Sean Kelleher
Junior Theology
"What the Bleep Do We Know?!" essay
Three Key Ideas From the Film
 
"Every generation has its built-in assumptions:
            That the world is flat, or that the world is round
There are hundreds of hidden assumptions, things we take for granted that may or may not be true, and of course in the vast majority of these cases those things aren't true.  So, presumably, if history is any guide, much of what we take for granted about the world simply isn't true, but we're locked into these precepts without even knowing it."
 
 "When Columbus sailed to the Americas the natives there didn't see him coming.  The reason that the natives didn't see the ships on the horizon was because they had no knowledge or experience that suggested that clipper ships existed.  So the shaman starts to realize that he sees ripples out on the ocean, but he sees no ship and he starts to wonder, 'what's causing the effect?'  So, every day he goes out and looks and looks and looks, and after a period of time, he's able to see the ships. And once he sees the ships, he goes back and tells everybody else that ships exist out there and because everybody trusted and believe in him, they saw them also."
 
            The idea that we cannot literally see things because we have no knowledge of them seems a little far-fetched.  However, this seems to be a rather literal version of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" with a different ending.  The natives serve as the people in the cave.  They are unaware that there is anything out there beyond what they already know to be real, therefore, they do not see anything other than the ripples on the ocean. But, when the shaman takes time to observe carefully the ripples and what could possibly be making them, he opens his mind and is able to see the ships out on the water.  Just like in the "Allegory of the Cave", the man who has become enlightened, the shaman in this case returns to the people in the cave, the native, and he tells them what he has seen to be real.  However, unlike in the "Allegory of the Cave", the natives listen to the shaman and accept what he says to be true because they have respect for him and trust what he tells them.
 
 
"Is it possible that we're conditioned to our daily lives; so conditioned to the way we create our lives that we buy the idea that we have no control at all?  Quantum physics say that what's happening within us will create the word outside of us."
 
            Basically, to many people, the world is the way it is and people just walk on it.  There is no changing the way things are.  This is much like what Aristotle said about the two kinds of people.  One kind of person has a rudder on their ship and has some degree of control over their life and where they are going, but the other kind of person is not aware that they have no control, because nearly every day of their life they are conditioned to think that they have no control and thus do not attempt to gain control.  The second kind of person has no rudder and just lets the current take them away.  Quantum physics says that we shape the world around us.  The world is ultimately subject to change according to each individual's perception of reality.
 
"We build up models of how we see the world outside of us, and the more information we have, the more we refine our model one way or another.  What we ultimately do is tell ourselves a story about what the outside world is.  Any information that we process, any information that we take in from the environment is always colored by the experiences that we've had and an emotional response that we're having to what we're bringing in."
 
From the day we are born we have an idea of what is what.  Of course, when we are infants we do not understand what is going on around us, but nevertheless, we are constantly developing our consciousness.  Like M. Scott Peck said, we are constantly writing and (should be) rewriting our maps of life.  Also, our experiences and our reactions to our experiences are what control how our map or model is shaped.  If we experience let down and disappointment on a regular basic early on in our lives, we begin to think that disappointment is normal.  Then, if our maps are not corrected, our contorted perceptions of how things are supposed to be are transferred to adulthood.  Our experiences and emotional responses to our experiences shape our perception of reality.