Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Rteacher]

Reportedly, it's a "surprisingly powerful" film by the director of Ace Ventura, Nutty Professor, and Bruce Almighty.
http://iamthedoc.com/

I heard about it through Thom Hartmann's radio talk show - he's one of the featured interviewees in the movie ... http://www.thomhartmann.com/

Has anyone seen it yet? (I haven't, but the trailer looks very interesting - and Hartmann's political analyses seem to be as astute as anyone's ...)

[Ya-ta Boy]

I think I'll go with Roger Ebert:

"It's obvious that the yogurt is reading his mind, right? Right? Hello? For Shadyac and the technician, this experiment demonstrates that our minds are wired to the organic world. For me, it raises the following questions: (1) Was the yogurt pasteurized? (2) How did the yogurt know to read Shadyac's mind and not the mind of the technician who was just as close? (3) How did it occur to anyone to devise an experiment testing whether yogurt can respond to human thoughts? (4) Did anyone check to see if the technician was connected to the meter by? (5) Is this a case for the Amazing Randi?"
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110421/REVIEWS/110429996

[Rteacher]

Ebert - who prides himself on being a "rationalist" - doesn't understand how the heart can control the brain - or foresee things before they happen...

...This film is often absurd and never less than giddy with uplift, but that's not to say it's bad. I watched with an incredulous delight, and at the end, I liked Tom Shadyac quite a lot. He's a goofball, yet his heart is in the right place. But don't get me started on hearts. Did you know that Shadyac's friend, Rollin McCraty, director of research for HeartMath, has proven that the human heart controls the human brain via various types of biofeedback?

That's not all the heart can do. Try this on for size: When you are shown pleasant or frightening images on a computer screen, your brain (and heart) respond either positively or negatively. That makes sense. But wait. When the images are chosen at random from a big database, the heart sends positive or negative signals to the brain two to three seconds in advance of the image being chosen. In other words, the heart knows what the random image is going to be. Yes. Shadyac is grateful for this information. He doesn't ask any questions, like, for example, does the heart tell the brain what signal would have been displayed unless the power to the monitor went out in the milliseconds between it was chosen and was to be displayed?...

Whether his "delight" in viewing the film was credulous or "incredulous", he was still delighted.

And from my theoretical (Vedic) perspective, such great heart potency can be explained rationally: Not only the limited individual soul, but also the unlimited, all-knowing (past-present-future) Supersoul reside - albeit imperceptibly with respect to ordinary human senses - in the region of the heart, and whenever the materially-conditioned soul becomes receptive to higher knowledge, the Supersoul delivers it in different (sometimes mysterious and even humorous) ways - what to speak of yogurt being loved by Krishna ...

Anyway, Ace Ventura - Pet Detective was terrific, but this one appears to have more philosophical depth.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I think my first question would be: If yogurt can read my mind, why can't I read its 'mind'? And if I could, would it have anything interesting to say?

I'm thinking not.

I'm not rejecting the idea that the biosphere and minerals and other good things and all are part of one interconnected entity, I'm fairly certain that I don't want to spend my days hooked up to sensors listening for the 'thoughts' of yogurt...or seaweed or cows, for that matter. For one thing, I suspect yogurt doesn't speak English.

[Rteacher]

I agree that yogurt isn't a conscious person - at least in this world. That part of the movie is probably nonsensical. Avatar also had some Vedic-style messages mixed in with generic movie stuff.

[caniff]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwaEojkydNM&playnext=1&list=PL880408AF30D72DD0