No, not 'that kind!' The movie Lucy! Any opinions out there on some of the subject matter? After coincidentally discussing space and time and eventually looking up information on black holes on the internet, a buddy and I watched Lucy last night. I had my mind blown quite a few times last night. The fact that we ended up watching such an incredibly deep movie that more or less orbited (mind my pun) the conversations we had been meddling our minds on before popping it on didn't hit me until right before the movie ended. During what may have been the most intense part of the movie. Visually anyways. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, in case they haven't watched it and are looking for recommendations. Then again... WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?! Stop reading and go watch this movie!!!! Seriously though. Stop reading. I'm putting spoilers down here. (Stop at the smiley face. NOT here!) (SPOILERS START) Now, we had the volume turned pretty low because my roommate was sleeping in the other room and sound travels quite a bit in this house with paper thin doors... but the phrase that kept ringing over and over again in my mind, which I'm still mulling over... "If a cell's habitat is not sufficiently favorable or nurturing, the cell will choose immortality. If the habitat is favorable, the cell will choose to reproduce." Another that struck me as particularly interesting... "Time is the only true unit of measure. It gives proof to the existence of matter. Without time, we don't exist." And of course the imagery accompanied by the quote gave way to a truly insightful feeling. Oh who am I kidding. Here's a small list of quotes from the movie. Though, I feel like they missed a few which I found of importance. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2872732/quotes (SPOILERS END) I am very interested in watching this movie again. With the volume knob properly set to the 'blow your face off' setting. I'm also very interested in discussing some of the ideas and hypotheses involved in this movie...
I found the movie entertaining but it involves some pseudo-science, such as the assertion that we only use 10% of our brains. Instances such as that, made me feel like the directors didn't put as much effort into the ideas, as they did the visuals. I have no problem with suspending disbelief for science-fiction movies, but it was a bit weird as Freeman was a professor in the movie delivering such quotes. More style over substance imo, but it was an interesting movie.
Right. I do see a lot of information was based on hypothesis. But questioning is good! As long as you don't get your head stuck in a rabbit hole... I thought it was a bit strange seeing Freeman as a professor as well. I got to wondering who wrote or produced the movie. Should probably figure that out lol. I wonder what sort of 'air' the movie would have carried with someone else playing his role. I quite like movies such as this with actors that most people have never heard of. It brings more of a realistic aspect to things in a way. Concerning the portrayal of character rather than subject matter. At the same time, they probably would have had to tone down the effects and wouldn't have been so publicized without big names featured in such a film. Morgan Freeman does have a recognizable and memorable voice. The truth is, if he stops narrating, reality as we know it will cease to exist.
Exactly, the main premise, that we only use 10% of our brains, an urban myth that still pervades for some reason....made the whole movie annoying
There is no "questioning" to be done here. This has been refuted many times now. We use WAY more than 10%, Practically all of it. Questioning is good when things aren't settled. I was also particularly annoyed with freeman, since he is already a legitimate popular science icon.
I thought it was thought provoking - not necessarily on the factual narrative, but on the premise of possibility
It was quite good. I have always followed the belief that the ultimate goal of life is knowledge and a form of "awakening", for what end I do not know. Perhaps these things have their phases. What is true for us may not be true for an advanced species. If you liked that I recommend these other films: Ghost in the Shell Transcendence Blade Runner Her
My favorite thought provoking film is still the PBS version of "The Lathe of Heaven", but Lucy is quite good. Its along the lines of "The Matrix" which contains a lot of profound philosophy, but has a nonsensical plot designed to keep the mindless masses happy. Too many people I've spoken to online take the plot seriously even though, by philosophical standards, its a total contradiction and has holes in it the size of Texas.
really enjoyed this one actually. borrowed it from the library last week. kinda reminded me of limitless but with scarlett johannson
I liked how the movie just got straight into it from the get go. Thought it was stupid at the end where she turns into Smoke and mirrors and becomes a USB stick or something lol.
The whole idea that the human brain only uses ten percent of its capacity is an urban myth and the entire movie merely provides a symbolic or token philosophy. What the authors are touching on is known as Constructal Theory and the Chinese mysticism of Chi, or the undetectable flow within the unchanging void. Its the idea that the truth and beauty of existence and western philosophy actually revolve around bullshit or what's missing from this picture and everything obeys a simple systems logic. Where it goes wrong, in my opinion, is that the arrow of time, and even nonlinear temporal effects such as the Quantum Zeno Effect where a watched pot of entangled quanta will not boil, all illustrate that time itself is context dependent along with the identity of everything else. We perceive the arrow of time simply because backwards causality makes virtually no sense whatsoever and neither does an utterly random or fated universe. Instead, by default, we perceive time passing because geometry and time are constantly exchanging identities conflating the identities of the two and preventing metaphysical extremes such as God creating a rock too large for even him to pick up. In other words, the greater context of the truth enforces that every context must have a significant amount of content for anything to make any sense whatsoever or be said to exist. Among other things this means everything including the laws of physics can be described as self-assembling and organic with constantly surprising emergent effects. Quantum mechanics can be described as expressing Murphy's Law, a Goldilocks Principle, and a paradoxical version of Occam's Razor where, because everything is true and false depending upon the context, the simplest explanation is all the more attractive and more likely to be either extremely productive or counterproductive. Its analog scalar logic that obeys a principle of the Conservation of Creativity and Efficiency, or Chi, that enforces that mother nature's beauty is only rivaled by her sense of humor and can explain anything from why its impossible to obtain a perfect vacuum to the speed of light as merely reflecting the fact there are no limits because the context is ensuring it always has sufficient content or the content becomes the greater context. A statistic of one is an oxymoron, yet, statistics remain a valuable context in which we can make meaningful calculations. What matters more than metaphysical limits is how humble we perceive anything to be in any given context. Cells choose reproduction because everything including the laws of physics expresses both the initial creative impetus of the Big Bang still expanding to this day and the irresistible efficiency of a Big Crunch making everything capable of being described as expressing both social and anti-social behavior. Gravity, for example, is the most social force of nature and inertia is anti-social choosing to always go its own way and even coming to blows over which direction it is heading. Everything would therefore express two faces of Janus, or yin-yang dynamics, explaining why the neurons in our brains and a black hole both possess the highest efficiency for anything their size in redistributing any mass, energy, and information. All of which is summarized by a primitive tribe that insists, "Mother Nature's love is irresistible, but she has a warped sense of humor" and, I would add, no compassion whatsoever because instant karma is always gonna getcha baby!
I can't imagine why I haven't posted in this thread... Anyway, I saw Lucy, but I don't remember it now - I just remember that I didn't like it. I think sometimes what happens is an idea that's pretty good turns into something that's less palatable with a distinct departure from mainstream film culture.
I just recently caught this. Loved the premise and main story, but dear lord what happened in the last act?? It turned into a predictable action cheesefest with a contrived shootout at the end, even though supposedly she could knock out an army with the blink of an eye. For that matter, during the entire last half of the story why does she even entertain the threat of some yakuza kingpin when she could electrocute him on his own iphone at any minute? The answer is obvious: they wanted a good mindless battle scene at the end. That would be fine for any average action cheeseflick, but when they build up our expectations with an intellectual premise, you'd think they would deliver a fitting resolution instead of bullets and explosions. Imagine if, in 2001 A Space Odyssey, the whole evolution of man from ape to warring human, to enlightened star creature ended with a high speed chase scene thru the streets of Paris and a shootout lol
