Tom Shadyac – 1 Am

What if the solution to the world’s problems was right in front of us all along?

Tom Shadyac (actor, director)

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He was a highly successful director of comedy movies (such as ), when he was injured in a bicycle accident. The long and difficult recovery from the accident left him feeling very miserable.-searching. The most valuable part of this movie is this personal story of his  and his search for meaning. You can also see:

Even before the accident, it seemed that Tom He was already feeling the curse of not getting what he wanted. He tells of standing in the front hall of his new mansion after the movers had just left, and being puzzled that we wasn’t any happier, even though he now had the material wealth that he had been striving for. Check out,

Interviews are used to create the movie. Head shots are interspersed with voiceovers and stock footage to illustrate the points. There is very little narration. Tom Shadyac He speaks mostly about his personal recovery and search to find meaning. The sequence conveys the argument that what we have been told is wrong, and that we are all connected, both to other people and to the natural world, so we all need to get along, and to act together to solve the world’s problems of pollution, poverty and injustice. We need to do this not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because our connection to everyone means that their suffering is our suffering. This is a good read. Some of the points mentioned are just hints at important insights such as the fact that we evolved to be both cooperative and competitive.

Unfortunately, at the end Tom is seduced by the  of . Although science is bringing together traditional spiritual teachings and science, the actual source of our interconnection does not stem from physics. It is our nature as social and, as analyzed in anthropology. While physics is the ultimate source of human behavior, the inner workings and mind of the mind are not. By design Highly divorced from Physics by layers of chemistry and cellular biology.-Yet-Undiscovered science of mental operation and architecture (see.

We see  as inconsistent with our . It’s a tempting idea to believe that quantum physics somehow validates mystic insights. All of it is one—the  has  resonance, but it is based on an analogy, not a causal connection. The movie presents this direct mind/physics connection as scientific fact, but it isn’t. You can see.

Science writer and presenter  shows a mystical feeling of life’s interconnection by example of our shared atmosphere. Every breath we take contains about 10^19  atoms, most of which have been circulating in the atmosphere ever since there was an atmosphere. Every breath we take has tens to thousands of Argon Atoms. These atoms were also breathed in by Gandhi, Aristotle, Hitler, and many others. They were also exhaled by dinosaurs, and farted out from fleas.

Suzuki makes this a point in his writing to emphasize our mutual dependence upon this shared atmosphere. It is a sacred aspect that Suzuki gives it, making it even more difficult to imagine how we could pollute the air. While this is a good way to use a scientific fact for environmental arguments, it is not the best. The film highlights the vague connection that exists between individuals and shows how interconnected our world is. The atmosphere is a mutually dependent part of our lives and air pollution is not.-term best interests, but our shared encounters with argon atoms don’t create any actual connection.

The shared environment we live in is both physically and chemically interconnected. This is the core of environmental awareness. The real connection between Aristotle, Gandhi and Hitler lies in what they said, did and how they lived, not in the amount of argon that they breathed. Argon breathing is part of the story. The reason argon was chosen to illustrate the concept is because it is an inert, non-toxic gas. It passes in and out of our lungs without any changes to us or the Atom. You wouldn’t notice any difference if there was no argon in the air. We’d still have Gandhi, Aristotle and Hitler.

Religious/political leader  and leftist intellectuals  and  say mostly sensible things about political change, but the film manages to obscure the socially constructed nature of politics by implying that the will for political change is the same as the all-Interconnection is pervasive This is actually backwards. Because we socially interact with one another, and have evolved to do this, we are truly interconnected. This human nature was created through genetic/cultural coevolution (see).

Positive psychologist  speaks about happiness research and ideas related to humans being adapted to cooperation. These important elements are a foundation of our story. The relatively new results merit wider publicization.

Other people were interviewed who are not part of the scientific mainstream. Many of them are authors and speakers. There is considerable overlap, but , ,  and  are best known for their new-age physics, while green entrepreneur , environmentalist  and artist  are better known for their environmental views.

His clear presentation of new information is a testament to his ability to communicate clearly-age views, environmentalist and progressive political commentator  stands out as the speaker most clearly opposed to scientific understanding. His main purpose is to tell the story.

In an early segment, he claims that living things are fundamentally distinct from inanimate matter. This suggests that science is insufficient to understand human experience (see also.). Living things are not machines because a machine (your car) can be taken apart and put back together, while an animal (your dog) can’t. This appealling argument ignores facts about technology and life that blur the line and help to explain the apparent difference. We are  to taking simple life forms life apart and putting them back together. If a thing isn’t meant to be disassembled, it might be very difficult to put it back together without causing damage. Life is  to be put together (see) but not to be taken apart. This is true for many common objects, including cellphones. Think about the analogy between the heart and the brain-lung machine used during heart transplants (see ) and  used in construction.

Hartman also asserts that we are all connected. Not We are all evolved to work together as individuals Not It is possible to compete. For example, he cites work such as  to say that democracy is natural and kings aren’t. However, consensus decision-making is not the same thing as democracy (which still requires leaders). Yes, leaders with power of command are important. Not Observed outside of humans. True, the division of labor is an original human invention and is a major reason we cooperate so well. Hartman combines science in each of his points. But it is still incorrect to claim that humans are co-operative (Not competitive) than to state that humans can compete (Not cooperative.)

Humans evolved to be. Both Competitive and cooperative We cooperate with our customers to be more competitive and cooperative.-Group to survive in an environment that is often difficult to get food and shelter, and where we are competing with other human groups (out).-Groups, see () and with or without-Human beings are animals. If we don’t cooperate effectively, then our competitors can kill us directly through violence or indirectly by denying us the resources we need to survive and reproduce.

Mystic poet  talks quite nicely about the heart. This is a crucial part of human existence, even though it is presented in a completely different context in the film (see next section). Emotions can affect our ability to function. We all experience emotions subjectively as sensations in the chest. Furthermore, the  suggests that visceral changes (such as our heart speeding up) may actually cause our perceptions of emotion (feelings.) You can also see.

Rollin McCraty, HeartMath institute, confuses the subjective heart and biologic hearts of the cardiologist. He argues that the heart is the seat for the soul and controls the brain.

The heart produces by far the body’s most powerful rhythmic electromagnetic field, which can be detected several feet away by sensitive instruments. [true] Research shows our heart’s field changes distinctly as we experience different emotions. [at least partly true] It is registered in people’s brains around us and apparently is capable of affecting cells, water and DNA studied in vitro. Evidence is growing that energetic interactions with the heart could be responsible for intuition and other important aspects of human consciousness. [This rest is highly speculative]

McCraty also shows the camera how a blob (with live bacteria), of yoghurt can sense. Shadyac’s feelings, as shown by a fluttering needle on a meter. The special affinity between living beings is believed to explain this connection.

Shadyac Interviews, a Parapsychological researchers look like scientists, performing experiments and analysing quantitative data. The experiments test subjects’ abilities to guess cards and influence random number generators. These results are then analyzed to see if the results are  (unlikely to have arisen by chance alone.) It is assumed that such a result would not have occurred by chance alone.-Chance results prove that there is More There is more to physics than what we know, but critics suggest that simpler explanations like incorrect statistical analysis, falsifications by researchers, or cheating by subjects can explain the inconsistent and often weak results.

Parapsychology is definitely  evidence that is telling us something about the human condition, but it isn’t clear whether it is telling us about physics (as the proponents claim) or about human belief. Parapsychologists claim that they have been following the, and their results should therefore be accepted. Parapsychology is still a fringe science, even though it was founded over 80 years ago. This shows that scientific acceptance requires more than just puzzling results. In itself, a new odd result may stimulate a flurry of research to understand the causes, but if results remain difficult to reproduce, then opportunistic scientific attention turns elsewhere—there is never a shortage of puzzles. In order to sustain interest in a topic without any unambiguous results it is necessary to have a plausible  about how this result is a consequence of accepted science (a scientific theory.) The parapsychologist’s theory of More This connection is not made other than with a vague appeal for. Also see.

We applaud Tom’s thoughtful choice to devote his energies to making a more meaningful social contribution, and his decision to abandon material success as his primary life goal (see ). We agree with the American culture’s emphasis on individualism and competition. We are happy that he found meaning and connection in his life.

Tom Shadyac’s own voice speaks mainly about his personal experience, and this is indeed an engaging and heartwarming story. Roger Ebert said that the (*1*) However, the construction of this theme on a foundation of fringe science means that we can at best consider this film .

It is certainly worthwhile constructing a story based on science that gives a positive view of human nature and possibilities–such a story is the is the  of this Wiki. Because they are based on sound science, we find works such as  and  to be much better basis for this project.