I AM (a really bad movie)

[Captain Mandrake]

(06-Sep-2013, 08:24 PM)arvindiyer Wrote: As for the Institute of Noetic Sciences, its claims that strain credulity feature prominently in the supposedly 'non-fiction' movie I Am which includes in itself a digest of woo-woo from disparate sources, a take-down of which can be the subject of another thread.

Yep, I watched half the movie and stopped when the guy interviewed a 'scientist' who stuck electrodes connected to a voltmeter into yogurt and the 'scientist' asked the guy to think positive thoughts and showed the fluctuations in the voltmeter as some sort of sign of bacteria in the yogurt reacting to his positive thoughts. He talks about this experiment in this youtube video. He liberally he uses the usual woo word "energy" with out actually meaning anything concrete. His "energy" affecting the "energy" of the bacteria and the "energy" of his wife etc. There is also a discussion about this yogurt experiment on his website. Some funny comments from skeptics and depressing ones from new age folks.

There was more bullshittery in the movie that I do not remember now. I will post later after I torture myself over this weekend with another viewing.

Aside: Only thing good about the movie was when the director asked Howard Zinn if he had watched any of his movies (Ace Ventura and Bruce Almighty) and Howard Zinn draws a blank and says no with a funny look on this face.

[Captain Mandrake]

Other BS from the movie

1) Quantum entanglement is used as evidence of some consciousness that connects everything together.

2) Apparently random number generators stop generating random numbers during events (eg. large earth quakes, 911, tsunamis, etc.) that have a global impact. This according to the some 'scientists' implies that a global consciousness connects everything that happens in the world. This is a finding from something called the global consciousness project conducted at the same Institute of Noetic Sciences. All they do is some sort of pattern matching after the event has taken place. And it not clear why the random number generators have to stop functioning during a global event even if there is something called global consciousness?

3) Then the director moves from “consciousness” of the woo-ish kind to consciousness-raising events of 1960s. This is why he interviews Howard Zinn. But the “consciousness” in the term consciousness-raising is not the same as the woo-ish consciousness that supposedly connects everything. Consciousness-raising just means that some cause (eg. civil rights, women’s right, gay rights etc) is championed by a few people with an end result of changed attitudes in society.

4) Another claim in the movie is that heart does lot more than just pump blood. It sends out electromagnetic signals and interacts with other electromagnetic signals around you and that heart gets to know what is happening before the brain does. In other words it is the heart that controls the brain and the body. This claim is based on work done by some organization called Heartmath institute. Here is a skeptical piece on Randi’s website about the work done by heartmath.

[Captain Mandrake]

Moderators (Lije),

It was pointed out to me that I used ableist slurs on this thread. Can you please edit the title to I AM (a really bad movie). My bad and apologies.

Regards,
CM

[deusex]

(08-Sep-2013, 10:34 PM)Captain Mandrake Wrote: Moderators (Lije),

It was pointed out to me that I used ableist slurs on this thread. Can you please edit the title to I AM (a really bad movie). My bad and apologies.

Regards,
CM

What's an ableist slur?