Jennifer's Body Various

We saw Jennifer’s Body at TIFF09.  It is a fun fright fest, I mean how can you go wrong with a super hot high school girl turned human-flesh eating demon who seduces boys and then rips them to shreds.  Plus, as a bonus, there is the hottest lesbian kiss in mainstream media between Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried.

Alas, while Jennifer’s body (the physical corpus) is very much worth of the general public’s lust, there’s no gratuitous nudity, not even a single breast, despite many opportunities.  There’s a single distant shot of Fox swimming naked across a lake, but otherwise more about the blood than the boobies.

In the end, the omission of fleeting nudity is forgivable as the two stars more than make up for it with a light-hearted and funny screen presence and some very sexy moments.  It was an entirely enjoyable experience.  And it was nice to see Ash.

I saw The White Ribbon at the Telluride Film Festival.  It’s a well crafted film about some very problematic children in Germany just before the first world war.

The movie is intended to in some way illuminate a fertile ground that permits fascism to later grow.  While I found the characters interesting and the cinematography particularly beautiful in some scenes, I did not find anything in the story that seemed to suggest that these people were atypically prepared to turn fascist.

The premise seems to be that the children have committed some particularly brutal and random crimes (stringing a wire in the path of a horse and breaking the shoulder of the rider, tying another child up and caning him, tying yet another up and possibly blinding him) and that these “punishments” were “visited” on the children of sinners (except the first, visited on the sinner himself or perhaps on his horse), as justified in a letter left with the last.

That children would commit atrocious acts of brutality is hardly unique and certainly insufficient as an explanation for the rise of the Nazi party.   Further, the parent’s “sins” are not particularly shocking, though the doctor isn’t overwhelmingly sympathetic despite having a particularly funny sex scene.

It is a well-constructed character study, if a bit slow; a story of some complex and dramatic events, if lacking a strong conclusion; but not for me a revelatory view of the foundations of fascism.

I saw Red Riding at the Telluride Film Festival. It is a three part story of a corrupt police force in Yorkshire over three different eras, each marked by murders. As the series goes on, the weight of the unsolved crimes accumulates until it reaches a breaking point in the third, 1983.

Each movie was done by a different director, and the first, 1974, was the best.  It had the strongest story line and the best acting.  Andrew Garfield as a reporter was particularly good.  1980, about the yorkshire ripper, seemed to stand somewhat apart from the trilogy, though it did advance certain aspects of the story of police corruption.  The last, 1983, brought the trilogy to a satisfying conclusion and was certainly a powerful bit of storytelling, but I found it somewhat burdened by flashback references to the earlier movies that proved a little confusing given the complex story line.

The series was well received at Telluride and many people thought it was one of the best in the festival.  I enjoyed it very much, though I was glad I watched the whole series through in one sitting.

I never did answer his last message because I wasn’t sure how to go about simply contradicting him–he’s just wrong. Not like a difference of opinion wrong, but like fundamentally in error on the matter of whether consciousness is necessary to collapse the wave function to create reality. One must ask: did reality exist before humans? Is there no reality outside the range of detection of humans? At what point in the evolution of humans, did reality start to exist? What drove evolution before there was reality?

Reductio ad absurdum, the discussion devolves to the somewhat infantile philosophical question of whether anyone can know whether the world actually exists outside themselves. Making the statement “no, not really” is just so uselessly open ended. Most people who want to start a pseudo-religion around metaphysics try not to make testable claims. The Boxers didn’t really have much luck at it, but the many other religions seem to be able to continue extracting money from people for magic blockage removals and the like.

Anyway, the test for whether a quantum state needs human observation to collapse is an easy one. The un-collapsed state is the basis of quantum computers, the accidental, unobserved collapse is the primary limitation of quantum computers, that and the number of quantum particles in coherence. If (among a lot of other tests) the world was as coherent as FAW’s hypothesis requires, quantum computers simply wouldn’t work or would work perfectly. They do neither – they do work, but only for a short period of time, whether or not anyone is watching.

It seems he’s mixed the Many Worlds Interpretation and the Consciousness Causes Collapse Interpretation with the Copenhagen Interpretation. Copenhagen does not require consciousness, quite the contrary – it says that the waveform does not correspond to reality, but is merely a probability calculus that has no meaning outside the experiment in question.

A detailed counter argument is a bit of a challenge to formulate and probably irrelevant without being able to re-watch the film. My memory of the various arguments presented is fading, and the counter arguments here are predicated on a fairly deep understanding of QM and the arguments in the film, and so may be in error. I’ll try to address Mr. FAW’s arguments in-line directly, as much as I can, without getting either completely out of my own depth or drifting aimlessly across too much Quantum history.

There are many interpretations of the fundamental nature of Quantum Mechanics and differentiation seems to come to head over the concept of “measurement.” QM has been incredibly successful at predicting the physical properties of real materials and so it is considered useful, yet has not been proven complete. It stands on par with Relativity as the “micro” to Einstein’s “macro” and between the two theories most of the universe’s observed behavior to date seems explicable… or at least to fit fairly closely to derived equations that fit one or the other of those two theories.

But not both.

And that’s a critical point which shows a fundamental flaw: either Quantum Mechanics or Relativity or both are either incomplete or wrong. (If history is a guide, the bet is both).

It is therefore risky to argue a special insight into the structure of the universe, consciousness and the nature of god based on a theory with known issues.

But at the root of this argument, I think, is the position of some special power granted to the act of measurement by a conscious entity to cause a furcation in the state of the universe. The movie seems to favor a view that multiple universes exist simultaneously, that there are a near infinity of such universes each embodying the possible outcome of every measurement. This is a slippery term in itself, and without the introduction of consciousness as a necessary step, would seem to imply a multiplication of universes on the order of every particle in the universe to the power of every possible state to the power of the number of plank-time units since the start of the universe, a rather huge number. Positing a metaphysical property of consciousness dramatically reduces that value, but perhaps too dramatically:

How did the state of the Universe evolve before the evolution of consciousness?

QM suggests that there is a wave function for every entity: particles and aggregates thereof. The wave function of the Universe can be calculated: does it have a reality if there is no observer outside the universe to collapse it’s wavefunction? Does a conscious entity self-collapse all entrained wavefunctions?

Copenhagen (and the Extended Probability and Consistent Histories theories of QM) do not speak of collapsing the wavefunction. They say there is no physical relevance to the wavefunction. It’s a mathematical definition that has no meaning beyond the calculus itself.

I am curious as to how Quantum Mystics find the Conscious Observer of Many Worlds consistent with EPR with a moving reference frame (which is generally felt to introduce a temporality inconsistency with many worlds, wherein the moment of universe selection is indeterminate between two relativistically consistent “nows”).

But lastly, and I think most fundamentally, I have a pseudo-religious disagreement. I say pseudo religious because I’m not sure it’s a testable disagreement, just as the existence of God is not disprovable if one accepts the tenant that He will offer no proof of His existence.

I am not aware of any experiment that can disprove the Conscious Observer hypothesis, that is one can argue that experiments like the two slit experiment that show behavior associated with wave particle duality, which can be collapsed by “measurement” — that is for example by tagging the particles by polarization — would seem to prove that the waveform can be collapsed mechanically, but the counter argument is that the collapse isn’t known until a conscious observer interprets the results, and it is that interpretation that collapses the aggregate waveform of the particles being measured and the waveform of the measuring apparatus itself retroactively in time.

This argument seems a bit tautological to me. And it is fundamentally predicated on a special, metaphysical status for consciousness itself. While I readily admit that I do not understand what consciousness is exactly, nor can I recreate it in a test tube nor with a computer, I do not believe it is “special.” There is nothing about consciousness (of which I am aware) that defies the bounds of the normal rules of classical physics and chemistry let alone that suggests it merits a special place above Quantum Mechanics. While it is impossible to prove that reality isn’t a dream, and my sense of awake not actually a dream from which I will awake into reality tonight when I think I go to sleep; nor can it be proven to me that I do not exist alone and all others merely figments of my imagination or creations of some meta-entitty sent to study my response. But why bother trying? So to, it seems impossible to disprove the Conscious Observer (though a slightly less metaphysical interpretation seems fatally challenged by EPR’s moving frames).

The film seems to make an additional suggestion that I suspect goes a step too far for even the most metaphysically inclined: that consciousness is so powerful that it can influence the path “reality” takes through the many worlds simultaneous extant. I am unaware of any scientific proof of this sort of connection, nor of any particular reason to believe it I can find other than an abiding belief in the special status of consciousness. There is a suggestion that Masaru Emoto‘s pretty photographs show some deep proof of the power of thought to influence the development of ice crystals. It does not appear that Mr. Emoto’s work has been peer reviewed by anyone, nor have his experiments been repeated by other labs. Nor does it seem that he has managed to consistently repeat his own experiments. They thus fail as science: they are not repeatable. They may be pretty, but the hypothesis that the crystals are influenced by thought fails to stand up to testing.

In the end, it would be unscientific to categorically deny the possibility that consciousness has some special status in the workings of the universe, and it may will turn out to be true that the human brain is in some way connected to the underlying structure of the universe and even able to manipulate it, but I see no particular reason to embrace this belief, to choose it from an infinity of equally unprovable possibilities without some evidence that points directly to it–some evidence other than wishful thinking. I would apply Ockham’s Razor: does not the simplest explanation argue against the unnecessary multiplication of entities to include a supra-natural power of the brain? What anomaly, what otherwise inexplicable phenomenon does this theory, and only this theory, satisfactorily resolve?

Below follows my annotated discussion with FAW.

____________________________
I went off to see what the bleep. It was entertaining, though I found it unintentionally so… I hope not too much to the dismay of the more committed viewers around us. It’s getting diametric reviews, which doesn’t surprise me.

I’m not terribly sympathetic to the spiritual connections to quantum physics here and there proposed, despite having occasionally (in the distant past) used the line “quantum physics tells us not just that we’re everywhere simultaneously, but everywhen simultaneously…” to try to pick up women. Generally unsuccessfully.

My feeling about the movie was that it was trying too hard. Though I did not recognize any of the technically oriented speakers, their qualifications sounded impressive. Yet there was a fundamental misunderstanding of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory that seemed to be the foundation of the many beliefs: that a conscious observer collapses superposition.

In English: Quantum does describe a “superposition” of states, for example that Shrodinger’s Cat is neither alive nor dead (or both alive and dead) until someone checks to see if ate the poison, or that the protagonist could go to the movie alone and with a date simultaneously. More practically than supernatural cats, the principle underlays what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” wherein, for example, two entangled photons can measurably effect each other instantaneously (faster than the speed of light) over great distances via a mechanism which can not physically be related to electricity, magnetism, or the physical transfer of information, as if the “particle” were some metaphysical entity that was not literally constrained to the bounds of space and time. Spooky indeed.

Entanglement and superposition are real, measurable, and practically underlay quantum computers (which actually work at demonstration level) and quantum cryptographic key distribution (which is a commercial product).

They’re real. They’re not perfectly understood, and yet regularly exploited. That is this spooky action isn’t theory, it’s product.

But there’s one deep error in the movie (that was, in fairness, acknowledged early then apparently forgotten “it could be a person or it could be rock” someone said): the “observer” that collapses the superposition and converts the spookily entangled universe of interrelated probabilities into the tangible state with which we normally interact is not conscious, indeed it has absolutely zero connection to human consciousness whatsoever. The “observer” is a term of convenience, it is technically a perturbation energy of a magnitude sufficient to test the state of the entangled system that the outcome would uniquely discriminate between possible states. It appears to have been a poor word choice that did not anticipate new age co-option of quantum theory.

FAW : There is no way that any “object”collapses the quantum wave function. Also Satinover had it wrong in the film. In fact there is nothing in the theory itself to suggest collapse. It is one of the reason that the parallel universes model was invented in 1957 which provides a good way to understand quantum computers. (See work of David Deutsch). I would suggest rereading von Neumann or read HP Stapp who writes about this “problem” of collapse with considerable clarity. There is no consistent way to even put the collapse into quantum physics without doing injustice to experimental facts. Many have tried and the latest is called I believe decoherent histories. But the basic assumption is that sufficiently complex alternative possibility decohere for some mysterious reason that is called the “environmental” influence. That is also pure speculation and attempts to draw a line between where and when collapse occurs and does not occur.

[FAW has it exactly reversed: the wave function is the theoretical concept with no application to reality, collapse is the norm.]

The term “observer” comes from thought experiments from the 1920′s that were used to explore the counter intuitive nature of quantum physics and were not meant to imply a cosmic interrelation between human consciousness and the real state of the universe.

FAW : Straw dog set up: cosmic interrelation between human consciousness and the real state of the universe.” Consciousness need not be human. If collapse occurs then accordingly nothing mechanical caused it. For me that suggests consciousness because the role of consciousness is ascertain what’s happening with certainty. Hence those that follow the von Neumann, Stapp, Josephson, Goswami, Wigner, and earlier London+Bauer positions posit that since no machine seems to cause collapse, and mind does observe a “real” world, then it is consciousness that collapses the quantum wave function.

[Oddly, this contradicts his previous comment. Either there is no collapse or there is... His leap of faith that collapse has to be consciousness is utterly unsupported. His biggest failure is saying that "no machine causes collapse," as if to suggest that computers or robots have been tasked with observing collapse and failed. That's simply not true, collapse is spontaneous: it is maintaining coherency that is the main challenge impeding the advance of quantum computers.]

That is if someone were to put a real cat into a box with some poison and wait it would definitely start to smell shortly after it ate the poison whether or not any human checked on it. Likewise quantum computers which rely on the entanglement of their bits to “solve” all possible conditions of a problem simultaneously will come to an incomplete solution of a stray source of perturbation energy happens to come into the system (radiation, cosmic ray, etc). The system has to be sufficiently isolated from ALL energy, not human consciousness, in order to work.

FAW : The reader assumes that the proposed cat and poison set up is not already entangled with many other systems and the stray bit did the dirty work. But even there was a stray bit, according to quantum physics the universe would split into two separate universes. In one the box would stink and in the other it would not. The probability would be 50% you (observer) were in one of those. It was just as likely that the stray bit didn’t effect anything as it was that it did, so this proves nothing. In parallel universes both universes split apart and co-exist. In Copenhagen Interpretation the quantum wave function collapses and the cat is either dead or alive. In Copenhagen one universe exists and the other vanishes in puff of collapsed probability. In parallel universes both version of reality exist together with an observer who sees the cat one way or the other and therefore think collapse. In Copenhagen consciousness does the deed. In parallel universes consciousness is a byproduct of the interaction but it exists in an infinity of ever multiplying universes. Which is right? The answer is: I speculate here, they both are and they are saying the same thing.

[Just wrong, Copenhagen ascribes no physical significance to the wave function. Parallel universes assumes no magic of consciousness. Further, the "stray particle" split hypothesized puts the particle and consciousness on the same level, which would contradict the position that consciousness is special.]

The Last Command is the 1928 silent movie staring Emil Jannings as the Grand Duke of the Tsar’s army and tells the story of his last battle, his capture, escape, and eventual demise in Hollywood as an extra in a film close to his own life.

It is the best silent movie I’ve seen – I genuinely enjoyed it, and I rarely connect to older films, let alone silent ones.

Part of the magic was the performance of the Alloy Orchestra – they are really exceptional and it was a treat to hear their score.

A Pervert’s Guide to Cinema is not as promising as the title would suggest. It is a wonderful collection of clips of various movies that are far more effectively tied to together cinematically than they are philosophically. Slavoj Zizek narrates a discussion of his apparent discomfort with sex, shame at being male, and hatred of his parents as if they were universal neurosis somehow illuminated by cinema. I found his critiques and comments on the films and directors generally interesting and compelling. His generalizations about the motivations for sex, arousal, libido, etc were pretty silly. Comparing the marx brothers to the Id, the Ego, and the Superego… hmm… I found Bataille’s Erotism: Death And Sensuality better thought out, if equally inapplicable to people not plagued with some serious issues.

(Friday, Aug 29 2008 Telluride Film Festival)

Tulpan is about a young naval officer who joins his sister’s family on the steppe’s of Kazakhstan to start his life as a shepherd and fulfill his dreams of living under the stars in a yurt with 900 channels of satellite TV.
He seeks the hand of the mysterious and unseen eponymous “Tulip” the only marriageable woman on the steppe for 500 miles, and either she finds his ears too large (though they are less prominent than Prince Charles’) or her mom is blocking the proceedings. Either way, he is thwarted in his dream and is driven to consider leaving the steppe for the city with his regge loving tractor driving friend who delivers water and essentials to shepherds.
Along the way we witness the birth of a sheep, a protective camel, and a pretty amusing collection of pretty amazing animal moments. It’s funny and cute but perhaps not as engaging as the Cannes prize would suggest.

Glago’s Guest (short) Tulpan was preceded by Glago’s Guest, a Disney short about the minder of Station 7 who’s uneventful days fill piles of logs until one day a something very unusual visits in an act of charity.

Friday, Aug 29 2008 Telluride Film Festival

It was a very impressive show, fun to watch and at moments quite exciting, though largely staged for the cameras. The former RV sales lot was converted to an amazingly convincing Chrysler dealership complete with stationary on the walls, sales targets, car dealers and pictures of the employees of the month.

The performance started with the synchronized arrival of sections of a marching band which aggregated in the parking lot. The effect was pretty cool, with timing and distance and location of the different elements spread over a huge distance and slowly coalescing, all lead by marching band leader (and composer) Jonathan Bepler, who I’ve known since grade school but hadn’t seen in person for decades.

An iconic Chrysler Imperial was revealed as a funerary casket, a procession pulled by a few dozen strong men, as Egyptian slaves might have hauled stone blocks, down from the roof of the building and through the parking lot.

The imperial wended its way into a showroom to trade places with a gold firebird and then to its demise at the teeth of a deforestation machine, the showroom fitted with bullet-proof glass and lots of crickets for the purpose. The glass, amazingly, proved strong enough for the flying car parts and crow bars, but was not quite proof against the stabilizer feet of the gigantic excavator. We were perfectly located for that moment.
The remains of the imperial were ritually collected and we joined the staff in the parts department for the final procession involving scarabs, a beautiful woman, and a surprisingly large funerary drape, especially surprising given the orifice from which it was extracted.

The depth of detail of the performance was extraordinary. No simple write up can do it justice and I can’t imagine that even a small part of every carefully prepared element can make it to the final film. The details made walking through the performance an exercise in discovery – from post-it notes in the office, to the illuminated Chrysler signs as tunable Taiko drums, to the dealer tags on the cars in the lot everything was meticulously prepared over four weeks. Then a day later it was gone.

As they go on, one of the gang becomes obsessed with capturing the disaster on film and the story is told from the perspective of his UGC (user generated content). In the end it isn’t clear whether the meta-comment is that UGC is valuable (“mainstream media is lying”) or detrimental (“with so many voices, nobody knows what to believe”).

Either way, it’s a fun movie with plenty of blood and gore.

2007 Toronto International Film Festival