the numbers drive us as an audience along in the story, but what were their actual purpose? From the point of view of the aliens/angels, what did sending this specific information accomplish? Why did they tell of deaths as proof of their existence? I haven't found the logical link to that yet. Any suggestions?
The best commentary on free will versus determinism I have heard, which unfortunately I cannot recall the source, boils down to: "We may or may not have free will, but we must act as if we do." What else can an 'intelligent' mind do, without going truly mad?
Mr. Ebert, someone may have already asked you this, but it seems like you are alone in your praise of this movie amongst the critics. I have just watched the film and found it very interesting to experience. I can't say it was great, but I do like both Cage and Proyas and felt that the film was a great piece of entertainment. Yet, it seemed like it just lacked a little extra something to make the movie truly relevant. What would be your logic for defending the film against the pundits who did not rate the film highly?
Easily one of the cheesiest and WORST movies I've ever seen. It was laughable. Thank goodness I had a couple of movies passes and didn't pay to see but I am mad that I wasted same.
"Ask Dr. Manhattan. :) What Dave described is pretty much exactly how Dr. Manhattan perceives time and reality. He exists/lives in/experiences all the subjective moments of his life at once. Can he be said to possess free will?
Ebert: And if he does, when does he practice it when it all happens at once? Yet at the end of the film he does seem to make a decision."
I read this just now and wanted to comment... In the Watchmen graphic novel, Dr. Manhattan's dilemma of non-linear existence is described in more detail. When asked about JFK's murder by his then-girlfriend and why he did not stop it if he predicted it, he replied that he simply could not - everything happens/has happened/will happen at once. In the movie he does repeat a line from the graphic novel, recognizing that for independent action on his part (if he does have any desire to change the "predetermined blueprint"), it always has been and always will be too late (which in itself might be a little bit of a paradox I guess :)).
I realize Roger's post is about ideas and not the movie but i don't see anyone making the observation that the film Knowing is a direct reference to Bible mythology except for the transport of the children at the end, which is from Clarke's Childhood's End, but could also represent resurrection and ascension to heaven.
Everything that happens in the film is related in the Bible. The film is an exercise in how to explain Bible myth if it occured in a modern technical age.
Proyas drives this home with the Ezekial image, Ezekial's "wheels of fire" in the sky myth is the early visit in human history when the aliens came to observe humankind, their spaceship is the "wheels of fire", their true appearance is the origin of the angel myth, yes in one shot the wings are distinct but shaped like a butterfly's not a bird's.
Of course all the calamity in the Bible happens in the film to show us the errors of humankind, we have not only offended the earth but the sun too, which used to be our god, so we get incinerated as a rebuke from nature while our innocent children are saved, transported to the new garden of eden for a second chance.
I appreciate the irony that this film shows how an original fantasy myth could become a real origin story, if we had some aliens with warp drives, thank God we have evolution to disprove the current version.
Ebert: Is this the engraving partially seen in the movie?
http://home.halden.net/rolf/merian/m125.jpg
For those unwilling or unable to accept religion's attempts to offer solutions to the fundamental and pressing questions of living-----after all debating the mythologies is not pertinent since these seem to be metaphors or vehicles-----existentialism offers a rational and practicable approach. Quoting Sartre:
Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism. It is also what is called subjectivity, the name we are labeled with when charges are brought against us. But what do we mean by this, if not that man has a greater dignity than a stone or table? For we mean that man first exists, that is, that man first of all is the being who hurls himself toward a future and who is conscious of imagining himself as being in the future. Man is at the start a plan which is aware of itself, rather than a patch of moss, a piece of garbage, or a cauliflower nothing exists prior to this plan; there is nothing in heaven; man will be what he will have planned to be. Not what he will want to be. Because by the word "will" we generally mean a conscious decision, which is subsequent to what we have already made of ourselves. I may want to belong to a political party, write a book, get married; but all that is only a manifestation of an earlier, more spontaneous choice that is called "will." But if existence really does precede essence, man is responsible for what he is. Thus, existentialism's first move is to make every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him. And when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men.
Throughout the film, Proyas danced between religion and science. Examples:
- The fact that the saviors are 'aliens from space' would offend some religious people who do not believe in life on other planets. Yet, when the aliens transport the kids to the spaceship, the aliens are shown with what are clearly angelic wings. And the way the aliens and kids rise to the light is clearly religious symbolism.
- What people would hear when the aliens communicated with them sounded a lot like 'speaking in tongues.'
- What does Koestler (Nick Cage) do when he first sees the spaceship but fall to his knees.
- Just before humanity on earth is wiped out, Koestler's father (a pastor) says that 'this is not the end.' And Koestler jr. knows that is true because his son Caleb has just been saved and that humanity shall continue. But his father's vision of the afterlife probably has nothing at all in common with what actually awaits Caleb and the other kids in their 'afterlife'. But then on the new planet we see what appears to be the Tree of Life.
Throughout the film, I was wondering if Proyas was taking the side of religion or the side of science. I don't think he takes either side and leaves it up to the viewer to decide.
Ebert: I agree. The comments on this thread calling it "religious" are pinning it down, when the ending is open to our interpretation.
1. reason to see movie: Nicholas Cage
2. reason to see movie: all the thoughts listed above (wow people)& Ebert comments
3. I submit that with a Creator with infinite intelligence everything is possible. With infinite intelligence the Creator can experience it all through us and all that has been created in the universe. Notice how nothing ever stays the same, it is always changing, evolving, orbiting so the Creator can experience everything simultaneously in order to learn like us. We are all part of the same thing, come from the same place. Just some thoughts--
Ebert: Inspired by the wonderful Wedners film "Wings of Desire."
I'm not religious at all and I don't believe in any supernatural beings, but I SOOOOOO want there to be an angel helping me and patting me on the back and saying "It's OK"
Reply to: Ebert: Inspired by the wonderful Wedners film "Wings of Desire." Do you know when angels were first said to have wings?
I think it was close to the year Larry King was born.
I would imagine that painters used the description of seraphim and cherubim from the Old Testament. Those are specific classes of angels which had wings.
Seraphim
In some critical circles today, most of Isaiah chapters 1-39 is thought to be the work of the historical Isaiah, written around 700 B.C.,
“Isaiah 6:2–4 records, “Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.’
Cherubim
The author of the book of Ezekiel appears to use a dating system which was only used in the 500s BC
“Chapters 1 and 10 of the book of Ezekiel describe the “four living creatures” (Ezekiel 1:5) as the same beings as the cherubim (Ezekiel 10). Each had four faces – that of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle (Ezekiel 1:10; also 10:14) – and each had four wings. In their appearance, the cherubim “had the likeness of a man” (Ezekiel 1:5). These cherubim used two of their wings for flying and the other two for covering their bodies (Ezekiel 1:6,11,23).”
The word cherub (cherubim is the Hebrew masculine plural) is borrowed from the Assyrian kirubu, from karâbu, "to be near", hence it means near ones, familiars, personal servants, bodyguards, courtiers. It was commonly used of those heavenly spirits, who closely surrounded the Majesty of God and paid Him intimate service.
So, around 700 BC, a poet described God's throne as being surrounded by spiritual beings singing his praises. No reason to think this corresponds to anything in "reality."
And then, 700 years later, after the poetry was considered "holy scripture," an entirely different group of people swore up and down that it was accurate in every detail. That's how the nonsense creeps in. (And by nonsense, I simply mean the lectures I get from intense Christians anxious to recruit me.) In one generation, you have incredibly creative people writing poetry. A thousand years later, the True Believers refuse to admit it was only poetry.
The Seven Days of Creation... in fact, the entire idea of humans being created in their present form.... is only poetry.
Ebert: How did an atheist come to be so learned about the bible?
Roger, you use deterministic and random, that's too polite for me, i think it should be pro-God/religion or anti-God/religion.
I stated in my previous post that the movie is simply a re-telling of the Bible myth, but then i wanted to know what Proyas believed because the movie could be interpreted either pro/con God.
I found an interview on the web and he stated "i'm on the fence" and that the movie is intended to be either pro or con.
A bit of a cop-out but i enjoyed the film.
I went to "Knowing" tonite because Roger rated it so high and was as excited about all the implications of the plot and questions it brought him. I can't recommend anyone paying to see this at the theater, just wait and rent it or find some other way, maybe in the $5 bin in Walmart. I loved Dark City, and this movie is no Dark City or as fascinating as Dark City to me. I have not liked any pictures w Nicholas Cage except Raising Arizona which was so much fun. I found Cage again overbearing, too heavy, too doom and gloom. He seems to play the same character in anything he does. I'm really tired of seeing him to tell the truth. The fascination Roger talked about was awash in a sea of heavy depressed brooding doom where I was tired of the doom early on, and began chuckling at the doom sounding music. I wanted the movie to fascinate me too. I came out not caring if the earth was destroyed in the end. Hey, how many times do we have to see the earth destroyed. It's an old regurgitated plot. So what if a few wrote number predictions. Didn't we see a monolith in 1968. I have a good book I am reading. I wish I had stayed home to finish it instead.
I'm sorry Roger, normally I find I agree with you especially about interesting movies, but this is a stinker.
Movies - they're stories. Just finished reading The Odyssey - great story. I wonder what movies will be Stories of the 24th Century? Will "Knowing"? Will Roger Ebert be regarded as a prophet because of his interpretations? Strange job you have, sir.
Great review Roger. I'm glad you liked it, most people tend not to be able to use their critical thinking skills to contemplate deeper meanings. If this film started a sequence in your mind then I suggest you look into the torah code (or the bible code) then look into the fibonacci sequence, followed by the constant examples of pi, 7, and 12 in the universe and mythology.
If you choose to explore further then email me for some ebooks that will be of great interest to you.
I personally think that it futile to debate the existence of whether we have free will or not. Our perceptions of that are our own and trying to convince others is like trying to convert them from one religion to another. From one core belief to another. This is tied directly to thier perceptions of how their beliefs of how the universe is structured and I think is tied directly to their religion, whether it exists or not. My beliefs are my own as yours belong to you and everyone who has chimed in here has their own opinion as to whether we do or whether we don't. Nothing said here is going to change anyone's opinion on those core beliefs of faith in god, a non-god, aliens or the existence of a determistic universe or a chaotic one. Just as the debate rages over intelligent design versus the big bang and all the blended versions between them. Science, god, chaos, randomness, free will, religion, fossils, math, physics, morals, ethics, social behavior, etc.. how does it all tie together? Everyone has their own beliefs in how all of that fits together. Or they choose not to fit them together at all and just not think about them too deeply. And I've ran across my fair share of those people, which you learn just to not question too hard about what they believe in. It really is none of my business anyway. At least that is how I feel about it. I think that is a very personal issue.
But I think that this question on this issue raised here is also what makes us so very human and so very special that we do talk about it and we do think about and debate it and why I love this blog so much. We don't hide behind covers, for those of us that want to explore it, we do. We lay it out and we discuss it. And we never agree. Which if we did, we'd be clones. And then the answer would definitely be a lot more enlightening, now wouldn't it? Or at least the comments would be fewer and a lot more boring. :)
And one last note. I loved The Crow. I have watched it so many times I had to buy a new DVD. I loved Dark City and recently purchased the special edition. I look forward to anything that Alex Proyas does. I even liked I, Robot and it being my favotire Asimov book. It didn't bother me a bit. Adaptations from books to movies never do. And I am SO glad that he cast Nicolas Cage in this role in this movie. He is an underrated actor and needed this film to show what he is capable of doing in a good role. He has not had many good roles lately. This was a great opportunity and I'm glad that Alex cast him. *applause*
I enjoyed your great movies piece for "Waking Life". I can't say I loved "Knowing," but the debate it has helped kick into high gear really is inspiring to see here on your website. So I thought certain scenes from this movie were cheesy- big deal. "Knowing's" ending more than makes up for it's shortcomings. This journal entry was another thought-provoking work written with good intentions. What more could I have asked for?
I just returned from seeing the film.
Unlike Roger, I did feel as though in the ascension scene the, for lack of a better word, contrails the aliens produce as they ascend appear wing-like. Perhaps that is Proyas genius, allowing us to discern for ourselves what to make of what is taking place.
I felt at times I was watching a more thoughtful yet darker and complex version of Shyamalan's "Signs"- which is a film about faith, though a different aspect perhaps.
Proyas's films all seem to touch upon spiritual/philosphical themes (at least dating back to "The Crow"-skipping "Garage Days" which I haven't seen but doesn't look to be of the same ilk).
Draven, in "The Crow" is resurrected, John in "Dark City" is a saviour to his world, "I, Robot" is practically about the original sin, Man becoming God with the desire to create Life and its consequences.
Those films may not be as forceful (or frank) in exploring these deep questions, but certainly "Knowing" is.
What is, for me, the greatest aspect of the film is at the moment one feels the film is coming down on the side of Determinism (after all the prophecies come true) there is that final moment that Caleb is told he has a choice- the free will to stay with his father (also named John, by the way).
The deeply religious person will see the salvation of Caleb and Abby as the product of the fact they 'could hear' the message, and yet it does not seem to be a product of whether or not they believed the message. Meanwhile John, who has coverted in a way to belief, is not saved.
There is just so much to absorb, and it makes me glad I ventured out tonight to see the film.
Many thought provoking discussion points about the film by Roger. Overall I found the movie as I expected from the review. It was incredibly intense throughout without having to resort to cheap thrills.
The airplane crash sequence was in particular absolutely riveting and powerful. What I found brilliant was the way the camera tracked behind John (Nicolas Cage) as he walked through the devastation, so it felt like we too were personally seeing this through our own eyes. My whole body was tense as burning survivor after survivor screamed for help, and I jumped out of my seat during the sudden explosions. As the rescue workers escorted John away, a curious thought crossed my mind. With all the noise in the background of fires, explosions, and screams, I thought it would be most powerful if they used that popular editing technique of abruptly 'blacking' the screen with complete silence. And they did, which heightened just how powerful this sequence was.
As for the meaning of this movie, I have a totally different interpretation from others.
The thought of these 'aliens' being of some higher supreme being or "agents" of some supreme being on a religious level never crossed my mind. I interpreted them simply as technologically advanced beings from another universe that wanted to "save" kids on earth that had the gift of telepathy. Perhaps they "found" planet earth and were intrigued by the life forms present on it, as well as all of the technology humans were able to develop (though apparently inferior to what these aliens could do).
I'm not sure if it's even possible, but maybe these alien beings come from light years away and their "present" is actually when earth was long gone from the destructive flare. So with their ability to 'time travel' they knew all of the disasters that would happen on earth including the final one that killed all. In order to preserve some elements of human life, they put into plan the whole 'numbers' thing in order to eventually isolate, root out, and identify those most suitable for 'relocation.'
You'll notice that throughout the movie the aliens seemed to actually 'intervene' when necessary. Miss Taylor seemed to pause momentarily before giving Caleb the letter, and as he reads it he notices one of them standing off in the distance. The biggest intervention of course was abducting Caleb and Abby from the gas station as Abby's mother was going against the plan and taking them away from the landing site.
Why these particular kids? Again, the telepathy. By being able to communicate mentally with these kids, the alien beings don't have to necessarily be present with them. And being of a young age, they are still able to be molded to a society more in agreement with the aliens. Perhaps the aliens were disappointed and disillusioned by the disasters they saw, most of them created by humans. This planet they were dropped off on seemed to be of a completely natural state, almost like an Adam and Eve scenario with the huge tree in the background. The implication being that this new world will be a far more peaceful and happier place than earth ever was.
When you realize that Alex Proyas' Dark City also had very similar themes of an earthly world monitored and controlled by apparently superior beings, I think this is one way of looking at it.
It is interesting that you mentioned you expected the aliens at the end to turn into angels becuase they sorta did. When they begin moving up towards the ship, they seemed to have wings, making me think of them in an angelic way. Also, isnt it cool how Koestler was a lot like Moses? He got his people (Caleb and Rose Byrne's character's daughter) "the chosen ones" to the gateway to their new land, BUT was denied entry, forced to die without ever reaching the safe haven. Moses was denied entry into the holy land.
I'm glad you liked it -- I really enjoyed it and thought it had a lot to it, though I knew the critics would lambaste it and laugh at it. There were some logical problems, but in the end, who cares?
Hello, Roger....... Just saw 'Knowing' myself....... Thoroughly enjoyed it. As far as the critics' opinion(s) of the film, tell me if i'm being too simplistic if I simply say, "It's not the most uplifting film; It's a downer, and critics generally hate downers." I remember leaving the theater after watching "Arlington Road," a few years ago. I was the only one that sang the praises of how the film ended, "a real ending," I called it.
You know, I don't need to be humming "My Fair Lady" as i'm walking out of the theater to feel good about how I was entertained. I loved "Wall-E," and I also loved "Knowing." Thanks for the fair review on Mr. Cage's latest endeavor, and here's hoping people don't "discover" this film six months later on DVD. See it in the theaters, my friends, but leave your pre-conceived notions at the door.........
Thought the movie was making the point that we are intelligent designers and that there might be another level of designers but that doesnt make them "God", just smarter.
Still doesnt mean it should be taught in the schools - its not science.
Time is not a string of events. Time is a singular thing, existing in a universe already accomplished.
We move within that thing like ants, only able to perceive tiny parts of it. These parts we experience as moments. It appears that time passes, but time really only abides. We choose what we perceive - and how we perceive it. That is the truth of free will. Not that we can effect events, or time or space, but that we can change how we perceive events, or time or space. Or not.
This is an extremely entertaining thread!
Roger, I shared your enjoyment of "Knowing" - its a difficult movie, and so one worth viewing a few times.
There were a few moments that reminded me of Peter Weir's film "The Last Wave".
The scene where Caleb sees the
"other" in his bedroom reminded me of the scene in "The Last Wave" where Billy appears in a dream to Richard Chamberlain's character. The fact that Koestler can see the future but not change it is also reminescent of the resolution of "The Last Wave" (Chamberlain's character in the end faces the wave that rises up to engulf Australia)
Some ruminating questions relevant to the topic...
In considering determinism, does God ever have "free will"? If so, what would it look or work like? Are we willing to "grant" God free will?
What's the difference between free agency and free will? Is it possible that people live life expressing true free agency yet carrying-out the pre-orchestrated actions determined by a Divine Orchestrator? (Providence)
Considering aliens...could God be THE ultimate "ALIEN"? Is that what it really means to be God - to be a Being utterly unlike ourselves...to be totally "other" than human? (Include the angelic/spiritual realm.) However, if we're talking about the "Creator God" who made man in His "image" (the imago Dei) then we'd expect to see godlike traits in humanity--though diminished or marred by the evil of treason. Treason to the Creator God (man's fall & rebellion) could be the reason for death & destruction (curse/judgment.)
In the movie, the salvation of the children being a judicial intervention of mercy...saving a remnant of humanity.
I wonder...
Robin
I too am quite fascinated by the implications of determinism and free will. Specifically for what they mean for the belief in God.
If we accept the definition of God as a being who is omnipotent, omniscient, and the creator of the universe and everything in it, it logically rules out the idea of free-will as most people think of it. Since God is not only aware of every single action we take, he is also the cause of every single action we take, every single action we take is utterly meaningless from the standpoint of moral judgements. We as humans are completely without responsibility for everything we do. We were created by an all powerful, all knowing being; there is absolutely no way we could have acted other than the way in which we did act, and do act. For example, when Hitler decided he wanted to exterminate the Jews, he had no choice in the matter at all. He was, rather, a puppet to God's will. God created him; God created all of the conditions of his life; God created the laws of nature; God was fully aware of every single action Hitler would take, all the way back to the beginning of time. If God did not want a man to try to exterminate the Jews, he could easily have abstained from creating Hitler, or easily have created different laws of nature, or easily have altered some of the circumstances that led Hitler to want to kill all of the Jews, or to allow Hitler to have that kind of power. Theists claiming that God nevertheless gave us free will are arguing a logical impossibility if we also accept their definition of God.
We can look at a few alternatives to better see how this is so. Perhaps God is all-powerful, but not all-knowing. In this case, God could have created us and the universe and we could still have some free will, because if not even God knows what we will do, obviously nothing can ever know it, so we must have some free will.
Perhaps God is all-knowing but not all-powerful. In this case, perhaps God, as an all-knowing being, knows every possible universe that he can create, but does not have the ability to create a perfect one. Therefore, he chooses to create the best possible one with the vast, but not unlimited powers, at his disposal. Although our universe is not perfect, it's still the best out of all the possible alternatives. It's hard to see how we could still have free will, but at least this model of the universe would be more reconciliable with the one that actually exists.
Or perhaps God did not create the universe. In this case, it is possible to reconcile free will with the existence of an all-knowing God. If God is simply an observer of the universe that knows everything that will happen, but, because he wishes us to have free will, does not interfere, we can understand how our choices actually have meaning in the moral sense. Of course, we may hold God accountable for choosing not to prevent tragedy when it's clearly within his power to do so, but that's another argument.
But if we accept that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and the creator of the universe and everything in it, he is directly and solely responsible for everything that happens. Think of a simple analogy; I might as well make a time bomb, put it in an orphanage, and set it to go off at midnight. When it goes off, and the poor innocent children are obliterated, I'll indignantly argue to the police, "Don't look at me! I gave that time bomb free will! How could I know what it would do? I'm innocent of any moral culpability for the actions of that time bomb!"
Somehow I doubt they would accept my reasoning, even if they were good Christians.
There exits a branch of astrology called Nadi Astrology in India where apparently the entire life of a living person is documented in palm leaves written 3000 years ago..including his roots!the reading is actually based on the finger impression of your thumb.This is in a place called Tanjore..have'nt been there myself...wondering if the reading would affect the choices a person would make and the result still be the same..
I also wanted to comment on the determinism vs free will debate, but since it's rather unrelated to the religion debate, I thought I'd make a new post for it.
The real problem with the determinism vs free will debate is the definition of free will. If you ask a defender of the free will position to define what exactly having free will entails, you will probably find they are at a loss to describe what having free will actually requires and what the consequences of free will's existence actually are. After reading Eliot Sober, I decided he's got it right with his idea of 'compatabilism', or the belief that free will and determinism are not mutually exclusive, but instead are entirely compatable with each other. What is required is a clear and common sense definition of free will.
Basically, Sober defines free will as the ability of your mind to make sound decisions. He compares 'will' to any other major organ of your body. The job of the heart is to pump blood. The job of the eye is to see. And the job of the 'will' is to make decisions that benefit you as a whole. As long as your will is capable of doing that, it is 'free', in the same way that a weather vane is 'free' so long as it is able to twist and turn freely and correctly point which way the wind is blowing.
By defining free will in this way, we find that it is irrelevent whether or not your mind works according to deterministic laws. As long as your mind is able to function to your benefit, it's free. An example of an unfree will would be, for example, a kleptomaniac. A person that knows that stealing is wrong, that knows that doing so will probably result in harm to himself, but yet still cannot help but steal.
This seems like a very reasonable definition of free will to me.
So about the fact that determinism really DOES seem to be true? Objectors bring up the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle, but according to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, it is in fact literally impossible to exactly predict the location of a given particle at a given point of time, BUT, we CAN exactly predict the probability of it being at a given location at a given point in time, and, if we do an experiment 100 or 1000 times we will find that the probability we calculate is exactly accurate; in other words, if we predict the particle will be in one place 30% of the time and in another place 70% of the time, we will find after taking 10,000 measurements that the particle really was in one location 3,000 times and in the other 7,000 times. So in actual fact, with a powerful enough computer and perfect observations, we could predict every possible future and the exact probability of each one manifesting, which comes down the same thing really.
Moreover, even if random chance does exist, does that really entail free will? Is it really any better for free will to say that a so-called roll of the dice determines your actions, instead of a predictable physical law? I think not.
Ultimately, free will only makes sense if we define it in the terms that Sober suggests. To define it as something that requires the universe to be random really doesn't help at all.
Glad to see this film has at least one supporter in the critical community. I wasn't expecting much based on other reviews but I truly found it brilliant and thought-provoking as you did.
As for the questions raised concerning God in the film, it seemed to me that the film basically equated the alien life-forms with God, as they were behind the prophecies and their vehicle was shown in that visual representation of a passage in Ezekiel. Perhaps, based on the film's logic, Christ was also one of the extra-terrestrials and the prophets merely people that could hear the "Whispermen".
In any case, the film was thoroughly entertaining and I will recommend it to whomever listens to me.
I'm saddened by how poorly this film has generally been recived by critics. Maybe they were expecting a pure thriller and weren't prepared for a jarring work of sci-fi. It took most critics about a half dozen years to catch up with how great Dark City was so hopefully history will repeat itself. The great thing about Knowing is that it seeks to entertain first and foremost but it leaves you in a deeply contemplative state.
I'm pretty much annoyed by all the negative criticism of the film and its star. From what I've read of it being supposedly "pretentious" or "overly serious", it's as if the film didn't try to conveniently fit expectations from its ads. Like Ang Lee's HULK, it's too thoughtful for the herd.
And as for Nicholas Cage, I'm pretty sure his criticism has to do with his recent record of fare of so-so action movies (some of them B-movies movies if you will). He, like Tom Cruise, are more mercilessly panned because of their real or imagined transgressions against what is expected of their "celebrity".
It's really distressing/depresssing sometimes when you try and praise work that is worthwhile only to have this kind of ill-deserved snarkiness come back at them.
I'm glad to see judging by some of these comments that everyone didn't take it at face value that the whisper people were aliens. I appreciated that the implications behind their actual nature were much more ambiguous.
The Nikki Finkes of the world are predicting this to take the weekend. I hope it has legs thereafter to cause the reviewers who went negative to examine their stance. A lot of the people in the near-full showing I saw stayed during the end credits out of reflective reverence for the experience. If the word gets out that the film has a deep spiritual subtext viewership could be bolstered.
WINGS; Yes I saw wings, but it actually looks like some mist pushing off, or trailing off, the backs of the lifting bodies, like out of some see thru tubes, which we earthlings might mistake for wings=our angel archetype. Also remember the little dusty angel figure that was in the old shack? And I am going to say the dead mother/wife is also shown as an angelic image.
I want to add a little note about Caleb. After leaving Egypt, the tribes of Israel made their way to the Promised Land. When they reached the Promised Land they sent 12 spies to make sure the way was clear for them to settle. 10 spies reported that they're doomed if they go in...but, Caleb was one of the two spies that urged the tribes to believe in God's promise. Of course, Moses and the tribes ignored Caleb and Joshua. For his faith in God, Caleb was rewarded with a long life and entry into the land flowing with milk and honey. But the unbelievers were doomed to wander the desert for forty years until they died, so only their children would be left to enter. God is hardcore like that.
I would almost rather be eaten by an alien than have to wander in the desert for FORTY years and then die.
I love your blog, Roger.
Ebert: Being eaten by the alien would be a lot more interesting. And I might finally make it to another planet, if only as BEM poop.
I read your reviews religiously for insight into movies and their
content. I'm grateful for every word you write.
Here, maybe, in your excitement over the philosophical issues, you forgot to watch the movie. It has two SEVERE flaws: the entire plot neither makes sense nor matters to the outcome. If they know the earth is doomed, why didn't the aliens just grab some kids in 1959 and head for planet Xeno? Why go through all the mumbo jumbo with the numbers and the whispering? It helps no one, alters nothing. Cage runs around hysterically (incidentally at no time behaving like a scientist, and often not like a sensible parent) but it helps no one, alters nothing. You have all this action and suspense and mystery, and it all comes to nothing in the end. Doesn't this violate some kind of principle of dramatics? I'm mindful of the fabulous 1950's version of War of the Worlds, which is similar in that the exertions of the protagonists are irrelevent to the outcome, but there the story has an elegant narrative arc in which a threat materializes and one group after another -- naive townspeople, the army, a clergyman, scientists -- take a crack at it and fail, only to have germs save the day. If you're interested in SciFi, you should read Fred Hoyle's Black Cloud, THE classic exposition of scientists confronting destruction of the earth (and easily the most intelligent science fiction novel ever written). Also, I think determinism and predictabililty (two separate issues) get a much more penetrating and coherent treatment in Minority Report. When a movie has less depth than a Tom Cruise vehicle, there's a problem.
The difference between God and an alien: God is omnipotent. He could stop it. (No determinism there!) Aliens just work around it, rather clumsily it would seem.
Dear Roger, When I consider all the almost infinite variables that comprise the future,from the quantum to the exact moment a star goes supernova, how can the universe be anything but random. However, if I look at what has come before, The past seems totally deterministic. In fact it appears impossible to be anything but predetrmined. Consider the evolution of life on earth from hot murky water filled with the slimy chemicals of life to a conscious mind as yours comtemplating your own life. We had to create a god to explain this incredible development of life on earth and even more spectacular,consciousness. How could it all have come about as a random interplay of time and matter.The details of determinism are unimportant if you turn back and look at the big picture.
Your essay involving fractals caused me to find this.
I find it beautifully mesmerizing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8Aurpr68uE
All this talk about what or whether we can or can't know and no mention of faith.
Free will and God are by definition unprovable in the scientific sense, because if they exist they have to be out of this world. Otherwise it wouldn't be God, it wouldn't be free will. They are outside the universe and the realm of science. And so you just have to believe in them.
I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but my wife thought it was very depressing. Nicholas Cage seems to make a lot terrible movies (Snake Eyes and Night Rider come to mind) and every once in a while he does a gem. I thought his "...shit just happens" more a random than a deterministic opinion. It was an "arm grabber"; the special effects of the human carnage were uncomfortably real. And I really liked the prophetic use of Beethoven's 7th Symph, 2nd Mvt, (one of my favorite melodies) that was also used effectively in Zardoz.
Mr. Ebert, let me just say that your reviews over the years have been truly inspiring.
I watch movies to learn something about myself, the world at large, and to gain insights of the human condition. Movies like Knowing provide just what I look for in a film, and you seem to be right in line with my own opinions. In short, I've grown to trust your reviews. With rare exceptions, you elevate the films I see and provide even more depth to the great ones and bad ones alike.
I've always felt that great movies allowed the view to catch a bit of of somebody else's life and experience in a highly compact, compressed state. That is, I can go out into the world and gain a certain amount of experience, but I am limited to my own lifetime. Films let me live somebody else's life for a few hours, seeing what they see, believing what they believe, and acting as they act. It's like those sci-fi stories where somebody gets to live another life, only to wake and find out that it was just a two-hour dream.
Anyway, Knowing is just the kind of film that asks the right questions, provides the right characters and puts them into a setting that makes it all real for those couple of hours. I don't have to find a sheet of numbers now to know what it's like...I have some insight because I shared that with the characters.
So what do I think about the questions the film asks? Well, I like to think there are angels out there to help me when I fail. In truth, I don't know what I believe. I do know that in times of extreme duress, like when I lay dying on a riverbank ten years ago, I knew it was alright. The idea of angels and heaven made the prospect of dying comfortable, almost acceptable after I had done all I could do to save myself. Had I actually died, would I have gone to heaven? There's only one way to know that, but I think that if God does exist, then he's certainly not a micro-manager. Why create automotons and fill them with desire and aspirations, just to control their every thought, every experience?
Free will must come into play, and I'm certain it does. I think therefore I am, and by the same reasoning, I make choices therefore there is free will. Does that imply the existence of God? Perhaps, because something must have created all this. The real questions are, "What is God like?" and that's where most people differ.
Your blog comments are truly entertaining, and at the risk of gushing further, are even better than your reviews in their ability to sum things up succinctly.
Just for the record, I wasn't the only one in the audience to notice the wings. In fact, my first thought was that they were aliens, of course, but once I saw the outline, it led me to believe they were angels ( or a specific type of alien,cuz angels are aliens,if you will). Whether the "strangers" have wings or not, or whether they're in fact angels or aliens, I like neither alternative. To me, it felt like watching "The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" all over again. I mean, aliens,really? They find a paper with a bunch of numbers that just so happen to reveal the end of the world and a bunch of aliens/angels (or one and the same,it makes no difference to me) are tasked to run Noah's ark? I was also reminded of "The Day The Earth Stood Still", another film I disliked for quite the same reasons.
I don't know how else it could have ended, but watching a spaceship land to take the kids away, was cringe inducing and rather painful to watch. At least it wasn't as preachy as "The Day The Earth Stood Still" (damn, I hate that title!) but I found it to be just as cheesy, the same with "The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (another terrible title!). Aliens (or angels, to keep the controversy going) are starting to feel like an easy cop-out in today's films. Even when the film has absolutely nothing to do with science fiction or aliens whatsoever (I'm looking at you, Indiana Jones). Aliens seem to be the easy way to go once you don't know how else the story can turn out. Some will like it ( I know you gave "Kingdom of..." 4 stars) and some will hate it (guess which group I'm in?). But, all in all, the fact of the matter is that it hurts me to say this, but I did not like this film, solely because of the ending. I have been a fan of Proyas since "The Crow", but he took this film in the wrong direction for me at the end. Too bad, 'cause I was actually enjoying it quite a bit.
I have often wondered why no one has made a film of the Arthur C. Clarke book, "Childhood's End"
I know I'm stepping out there with what seems like a large group of scientific, logical minds; however, I 'd like to recommend those of you that still have an open mind read Sylvia Browne's (yes, the psychic) book The Other Side and Back. She has a matter-of-fact way of describing our Spirits on The Other Side and how we choose to live multiple lives on earth. As we are getting ready to live another live, we make a blueprint with God on what will happen in that life. Now, it doesn't describe what will happen every second of our lives but it does lay a framework for what themes and generalities will be occurring in timeframes of our livees, but that our free wills affect how that happens. I guess basically my question is...what if we set our own determinism before even entering into this life?
Sure that also leaves the "randomness" of the universe in question...however, I say that it is all part of God's brilliant design. (Please don't mistake this for any high-rolling bible thumping preaching...as I am quite far from the church and organized religion.)
I'm sure there are some (if not many) skeptics about this type of theory as, let's face it, it came from a psychic. But please, don't knock it till you try (read) it.
I got to see this film last night, and I happen to agree with you in your assessment. I can't the film out of my head (not just because I had a dream about nuclear holocaust earlier in the week, or that I almost has a head-on collision with a car in the wrong lane on my way home from the theater). I've read your blog post and the comments, and I feel pretty good about my assessment of the film.
But then I started to read other reviews. Roger, I just don't know what movie they watched; and while I expect any movie to have its share of negative reviews, I'm concerned that this one is getting hammered by most of the critics. Please tell me there's an explanation. Is it Cage backlash? Are there too many cynics who can't take a film like this seriously? Is it the fact the film is being marketed as a Da Vinci Code-style thriller? I'm lost for an answer.
The movie was idiotic, and so was your review, right from the moment you tagged it as 'sci-fi' when it was nothing short of more badly acted religious garbage with an irrelevant story, a completely forgettable case (ESPECIALLY cage's part), and filled with layers upon layers of banality and predictability, with albeit a few well done over-elaborate special effects scenes. The only unexpected thing throughout the entire movie was its entirely silly non-resolution at the end with the pompous shut of The Tree, which should make anyone with half-a-brain want to burn whatever theater they were just in to the ground.
I just occured to me that Knowing was very similar to Shayamalan's Signs.
The main character has lost faith, when his wife dies.
He later finds his faith again when he realizes that things around him were planned and meant to be and have purpose, they are not just random.
In the end he returns to his faith.
And there is worldwide calamity and aliens too. :)
Dear Mr. Ebert,
Thank you for sharing your gifts as a writer. You go deeper and more intuitively into your subject matter (your mind) than any other reviewer I have ever read. This week there was some rubbish research released that says we are at out mental peaks in our mid or late twenties. Your fabulous mind refutes such a theory. To me, you just get better and better.
I am sorry for your recent suffering, and I admit that I only occasionally read your newspaper reviews (principally, I watched your television reviews, which were by their nature truncated), but since you left the airwaves, your perceptions and command of the language have taken on a glow, which we are all made better by.
Thank you for the example of perseverance and possibility of improvement that you are!
Tim
When I saw the film yesterday, I noted that although the aliens did not sprout actual wings upon their ascent, there are subtle waves of energy near their shoulders which are shaped a whole heckuva lot like angels' wings. This reminded me of the climax of "Superman Returns (2006)", in which Brandon Routh, after pushing an enormous hunk of krypronite into the sky and out of Earth's gravity, assumes a crucifixion-like pose as he falls unconcious and plummets back to the ground. Making him look even more like Jesus is the fact that he wakes and disappears from his hospital room after three days, whereupon the nurse strolls in to check on him and finds the metaphorical stone rolled away. So the religeous sybolism in "Knowing" really stuck out.
"Knowing" does not make religion irrelevant for me. It all comes down to when Nick and his son talked about being chosen. If we are in Christ we are chosen, by making a decision for Him or by being too young or mentally unable to make that decision for Him.
Hi Ebert. Rog.. Whatever you like to be called.. haha. I completely agree with Jack Dow a few posts ago. What was the whole purpose of the numbers in the first place??? How did they do any good to anyone at any time?? And if these aliens/spirits/angels (whatever they were) were looking out for mankind, doing the ultimate good by taking two of us, and letting our civilization "start over", as it were, why would these beings harass a little girl all her life whispering psycho nothings into her ear up to her death? It didn't make sense! They were making her psycho! Seems terribly odd that these beings that held the children's hand later in the movie, and took them into their ship lovingly would eerily and crazily scare the life out of little Lucinda. There were just too many dichotomys that weren't explained. On that note, I liked the movie. It made me think, and a day later I am still discussing it with friends, so obviously it had an impact on me. Quick question though to you EBERT and others, how many of you were sooooo pissed that the trailers showed EVERYTHING that was going to happen!! I was so mad when i already knew there was going to be a plane crash, and a subway accident, and New York was going to be consumed! PRODUCERS- STOP GIVING AWAY SO MUCH OF THE MOVIE IN THE TRAILERS!!!!! Please!
Re predestination as per Christian belief (i assume you mean Calvinsim) -- apparently individuals `proved` their `chosen` status by a life of piety, according to the standards for same at the time.
Re cheezy Hollywood sci-fi -- there is only one movie Ive seen that has an interesting perspective on the armageddon device. The film `Last Night` (a Canadian production) tells the `story` of individuals faced with the prospect that this night will be the last of not only their lives but all life. We are never told why. There is no individual or team of misfits coming to save the day. There is no Moral. There is no banality. There is no wide release and big box office.
American movie sci-fi virtually always feels like merely an excuse to exercise the latest in fx techniques. You throw in a device (giant astroid, attacking aliens, plants, nanotechnology, numerology) and stick a camera on the protagonist as he TRIES TO SAVE THE DAY! (o my!).
I know this was a few comments ago, but in response to Roger's bewilderment at the bad reviews: I don't think most people are equipped to understand or accept this sort of sci-fi, or the ideas behind it. Aliens, angels, predictions and the end of the world do not immediately impact the ability to pick up a latte and get the kids from school, so it never crosses their mental pathways. I was one of those crazy people who also agreed, against prevalent opinion, with your positive review of The Happening, for much the same reason I liked Knowing. But then, both films presented ideas I've thought about, and had lengthy discussions about. Reviewer or otherwise, most people don't want to think about those things at any time, much less at the movies.
I also saw the wings.
I'm not really a fan of Knowing. Overall, I felt the film fell flat in certain instances and I thought that the subway scene in particular was laughably executed. But regardless, Knowing has produced some interesting discussion.
Regarding the strangers, the question has arisen as to whether they are angels, aliens or somekind of deity. I tend to think that they are a manifestation of angels. Of course, Knowing is not strictly dogmatic, but the inclusion of the wings on their energy forms sparked some thoughts in me. Perhaps the strangers are not free from the timeline but are in direct contact with what we believe to be God. Angels have always been perceived as the messengers of God, so does it not stand to reason that the numbers were the message and the strangers the messengers? The strangers clearly acknowledge some form of afterlife when they say that Rose Bryn's character is now safe after she has died, but then, why would they take the children to another planet? Just some ponderings.
The ending of the film seems overripe with Biblical allusions mostly out of Genesis: Eden, Noah's Ark. The ending also very much reminded me of the Cosmic Trilogy by C. S. Lewis, and made me curious as to whether Alex Proyas was influenced by those books at all when crafting the film. Have you read those books? They deal with the idea of aliens and God coexisting very competently. If you haven't read them, check them out. The parallels between Knowing and the second book, Perelandra, in particular are quite numerous.
The idea of determinism was so beautiful, so attractive. Nice, safe, law-abiding universe with predetermined, inevitable future... I miss living in it.
The differences in us all are an endless wonder to me...
(I have no memory of this, because I was very young. This is how my mother tells it.) I wanted to know all about numbers. So my mother told me she would teach me to count to 100. It was easy for me to learn one to ten, but took a while for me to remember the fancier names for the larger numbers. All the while I was asking what came after 100. But she wouldn't tell me. "When you learn to count to 100, I'll tell you what comes after," she would say. One day, I triumphantly counted all the way to 100, and then demanded to know what came next. She gave a big smile, and said, "It's easy now! It just starts over! One hundred and one, one hundred and two..."
And I burst into tears of disappointment.
By Steve R. on March 20, 2009 9:56 PM
The best commentary on free will versus determinism I have heard, which unfortunately I cannot recall the source, boils down to: "We may or may not have free will, but we must act as if we do." What else can an 'intelligent' mind do, without going truly mad?
Yes. All questions are not meaningful and more important than whether the will "is" free is whether we believe it to be so and , come to think of it, it is highly unlikely whether a True Determinist really exists in human shape, and if he does, as Steve R. rightly observes in the above, not in a state of sanity.
Roger: halfway through your thoughts on this and it's fascinating. A few points you bring up by this point don't follow the film that I saw last night, though:
1. "I fully expected them to sprout wings and manifest as angels, etc. But no." After transforming, the whisperers very obviously sprouted swings as the rotating ball thing rose into the ship (which reminds me more of Superman's architecture than the Watchmen, for what it's worth). I'm no religious scholar, but a quick Google search shows that the whole thing is patterned precisely on Ezekial's vision of the Merkabah: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkabah
2. "Or do they travel back through time, and start the process on earth all over again?" Unless the whisperers also saw fit to enlarge the moon, make a few more, and move them all closer to the same earth, I doubt it.
My best guess (and obviously there's no right answer) is that the whisperers are advanced, immortalized humans (given that what physiology they have is identical) who fetishize the idea of starting over in innocence only to see it fail because of human weakness each time... beating each other to death with trash can lids in the streets of Boston hours before the apocalypse would seem to back up such an interpretation.
Maybe the critics preview version you saw didn't have the effects totally finished... would explain missing the wings and the many moons bit at the end.
Last thing; about a dozen times in the film I remarked to the person next to me that I couldn't believe it was PG-13. I suppose we never saw any gruesome deaths up close, but that subway car made about 10 people instantly burst into poofs of blood (I'm pretty sure that's impossible). Not to mention Nick Cage having to dodge a half dozen people walking around on fire.
Adding to the Ezekiel/Merkabah interpretation, it makes a lot of sense that Cage's character plays the part of Ezekiel here. Only after seeing the Merkabah was he able to make peace with the whole idea of fate/God, let his son go (which ties in with some creation/resurrection stories, apparently), and return to his family. My biblical knowledge roughly begins and ends with falling asleep reading Genesis in hotel rooms now and then, but glossing over the beginning of the book of Ezekiel shows that the parallels are pretty blunt.
One more observation: the kid's spaceship had a pair of humans and a pair of rabbits. Am I to assume that the other arks also had pairs of animals, and if so, how much care was taken to make sure that they'd make the trip as peacefully as children and bunnies? The whisperers assigned to the lions & tigers ship might've had a rougher go of it.
Ebert: How'd you like to be a gila monster whisperer?
To further proof my point that the strangers had wings:
"The "whisperers" then shed their human appearances to reveal themselves as human-like, ethereal beings with faint angelic wings of light. They then leave Earth along with similar crystal shaped 'ships.'"
From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowing_(film)
Now, I'm not saying they are angels, but if you watch the movie again, that's exactly what it's hinting at, specially with the Ezekiel drawing, and the "Adam and Eve" and the tree of life shot at the very end, and also the whole Noah's ark theme, with the two rabbits and the other ships, that we must assume carry more humans who "heard the call" and perhaps other pairs of animals. That Proyas made it ambiguous adds depth to the movie, but I still stand by my first reaction to the movie. I didn't like the ending.
"Strict determinism implies an absence of free will, and free will is a necessary component of all spiritual belief systems."
This is a very common assumption that is simply not true, as a Christian Calvinist understanding of Scripture does not necessitate belief in free will. Instead, a Calvinist understanding holds that the Bible teaches that God is completely sovereign over every part of his creation, all has been foreordained by him before the foundations of the earth were laid, man is totally depraved and without any innate ability to make a free choice in isolation from the control of his Will. As such, Christ saves those who are enabled to believe in him through his offering of free grace and forgiveness of sin through his death on the cross. The idea of free will is explicitly contradictory to the biblical notion that we are dead in our sins and trespasses and slaves to sin before the work of the Holy Spirit and Christ in our lives.
By the way, this movie depicted an end of the world that is very much in line with biblical ideas (rapture for the called, earth's destruction by fire, a "new earth," etc.). It's interesting that the mysterious men are immediately assumed by Ebert to be aliens rather than angels merely because the popular culture images of angels as fluffy winged beings is not portrayed. I'm not saying that they were necessarily intended to be angels, but the film is certainly more ambiguous and agnostic about their actual identities than Ebert suggests.
To Denis D--the subject is determinism, not nihilism, buddy. and your link doesn't work. Love, Mr. Half-A-Brain-with-no-inclination-to-burn-down-anything
I too am still intrigued by the many unanswered questions throughout the movie.
I also wonder why they used numbers in particular. My thought is that the 'aliens' used numbers in order to 'hide' their predictions, so that only those with a gift or talent for making sense out of them would recognize the meanings within them. Keep in mind that using numbers is much more efficient than writing out dates and explicit descriptions of future disasters. Young Lucinda was pressed enough for time as she was, barely getting in the last set of codes (minus coordinates) before having the sheet ripped out of her hands by the teacher.
When young Caleb brings the letter home and his father finds it sticking out of his backpack, they have a discussion and Caleb mentions that perhaps there could be something hidden in the code. At first John (Cage) dismisses this but later on is intrigued by the numbers and breaks the code. Caleb was at first admonished by his dad for bringing the letter home, when presumably he was supposed to leave it at the school. Yet he did bring it home. BUT, Caleb didn't immediately show his dad the letter, it was only by chance his dad saw it sticking out of the backpack. So it must have been the ultimate plan for the aliens to get that code into John's hands. If John didn't find it by accident, I'm sure Caleb would have shown it to him later, right?
So aside from John's talents at breaking the code, why was his son chosen aside from Caleb's telepathic ability? Maybe the aliens knew of John's psyche, and that he was the kind of person that would completely follow the plan to the end.
And what was the significance of choosing Lucinda's trailer as the landing zone for the spacecraft?
Ebert: I assume Lucinda chose the site for her trailer.
Mr. Ebert, regarding the sub-discussion on predestination... If my understanding of the writings of Luther and others is correct, Christians who believe in predestination do NOT believe that your eternal destination is set regardless of your actions in this life. For the most part, they believe that the actions that will damn you to hell or elect you to salvation are predestined. These actions may be composed of good works or faith or a combination of the two.
Now here is some food for thought from a spiritual level: I have been researching predestination lately as described in the Bible, and truth be told, I'm not entirely sure whether God wants humans to worry too much about determinism. Because what is the cosmic rule that says God must either be in constant control or have no control? What cosmic law says that God must always add up 2 + 2 to equal 4? There are some things that may be too complex for our understanding, I suspect, and since each of us feels at the very least an illusion of free will, there is no reason --- Biblical or otherwise --- that I can find for not choosing to do good things in life (aside from short-sighted and arrogant selfishness, of course).
Please do not take my comments to be direct from Heaven, because they are simply some speculation and consideration on a labyrinthine and complex topic. Just thoughts...
The universe is more complicated than anything imaginable at the moment. The universe is deterministic and random, and probably more. Many things are determined like how a sun dies, it explodes. But the universe is a wild card were possibilities are endless. And that is the gift. To have the raw materials given to us and we designing our fate.
Actually, when I was watching the film and saw the aliens "disrobing" from their human forms, I did notice angel-like wings. If you go back and watch that scene again, you will see what appears to be energy radiating from their bodies. Yet it is only radiating from their backs in vaguely wing-like patterns. The angel comparison is definitely there.
I wonder if you noticed midway through. the scene where Lucinda vanishes during the time capsule closing, after she vanishes the camera follows the balloon as it flies into the sky. I was thinking an "M" reference, what are your thoughts?
Also the Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes sites have the average rating of the film at a low 24%, what do you have to say to people who are comparing this film to "Next" and "National Treasure" merely because it is a Nicolas Cage Film?!
Also can you really see parallels between to the strangers and The Whisper people they both have completely different agendas. the only thing they share in common is the look?
There are a few comments I'd like to make about this article. First, you said that you would expect the aliens to sprout wings and reveal themselves as angels but that it didn't happen. Actually, when the orb began to rise into the sky, energy or whatever it was trailed behind them in the shape of angel wings. The movie left it vague, though. You could believe these were angels or that these were aliens that people throughout time had believed to be angels.
Next, I'm pretty sure when they landed on the planet at the end of the movie, there was a large moon visible in multiple camera shots facing opposite directions. So there were at least two incredibly large moons in the sky, meaning that this definitely wasn't the earth in Adam and Eve times. It had to be a different planet.
Also, while you conclude that this movie would tend to be a refutation of the existence of God and as making religion irrelevant, I see the opposite. Of course we see beings which appear to belong in the natural world apparently having the role that many would attribute to a higher power, but you are forgetting that another important theme of the film is that death is not the end. It is constantly repeated throughout the film that John, his wife, and son will be together forever. When Diana dies, the "whispering people" tell the children that she is safe, implying her soul lives on in some type of heaven. And, of course, just before John dies with his parents and sister, his father tells him this is not the end. So even if these "whispering people" are completely a part of the natural world, the existence of something supernatural is nothing short of confirmed.
Finally, just because the "whispering people" appeared to be completely natural doesn't mean they were. Christian beliefs hold that Jesus, who appeared to be a completely natural human being, was the son of God or an human incarnation of him. These "whispering people" could easily be agents of God themselves, or at least a more advanced civilization that has come to have a more intimate relationship with God.
Ebert: Those moons seem huge, or very close. That planet must have killer tides.
Here's a page with a couple dozen drawings and engravings of Ezekiel's vision - http://www.biblical-art.com/biblicalsubject.asp?id_biblicalsubject=861&pagenum=1
I checked one of the trailers available online and the version of the image in the abandoned trailer was almost exactly this engraving: http://home.halden.net/rolf/merian/m125.jpg
The difference in the version in the film is that the wheel-within-a-wheel and the angels/chariot are switched... no clue if that's a bit of editing of this engraving by the filmmakers or if there's another engraving in that style. The other elements are identical: Ezekiel on one knee, Jerusalem burning in the background, the outstretched hand of God giving Ezekiel a sheet of paper with prophecies written on both sides (which were prophecies of what would befall the wicked if they didn't reform, FYI, and it was Ezekiel's gig to go tell everyone to shape up).
Ebert: Yeah, I think that's the one.
Ebert: Is this the engraving partially seen in the movie?
http://home.halden.net/rolf/merian/m125.jpg
Yes, but shouldn't you know better than us? I thought you were raised catholic and my understanding is that system is rigorous and thorough.
You should know all the saints, prophets, virgins, etc.
You also seem to have missed the religious references, wings, whispering as speaking in tongues, ascension, writing on the wall (vaguely), etc.
Are you feigning ignorance to spur debate?
If you are not Catholic my apologies.
I was steeped in southern baptism then evolving to new age spiritual Christianity then to atheism before manhood, fortunately. But this doesn't interfere with my enjoyment of the film and i haven't seen any credible complaints in these posts, even those that get the religious references and then find fault with that seem excessive.
The film could have been more refined but Proyas has to work within the system and i can't fault him for that.
Ebert: I didn't interpret the light wisps as wing. Was raised Catholic, but Catholics don't speak in tongues as far as I know, and I was tuned to a religious wave length while watching the film. I am learning a lot in this thread.
Hello Mr. Ebert,
First off, rarely am I so sure of a great movie. My jaw was on the floor for the last 20 minutes; there was so much to think about and to absorb. Normally I must think extensively and come to a conclusion after a week or so. This one I am sure of. Before this movie, i was sure of Synecdoche, New York. Before that, well....its been a while.
Now, I haven't read all of the posts, so some of this might seem pointless if it has already been touched upon. But, before the aliens take Caleb and Abby away, Caleb thinks that John can go with him. The alien whispers that John was not chosen to go. Chosen might not have been the right word, but regardless, Caleb is told his father must stay and , it seemed, that he must choose to go. John says his goodbyes and tells him that he must go and that his son can't stay with him. It seemed like the aliens were giving Caleb free will in that he had to choose to go. They waited patiently, and once it was clear that he was coming with them, the alien grabs his hand and leads him to the ship. Why would they waste time letting him make the decision? Do the aliens care if the human population is saved? There are only two explanations i can think of: 1) in order to move Caleb to the other planet (or Earth back in time), he really did have to choose, or 2) Caleb had the illusion of free will, aka the aliens knew what he was going to go. The first option implies that the aliens were following some sort of rules: they couldn't force him to leave. Rules?! Whose rules? The second option suggests determinism.
Furthermore, how much do the aliens know? We can assume that they knew all of those people were going to die, and when and where; if they didn't, how else were they able to warn John, a warning 50 years in the making. Although if its determined, do the aliens or anybody really KNOW anything. I feel like i am slightly rambling now.
One last topic. Caleb and Abby were given white rabbits before they were transported. This was probably so that rabbits would also be saved; assuming one was male and one was female, rabbits could procreate on the knew world/earth. But there were other "ships" too. What was on the other ships? Plant life? Doubtful since the planet was already covered in wheat and at least one tree (which was glowing rather brightly). People? Possible, because...well why not (although, I'm sure other peoples warnings and disaster encounters were not nearly as exciting as our protagonist's)? And could other animals have been on board other ships? I think that is likely because why only save rabbits? Plus different animals need different habitats and none of the other landings were near Caleb and Abby.
I hope that these thoughts are new to you, Mr. Ebert and to others.
Ebert: This is a film that is growing deeper and flowering with implications.
Great comments. I will kindly disagree with two key points though.
Brad Hoehne is not right in his conclusion. If the experiment he describes is right, that only means that the universe does not look deterministic from the level of the particles and observation. What if there are underlying levels or dimentions of controls that determine not only the behaviour of the particles but of the oberver too. That, observer is also entangled in the relationship of the two exakplary particles.
In that way it is never possible to prove that universe is "NOT" deterministic. One can only suggest that from the look of things non-deterministic model fits more with our present understanding.
Secondly, Roger Ebert is not right in his information that all religions are based on free will. In fact the concept of free will as interpreted in the Western culture is contradictory. If God is omniscient than God knows the outcome of decisions.
In Islam (which shares all concepts, even the Second Coming of Christ, with Christinity except Trinity) the free will is a perception and practice by the human being but, in an enveloping sphere, it is also controlled by God. There is nothing outside God's will. (Except for the 8th century theological school of Mutazila) This looks conflicting to modern human mind. The catch is: God is outside spatiotemporal restrictions. What we perceive as a lifetime of events is only a point of creation (and death, and everlasting life - in suffering or happiness, all in a heavenly singularity) You may ask questions such as "why" and that would only be a further demonstration of an anthropomorphic - even early 21st century man mind - interpretation of God, which is trancendental.
Often, in our reasoning, we consider space and time, at least just time, is also binding God. But of course it cannot. God in monotheism is omnipotent and omniscient and is above and outside such concepts created by Himself.
Bring them together and we are at square one. However we advance in knowledge, and we must advance in knowledge as this is our nature, we will remain always be at that point.
Hakan
Or a Kimodo Dragon Whisperer? Oh the bacteria....
Komodo. Before anyone decides to pop in and correct me.
My daddy always said, smart people know many ways to spell words. :)
Ebert: I must not be very smart. I already forgot how I spelled it here;
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/
And there is even a photo.
I find that most critics have a herd mentality. Once a few label a movie as BAD, the rest pretty much follow.
In my long experience Ebert is one of the rare exceptions. I read all the terrible reviews of KNOWING (a movie I had been eager to see) but when Ebert said it was good (in fact, very good), off to the theater I went.
Thank God for Ebert. I loved the movie, and was stunned by the special effects. A total immersion joy. I felt numb when the movie was over. It took me hours to feel normal.
Ebert: I saw the movie at 8 p.m, Monday, came home, wrote the review on deadline. No other reviews existed at that time. Later in the week, I was blind-sided by the negative reaction.
Really negative. On Metacritic, after my 100%, the next-highest review is from Portland, at 67%. Overall, film gets a 40 average. The reader vote is 8.1.
On Tomatoes, the Meter stands at 24. "Top critics" vote 15%. "RT Community" says 62. The only three of 20 "top critics" who give it a "fresh" are Todd McCarthy of Varoiety, Bill Goodykoonz of Arizona Republic, and me.
On the IMDb user votes, the "arithmetic mean" is 7.7 but the "median" is 9. Of 397 votes, 191 are "10." IMDb goes with the mean.
On MRQE, the only reviews joining mine are Owen Gliberman at Entertainment Weekly [A-], Reel.com [3.5/4] and filmcritic.com [4/5]. But hold on! Gliberman actually rates the movie at D-minus, and the Reel and FC reviews are the same (written by Bill Gibron). That means only one of 43 agrees with me.
Even "Shuttle" scored more than twice as high on the Meter than "Knowing."
Of course such averages mean very little, but they do give you a notion of how people are thinking. I usually don't peruse them, but this time I'm fascinated. What was it about "Knowing" that made it so hated? I don't know. I really don't know.
Why is there such a problem with the physical universe being deterministic? Religion has us believe that that there is more to the universe than just the physical; that in fact, humans are also spiritual beings who possess a soul that never dies. This is the source of our free will. You don't even have to believe in a god to accept this premise (but you can). Science is just beginning to realize that there are many dimensions necessary to explain the apparent contradictions between the laws of physics on the quantum level, and on a scale that we can more easily comprehend. You don't need to conjure up aliens to find beings who exist outside of space-time (though this is great for the movies). There is a part of us which fits that description.
I don't think most people are equipped to understand or accept this sort of sci-fi, or the ideas behind it.
Can we either please retire this sort of thing, or else find a more nuanced (ie, accurate) way of stating it? Because if I hear one more person say a Nic Cage sci-fi blockbuster by the director of The Crow, or a comic book adaptation by the 'visionary' director of 300, was 'simply too complex for most people' or 'people are not equipped to understand' it, I think I might hurl. Isn't is just possible that people, I dunno, don't like those movies? Understand them, appreciate their implications, but think they suck? I know, I know, it's a radical idea. Bear with me.
Now I have not yet seen Knowing. As a fan of Proyas, Cage, and the sort of themes the film seems to deal with, I expect to enjoy more than most of the reviewers have. But if I don't, I won't. I expect, whatever my reaction, I will have understood the film, just as I understood Watchmen, which bored me to tears. To say that so many reliable, intelligent film critics didn't get a film because it was over their heads or they didn't expect to have to think about a particular film so seriously, is ridiculous, though; and it's more ridiculous when the claim is only made about genre films. Maybe they just didn't like the movie.
A very detailed interpretation of the conflict presented in the movie, indeed.
But: At the end, the children don't end up in a wheat field. It is a field of clearly alien plants that look a bit like some exotic deep sea animal or plant, hollow, spongy, with a bulbous thingie on top. So, this is a strong indication that they have not been transported through time, but through space.
I personally find the religious implications hugely irritating, the message being pretty much that Jehovas Witnesses or some other of the sects who proclaim the nearing end and the salvation only of the true believers and innocent at hearts (and blah blah blah) being right after all. Nothing against the thriller part and the determinism questions from my part, but over here in Germany, for (me and) loads of other critics the whole film got completely disqualified because of that utterly useless revelation at the end. By the way, I was raised vaguely protestant but came to the conclusion to be an agnostic at least. Science is too logical to allow some fate or purpose lurking behind it all.
The end of the world, and the helping aliens alone would have been great, but them being shown as angels (with those wing-like lights around their backs) is driving home a message nobody saw coming. People feel betrayed. The angels' wings could have been somehow explained like the dragons' depiction through history in "Reign of Fire", but this outcome is - in my humble opinion - ridiculous. People will not like it over here, I can promise.
I know I'm interpreting and forming an individual opinion on something that wasn't actually stated in the film. But there's actually not so much left to interpretation, with a crystal clear message like that. To me, it's "Battlefield Earth" all over again, only for some weird vaguely Christian apocalyptic belief scheme. A no go for me.
I was annoyed by the way 'Knowing' immediately equates determinism with purpose. Koestler is not asking whether the universe is deterministic or random but whether it is purposeful or random. Once Koestler has evidence that the universe is deterministic, he's convinced it is also purposeful and expresses belief in heaven to his son. .
The more interesting question (not addressed by the film) is whether a deterministic universe is purposeful or not, which you bring up when you point out that "Strict determinism implies an absence of free will, and free will is a necessary component of all spiritual belief systems." This film skips this question in favor of the clumsier one between "purpose" and "randomness."
Fine. But what does the film mean by a 'random' universe? Does it mean all future events are equally probable? Couldn't the world be deterministic, following simple mechanistic rules, and still have room for random events, like coin flips? Aside from Koestler pointing out how convenient our physical world is for life on Earth, the random side to the question isn't given a hearing.
Finally, I thought it was silly when Koestler presents his colleague with the evidence, and he replies: "All my instincts as a scientists tell me we should just ignore this" (or something like that). It's hard to imagine an MIT astrophysicist having an instinct to close off inquiry into something so predictively accurate and mysterious. I can't help but think that an astrophysicist lives for such a find.
Wiseass!
Seriously, though, my best defense in 13 years of hell (Catholic schools) to charges of lack of effort (late homework, talking in class, etc.) was my technical perfection and test scores. It's at the point where (technical) mistakes just seem to present themselves to me; I can look at a menu and without even reading it intently, I find errors, especially in spelling. My life is an ongoing disaster, but I make few rigidly technical "mistakes." Thus, my appreciation for the title (and the politics) of Radiohead's song "2+2=5."
Ebert:
A man who was perfect on scores
Had a defense against bores:
"My life is a mess
But I proudly profess
That I don't go consorting with ladies of the evening."
One of those "elevation" moments of which you've written, this from life, not the movies: At Newberry Library once -- I believe it was for a Richard Russo appearance for Empire Falls -- rather than wait in line after his presentation/Q&A for his signature on my books, I went outside to have a cigarette. While enjoying (or at least ingesting) my fix, a Monarch butterfly landed on my shoulder, I stayed absolutely still for a minute or so watching him (her?) slowly raise and lower his wings as if airing them out, wanting that moment of proximity to such beauty to never end...and then he flew off.
I think most of the negative reviews stem from the more outrageous and ridiculous parts of the movie -- as the film wore on there were more and more moments where folks in my audience laughed or said, "watch out" or something to that effect when the characters were obviously walking into trouble. Everyone was making fun of the movie on the way out of the theater, too. The last time I saw a reaction like that here (in downtown Baltimore) was during Children of Men -- another dystopian movie that was largely implausible and dared the audience to think about what was going on (also, What Dreams May Come).
Frankly, I mostly blame the high quality of television for this... American audiences are entirely conditioned to extremely tight, hourlong dramas that are steeped in realism. Fantasy that's serious and not just over-the-top is nearly impossible to pull off.
This graf from A.O. Scott's review accurately describes my audience (my reaction, too, but I still liked the movie) - "If your intention is to make a brooding, hauntingly allegorical terror-thriller, it’s probably not a good sign when spectacles of mass death and intimations of planetary destruction are met with hoots and giggles."
A modern audience watching It's A Wonderful Life, Apocalypse Now, or 2001 for the first time would probably be rolling on the floor as well.
If there is a "Butterfly Effect", can you imagine the "Hummingbird Effect"??
YIKES!
The ontologic question ends in either aesthetics or ethics.
We don't watch the universe. We participate in it. So while it's fun and somewhat worthwhile to debate the determinism vs. free will thing, in the end we are actors and we act. How we act, and how we judge our actions, is based on our view of the beautiful or our view of the good.
The end of any question of philosphy is not to be found in the particular discipline that asks the question. Each facet leads to another aspect of the field--in this case, from what is an offshoot of the question of god's existence, a metaphysical question, into two other seemingly unrelated avenues: what is good? and, what is beautiful?
The circle goes round and round. It's not that the answers hide from us. It's that the question loses meaning after a while and is best solved with a different tool.
Further, the debate only takes on meaning when some action is required of us. Do we pull the plug on old Auntie Martha, ending her permanent vegetatitve state? What does metaphysics tell us? Well, not much; ask a minister and you'll find the answer's not clear-cut, much to your consternation. He won't have the answer because it's not a question of what god ordains. It's a matter of what is ethical, and what is beautiful. It's unethical to make her suffer and it's ugly to force her to live this way with no hope of recovery. So there's your criteria. Now you have better questions for her doctor and a real basis on which to make your decision. (His evaluation will be made using logic and epistemology, but let's not load this up too much.)
Philosphy must be charged with bringing its five pillars back under one roof. Ethics, metaphysics, aesthetics, logic, and epistemology have been picked to death by other lesser disciplines (law, religion, art, math and education--and the biggest offender, which is psychiatry) and when those lesser pursuits fail to answer our questions, we return to the picked-clean carcass of philosophy and sort of nudge it around with our toe, wondering why it's not more help to us, lying there dead and rotting. Metaphysics is not just the realm of religion and/or tinfoil-hat people; logic is not all Boole. These five aspects are required to work in concert if we wish to make sense of our existence and our relationship to others.
Philosphers of the world, unite!
There was a young man who said "Damn!"
It grieves me to think that I am
Predestined to move
In a circumscribed groove,
In fact not a bus but a tram.
Ebert:
An apostle of predestination
Said he was there at Creation,
When God made his selections
And issued directions
And left on extended vacation.
Ebert: Of course such averages mean very little, but they do give you a notion of how people are thinking. I usually don't peruse them, but this time I'm fascinated. What was it about "Knowing" that made it so hated? I don't know. I really don't know.
Maybe it's bad timing--a disaster movie in a disastrous time. So many people are mired in doom and gloom right now with the state of the economy, joblessness, foreclosures and general fear that maybe a movie about the end of the world just isn't fun for the masses. If it were a comedy, maybe it'd be on everyone's must-see list.
Nicolas Cage is like the tenor who goes for that high note even if there's a pretty good chance his voice might crack. That makes him fun to watch. When the reviewers on RT clearly have a bias against the entire genre (which really isn't a fair way to rate it, is it?) and are using things like Cage's "dentures and fright wig" to justify their reviews, it's probably time to power down the computer and buy a ticket.
(I just noticed that only the critics are smashing it. The RT community give it a 63% fresh. Which is the same thing they did for the remake of Friday 13th. Which doesn't help the argument I'd have liked to make about the critics missing it and the audience getting it. More of a puzzle than the numbers.)
Those were outlines of wings on the Angels. When reading Ezekiel, it is describing heavenly beings with wings and a wheel of some sort. What I got from the film was that these beings where not from some other planet per say, but all along angels who appear in that fashion thoughout history. If they where aliens, they would be bound to linege of time as us and not know the future. At the end, it is showing the new earth with the Tree of Life as described in Revelations.
"What was it about "Knowing" that made it so hated? I don't know. I really don't know."
Did we see the same film? Just got back from “Knowing”, 4 stars? Unbelievable. I did not see any wings on the Billy Idol aliens at the end (My wife and I and others were laughing at the end, we must of missed them).This was an awful film and knowing what I know now (about “Knowing”) would have saved me twenty bucks and two hours of my time.
c gleason
Wait, the world is a hologram? Just another reason to do nothing but watch movies all day. ;)
And, yes, there are definitely wings on the aliens/angels/ in the film.
Ebert: If the world is a hologram, is God Wolf Blitzer?
Nicholas Cage is a good actor but has a funny face. This is why he is not taken by American audiences as a serious actor. Pity he wasn't born French.
Hi Roger. I stopped reading this post yesterday, because of the spoiler alert. I wanted to come back after I saw the movie, which I did today. So, I missed that you mentioned me by name in your post. I can't tell you what a thrill and honor it was to be mentioned in your excellent post!
Some thoughts:
- The movie is an outstanding thriller. I gauge that by how it kept my interest and how it kept me guessing where it was headed. Any movie that can do that is worth the seeing, for my money.
- You've described it excellently and accurately. What a fascinating post, examining the implications of the movie. What a good read.
- "...and dog spelled backward is what?" Reminds me of the old joke about the agnostic dyslexic with insomnia who laid awake all night wondering if there is or isn't a Dog.
- Your examining of the implications reminds me of the scene in "Groundhog Day" where Bill Murray is musing aloud to Andy McDowell about "Am I a God? Or one of the Gods? Maybe God has just been around so long that he's seen everything." Classic.
- I was particularly struck by the scene where Nicholas Cage is posing the question to his class about whether life has purpose - and then he freezes, apparently deeply troubled by that question. It gave me a flashback.
Roughly 1980 I was taking an engineering elective in the biology department called "Evolution", centered on the sociobiology writings of E.O. Wilson. After class one day I noticed that several students were "pit-diving" around the professor at his podium. I decided to see what wisdom the prof was sharing unoffically that I was missing out on. When I got down there, the prof had a look on his face much like the look on Nicholas Cage's face. He was explaining that yes he did believe in the evolution theories that he was teaching and that it depressed him. Depressed him to the point that he had decided to take his life, had in fact already amassed the pills capable of doing it, and was just deciding on what point in his life to do it.
True story. It profoundly affected me.
Anyway, great post.
Ebert: And...did he? Seems to me the ToE provides excellent reasons for continuing to live.
My wife and I saw "Knowing" last night and afterward I was bowled over and humbled in a most uncommon way; I didn't at all understand the vicious knee-capping delivered by most of the critical community. Certainly Nicolas Cage, while not bad, wasn't at his best and the film ended in a way that I'm sure few people in the audience saw coming but those things alone didn't explain the beating down of what was otherwise an accomplished, thought-provoking film. After some reflection I think I've figured out the biggest reason behind the reviews: it frightened people, and not in the fun, 'John Carpenter Presents' kind of way but on a deeper, more primal level. In virtually every film made that involves a threat from outside our world we're able to defeat it with either the infallible coupling of man's ingenuity and technology or to reason with it. We can tell the outsider that despite the fact we like to take potshots at whatever blunders into our galaxy for tea and sandwiches we have music and love and puppies and that far outweighs our manic paranoia and munitions fetish. The alien then nods in agreement before buying a Niagara Falls keychain and returning early to Alpha Centauri so as not to get caught in a hyperspace traffic jam. That kind of ending makes us comfortable because it reduces the potential end of the world to a problem we can solve rather and eventually subvert rather than an inevitability. In a way "Knowing" shares with HP Lovecraft's work the idea of the "terror cosmic", the idea that if we fall prey to an unstoppable threat from the stars there may very well be no reasoning, no last-minute reprieve, no mercy. We are well and truly on our own and to some that's a deeply uncomfortable idea. We want to be special, we want to overcome the odds, preferably by turning off our computers at night and recycling. The film is just very good science fiction of course but if we're honest with ourselves deep down we all know that without intervention, as is to be found in Arthur C Clarke's "Childhood's End", an approaching world-ending event will likely end the same way as "Knowing" or Don McKeller's "Last Night" rather than "War of the Worlds". God, if he exists and still bothers to pay attention will simply make another note on His mighty clipboard and turn his attention to one of His other projects. Like much great science fiction"Knowing" refuses to be escapist and I think that's what doomed it from the start.
I just got back from "Knowing." Back in 1998, while living for a short time in Paris (and without the constant, never-ending "connectedness" we have today), I read your review of "Dark City," went to go see it, and if my head didn't explode, it certainly came close.
Having absolutely abhorred the "Knowing" trailers (does ever trailer producer in Hollywood have a manual that needs to be followed?), I had no interest in this one -- until your review.
I never consider myself a science-fiction enthusiast, though I have many friends who are. "Lost" is my favorite TV series, and while I recognize its sci-fi elements, its questions are of a grander scale ... much like "Knowing." I'm beginning to think that maybe "sci-fi" (when well done) and philosophy are just two different ways of seeking answers to the same questions. Yes, I realize this is hardly a novel observation, but "Knowing" absolutely blew my mired-in-standard-Hollywood-fare little mind.
Thanks, Roger (or is it Mr. Ebert?), for once again pointing those of us who care about movies in the right direction. Thanks for a fantastic review that pointed out not what's on "Knowing's" surface, but what flows throughout it. Thanks for holding your own, telling us what YOU think, and letting that be that.
These metaphysical matters are ones I can barely begin to comprehend. All I know is that I saw a movie that dared to have VERY grand ambitions and didn't hold back from any of them. It's a stunner of a film!
As for the angels/aliens ... does it matter? Maybe they had wings. Obviously they were present-day depictions of the wheel seen by Ezekiel. Could be there were wings, could be they were just ethereal creatures who saw a need to help (as Koestler did in the plane crash), did what they could, then left. Angels/aliens/gods, who knows?
And for those who come away thinking it's an awful film, I'm reminded of 20 years ago, when James Cameron attempted something vaguely familiar with the final 45 minutes of "The Abyss" ... and the great line that film contains: "You've got to look with better eyes than that."
First, let me say I miss your presence on television very, very much, and I hope life off the air finds you well. A few years ago near my job in Manhattan, I passed Richard Reoper i/f/o the W Hotel at Union Square, and told him I liked his work, which was true. But I love yours.
Now onto learning about Knowing...sometimes i just like to go to a movie and ogle at the screen. Finguring a Nicholas Cage movie never gets good reviews, I took a gander at the reviews of it on My Yahoo. To my utter surprise, I read that only you gave it a good review ["thumbs up," if I may], so with that rave in mind, I pluncked down my $8 matinee fee and sat back and enjoyed the heck out of this big-screen spectacle. [For a movie like this, one has to sit in the fourth or fifth row so as to get a complete out-of-body experience.]
I tried not to think too much of the ecclesiastic overtones, although they were overwhelming. When asked about my ignorance or my apathy about such deterministic bombast, my answers are, "I don't know" and "I don't care" because I survived a bout with cancer some ten years ago and now I try to just think mostly about the here and now, even when I had to deal with the inevitable a decade ago.
That said, I wanted to be on that ship and land on that new planet, and start all over again. Those alien cats [who definately had astral wings as they ascended into their mother ship] were simply intrigued, from many miles away, with us humans -- enough to take a few of us and pluck them down into a new place.
A better place out there some place...has to be. After we die, a better place "up" there...has to be. It's that simple. And if there isn't a better place up there, I try to be cognizant of enjoying every single moment I have while I'm down here.
Thanks for such a positive review. I entered this movie with a lot more faith in it and it certainly met my expectations if not exceeded them. What really impressed me was the set design and the cinematography of this film. I couldn't help but notice how well-balanced scenes were. I recall listening to the DVD commentary for Dark City and hearing you call the sets and the shots "too beautiful"—a term which I believe can apply to the visuals of this movie as well.
Are you going to do the DVD commentary for this film when it comes out? I admit I haven't listened to the commentary for Dark City in whole yet but I would certainly like to hear it!
Post Scriptum: I couldn't help but notice two inaccuracies in this entry regarding parts of the film. I do know that you realize your number is incorrect, but having just seen the movie, I can report that the number of deaths from 9/11 was actually 2996. Also, I believe Koestler's response to the student's question was "I think...shit just happens" rather than "I think...shit happens."
I'm not sure why so many critics hate it. The reviewer at the San Francisco Chronicle thought it a mess of ideas that went nowhere, and gave licks to Nicolas Cage also.
Maybe Nicolas Cage seems to have worn out his welcome with a lot of critics/people, kind of like Tom Cruise, and they automatically have an inherent 'bias' towards any of his releases? I don't know why, Cage hasn't really said or done anything to alienate people in his personal life like a lot of other celebrities with their embarrassing behaviors. Maybe he's crossed that threshold from critical favorite into favorite whipping boy (movies like The Wicker Man probably didn't do him any favors).
As for the movie, I do have to admit that the ending threw me off at first. Here was a well crafted movie that was suspenseful throughout, and you were absolutely riveted as to where this was going and how exactly Nicolas Cage was going to save the world (or at least save his son). So when you see the spaceship coming from the clouds, your initial reaction may be of disbelief and then disappointment that the ending is nothing short of a mini 'E.T.' Maybe that turned some people off?
Reply to: Finally, I thought it was silly when Koestler presents his colleague with the evidence, and he replies: "All my instincts as a scientists tell me we should just ignore this". It's hard to imagine an MIT astrophysicist having an instinct to close off inquiry into something so predictively accurate and mysterious. I can't help but think that an astrophysicist lives for such a find.
Are you familiar with the term "manipulation"?
A con man will spend days, weeks, even months setting up a charade, in order to fool one victim. The old "Mission Impossible" series used to construct elaborate con games, so the bad guy would be killed by his own men.
Can we agree there are two choices?
(Possibility #1) God does not exist, or
(2)God exists.
If you ignore Possibility #1, you're not following the rules.
So many times, Christians simply ignore the possibility that God does not exist. And you see the result. They become lost and confused trying to figure out how the universe works. (for example, is it possible for God to create a stone so heavy that even God cannot pick it up?) Well, if you start with an imaginary "god"... the answer is "whatever you imagine it to be."
My point is, you can't start the discussion by excluding the Correct Answer. When you do, of course we don't take you seriously.
That's what Koestler (Cage) meant. You have to START from the assumption that the sheet of paper was written after all the disasters took place, and some slight of hand was used to make it appear that it was inside the time capsule.
If you want to manipulate people into thinking "maybe there is some crediblity to the idea of a higher power," then add a scene showing how the girl wrote the numbers. but it's not real. It's fiction. It's manipulation. In fact, it's dishonest manipulation.
It takes a lot of... processing?... to readjust your thinking so you START from the position, "If there is no such thing as a God, then...." Because that's the Correct place to start.
I just read that President Obama will receive a honorary degree from Notre Dame and give the commencement address. The switchboard was jammed when Catholics called in to protest. Seems that Obama doesn't think abortion should be a crime. Therefore, many Catholics think it would be wrong to honor him with an honorary degree from Notre Dame. And this proves... that is, when you start with garbage, you wind up with garbage. (Garbage being a term meaning the statement is not completely valid.)
Wings??? I saw the movie tonight (Saturday) and yes, those absolutely, positively were wings on the strangers' backs. At the time the strangers (sorry, I cannot believe they were meant to be aliens) shed their humanly bodies, there clearly were angelic wings on their backs. And I am also convinced the "spaceship's" rise was meant to resemble ascension into heaven.
An awesome movie, to be sure. Especially for fathers who have sons and/or mothers who have daughters, regardless of age. Following the movie's conclusion I immediately texted my 25 year old son in Phoenix to let him know I love him.
People who criticized this movie were saying that it was preposterous or ludicrous etc...
Hello!! A sci-fi movie is supposed to be preposterous and ludicrous and so on. It has to be illogical.
How I judge a movie is how well crafted it is, and how entertaining it is. And "Knowing" is top in these two categories.
It reminds me of the debates on "Da Vinci code" (the book, not the movie). I don't believe that Jesus was married and his descendants are alive. What I liked about the book (I did not like the movie) was that it was so unbelievable and preposterous. If that was a documentary or a historical book, then what is needed is logic and truth rather than entertainment.
I loved "Knowing". My teen aged son loved it too, not because he believes that the word will end on October 19, 2009, but because he understands that fantasy and science fiction are not true, and that is why they are fun.
Our lives are more important than those four letter mindless electrons. The Mind is also an important Matter, in Science as much as in the Law. There are things whose truth or otherwise depends on whether or not we believe them to be true or not. The nature of our beliefs( I think most would agree) is the most potent and powerful thing there is in life,society, politics.. We are all able to live out our lives on the faith that we have to a greater or lesser extent some power to carve it out. In the field of psychiatry a determinant of mental health is the degree we percieve the "locus of control" to be within or without.
You ask "how did they produce the numbers?"
Perhaps they didn't produce them -- maybe they were given to them by "the big banger" and simply chose to wait until the final date to intervene.
Just tossing that out as an idea...
Just saw it. Want to enter the de facto Limerick Contest.
This movie is question-seed sowing
And visibly striking/mind-blowing,
And well worth the seeing,
But--Free Will? Truth? Being?
The answer is way beyond Knowing.
I loved the movie too, and I thought so many of the same things as you did when watching it. I'm not a religious person, and I know the movie isn't religious either. But I loved how there was so much religious symbolism towards the end, but the film added an edge to all of it. First of all, there's the whole Adam and Eve thing which is pretty obvious. But I also got a Noah's Ark vibe from it; instead of God collecting two of each species or whatever, the aliens take the children from a world that's about to burn. From a human's point of view, the aliens are perceived as gods, with god-like powers. From the aliens' point of view, we are just animals, or rabbits. The aliens are so advanced and intelligent that they, like you said, are able to "predict the future, as in theory."
What I really enjoyed about the movie is the fact that it implies that intelligence is somewhat correlated with morality. The aliens are definitely more intelligent, but they care about the state of humanity, and save the kids. Just as we're desperately, or should be desperately, trying to save endangered species, no matter how far below our intelligence they are, the aliens are saving the humans. I think the aliens see us as just animals, yet still save us. A lot of movies involving aliens try to write them off as uncaring about anything but themselves, trying to take over, etc. This movie did the opposite, perfectly.
Also, anyone remember that the kid became a vegetarian?
Roger:
Your blog was far more interesting than the movie.
I know I'm way behind on this thread, but in response to this comment:
"But it's extremely unlikely that I'll ever be convinced that the Intelligent Designer didn't include evolution as a part of the plan. The evidence for evolution is just too overwhelming."
I gotta agree -- what requires a more intelligent design, one that pops everything into existence in six days, or one that requires millennia of carefully orchestrated evolution to achieve the same effect?
I just wish the folks who argue for intelligent design would give the intelligent designer a bit more credit than they do.
Dear Roger,
"A ROLL OF THE DICE". I have just read your piece on the death of Natasha Richardson. Unlike the others you write with the humanity and truth that characterizes all of your work. It is a real and human response to an unspeakable tragedy.
A life cut short, in its prime is a random act in a random universe. One might think of it as a freak ROLL OF THE DICE. May she rest in peace and may the furor be silenced.
Judith
Totally unrelated to this post, but I've just seen the trailer for Pixar's new movie "Up", and the main character struck me as somehow...familiar :)
http://pixarplanet.com/blog/images/325.jpg
http://www.moviemaker.com/magazine/issues/47/images/fc.Ebert.jpg
Discuss.
Ebert: You think so?
To me, the aliens make no sense. Time travel would answer a lot of questions, but it leaves much to be desired. If the aliens had the power to know what was coming, why not stop it themselves? Why instead give a sheet of paper containing unstoppable disasters? Guess aliens aren't purfect. Why were there "chosen ones" when the end of Earth was not a man-made issue? Why deny the father the chance to live? Prehaps that the aliens are so distant from the human mind-set, that we cannot understand them. Or prehaps, some alien form of prejudice is about.
Roger, I don't know if you know this but a lot of people seem to think you're going senile.
Check out the comments (and the Cage-bashing article) below...
http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/03/nicolas-cage-ar.html
And it's not just there. I noticed a similar comment on Rotten Tomatoes.
And I had a friend call me this morning after reading your "Knowing" review to ask me: is Ebert smoking up before he sees movies now? All these deep thoughts on "Synecdoche, NY", "Watchmen" and now "Knowing" of all things... He must be!
Or he's going senile... Or he just loves Alex Proyas and will give anything he does 4 stars.
Note: None of the above comments reflect my opinion of you or Cage or "Knowing", "Watchmen" or "Synecdoche" et cetera, just what people have been saying.
Ebert: I have one word for you: Snark.
I liked this movie, despite Nicholas Cage's hamming it up, precisely because it tickles the brain with things like whether fate or randomness controls the universe.
Some thoughts I had during the movie:
I also saw the creepy men as angels, and the ascension into the space ship clearly shows an aura that a human could mistake for wings. I thought that was a nice touch, actually.
Since I just watched the History Channel's coverage of Eric Von Daniken, I'm surprised no one has really discussed this.
I think you missed the point of Koestler's "S*it happens". He was saying that he believed that life was random. Later in the film he says that he believed in fate before his wife died, but her death convinced him that life is random.
I loved the reconciliation of the Koestlers at the end. A powerful scene.
Nothing in the movie makes any sense, as far as reality anyway. The scene where Koestler drives up to the car crash and gets left alone with Diana might be the most preposterous scene ever filmed by someone not named Ed Wood, except for all the other nonsensical scenes in this film. Nevertheless, I suspend reality when I watch these kinds of Twilight Zone episodes, so I still enjoyed the film.
When you really think about it, this movie is very similar to [i]Signs[/i].
Some thoughts I had during this discussion:
Evolution is a human concept based on the assumption that humans are superior to all other life forms. This is just anthropocentrism. Each amoeba alive today has been alive since the beginning of life on this planet. What makes a human superior to an amoeba? Only hubris.
What would convince me of Intelligent Design? If someone could come up with a plausible reason for an all powerful being to create everything and fill the world with fallible people, that would be a step in the right direction. For that matter, why would a God create evil? Why not just make everyone a god like Him? What's the point? Does God really want people to live a good life then be resurrected to praise Him for eternity? Why?
I'm also not one to worry about whether a cat doing anything is dependent upon someone noticing it. Cats somehow managed to do a whole lot of things long before the apes devolved to be humans.
Ebert: Of course such averages mean very little, but they do give you a notion of how people are thinking. I usually don't peruse them, but this time I'm fascinated. What was it about "Knowing" that made it so hated? I don't know. I really don't know.
I haven't seen the movie, and I have no idea if I will or not. I get to watch about three moviews in theatres per year...
However, I have a thought about the reason for the hate-on critics have for this movie. From the tone of some of the comments, it sounds to me like the movie spends most of the time looking like a disaster thriller, and then throws a curve ball at the audience with a "alien/religious" ending.
So allow me to digress, by way of providing some background for my argument. Gwynne Dyer's website (www.gwynnedyer.com) has an article on it dated 8 February 2009 called "The Atheist Buses" (go to the web page, click on the link "Latest Articles", find the link to this article).
In it, he starts talking about the kerfuffle over the bus advertisements by the British Humanist Society that read "There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." But he ends up talking about a couple of surveys that were done about religion in Britain in particular, and other European countries generally.
According to the 2001 census, only 7 million people in Britian said they had no religion, while 37 million said they were Christian. 1.5 million were Muslim, half a million were Hindu, 390,000 were Jedi Knights...329,000 were Sikhs and 260,000 were Jewish...Those numbers suggest that Britain is an overwhelmingly Christian country, with under 20 percent of the population non-believers. Yet three-quarters of the people in Britian do not go to church even once a year...
When the International Social Survey Program conducted a more in-depth study of religious belief almost 20 years ago...it asked people if they agreed or disagreed with the statement "I know God exists and I have no doubts about it." In Britain, only 23.8 percent of the people said they agreed...most European countries only registered between 20 and 30 percent...although Italy struggled up to 51 percent, Ireland reached 58 percent, and Poland got the prize with 66 percent believers.
What is happening is that people in Britian and many other countries are answering the census question about religion in terms of their cultural heritage...not of their actual beliefs. It all depends on how you phrase the question...Actual levels of religious belief in Europe are very low.
The idea [of the bus ads] started in Britain, but the American Humanists moved faster. Their ads appeared on buses in Washington, DC, in November, saying "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake" -- and there was little public outcry. Maybe the United States is not that different after all.
The United States, we are constantly told, has a level of religious belief almost as high as Iran's, and every Gallup poll since 1944 has reported that at least 94 percent of Americans "believe in God or a universal spirit." But look at that question. If you had any lingering guilt at all about having abandoned your ancestral religion, you'd say yes to that, wouldn't you?
When the ISSP asked its much more rigorous question, only 66 percent of Americans agreed with the statement "I know God exists and I have no doubts about it." That was almost twenty years ago, and it's very likely that the level of belief has fallen since.
Which leads me to speculate that movie critics found the overt religious imagery, especially if it seemed to be grafted on at the end in a literal deus ex machina, to be offensive.
In response to Michel on March 21, 2009 11:26 PM
People who criticized this movie were saying that it was preposterous or ludicrous etc...Hello!! A sci-fi movie is supposed to be preposterous and ludicrous and so on. It has to be illogical.
I am going to take issue with this, with one caveat. If by "sci-fi" you mean typical Hollywood sci-fi thrillers, I don't think they're supposed to be preposterous - but they certainly don't try very hard not to be.
But if by "Sci-fi" you mean "science fiction" including the literature of the field, then I'm sorry to say you have very little idea what science fiction is supposed to be. The principle of science fiction story telling is to make extrapolations about the environment the story is set in, extrapolations that don't exist in the real world. But once you as the story teller have made those extrapolations, you must respect them. Otherwise it's not science fiction, it is fantasy.
Matt Nelson's earlier comment is vital to this discussion. I don't know anything about the film's writers and I know very little about Proyas, but it seems that SOMEONE involved with the movie is a Calvinist. "Knowing" aligns so blatantly with a Calvinistic view of scripture, it's astonishing - especially in an escapist flick (or a film disguised as such).
I was completely skeptical of the film's faith/religious/spiritual parallels until the moment when Cage's character calls his father for the first time in years and says something about "Dad, do you remember the sermon you preached about spiritual gifts?" His father says, "Yes, 1 Corinthians 12." That chapter, and chapter 14, of 1 Corinthians is often considered the explanation for biblical prophecy and the speaking of tongues. Cage's character mentions these things in detail, AND how we are to treat them.
And from here, "Knowing" is biblically accurate in its depiction of the end of the world. It is because of the detailed and accurate reference to 1 Corinthians that I am convinced "Knowing" is intentionally following many different apocalyptic texts from the Bible.
Lucinda's Ezekiel 1 engraving is described in great and similar detail in, ahem, Ezekiel 1 - or what we conceive of the prophet's description (he did the best he could to verbalize it). This sequence is also described in Daniel 7 and many times over throughout Revelation. The four beasts, we can say, are winged angels who are messengers of God's coming Wrath and praise the Almighty forever. (Or, perhaps the four winds of heaven.) Yes, I do believe the streams of air on the aliens at the film's conclusion are wings and the aliens are angels. They seem to create a circle around the children and *their wings touch* - a description from Ezekiel. And, as mentioned in these comments, the ship looks like the circular image in the engraving. It is the intersecting wheels of the angels - again described in Ezekiel.
Another reason: When the ship ascends, there is a shot from space. Cinematically, this shot appears to be rubbish - only an excuse for FX. But Proyas is more skillful and restrained than that. And here's why (maybe). The shot pans to reveal dozens of ships shooting into space. "After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with [Christ] in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." - 1 Thessalonians 4:17. The shot doesn't include a Christ figure, but we can assume the Lord is close by if you recall Lucina's engraving, which implies a certain chronology to this event.
Caleb and Abbey's final destination is (perhaps) the new earth, described in scripture, or the New Jerusalem. "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and first earth had passed away..." Caleb says to John, just before he makes his decision, that they are the chosen ones because they heard the call. The "call" is usually the term used in reference to one's purpose in life, as given by God. "God called me to ministry," "God called me to the mission field," "God called me to see awesome movies," etc. Caleb's call is (probably) to start over with Abbey, yes, like new Adam and Even in their new earth with a new Tree. Perhaps the reason they seem to be alone on this new earth, despite all those other space ships, is because the others landed on one of the millions of life-sustaining planets around the universe - as discussed by Caleb and John in the film's beginning.
("Knowing" seems to be commenting on extra-terrestrials on a theological basis. Calvinists wouldn't believe in aliens because they are a creation of the Father, and, if they are of equal or greater intelligence than humans, they are just as depraved and in need of a savior. So, as far as "Knowing" is concerned, there are no "aliens" the way we categorize them. The universe is simply untapped real estate for God's chosen people.)
In that superlative shot near the end, when Manhattan has gone bonkers under Beethoven's 7th, there is a van in the background. On the side it reads, "Jesus is...." and I noticed it too late to read the entire thing. I will see the movie again and make a note to find that van first thing.
If this all sounds like hogwash, it's probably because a Calvinist wrote it. If God is supreme, can't it be that he has made everything? And if he made everything, doesn't he understand everything with a depth we cannot comprehend? If yes, then we are fools to think we have begun to wrap our heads around him - like we are fools to think Hubble can see anything more than the starting line of the universe (as you mentioned, Ebert). Determinism, randomness, free will, predetermination, intelligent design, evolution - does God not see these things with the same eyes as a scholar sees a First Grade Reader?
I could go on and on and on about the profundity of the film's theological implications. "Knowing" is sterling entertainment, and obviously much more.
Point #1: The aliens/angels seem not to have learned the lessons learned in Australia about importing rabbits to new habitats. Poor choice, guys. That new planet is rabbit fodder. Oh ya, and humans aren't so good for ecosystems either - d-oh!
Point #2: There can be no doubt that we were meant to see wings.
Point #3: I think the argument about determinism vs. free will is a false choice, as I think has been noted above somewhere. I think the reason it has survived as a compelling debate over the millenia is that, as with most interesting debates, there are elements of obvious truth on both sides of the coin. I think, though, that a basic requirement of a debate about this is some sort of agreement on a priori's. Does God exist or doesn't she/he? If yes, the content of the argument is about one thing, if no, then, well...actually I don't know what the point of arguing further would be. Anyway...it is clear that there are some things, important things, that we have no choice about, especially with regards to our personality, temperament and background. I had no choice about being born a white caucasian in North America at a point in history where that would make me an incredibly priveleged individual. I do have some choices to make about what I do with those advantages. I make choices within a context not of my choosing. The real question is, do these choices matter? Do they have any "meaning"? Are those perceptions of meaning purely manufactured, or do they have some sort of connection to deeper reality?
Point #4: I disagree that the idea of aliens precludes religious belief or, in the case of this movie, says anything about whether God exists. Maybe they were acting on an imperative dictated by their own religious sensibilities, much like many missionaries working with refugees here on earth today. My point is, explanations for HOW things happened do not address WHY they happened.
My thought is that the many alien ships that were seen leaving the planet at the end were also carrying many other children, so the two kids aren't really Adam and Eve. From a genetic standpoint, it's actually impossible for just two individuals to carry on a species, which makes both Genesis and Noah's Arc into fairy stories.
Of course, for godlike aliens, genetic manipulation to insure quality offspring may be no more difficult copying a song onto our Ipods...
I was more critical of this movie. Were the dates coming from the aliens? Why? Why torture the poor girl with all the dates of accidents to come? Why wait until the last day to collect the healthy specimens, anyway?
Roger, let me weigh in on a few topics here. I, like another reader, was unable to read the whole blog because of the spoilers held within but the post-blog discussion drew me in. Knowing sounds like a great movie, one I'll have to see. Love Nick Cage but a little wary of his film selection. Good to hear your recommendation. Nick Cage in an end of the world sci-fi thriller could have been a disaster but it sounds like the director hit the right note. For the great actor he is his film selection skills need work. Less Con-Air (god how I hated that movie, worst accent ever) and more Leaving Las Vegas. But after hearing such a glowing review it sounds like a must-see.
Your journals the last few weeks always seem to be dancing with these issues of life and living. It has been refreshing to read such thoughtful material. What great readers you have too Roger! Your journal is good I'll admit, but the replies found after are great. I find myself turning the thoughts over in my head long after I've finished reading and am better able to articulate my own thoughts. Free-will vs. determinism? I don't know. The universe looks a little clearer every day with advances in the sciences. Maybe everything is explainable through principles of physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology etc. I tend to subscribe to that theory. I'm not even really averse to believing my thoughts and everything I believe my consciousness to be is only the sum of the events before it. Some would find such a belief a very despairing one but that is no reason to shy away from it. God, if he does exist, seems to remain very silent and uninvolved in individual’s lives. If he is intervening in the world on people’s behalf he is doing it in a way completely unseen. I don't understand how people can claim to know what God has to say to us. If we don't completely understand the unfathomably complex universe we inhabit how can we claim to understand the intentions of its creator?
-topic related side note-
The past week I heard the Pope reaffirm the churches ban on condom use. He did this in Africa. I find the idea that God cares if some guy wears a condom laughable. You know what's not laughable? The HIV virus that may be spread in lieu of said condom's use.
The way things look right now: we exist as biological entities subject to all the rules of science. No purpose is apparent to us and no reliable reports for an afterlife exist. How then do we live? The advice I got was to take your one pass through life and do what you love. I would add to grow and be happy. Guilt, regret, and self-despair seem a waste of time when everything could just end. How do you live Mr. Ebert?
Ebert: As much as possible, just like that.
The reader comments here are indeed extraordinary.
Ebert: "Of course such averages mean very little, but they do give you a notion of how people are thinking. I usually don't peruse them, but this time I'm fascinated. What was it about "Knowing" that made it so hated? I don't know. I really don't know."
"Maybe it's bad timing--a disaster movie in a disastrous time. So many people are mired in doom and gloom right now with the state of the economy, joblessness, foreclosures and general fear that maybe a movie about the end of the world just isn't fun for the masses. If it were a comedy, maybe it'd be on everyone's must-see list."
Maybe. After reading this by Kyle Smith:
"UH-UH. Non. Nein. Neg ative. Sept. 11 is not to be used as the setup for a cheesy disaster prophecy flick.
In the fiercely ridiculous "Knowing," Nicolas Cage plays John, a widowed MIT professor looking at a page of random digits when the series 91101 leaps out at him."
That could be an issue with some people.
I'll throw out a few other ideas...
- Cage-frustration had something to do with it, seeing as he's being dissed in just about every negative review and even prompted an EW article telling him to go back to smaller dramas.
- Many people feel insecure talking about a movie's abstract ideas.
- People also don't like having to put in the effort to think about a movie's ideas. It can be frustrating for them when they feel like they're not 'getting it'.
- People understand emotions much easier.
- Many critics are a little wary of anything that might have a religious agenda, the same way that many religious spokespersons have, historically speaking, been a little wary of anything that might challenge their beliefs - such unwillingness to at least consider what you're seeing before writing it off is not good for either side (though i'm displaying a similar closed-minded attitude by jumping to conclusions right now). Check out this review from Kyle Smith for an example: http://www.nypost.com/seven/03202009/entertainment/movies/apocalypses_now_and_then_160372.htm
- When I talk to the more avid movie fans - loose definition, don't ask for an exact one - we all seem to agree a peeve of ours is how "Independence Day" esque blockbusters win out over movies like "Contact" just because 'ID4' has big explosions, 'action' and heavy use of special effects (which are, admittedly, impressive). We prefer films that are built from farther-reaching ideas and human drama to movies that just want to 'entertain' us by blowing stuff up. With that in mind, let's be honest now, does "Knowing", on its surface, look like the far-reaching ideas, human drama? Looks to me like the 'let's blow some stuff up' flick. Didn't "ID4" involve some numerical, coded pattern or something? I think many credible film people, so critics and everybody else who truly loves film, are having bad memories of a code-plot (something you see in countless bad thrillers) replay in their heads when they consider the premise of "Knowing". They automatically jump to the conclusion that "Knowing" is every bit as preposterous as the others. And perhaps it is for those who don't care much for the film's most fundamental question because they feel we either can't answer it so why bother or... we have answered it.
- In general, humans, not just 'people' now but mankind, is happier enjoying their lives or caring for others than contemplating the secrets of the universe.
- In between on-screen destruction, some critics gave the ideas some thought and decided... "Meh. Not really adding up to me. I don't care enough about finding the answer to recalculate."
- Many people have trouble accepting that films where stuff blows up could also have mindblowing ideas. I know many people, friends and not friends, I saw "Watchmen" with, after it was over told me: "But do you really think those ideas are genuine? When the next scene is slow-mo slaughtering?" Maybe filmgoers have been abused by such insincere flicks for so long that they have become cynical to the point of writing off any movie involving destructive 'action' and horizon-broadening ideas.
Ebert: It's pretty well established how little regard I have for ID. That didn't affect my response to "Knowing" in the slightest.
Yes, an affirmation of religious thought for me. The whole alien thing is similar to what is described in the first chapter of Ezekiel. I always thought if prophecy is true then how could free will exist since it would allow the option for prophecy to go unfulfilled? If your religion is based on prophecy then it can only be right if your free will choices end up fulfilling the prophecy foretold. Then again it that really free will? Great movie but making me seriously contemplate some difficult questions.
As the aliens lifted off the ground into the ship, I'm almost positive that wings appeared on them briefly. Further, they looked to have that classic, "angel-wing" shape, which I took to mean they were supposed to in fact be angels. However, I wasn't sure this was meant to verify the existence of God in the traditional sense. I thought perhaps we were meant to think that these aliens have been making appeances throughout much of human history, and our idea of God comes from the previous encounters we've had with them. The way the aliens set the kids down in a crop circle at the end, as well as the "Garden of Eden" imagery, seemed to point towards the latter. Assuming there were in fact wings on the aliens, what do you think?
Ebert: I ask myself, do wings have angels?
The wings don't flap to result in flight, so the aliens must levitate by some other unexplained means. Personally, I justify this apparent goof in story like you say, Roger: that the wings are sort of a human appendix counterpart. But unlike the human appendix, which has no known purpose, these wings seem vestigial. Through the course of evolution the aliens might have evolved them for flight but since have been superseded by a more sophisticated mechanism for levitation. (...which to me is strong evidence these beings themselves are the product of some faraway, otherworldly process of natural selection, not divine inspiration.)
and/or
Maybe it wasn't in the visual effects budget. Simple "levitation" is only two keyframes: A and B. I think that's a whole heck of a lot easier and cheaper to animate than realistic flight.
First of all, let me just say that I sincerely hope you're doing well Mr. Ebert and I hope one day we'll see you on TV again. The movie world feels a bit hollow without you. Thank you for the countless years of fun and heated debates over the movies we love.
Second of all, thank you for pointing me in the direction of this film. I looked at the Yahoo reviews and your's was the only one giving it an A. (It was well deserved too, I must say.)
This is one creepy film. No other way to put it other than creepy. Most of today's films have lost their shock value for me, what with CGI and all. Yet Know1ng...bothered me, creeped me out, and kept my eyes glued to the screen. I don't remember the last time a movie was capable of that, other than Final Destination (the first one, not the cheesy and overused sequels.) In fact, this felt like a classier and better made Final Destination, but with an open ending.
For the chill factor and the creep factor alone...you should see this film folks. It's a nailbiter and it keeps you guessing 'til the end, and through the credits. (Normally I hate those types of films.)
It was nice to see Nicolas Cage give his usual spin on a character, but here he was much restrained. (I liked that a lot.) Oh sure he had his crazy moments, but he wasn't flipping out and throwing himself about, much like a fish out of water. (As he tends to do with some roles.)
As for the ending, sure, it's open to interpretation, and I'm calling it as *I* see it. Whether or not someone agrees with me is entirely up to them, though I don't mind like-minded people. ;)
Free Will?
Predetermination?
I don't h