1
00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:47,608
Jack? Jack, it's... What, is there
a red alert on or something?

2
00:01:48,111 --> 00:01:49,976
Am I calling too late?

3
00:01:50,136 --> 00:01:53,600
No, no... It's just that the hours
are too later here...

4
00:01:53,744 --> 00:01:57,898
Are you O.K.?
Is everything all right?

5
00:01:58,042 --> 00:01:59,833
Not really.

6
00:02:00,016 --> 00:02:02,682
I need some help.

7
00:02:04,009 --> 00:02:07,603
You think a speechwriter's going to fix it?
Do you think that's the only problem?

8
00:02:08,842 --> 00:02:11,274
If I did, would I be calling you?

9
00:02:11,386 --> 00:02:18,147
I'm sorry I missed your presidential
campaign. I just thought it was nuts.

10
00:02:18,210 --> 00:02:20,794
It looks like the voters agreed with you.

11
00:02:20,953 --> 00:02:26,642
Maybe it was crazy, anyway,
I'm supposed to be running again...

12
00:02:26,786 --> 00:02:31,467
<i>for the re-election to the Senate,
and people aren't giving any more.</i>

13
00:02:31,619 --> 00:02:34,329
Now, they are giving, but maybe
I just don't want the money.

14
00:02:35,874 --> 00:02:39,939
I don't have anything to say.
I feel tapped out.

15
00:02:40,154 --> 00:02:44,586
Get away from there, it's a snake pit.
It's a hall of mirrors for narcissists.

16
00:02:44,706 --> 00:02:46,449
Get a long way away.

17
00:02:46,594 --> 00:02:49,490
Oh, I wish, but it's impossible right now.

18
00:02:49,609 --> 00:02:52,640
No, come on. It's always like that.
That's always part of the problem.

19
00:02:52,809 --> 00:02:55,532
Are you offering me a place?

20
00:02:55,676 --> 00:02:58,187
Yeah, sure. You could come
over here. Come on over.

21
00:02:58,611 --> 00:03:03,780
It may not be the White House but, you
know, at least here you're wanted.

22
00:03:08,012 --> 00:03:09,917
<i>I'm so glad I came here.</i>

23
00:03:10,228 --> 00:03:13,266
<i>I should not invited him.</i>

24
00:03:18,445 --> 00:03:20,493
Incredible!

25
00:03:21,180 --> 00:03:24,613
Look, there it is again.

26
00:03:26,694 --> 00:03:33,422
The Middle Ages got left behind on
this rock. Time just moved on.

27
00:03:34,702 --> 00:03:36,694
<i>There he goes again.
That's him all right.</i>

28
00:03:36,926 --> 00:03:41,122
<i>Always enthused and always ready,
with the right words for all occasions.</i>

29
00:03:41,349 --> 00:03:44,660
<i>As if everyone was
still waiting for his opinion.</i>

30
00:03:44,724 --> 00:03:47,700
<i>As if life itself was one
giant press conference.</i>

31
00:03:51,741 --> 00:03:56,678
<i>Maybe that's all there is,
this public persona.</i>

32
00:03:56,791 --> 00:04:00,847
<i>Maybe I've been fooling myself
these last 20 years...</i>

33
00:04:00,999 --> 00:04:04,582
<i>always looking for the real guy
behind the facade.</i>

34
00:04:04,776 --> 00:04:09,528
<i>Maybe the facade is the real guy.</i>

35
00:04:09,936 --> 00:04:12,639
This is amazing!

36
00:04:12,783 --> 00:04:16,823
<i>Sure it is.
Everything's always amazing to this guy.</i>

37
00:04:17,080 --> 00:04:19,120
<i>Why am I bitching all the time?</i>

38
00:04:19,240 --> 00:04:21,771
<i>Maybe it's a premonition that
this trip's going to be a disaster.</i>

39
00:04:21,892 --> 00:04:24,075
<i>I can't say that I need Jack's company.
This time of my life I'm residing quite...</i>

40
00:04:24,298 --> 00:04:28,663
<i>contentedly in my own midlife crises,
thank you very much.</i>

41
00:04:31,984 --> 00:04:35,636
This is as far away from Washington
as I could possibly get.

42
00:04:37,833 --> 00:04:40,184
Thank you.

43
00:04:41,529 --> 00:04:43,169
<i>There he goes.</i>

44
00:04:43,352 --> 00:04:45,881
<i>That's why he irritates me,
and that's why I love him, too.</i>

45
00:04:46,016 --> 00:04:49,726
<i>Behind the innocence there may be a
calculating politician...</i>

46
00:04:49,967 --> 00:04:52,338
<i>but behind the politician
there's an innocent.</i>

47
00:04:52,537 --> 00:04:56,602
<i>He's still american enough.
He doesn't lie well at all, he means it.</i>

48
00:04:56,810 --> 00:04:59,746
You want to stop the car and get out?
Take a look around?

49
00:05:13,522 --> 00:05:17,138
There it is.
Mont-Saint-Michel.

50
00:05:17,355 --> 00:05:19,226
What do you think?

51
00:05:19,345 --> 00:05:21,048
Beautiful.

52
00:05:22,887 --> 00:05:26,118
You want to do something different?
You want to walk over there?

53
00:05:27,135 --> 00:05:29,279
Walk across that swamp?

54
00:05:29,503 --> 00:05:33,407
Yeah, just like our ancestors did
centuries and centuries ago.

55
00:05:34,207 --> 00:05:37,134
You're the one who wanted to do all
the walking. Come on, let's go.

56
00:05:40,391 --> 00:05:43,081
Maybe you ancestors used to do this...

57
00:05:45,559 --> 00:05:48,921
but unless my mother
lied to me, I don't...

58
00:07:57,352 --> 00:07:58,553
Thank you.

59
00:08:08,351 --> 00:08:12,742
- So, we're gonna do something today?
- Thought I'd finish my book.

60
00:08:13,926 --> 00:08:17,182
You always have a book to read.
I'm bored.

61
00:08:17,569 --> 00:08:18,985
Where's Roman?

62
00:08:19,113 --> 00:08:22,745
I don't care what Roman's doing.
I wanted to do something with you.

63
00:08:25,897 --> 00:08:29,633
I should not come. I should've
just done something with dad.

64
00:08:30,193 --> 00:08:31,929
Come on, Kit.

65
00:08:32,042 --> 00:08:35,264
You just stay cooped up in this medieval
island, just reading your books.

66
00:08:35,432 --> 00:08:38,402
You're not even aware of
what's going on around you.

67
00:08:38,491 --> 00:08:41,419
You could be anywhere, it wouldn't
even make a difference.

68
00:08:41,490 --> 00:08:43,796
You should go out more.
Meet some people.

69
00:08:44,043 --> 00:08:45,562
I will.

70
00:08:45,761 --> 00:08:48,175
I'm going.

71
00:08:49,181 --> 00:08:51,397
Bye.

72
00:09:04,773 --> 00:09:06,493
Are you moving to France permanently?

73
00:09:06,662 --> 00:09:07,606
What?

74
00:09:07,789 --> 00:09:10,365
I thought you couldn't live
anywhere but in New York.

75
00:09:14,473 --> 00:09:18,627
What about the theater?
Did you give that up for good?

76
00:09:18,714 --> 00:09:21,066
Oh, it may have given me up for good.

77
00:09:22,065 --> 00:09:26,933
I don't think I'm enough involved in
real estate to live in Manhattan...

78
00:09:27,092 --> 00:09:29,070
or any other business.
Some other hustle.

79
00:09:29,950 --> 00:09:33,268
I lived in New York when I was young inside.
My friends and I were more interested...

80
00:09:33,429 --> 00:09:35,317
in our work
than our investments.

81
00:09:35,387 --> 00:09:37,325
We weren't invidious.
We were nurturing.

82
00:09:38,700 --> 00:09:42,588
And then, you know.
Alimony, the IRS...

83
00:09:43,317 --> 00:09:46,677
being denied the right to parent
my own child custody--

84
00:09:47,541 --> 00:09:50,732
They brought reality in,
and hey, who needs it?

85
00:09:51,220 --> 00:09:55,508
When Nixon got on that chopper in 1972
I think the fight went out of all of us.

86
00:09:56,398 --> 00:09:59,541
The big business took
over and set the agenda.

87
00:10:00,173 --> 00:10:04,257
Boy, when you buy into big business,
when you buy into that, man...

88
00:10:05,346 --> 00:10:07,873
you got to emancipate
yourself from your morals...

89
00:10:08,090 --> 00:10:10,611
or you live a life of squeamishness.

90
00:10:10,763 --> 00:10:13,563
Is this our same old argument?
I lost my morals, did I?

91
00:10:13,730 --> 00:10:18,022
Automatically, by going to work
and staying inside the system?

92
00:10:18,999 --> 00:10:21,159
You're taking me a little personally.
I was talking about myself.

93
00:10:21,214 --> 00:10:23,480
I was saying that I got a little
squeamish, you know?

94
00:10:24,208 --> 00:10:28,392
I know people that work a lot crasser
jobs than you, and they're happy.

95
00:10:28,471 --> 00:10:30,943
They're happy, they're healthy,
they're not depressed.

96
00:10:31,006 --> 00:10:33,817
They enjoy the material blessings.
Me? I couldn't handle it.

97
00:10:33,895 --> 00:10:35,468
I couldn't stand it.
I just couldn't...

98
00:10:36,392 --> 00:10:41,463
Confucius say "Of the 39 steps of escape
the best one's flight." So I fled.

99
00:10:42,396 --> 00:10:44,990
Here I am in France where
I can pull down my pants.

100
00:10:45,645 --> 00:10:50,308
I'm enough of a retarded romantic to believe
France is still a place to go and think.

101
00:10:51,116 --> 00:10:56,286
So I'll stay, I guess...
or I won't. We'll see.

102
00:10:58,623 --> 00:11:00,268
This place is like a fairy tale.

103
00:11:04,093 --> 00:11:05,775
How did we wind up here?

104
00:11:06,390 --> 00:11:09,807
I'll bet there's some secret
plan of yours behind all this.

105
00:11:09,935 --> 00:11:14,983
I bet I could say the same thing about you.
No, I just thought you'd like to come here.

106
00:11:15,070 --> 00:11:20,526
To discover that precious quality that the
world so desperately lacks.

107
00:11:20,590 --> 00:11:23,112
Ah, yeah. Vision.

108
00:11:25,213 --> 00:11:29,311
Perspective.
Perspective, Jack.

109
00:11:30,619 --> 00:11:35,515
This is where the dead are placed, in the
middle of town among the houses.

110
00:11:35,679 --> 00:11:40,737
Death is a part of life, not separate from it.

111
00:11:40,985 --> 00:11:46,493
There aren't enough graves for all the
generations of Mont-Saint-Michelains.

112
00:11:46,573 --> 00:11:52,485
So every decade or so, the bones are
dug up so new bodies can be buried here.

113
00:11:52,654 --> 00:11:57,100
And since they believed you will need
your bones again on Judgment day...

114
00:11:57,211 --> 00:11:59,534
they placed them nearby
in the charnel house--

115
00:11:59,606 --> 00:12:03,352
- Ucch! That's disgusting.
- I like cemeteries.

116
00:12:03,432 --> 00:12:07,384
And in the back there, in the
church, there is a relic of a saint.

117
00:12:07,904 --> 00:12:09,268
What's a relic?

118
00:12:09,427 --> 00:12:15,832
Oh, maybe a shaving of the saint's
fingernail, or a scrap of the saint's robe.

119
00:12:15,897 --> 00:12:18,465
Tell me Jack, how do you expect
to govern these people?

120
00:12:18,497 --> 00:12:20,232
That's a good question.

121
00:12:20,984 --> 00:12:25,009
There was an italian premier
once, just before Mussolini...

122
00:12:25,097 --> 00:12:27,849
somebody asked him if it
was difficult to govern italians.

123
00:12:28,226 --> 00:12:33,538
He said: "Difficult to govern italians?
No, not difficult. Only useless"

124
00:12:34,844 --> 00:12:37,274
You didn't say that on the 6:00 news.

125
00:12:37,538 --> 00:12:44,003
No, but I thought it night and day.
Maybe that's why I lost.

126
00:12:45,140 --> 00:12:48,826
Anyway, did they really think that their
bones would keep until judgment day?

127
00:12:48,931 --> 00:12:52,259
You got to remember for them
Judgment day was...

128
00:12:52,320 --> 00:12:54,322
right around the corner.
They expected it almost hourly.

129
00:12:54,603 --> 00:12:55,787
Just like us.

130
00:12:55,964 --> 00:12:58,295
I wouldn't say so. Judgment day,
for us is different.

131
00:12:59,246 --> 00:13:04,408
It's an interruption, a violation,
a break in our concept of time--

132
00:13:04,504 --> 00:13:08,436
The bomb, the big one. Judgment day
for them was the ultimate day off.

133
00:13:08,597 --> 00:13:09,981
Not the ultimate off day.

134
00:13:10,445 --> 00:13:16,627
There wasn't mechanical time, time was
season to season, Sabbath to saint day.

135
00:13:16,820 --> 00:13:21,632
And everything led toward Judgment day.
That was the reason everybody was alive.

136
00:13:23,215 --> 00:13:28,171
It was the day of deliverance. Like sunday,
when you get the Times delivered.

137
00:13:28,460 --> 00:13:30,038
Time was sacred.

138
00:13:30,950 --> 00:13:33,389
They'd ring a bell in the morning,
they'd ring a bell in the evening...

139
00:13:33,485 --> 00:13:35,869
and those moments would
change a little. But the...

140
00:13:36,805 --> 00:13:39,698
rhythm of their era was
so different from ours...

141
00:13:40,202 --> 00:13:42,145
that I don't think we
can even imagine it.

142
00:13:52,421 --> 00:13:54,678
I guess we're a little early.

143
00:14:00,718 --> 00:14:03,053
No saint stands alone.

144
00:14:03,182 --> 00:14:04,439
What?

145
00:14:06,222 --> 00:14:08,575
No saint stands alone.

146
00:14:11,222 --> 00:14:14,502
Every time I come here, these lines
comes to me, God knows from where.

147
00:14:15,142 --> 00:14:18,663
Sometimes it takes me weeks, even
years to figure out what they mean.

148
00:14:19,134 --> 00:14:22,344
Did you ever read any
of the books I sent you?

149
00:14:22,824 --> 00:14:27,599
No, not since you stopped thinking
about helping me with speeches.

150
00:14:28,560 --> 00:14:31,336
Did you ever read the
speeches I sent you?

151
00:14:31,472 --> 00:14:35,056
I tried. I mean, the old attention span,
isn't what it used to be.

152
00:14:35,287 --> 00:14:37,784
That's true. Mine neither.

153
00:14:39,120 --> 00:14:42,313
I don't have any attention anymore
for anything that's not specific.

154
00:14:43,344 --> 00:14:45,710
Poetry just confuses me.

155
00:14:45,895 --> 00:14:48,550
Yeah, politics--
Politics confuses everybody.

156
00:14:49,246 --> 00:14:51,705
Including its practitioners.

157
00:14:53,056 --> 00:14:55,729
But I know what
"No saint stands alone" means.

158
00:14:56,088 --> 00:14:57,977
Oh, yeah? What?

159
00:14:58,153 --> 00:15:00,353
It's the essence of my profession.

160
00:15:00,569 --> 00:15:05,401
Because between every politician
and his own point of view...

161
00:15:05,562 --> 00:15:10,024
there's always three fat cats, two
pac lobbyists, half dozen of microphones.

162
00:15:10,991 --> 00:15:15,176
"No man is an island entire of itself.
Every man is a piece of the continent...

163
00:15:15,240 --> 00:15:19,469
part of the main, therefore never send
to know for whom the bell tolls...

164
00:15:19,498 --> 00:15:22,011
it tolls to thee."

165
00:15:32,577 --> 00:15:35,000
Can't you just feel the
place watching you?

166
00:15:36,401 --> 00:15:41,522
- It makes you feel pretty small.
- It was supposed to.

167
00:15:41,769 --> 00:15:45,401
The individual in the human body was
supposed to feel small...

168
00:15:45,583 --> 00:15:47,920
dwarfed, denied all independent existence.

169
00:15:51,681 --> 00:15:57,146
We lost some of the sense of being
all one, but we got our freedom.

170
00:15:57,306 --> 00:15:59,393
That's not a bad trade-off.

171
00:15:59,805 --> 00:16:04,478
I don't know. I still don't know if we
haven't lost more than we've gained.

172
00:16:04,710 --> 00:16:07,374
All I ever hear anybody
talk about today is themselves.

173
00:16:07,486 --> 00:16:12,998
I wrote a poem once. It's titled
"The Stones Speak, I am Silent"

174
00:16:13,001 --> 00:16:17,567
At least you're free to think what
you want and do what you can about it.

175
00:16:18,468 --> 00:16:21,502
Think of the guy who had to carry these
stones up the hell to built this place.

176
00:16:21,655 --> 00:16:25,654
He didn't have any say in life,
or try running for office some day.

177
00:16:27,142 --> 00:16:30,286
Someone else sets the agenda,
someone else sets the schedule.

178
00:16:30,454 --> 00:16:33,758
Somebody else decides what you can
say and what you better not say.

179
00:16:34,591 --> 00:16:39,638
Talk about losing yourself. People have
been known to forget their own names.

180
00:16:40,631 --> 00:16:42,357
Maybe you're too smart to be president.

181
00:16:42,565 --> 00:16:45,230
A television correspondent
told me that once.

182
00:16:45,340 --> 00:16:46,589
What did you say?

183
00:16:46,687 --> 00:16:49,084
I got a little steamed.

184
00:16:49,966 --> 00:16:53,854
I said american voters want their
leaders to be dumber than they are.

185
00:16:53,957 --> 00:16:59,164
They figure they'll do less harm that way.
That is an expensive form of cynicism.

186
00:17:00,053 --> 00:17:02,022
- You said that on TV?
- Yup.

187
00:17:03,078 --> 00:17:05,397
Maybe you're not so smart after all.

188
00:17:13,345 --> 00:17:15,113
We go through here.

189
00:17:18,193 --> 00:17:19,441
What's up here?

190
00:17:19,681 --> 00:17:21,322
After you.

191
00:17:37,287 --> 00:17:39,598
Look at this.
Look at this!

192
00:17:39,766 --> 00:17:42,263
This thing has been functioning
for hundreds of years--

193
00:17:42,447 --> 00:17:44,367
since before the
beginning of modern times.

194
00:17:44,511 --> 00:17:47,711
But this is different from the kind
of time you were talking about before.

195
00:17:47,887 --> 00:17:50,832
Sunrise to Sunset,
Sabbath to Sabbath, isn't it?

196
00:17:50,977 --> 00:17:54,808
This is... mechanical time.

197
00:17:54,935 --> 00:17:56,632
You bet, you bet it is.

198
00:17:56,776 --> 00:17:59,903
I sometimes think that this clock,
this machine is what...

199
00:18:00,039 --> 00:18:03,017
...constitutes humanity's first real
break from the world of nature.

200
00:18:04,041 --> 00:18:06,914
Wouldn't you say so?
Hello?

201
00:18:07,058 --> 00:18:11,104
The clock did much more than that.
It became the model of the cosmos.

202
00:18:11,168 --> 00:18:13,921
And then they mistook the
model for the real thing.

203
00:18:14,305 --> 00:18:17,765
People got the idea that
nature was just a giant clock.

204
00:18:17,910 --> 00:18:20,666
Not a living organism, but a machine.

205
00:18:21,520 --> 00:18:25,437
That's exactly what I've been trying to
tell this lunkhead, exactly, word for word.

206
00:18:25,542 --> 00:18:28,020
- What?
- Maybe you recognize him. Jack Edwards.

207
00:18:28,124 --> 00:18:29,759
And you are...?

208
00:18:30,024 --> 00:18:35,113
Sonia Hoffman.
I think I've heard your name somewhere.

209
00:18:35,265 --> 00:18:37,515
Maybe in a couple of
hundred news broadcasts.

210
00:18:37,675 --> 00:18:40,266
He was a candidate for the U.S.
presidency in the primaries.

211
00:18:40,443 --> 00:18:44,563
I vaguely remember.
See? I'm not a voter.

212
00:18:44,738 --> 00:18:47,122
Most americans don't vote either.

213
00:18:49,286 --> 00:18:50,814
I do know who you are.

214
00:18:50,958 --> 00:18:52,127
Me? You know who I am?
I doubt it...

215
00:18:53,103 --> 00:18:54,705
You're Thomas Harriman, the poet.

216
00:18:56,457 --> 00:18:59,720
Yes I am. But wait a minute,
let me get this straight.

217
00:18:59,849 --> 00:19:03,595
You recognize me, a poet whose latest
work sold only 12,000 copies but you...

218
00:19:03,754 --> 00:19:09,602
do not recognize this gentleman, who
was a presidential candidate in America?

219
00:19:09,716 --> 00:19:12,907
My god, woman. What's happened to
your values? What do you do?

220
00:19:13,034 --> 00:19:14,802
I'm a scientist.

221
00:19:14,939 --> 00:19:17,707
And we do occasionally read poetry.

222
00:19:17,827 --> 00:19:20,380
As a matter of fact, I'm doing
a lot of it these days.

223
00:19:20,483 --> 00:19:22,172
I'm on a sort of sabbatical.

224
00:19:22,955 --> 00:19:27,172
I'm an ex-physicist,
an ex-american resident...

225
00:19:27,293 --> 00:19:28,996
- an ex-voter--
- Ex-wife?

226
00:19:30,715 --> 00:19:35,635
This is very upsetting. Why don't intelligent
people like yourself bother to vote?

227
00:19:36,700 --> 00:19:39,660
Forgive me. You politicians make it so hard.

228
00:19:40,570 --> 00:19:44,091
The ideas expressed by
most of you, right or left...

229
00:19:44,194 --> 00:19:47,386
seem to me as antique and
mechanical as that old clock.

230
00:19:47,514 --> 00:19:48,923
What's that supposed to mean?

231
00:19:50,170 --> 00:19:54,771
If I was to explain that, I'd have to
go all the way back to Descartes...

232
00:19:54,916 --> 00:19:57,147
if you remember him.

233
00:19:57,347 --> 00:19:59,962
- Yeah
- "To be or not to be"

234
00:20:00,146 --> 00:20:04,943
- "I Think, therefore, I am."
- Yeah, well. We both went to college.

235
00:20:05,121 --> 00:20:10,932
Descartes was the primary architect of
the view that sees the world as a clock.

236
00:20:11,253 --> 00:20:15,240
A mechanistic view that still
dominates most of the world today...

237
00:20:15,399 --> 00:20:18,713
and it seems to me
specially you politicians.

238
00:20:19,536 --> 00:20:24,336
Mechanistic?
Is that a real word?

239
00:20:24,504 --> 00:20:30,073
Mechanistic, mechanical, mechanics.
Yeah, it's a good word.

240
00:20:30,224 --> 00:20:34,249
Mechanistic.
As if Nature functioned like a clock.

241
00:20:34,408 --> 00:20:39,288
You take it a part, reduce it to a number of
small, simple pieces, easy to understand...

242
00:20:39,440 --> 00:20:43,225
analyze them, put them all back together
and then you understand the whole.

243
00:20:43,410 --> 00:20:46,681
Isn't that what's known as scientific
thinking, Miss Hoffman?

244
00:20:47,690 --> 00:20:50,907
What you call the mechanistic view isn't
that what the scientific method's all about?

245
00:20:51,050 --> 00:20:53,051
Is it?

246
00:20:53,259 --> 00:20:58,228
I don't think so. But I'd like to kind
to hear from the physicist, Jack.

247
00:20:58,404 --> 00:21:00,497
All right, I'm sorry.
Please continue.

248
00:21:01,234 --> 00:21:04,634
Well, you're right in a way, Mr...

249
00:21:04,810 --> 00:21:06,345
Jack, call me Jack.

250
00:21:06,506 --> 00:21:09,234
O.K., Jack.
You're right in a sense.

251
00:21:09,380 --> 00:21:12,609
But it wasn't always so,
not before Descartes.

252
00:21:13,453 --> 00:21:15,381
When he introduced such thinking...

253
00:21:15,565 --> 00:21:19,725
it amounted to a revolutionary
break with the church.

254
00:21:19,861 --> 00:21:23,474
He said "I don't need the Pope to
tell me how the world functions...

255
00:21:23,626 --> 00:21:27,578
I can find that out for myself,
because to me the world is just a machine."

256
00:21:28,484 --> 00:21:32,065
And then he became fascinated
with clockworks...

257
00:21:32,185 --> 00:21:34,424
and made the clock into
his central metaphor.

258
00:21:36,611 --> 00:21:42,011
He said "I consider the human body
as nothing but a machine...

259
00:21:42,644 --> 00:21:49,802
A healthy man is like a well-made clock.
A sick man is like an ill-made clock."

260
00:21:49,929 --> 00:21:54,076
The metaphor seems a little clumsy now.
But it worked, didn't it?

261
00:21:55,078 --> 00:21:59,059
Yes, so successfully, that
scientists came to believe...

262
00:21:59,154 --> 00:22:04,796
that all living things, plants
animals, us, are nothig but machines.

263
00:22:04,924 --> 00:22:09,527
And that's the fallacy. It carried
over into everything, arts, politics...

264
00:22:10,937 --> 00:22:13,147
I don�t know, it seems to me
that most people don't...

265
00:22:13,298 --> 00:22:15,290
even remember
who Descartes was.

266
00:22:16,195 --> 00:22:19,713
- I'm sorry, I guess I just don't follow you.
- But he'd like to.

267
00:22:21,521 --> 00:22:25,496
If you could break it down into 30-second
media bites, that's what he's used to.

268
00:22:26,073 --> 00:22:27,489
Very funny.

269
00:22:27,785 --> 00:22:33,765
What is it that I don't recognize?
What's so bad about Descartes?

270
00:22:33,916 --> 00:22:38,907
But there's nothing bad about Descartes.
In fact, I think Descartes is wonderful.

271
00:22:39,036 --> 00:22:44,357
He was a godsend to the 17th century.
But times have changed since then.

272
00:22:44,509 --> 00:22:47,613
We need a new way
of understanding life.

273
00:22:48,966 --> 00:22:56,238
That pendulum for example, has long since
been replaced by a tiny quartz crystal.

274
00:22:56,725 --> 00:23:00,214
And these magnificent
hand-forged wheels...

275
00:23:00,374 --> 00:23:04,511
turned into microchip
the size of my thumbnail.

276
00:23:05,293 --> 00:23:10,014
That's how far modern science has
left mechanistic thinking behind.

277
00:23:12,631 --> 00:23:18,711
But you politicians seem to have
that clockwork still ticking in your head.

278
00:23:30,197 --> 00:23:32,416
Keep on going, Sonia. Don't stop.

279
00:23:32,929 --> 00:23:35,930
Who knows? You may have that vital
piece of information we pols...

280
00:23:36,027 --> 00:23:39,029
venal and stupid as we are have
been missing out on all along.

281
00:23:39,109 --> 00:23:42,191
There you go, thinking
in terms of pieces.

282
00:23:42,256 --> 00:23:45,028
Pieces are all we get of the
picture, only fragments.

283
00:23:45,107 --> 00:23:47,524
Come on, give some examples.

284
00:23:50,025 --> 00:23:54,093
Well, let's take the population
problem for example.

285
00:23:54,759 --> 00:24:00,454
You can't solve it by looking at different
forms of birth control in isolation.

286
00:24:00,701 --> 00:24:05,259
Research has proven that the
most effective form of birth control...

287
00:24:05,393 --> 00:24:08,571
is not a pill, it's economic
and social gains...

288
00:24:08,708 --> 00:24:11,582
which will reduce the
desire for large families.

289
00:24:11,741 --> 00:24:12,764
That's true.

290
00:24:13,075 --> 00:24:20,387
Did you know that in our world
every day 40,000 children die...

291
00:24:20,555 --> 00:24:23,922
from malnutrition and
preventable diseases?

292
00:24:25,829 --> 00:24:27,355
That's every other second.

293
00:24:27,604 --> 00:24:29,101
That's now...

294
00:24:30,292 --> 00:24:32,742
and now... and now...

295
00:24:34,395 --> 00:24:39,701
But the short lives of these children
cannot be seen in isolation...

296
00:24:39,875 --> 00:24:44,076
they're part of the whole system,
involving the economics...

297
00:24:44,221 --> 00:24:46,747
involving the environment,
and more specifically...

298
00:24:46,899 --> 00:24:50,549
- involving high levels of third-world debt.
- How's that?

299
00:24:50,726 --> 00:24:54,926
The burden of frenzied borrowing is not
falling on those with foreign banks...

300
00:24:55,045 --> 00:24:58,013
...accounts, nor on those
who created the imbalance.

301
00:24:58,150 --> 00:25:00,405
The burden's falling on
the already deprived.

302
00:25:01,510 --> 00:25:04,708
Three years ago, president
Nyerere asked the question:

303
00:25:04,854 --> 00:25:08,374
"Must we starve our
children to pay our debts?"

304
00:25:09,558 --> 00:25:11,711
That question has been
answered in practice...

305
00:25:11,829 --> 00:25:13,389
...and the answer has been YES...

306
00:25:13,494 --> 00:25:17,126
...because since he asked, hundreds
and thousands of little children...

307
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:21,414
...in the third world have given their
lives to pay their country's debts.

308
00:25:22,142 --> 00:25:27,022
And millions more are still paying interest
with their malnourished minds and bodies.

309
00:25:31,958 --> 00:25:34,022
Take Brazil.

310
00:25:34,166 --> 00:25:38,535
Do you know that they are destroying
their Amazon rain forests...

311
00:25:38,647 --> 00:25:41,248
...at the rate of one football
field a second?

312
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:43,919
Now, now, now.

313
00:25:44,055 --> 00:25:50,104
Why? They're trying to pay their national
debt with cattle and land speculation.

314
00:25:50,215 --> 00:25:52,597
They don't even have
time to sell the timber...

315
00:25:52,693 --> 00:25:54,685
...so they're setting
fire to the woods.

316
00:25:54,782 --> 00:25:59,728
And our barren forests are one of the
main causes of the global warming...

317
00:25:59,824 --> 00:26:01,839
...the green house effect.

318
00:26:02,048 --> 00:26:05,513
And in the meantime, we are pouring
our money into the arms race.

319
00:26:05,592 --> 00:26:10,505
You cannot look at one single of our
global problems in isolation...

320
00:26:10,569 --> 00:26:12,896
...trying to understand it and solve it.

321
00:26:13,284 --> 00:26:18,757
You can fix a fragment of a piece,
but it will deteriorate a second later...

322
00:26:18,836 --> 00:26:21,447
because what it was
connected to has been ignored.

323
00:26:22,109 --> 00:26:26,353
We have to change everything
together at the same time.

324
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:33,212
- The ideals, the institutions, the values--
- All of this sounds kind of familiar.

325
00:26:33,309 --> 00:26:36,732
Do you two know each other?
Is this a setup?

326
00:26:37,268 --> 00:26:39,946
Well, all right.
What do I think about this?

327
00:26:40,169 --> 00:26:43,792
The problems are complex but you're
looking at the dark side, because us...

328
00:26:43,863 --> 00:26:48,494
...are capacity to response, isn't it?
Communications, databanks, technology--

329
00:26:48,566 --> 00:26:51,640
We already have the tools to deal
with a lot of these problems...

330
00:26:51,728 --> 00:26:56,290
- ...even if they are more complex.
- Candide himself, the eternal optimist.

331
00:26:56,467 --> 00:26:59,667
But don't you see?
There are all these new technologies...

332
00:26:59,802 --> 00:27:02,700
...they're causing more
problems that they solve.

333
00:27:02,867 --> 00:27:07,017
In medicine for example, there's been
an overwhelming increase in technology...

334
00:27:07,113 --> 00:27:09,980
...but the costs have spiraled concurrently.

335
00:27:10,085 --> 00:27:14,721
It's become medicine for the rich and public
health hasn't improved significantly...

336
00:27:14,825 --> 00:27:17,901
...although public health would
improve dramatically if we...

337
00:27:17,982 --> 00:27:20,463
...just changed our eating
habits, for example.

338
00:27:20,855 --> 00:27:24,823
But instead the experts are occupied
with making artificial hearts.

339
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:30,890
If our agribusiness had fed us better
instead of chopping down the rain forests...

340
00:27:30,984 --> 00:27:35,304
...in order to make cattle ranches in order
to produce more and more red meat...

341
00:27:35,368 --> 00:27:37,985
...which is one of the diary
causes of heart attacks...

342
00:27:38,081 --> 00:27:42,014
...then maybe we would not to spend so
much of our money on artificial hearts...

343
00:27:42,087 --> 00:27:46,353
...and so on, and so on. This is all
examples of interconnectedness.

344
00:27:46,442 --> 00:27:51,037
But, Sonia... All right
supposing that you're right...

345
00:27:51,101 --> 00:27:54,133
...and everything's connected
to everything else as you say...

346
00:27:54,189 --> 00:27:56,552
...still you've got to start
somewhere, don't you?

347
00:27:56,615 --> 00:27:59,768
That's the real political question here.
Where do you start?

348
00:28:00,763 --> 00:28:03,436
By changing the way
we're seeing the world.

349
00:28:03,500 --> 00:28:07,942
You're still searching for the
right piece to fix first.

350
00:28:08,021 --> 00:28:14,903
You don't see that all the problems
simply are fragments of one single crisis.

351
00:28:14,976 --> 00:28:18,488
- A crisis of perception.
- Oh, good.

352
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:21,950
The world's coming to an end and you
say it's a crisis of perception.

353
00:28:22,007 --> 00:28:24,039
I'm sorry, that's a
little abstract for me.

354
00:28:24,096 --> 00:28:28,377
And all this stuff about modern
medicine, all your criticisms...

355
00:28:28,465 --> 00:28:32,474
I may be a doctor's son,
but you have to admit that...

356
00:28:32,633 --> 00:28:35,248
...this mechanistic medicine
has been pretty successful.

357
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:38,544
Well... up to a point.

358
00:28:38,624 --> 00:28:42,897
But simply by blocking the
mechanisms of a disease...

359
00:28:42,985 --> 00:28:44,675
...doesn't mean healing it.

360
00:28:44,754 --> 00:28:48,944
I mean, it's like in politics, it's just
shifting the problem to another sphere.

361
00:28:49,033 --> 00:28:53,490
Are you going to leave me stranded
out here in this argument by myself?

362
00:28:53,586 --> 00:28:57,282
I'm going to leave you stranded.

363
00:28:58,449 --> 00:29:04,898
O.K... A person goes to a
doctor today with recurring...

364
00:29:04,994 --> 00:29:08,365
...attacks of gallstones and the
doctor takes the gallbladder out.

365
00:29:08,473 --> 00:29:10,272
And low and behold
the pain goes away.

366
00:29:10,362 --> 00:29:14,394
You could say the doctor's working from
a poor perceptual model, that he just...

367
00:29:14,482 --> 00:29:18,769
...concentrated on a part of the clock
that wasn't working and removed it.

368
00:29:18,874 --> 00:29:21,520
But the fact is the patient
is out of his pain.

369
00:29:21,591 --> 00:29:23,543
He's feeling better and
the clock is ticking again.

370
00:29:23,632 --> 00:29:25,736
His perceptual model worked.

371
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:29,718
But is everything that works
good for the system?

372
00:29:29,871 --> 00:29:33,480
That's disingenuous and not
useful when applied to politics...

373
00:29:33,550 --> 00:29:36,665
...which is, after all, a system
that is based on people.

374
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:40,216
It's the art of bringing people to agree
on a certain course of action.

375
00:29:40,297 --> 00:29:43,906
If that course of action succeeds,
the people are satisfied...

376
00:29:43,978 --> 00:29:45,616
...if not, they're not.

377
00:29:45,679 --> 00:29:47,921
It's as simple as that.
If it works, it's good.

378
00:29:47,984 --> 00:29:51,721
Isn't that what you said why
politics doesn't work...

379
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:55,832
...that politics needed to become
the art of the impossible?

380
00:29:56,976 --> 00:29:58,600
Whose side are you on?

381
00:29:59,536 --> 00:30:02,664
Hers, obviously.
She's intelligent, gracious...

382
00:30:02,729 --> 00:30:04,866
...and she's more attractive.

383
00:30:05,370 --> 00:30:11,048
Listen, Jack. I'd like to get
back to the systems.

384
00:30:11,129 --> 00:30:13,684
-You know, you called me dishonest.
-Oh, no, no, no...

385
00:30:13,732 --> 00:30:15,924
Let's talk about the gallbladder again.

386
00:30:15,982 --> 00:30:19,325
Let's say the gallbladder's out
and the pain is gone...

387
00:30:19,388 --> 00:30:22,608
...but what about the stress that
might have caused the illness?

388
00:30:22,656 --> 00:30:27,018
If that stress persists he's probably
going to get sick again.

389
00:30:27,106 --> 00:30:30,027
Or let's say he had
changed his nutrition...

390
00:30:30,117 --> 00:30:32,962
...much earlier, and
done some exercise.

391
00:30:33,035 --> 00:30:35,676
He may never have developed
the gallstones in the first place.

392
00:30:35,746 --> 00:30:38,652
A little health education
might have been...

393
00:30:38,728 --> 00:30:41,788
...much cheaper that the operation,
a lot less painful, too.

394
00:30:41,868 --> 00:30:45,476
But our system doesn't
encourage prevention...

395
00:30:45,571 --> 00:30:47,532
...it encourages intervention.

396
00:30:47,635 --> 00:30:50,836
O.K. You're not disingenuous, but to
blame all this on french philosopher...

397
00:30:50,956 --> 00:30:53,781
...who's been dead 300 years, isn't
that a little out of proportion...

398
00:30:53,877 --> 00:30:56,709
...maybe even all a little eccentric?

399
00:30:56,812 --> 00:31:00,275
No. Not if I'm right.

400
00:31:00,347 --> 00:31:03,725
See, my point isn't to
condemn Descartes' thinking.

401
00:31:03,829 --> 00:31:06,755
It's simply to recognize its limitations.

402
00:31:07,603 --> 00:31:10,655
It might have been extremely
useful to perceive the world...

403
00:31:10,727 --> 00:31:14,171
...as a machine for 300 years
but that perception today...

404
00:31:14,259 --> 00:31:17,836
...is not only inaccurate,
it's actually harmful.

405
00:31:19,459 --> 00:31:22,436
We need a new vision of the world.

406
00:31:23,036 --> 00:31:24,860
What's that quotation?

407
00:31:24,941 --> 00:31:30,629
"It's foolish for a society to try to
cling to its old ideas in new times...

408
00:31:30,701 --> 00:31:34,278
...just as it's foolish for a grown
man to try to squeeze...

409
00:31:34,357 --> 00:31:38,133
...into the coat that fit him in his youth."
Something like that...

410
00:31:38,229 --> 00:31:39,609
Thomas Jefferson.

411
00:31:40,986 --> 00:31:42,841
Maybe you're not crazy.

412
00:31:48,505 --> 00:31:52,757
I don't know, Sonia. This new
vision of the world might just be...

413
00:31:52,834 --> 00:31:57,803
...some sort of millennium madness
as we approach the year 2000.

414
00:31:57,850 --> 00:31:59,787
Oh, everybody's aware now.

415
00:31:59,849 --> 00:32:02,530
We can make ourselves extinct
at the press of a button.

416
00:32:03,274 --> 00:32:06,323
We're soiling every square
foot of land, sea and air.

417
00:32:06,363 --> 00:32:09,450
That water looks clean
but it's not, is it?

418
00:32:10,242 --> 00:32:11,248
Nothing is.

419
00:32:11,994 --> 00:32:15,786
The English Channel is one of the most
polluted bodies of water in the world...

420
00:32:15,883 --> 00:32:18,378
...and the oysters around here are famous.

421
00:32:18,603 --> 00:32:21,212
Soon they'll be unsafe to eat.

422
00:32:21,283 --> 00:32:24,963
Not only that. This water is radioactive...

423
00:32:24,987 --> 00:32:28,547
...contaminated by a nuclear
plant a few miles from here.

424
00:32:28,610 --> 00:32:30,577
Yeah, I read about that too.

425
00:32:30,650 --> 00:32:34,226
Politicians can read.
We know all about these things.

426
00:32:34,323 --> 00:32:36,386
Some of us think about
them every day. I do.

427
00:32:36,482 --> 00:32:39,309
But we have to deal with a
different set of constraints...

428
00:32:39,390 --> 00:32:43,006
...different kinds of interdependence
that those you discuss.

429
00:32:43,078 --> 00:32:46,444
Let's say it turns out to be true,
that what you say is true.

430
00:32:47,795 --> 00:32:50,308
Cattle are brutally treated,
loaded with chemicals...

431
00:32:50,391 --> 00:32:52,509
...too much red meat is bad for you...

432
00:32:52,572 --> 00:32:54,478
...and the landscape's
being wrecked by overgrazing.

433
00:32:55,157 --> 00:32:57,086
Let's say all that's turn to be true.

434
00:32:57,149 --> 00:33:00,813
So for health and a hundred
other reasons, I help enact a tax...

435
00:33:00,884 --> 00:33:05,046
...on the consumption of red meat,
the way we tax tobacco...

436
00:33:05,126 --> 00:33:07,415
...to making people think twice
about that kind of consumption.

437
00:33:08,333 --> 00:33:10,036
What a wonderful idea!

438
00:33:10,116 --> 00:33:13,631
We could do cancer and heart
research for the revenue.

439
00:33:13,735 --> 00:33:16,432
And I have 50 lobbyists
pounding on my door...

440
00:33:16,536 --> 00:33:18,936
...while a hundred different
meat producers political action...

441
00:33:19,007 --> 00:33:22,055
...committees poured money
into my opponent's campaign...

442
00:33:22,128 --> 00:33:25,536
...and my switchboard was lit up
all day with calls from senators...

443
00:33:25,616 --> 00:33:28,304
...and representatives and governors
of all the meat-producing states.

444
00:33:29,216 --> 00:33:32,610
But O.K., Sonia, just for you,
let's say I take all that on.

445
00:33:33,305 --> 00:33:36,713
As Sam Rayburn said "Every once
in a while a man ought to do...

446
00:33:36,793 --> 00:33:38,642
...something just because it's right."

447
00:33:38,737 --> 00:33:42,377
But if on top of that, I come out
against a few weapons programs...

448
00:33:42,449 --> 00:33:45,936
...and try to do something about acid
rain and sponsor a bill supporting...

449
00:33:46,024 --> 00:33:50,129
...increased funding for solar energy,
you know what?

450
00:33:50,953 --> 00:33:53,986
By the next election anybody
who would run against me...

451
00:33:54,074 --> 00:33:57,402
...and I mean anybody, would have the
combined funds of all those people...

452
00:33:57,474 --> 00:33:59,933
...to defeat me, and he would too.

453
00:34:00,052 --> 00:34:03,244
Because when you're that
far ahead of public opinion...

454
00:34:03,326 --> 00:34:05,299
...that's the way they let you know.

455
00:34:05,626 --> 00:34:09,970
I do what everybody else does, from the
lowliest congressman to the president...

456
00:34:11,267 --> 00:34:16,188
...I pick a few crucial issues that I
think are crucial, a part of your whole...

457
00:34:16,299 --> 00:34:19,942
...and I persist until I get
somewhere if I'm lucky.

458
00:34:22,060 --> 00:34:24,172
For the rest, I mark time, I wait.

459
00:34:24,268 --> 00:34:28,300
I go along, I... I trade off.

460
00:34:30,365 --> 00:34:34,347
This is why I don't vote.
It's what we've been talking about.

461
00:34:34,458 --> 00:34:38,276
You get people to eat less red meat,
and then you do something like...

462
00:34:38,363 --> 00:34:42,357
...paying off the farmers, buying up
surplus butter and subsidizing its price.

463
00:34:42,438 --> 00:34:45,822
If we don't get a heart attack
one way, you'll find another way.

464
00:34:46,508 --> 00:34:49,907
Well, I agree with you.
We wouldn't contradict ourselves...

465
00:34:50,314 --> 00:34:52,907
...so much if we didn't
do things piecemeal.

466
00:34:53,001 --> 00:34:57,515
But you know, there's something a
little scary, maybe something...

467
00:34:57,570 --> 00:35:01,419
...even a little cruel about
your theoretical exigency.

468
00:35:01,475 --> 00:35:06,219
I mean, are you going to be the one who
tells everyone what's good for them?

469
00:35:06,301 --> 00:35:08,810
Are you gonna tell the farmer
something's wrong with the goals his...

470
00:35:08,898 --> 00:35:12,475
...family has pursued for generations
then just shut them down?

471
00:35:12,554 --> 00:35:16,090
Maybe we're beaten up all
day by private interests...

472
00:35:16,163 --> 00:35:19,740
...but at least our government
now stays close to what people...

473
00:35:19,819 --> 00:35:22,578
...perceive to be their needs.

474
00:35:22,650 --> 00:35:27,074
Look, the world changes faster
than people's perception of it.

475
00:35:27,188 --> 00:35:30,363
Wouldn't be challenge for a
great political leader to bridge...

476
00:35:30,476 --> 00:35:35,923
...the gap, to inform, to allow
us to feel responsibility?

477
00:35:36,667 --> 00:35:39,442
Anyway, the people don't
trust you politicians anymore.

478
00:35:39,522 --> 00:35:43,603
At your last election only 50%
of them even bothered to vote.

479
00:35:43,675 --> 00:35:47,234
Getting them back would really
require a politics of the impossible.

480
00:35:47,850 --> 00:35:50,893
What a great campaign slogan.
Where were you when I needed you?

481
00:35:51,381 --> 00:35:52,604
I'd vote for it.

482
00:35:53,235 --> 00:35:55,035
Oh, good. I'd get the poet vote.

483
00:35:55,139 --> 00:35:59,035
Politics of the impossible.
You might get my vote too.

484
00:35:59,115 --> 00:36:03,251
Oh, great! Add to that the
support of all well-informed...

485
00:36:03,339 --> 00:36:06,273
...but nonparticipating-women
living on medieval islands.

486
00:36:06,352 --> 00:36:08,503
That's no victory.

487
00:36:32,382 --> 00:36:34,372
Why does that make me angry?

488
00:36:34,452 --> 00:36:37,732
Probably because they don't
want have anything to do with us.

489
00:36:37,852 --> 00:36:39,397
They don't believe in us.

490
00:36:40,165 --> 00:36:43,481
There isn't any reason they should,
except their own eventual aging.

491
00:36:43,602 --> 00:36:45,596
They don't even notice where they are.

492
00:36:47,285 --> 00:36:51,773
They think this is the movies, but
this room is absolutely contemporary.

493
00:36:52,726 --> 00:36:56,622
Everybody's got a torture chamber now.
They don't even notice them.

494
00:36:57,797 --> 00:37:01,773
Are you going to say this is part
of your crisis of perception, too?

495
00:37:08,211 --> 00:37:13,535
Maybe we're all led a little towards
death, like wolves to the weak.

496
00:37:14,191 --> 00:37:17,541
Or maybe people are just shits, hmm?

497
00:37:18,668 --> 00:37:21,524
You'd like blame this on Descartes.
I'd like blame it on anybody.

498
00:37:21,525 --> 00:37:23,525
But it's such a part of human history, I...

499
00:37:23,526 --> 00:37:29,382
Well, I don't know about Descartes,
but I know Francis Bacon presided...

500
00:37:29,470 --> 00:37:33,585
...over the witch trials of king James I
at a time when millions of women were...

501
00:37:33,673 --> 00:37:37,977
...tortured or burned for practicing
folk medicine or worshiping...

502
00:37:38,050 --> 00:37:41,827
...pre-Christian goddesses or simply
because they were unusual.

503
00:37:41,900 --> 00:37:44,688
I would probably have ended
up on the stake myself.

504
00:37:45,310 --> 00:37:49,331
I don't believe it was a metaphor
when Francis Bacon wrote...

505
00:37:49,411 --> 00:37:51,871
...that Nature had to be
hounded in her wandering...

506
00:37:52,675 --> 00:37:55,251
...bound into service, made a slave.

507
00:37:55,756 --> 00:38:00,580
He even said that scientists with
their new mechanical devices...

508
00:38:00,668 --> 00:38:04,092
...had to torture Nature's
secrets out of her.

509
00:38:04,668 --> 00:38:08,948
Did you notice how he uses "her"
when describing Mother Nature?

510
00:38:09,035 --> 00:38:12,162
As if Nature was nothing but a witch?

511
00:38:17,572 --> 00:38:24,866
Yes. It's actually fair to
say that this room...

512
00:38:24,954 --> 00:38:28,992
...represents a crisis of perception.

513
00:38:30,153 --> 00:38:34,677
But this room was here for a long
time before Descartes and Bacon.

514
00:38:35,590 --> 00:38:39,063
Violence goes on no matter how mankind
understands the world, doesn't it?

515
00:38:39,135 --> 00:38:43,383
An exploitation... Of course, we'd all
like to think it would be different...

516
00:38:44,671 --> 00:38:46,424
...if we saw things differently.

517
00:38:46,504 --> 00:38:52,008
But hasn't modern science, technology,
business done exactly what...

518
00:38:52,072 --> 00:38:56,285
...Francis Bacon preached:
tortured our planet?

519
00:38:56,375 --> 00:39:01,470
Didn't we just implement the old
patriarchal idea about man dominating all?

520
00:39:03,349 --> 00:39:05,715
I don't know, Sonia. Let me be the
devil's advocate for a minute.

521
00:39:05,795 --> 00:39:08,747
How much have we really tortured
and hounded the planet?

522
00:39:08,843 --> 00:39:10,922
You could say not much...

523
00:39:10,984 --> 00:39:13,975
...compared to what the ice ages
did to the world, for example.

524
00:39:14,064 --> 00:39:17,326
And who sais that nature can't cope?

525
00:39:17,439 --> 00:39:21,293
We're scared to death about
the disappearing ozone layer...

526
00:39:21,351 --> 00:39:25,507
...but we only started studying
ozone levels about 10 years ago.

527
00:39:25,563 --> 00:39:28,857
It could be that these so-called
holes in the atmosphere...

528
00:39:29,837 --> 00:39:32,475
...have been appearing and
the disappearing again...

529
00:39:32,570 --> 00:39:35,027
...since time's beginning.
Couldn't it?

530
00:39:35,099 --> 00:39:39,698
It could be that Nature has a healing
mechanism we don't even know about.

531
00:39:39,755 --> 00:39:42,732
It could be this hysteria
about ultraviolet rays...

532
00:39:42,795 --> 00:39:45,534
...is nothing more than that,
just hysteria.

533
00:39:45,614 --> 00:39:50,609
That's what they said about the
German forests and look at them now.

534
00:39:50,666 --> 00:39:53,843
More than half the trees in the
black forest are dying.

535
00:39:53,899 --> 00:39:57,643
We can't explain it anyway.
We simply cannot take the risk.

536
00:39:58,466 --> 00:40:04,036
Right here around this island the tides are
slowing down, maybe because of silt...

537
00:40:04,092 --> 00:40:08,060
...building up from garbage dumped in the
bay or from the overuse of fertilizers.

538
00:40:08,818 --> 00:40:13,180
Lakes can die, entire
oceans become polluted...

539
00:40:13,245 --> 00:40:17,204
...topsoil, forests, water,
poisoned, dead.

540
00:40:17,260 --> 00:40:21,084
Things can change so
fast at the hands of man.

541
00:40:21,172 --> 00:40:25,793
Nature becomes fragile,
rain becomes acid.

542
00:40:25,857 --> 00:40:29,339
I agree with everything you said.
But why this patriarchal fixation?

543
00:40:30,213 --> 00:40:33,992
Those women witches were
betrayed by other women.

544
00:40:34,079 --> 00:40:36,218
Phyllis Schlafly, a woman, has
written that God's...

545
00:40:36,298 --> 00:40:38,579
...greatest gift to mankind
was the atom bomb.

546
00:40:38,626 --> 00:40:41,131
These are women. Why not just
say what's patriarchal...

547
00:40:41,178 --> 00:40:43,102
...is what's evil in both
men and women?

548
00:40:43,182 --> 00:40:47,601
There's plenty to go around
unless you happen to believe...

549
00:40:47,987 --> 00:40:50,959
...these women were brainwashed
by men, like Patty Hearst.

550
00:40:51,031 --> 00:40:52,758
Why are you so scornful?

551
00:40:52,815 --> 00:40:55,943
Look, there are two great principles
functioning in this entire...

552
00:40:56,023 --> 00:40:58,870
...living world: the male
principle, pick the adjective...

553
00:40:58,950 --> 00:41:02,053
...aggressive, dominating, whatever;
and the female principle...

554
00:41:02,142 --> 00:41:05,415
...nurturing, caretaking,
gentle, whatever...

555
00:41:05,502 --> 00:41:09,697
What I'm saying is that these 2 principles
may have been in a rough balance.

556
00:41:09,777 --> 00:41:12,512
But now the men and yes,
I do think IT IS the men...

557
00:41:12,584 --> 00:41:15,526
...have created the tools,
the weapons both intellectually...

558
00:41:15,605 --> 00:41:18,862
...and physically to bring these two
principles way out of balance.

559
00:41:18,957 --> 00:41:24,815
We've been placing mechanistic tools in the
hands of power-oriented patriarchal people.

560
00:41:24,879 --> 00:41:32,719
I'm saying you men are out of control now
and I, you, we... all we are the victims.

561
00:41:32,816 --> 00:41:35,284
So what's the risk?

562
00:41:35,356 --> 00:41:38,917
What's wrong with giving the
female principle an opportunity?

563
00:41:40,933 --> 00:41:43,557
And I say let's get out of this room.

564
00:41:43,612 --> 00:41:47,112
It's having a torturous
effect on our relationship.

565
00:42:03,193 --> 00:42:05,704
Look, Sonia. I'm sorry if I ruffled
your feathers down there.

566
00:42:05,776 --> 00:42:09,865
I just, um... you know...
I'm a failed husband.

567
00:42:11,882 --> 00:42:13,921
I'm a little too sensitive
about all that stuff.

568
00:42:14,273 --> 00:42:17,322
I'm also a starving poet
and a bad teacher...

569
00:42:17,986 --> 00:42:21,625
...and Jack's another midlife
casualty, except his wife's...

570
00:42:21,729 --> 00:42:24,665
...still around. May be there's a
connection in there somewhere for you.

571
00:42:25,289 --> 00:42:28,938
What do you do? What brings
you to this remote place?

572
00:42:29,601 --> 00:42:32,314
Well, let's see...

573
00:42:33,394 --> 00:42:38,914
I'm a scientist still, even though
I'm on a semi permanent sabbatical.

574
00:42:38,918 --> 00:42:41,018
How come?

575
00:42:41,411 --> 00:42:43,930
I got tired of seeing my work fed
to the U. S. Defense Department.

576
00:42:44,762 --> 00:42:48,705
I'm a physicist, the only woman
in my graduate department...

577
00:42:48,874 --> 00:42:55,347
...the first in Norway doing quantum
field theory. My specialty was lasers.

578
00:42:55,411 --> 00:43:00,146
At that time, the challenge was to design
lasers of ever-shorter wavelengths.

579
00:43:00,211 --> 00:43:03,555
The shorter the wavelength,
the more powerful the laser.

580
00:43:04,098 --> 00:43:07,473
Our ultimate goal was to
create an x-ray laser.

581
00:43:07,553 --> 00:43:13,008
One day I hit upon an unusual
idea which, as it turned out...

582
00:43:13,072 --> 00:43:16,208
...led to a major advance
in that x-ray laser.

583
00:43:16,264 --> 00:43:21,148
Well, when you do something like that,
science treats you very well.

584
00:43:21,236 --> 00:43:23,685
I got many attractive offers...

585
00:43:24,380 --> 00:43:27,892
First from Paris and then from
the States and I took them.

586
00:43:27,965 --> 00:43:33,043
Finally working quite happily
in Boston until one day...

587
00:43:33,155 --> 00:43:39,305
I discovered, totally unexpectedly,
that my work was being perverted.

588
00:43:40,977 --> 00:43:46,498
I had always looked at the medical
applications of my work of using...

589
00:43:46,571 --> 00:43:53,014
...this laser to provide holographic
images of cells or even molecules.

590
00:43:53,078 --> 00:43:59,014
It could have helped us solve so many
puzzles, even the formation of cancer cells.

591
00:43:59,094 --> 00:44:05,083
But what really happened was that a more
sophisticated version of my idea was...

592
00:44:05,162 --> 00:44:09,962
...being used in the star wars
program, and it blew my mind.

593
00:44:10,026 --> 00:44:14,748
It... it made me re-evaluate
my whole profession.

594
00:44:17,500 --> 00:44:19,765
Anyway, to cut it short...

595
00:44:20,372 --> 00:44:25,252
...in the midst of other events
I just got up and left.

596
00:44:25,476 --> 00:44:27,891
What were the other
events, if I may ask?

597
00:44:27,965 --> 00:44:31,053
Experiences not all that different
from yours, I suppose.

598
00:44:31,886 --> 00:44:35,270
I left Boston and
eventually I came here.

599
00:44:36,846 --> 00:44:41,966
I just came one day from Paris
and the place took hold of me.

600
00:44:42,014 --> 00:44:44,502
I kept coming back.

601
00:44:44,582 --> 00:44:48,599
There were weeks when the
storms chased the tourists away...

602
00:44:48,663 --> 00:44:51,860
...and I had this place all to myself.

603
00:44:52,661 --> 00:44:57,972
I started to look at how my special
knowledge of subatomic physics...

604
00:44:58,044 --> 00:45:01,108
...relates to the way I
perceive the world at large.

605
00:45:01,188 --> 00:45:05,932
I don't know, but I think that I'll have
something to say after my time here.

606
00:45:07,210 --> 00:45:10,314
I don't know yet if it will fit
into a coherent whole.

607
00:45:10,409 --> 00:45:15,229
But it's what I ponder when I
take my morning walks, which...

608
00:45:15,422 --> 00:45:17,786
...today, for some reason,
brought me to you two.

609
00:45:18,380 --> 00:45:21,977
See, every morning, I walk
across the island regardless...

610
00:45:22,042 --> 00:45:26,362
...of the weather trying to
understand its other language.

611
00:45:26,930 --> 00:45:29,635
The stones speak, and I'm silent.

612
00:45:31,244 --> 00:45:35,147
Something like that, yes.
That's from a poem, isn't it?

613
00:45:35,668 --> 00:45:40,485
Well, maybe, I don't know. Do you ever
write down any of your thoughts?

614
00:45:40,980 --> 00:45:42,444
Oh, yes, all the time.

615
00:45:42,508 --> 00:45:45,115
I'd like to combine my notes
into a book and call it...

616
00:45:45,187 --> 00:45:48,172
...Ecological Thinking, as
opposed to Cartesian Thinking.

617
00:45:48,237 --> 00:45:49,920
Cartesian?

618
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:54,468
Yeah, Descartes wrote in latin. His latin
name was Cartesius, hence Cartesian.

619
00:45:54,516 --> 00:45:57,676
Really? I thought it meant
map-like, like a map.

620
00:45:57,748 --> 00:46:01,697
- You thought it meant like "a la carte".
- Yes, like a menu.

621
00:46:01,757 --> 00:46:04,569
Then his name would
have been Menusian.

622
00:46:06,792 --> 00:46:12,730
I'd like to offer this ecological way of
thinking as a new way of looking at things.

623
00:46:12,778 --> 00:46:15,915
Help us overcome this
crisis of perception.

624
00:46:16,459 --> 00:46:21,230
See, what I've found here is that
to think in an ecological way...

625
00:46:21,317 --> 00:46:23,250
...simply makes more sense of everything.

626
00:46:23,314 --> 00:46:27,963
It gives me a much firmer grasp
of reality. It gives me strength.

627
00:46:28,459 --> 00:46:30,322
Knowledge is power?

628
00:46:30,876 --> 00:46:34,888
Yes, but in the sense of
personal empowerment.

629
00:46:34,968 --> 00:46:38,208
Not that old male urge
for power over others.

630
00:46:38,695 --> 00:46:40,728
Descartes' evil empire again?

631
00:46:42,037 --> 00:46:43,649
Descartes had a dream.

632
00:46:43,848 --> 00:46:47,106
It was really Isaac Newton who
made that dream come true.

633
00:46:47,180 --> 00:46:51,868
Who transformed it into
scientific theory, into power.

634
00:46:51,979 --> 00:46:56,190
"May God us keep from single vision
and Newton's sleep." William Blake.

635
00:46:56,287 --> 00:46:59,559
- I'm very impressed.
- You two would have a lot in common.

636
00:47:00,375 --> 00:47:04,095
He was writing in poetry 200 years ago
what you're saying today in prose.

637
00:47:04,185 --> 00:47:07,216
He hated Newton's
concept of single vision.

638
00:47:07,296 --> 00:47:10,568
He dedicated his entire life to making
art that denied single vision.

639
00:47:10,655 --> 00:47:14,840
Of course, the people of his
time thought he was a crank.

640
00:47:15,863 --> 00:47:19,148
Whereas they revered
Newton almost as a god.

641
00:47:19,228 --> 00:47:24,675
By reducing all physical phenomena
to the motion of material particles...

642
00:47:24,746 --> 00:47:28,843
...a motion caused by the force of gravity,
he was able to describe the exact...

643
00:47:28,907 --> 00:47:33,850
...effect of gravity on any object
with precise mathematical equations.

644
00:47:34,331 --> 00:47:36,978
We call it Newton's laws of motion...

645
00:47:37,067 --> 00:47:41,184
...really, the great achievement
of 17th century science.

646
00:47:41,376 --> 00:47:45,696
You mean all that stuff I slept through
in high school, that square root of...

647
00:47:45,784 --> 00:47:48,551
...the hypotenuse divided
by a pinch of magnesium?

648
00:47:49,081 --> 00:47:52,571
Well, in the right hands, or
should I say, aroused minds...

649
00:47:52,648 --> 00:47:55,225
...these equations seems
to work beautifully.

650
00:48:05,393 --> 00:48:08,699
I could use Newton's equations
to calculate and explain...

651
00:48:08,778 --> 00:48:13,465
...every motion of that throw, from the
ballistic curve to the ripples in the water.

652
00:48:13,530 --> 00:48:16,787
This was a feat so impressive
for the time that Newton's...

653
00:48:16,867 --> 00:48:19,867
...mathematical system
immediately established itself as...

654
00:48:19,946 --> 00:48:24,026
...The correct theory of reality,
the ultimate laws of nature.

655
00:48:24,074 --> 00:48:27,951
Descartes' dream of the world
as a perfect machine...

656
00:48:27,990 --> 00:48:31,455
...was now an established fact.

657
00:48:31,527 --> 00:48:36,198
It brought with it such a
wealth of benefits for people.

658
00:48:36,278 --> 00:48:38,783
People could do things they
never been able to do before.

659
00:48:38,879 --> 00:48:42,245
It was irresistible, and of
course, the old notions of...

660
00:48:42,324 --> 00:48:45,562
...the world as a living
organism was swept away.

661
00:48:46,115 --> 00:48:47,652
So, what's wrong with Newton?

662
00:48:48,970 --> 00:48:50,588
Kit.

663
00:48:51,157 --> 00:48:54,220
Well, this is my daughter
Kit and her friend Roman.

664
00:48:54,419 --> 00:48:56,792
Kit, this is Thomas Harriman.

665
00:48:56,858 --> 00:48:58,393
- How you do?
- And this is Jack, uh--

666
00:48:58,472 --> 00:49:01,234
- Jack Edwards.
- Yeah, Jack Edwards. Hi.

667
00:49:01,857 --> 00:49:04,940
What do you think of this new
ecological view of your mother's?

668
00:49:05,148 --> 00:49:07,132
It's O.K.

669
00:49:07,284 --> 00:49:09,923
Kit is utterly bored
hearing me talk about it.

670
00:49:09,987 --> 00:49:13,668
Yeah, well... We're going
to go. Nice to meet you.

671
00:49:13,773 --> 00:49:15,415
Yes, nice meeting you.

672
00:49:15,543 --> 00:49:17,080
- Have fun.
- See you later.

673
00:49:21,827 --> 00:49:23,947
Well, so she's living here with you?

674
00:49:24,180 --> 00:49:28,265
No, she's in her first year in
college, she's on a break.

675
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:32,137
But right now, yes, I think she's
utterly bored living here with me.

676
00:49:34,009 --> 00:49:36,249
I understand that.
I have two of my own.

677
00:49:36,770 --> 00:49:39,529
Yeah, I had--
I mean I have one.

678
00:49:42,194 --> 00:49:47,127
You know, it's no accident
that Turner painted light...

679
00:49:47,301 --> 00:49:53,319
...when he did or that light became
the inspiration of the impressionists.

680
00:49:54,656 --> 00:49:59,783
The nature of light became an
obsession with the physicists, too.

681
00:50:00,014 --> 00:50:06,807
See, none of them could visualize how
the light of the sun reached the earth.

682
00:50:08,358 --> 00:50:11,433
Why?
What is nature of light?

683
00:50:12,497 --> 00:50:18,032
To understand the nature of light, you
have to know what matter is made of.

684
00:50:18,329 --> 00:50:20,032
I thought it was made of atoms.

685
00:50:20,247 --> 00:50:25,847
What's an atom? Newton
thought it was small, solid particles.

686
00:50:26,481 --> 00:50:30,631
But that's not what scientists saw when
they observed atoms for the first time.

687
00:50:30,703 --> 00:50:35,181
What they saw was totally
unexpected and shocking.

688
00:50:35,301 --> 00:50:38,722
You mean, when they discovered atoms
were made up of even smaller particles...

689
00:50:38,915 --> 00:50:41,851
...a nucleus with electrons
whirling around it?

690
00:50:42,387 --> 00:50:49,700
Not only that. They were moving in
relatively vast regions of empty space.

691
00:50:50,292 --> 00:50:56,983
That's what shook the scientists up.
Atoms consist mainly of empty space.

692
00:50:57,120 --> 00:51:00,339
What's that mean, vast regions of
empty space? Atoms are tiny.

693
00:51:00,442 --> 00:51:03,132
Yes, they are, this is what's
so hard to visualize.

694
00:51:03,730 --> 00:51:09,427
See, the size of atoms is so far removed
from our ordinary sense of scale and...

695
00:51:09,515 --> 00:51:13,363
...proportion that it's extremely hard
to get a feeling for the relative...

696
00:51:13,451 --> 00:51:17,269
...sizes and distances of their particles.

697
00:51:17,676 --> 00:51:21,356
Ask yourself, how many atoms
are there in an orange?

698
00:51:21,411 --> 00:51:24,603
To answer this, you'll have to
blow up the orange to a size...

699
00:51:24,683 --> 00:51:26,419
...where you can actually see the atoms.

700
00:51:26,532 --> 00:51:31,535
You'll have to blow up the orange
until it's reached the size of the earth.

701
00:51:31,623 --> 00:51:37,392
The atoms inside of it will then
be the size of cherries.

702
00:51:37,488 --> 00:51:45,068
Myriads of cherries tightly packed
into an orange the size of earth.

703
00:51:45,148 --> 00:51:48,780
Wow, what an image!
I'm serious.

704
00:51:48,853 --> 00:51:52,838
I was trying to shrink the earth
orange back to a real orange and...

705
00:51:52,918 --> 00:51:56,540
...imagine all those cherries
whizzing around, it made me dizzy.

706
00:51:56,620 --> 00:51:59,118
This is a dangerous
height to be dizzy at.

707
00:51:59,205 --> 00:52:04,653
But O.K. The atom�s the size of a
cherry and in that cherry-atom...

708
00:52:04,750 --> 00:52:07,147
...there's all of this empty space.
What about the nucleus?

709
00:52:07,253 --> 00:52:10,799
There's a nucleus, right?
How big is that?

710
00:52:10,863 --> 00:52:13,062
"Invisible" is the answer.

711
00:52:13,143 --> 00:52:16,265
If we blow up the atom to
the size of a football...

712
00:52:16,266 --> 00:52:18,976
...the nucleus would still be invisible.

713
00:52:19,055 --> 00:52:23,175
If we blow it up to the size
of a sphere that fits...

714
00:52:23,247 --> 00:52:26,855
...in this room, the nucleus
would still be invisible.

715
00:52:27,303 --> 00:52:31,583
What about the size of this island,
the rock we're standing on?

716
00:52:31,656 --> 00:52:34,055
O.K.

717
00:52:34,191 --> 00:52:39,962
We would blow the atom, the cherry,
up to the size of this island...

718
00:52:42,585 --> 00:52:49,154
...then the nucleus would be the size
of a small pebble, something like that.

719
00:52:49,794 --> 00:52:52,570
And the electrons would
be much smaller still.

720
00:52:52,666 --> 00:52:56,756
We would have to look for them
all the way down there...

721
00:52:56,836 --> 00:52:59,400
...at the edge of the island.

722
00:52:59,930 --> 00:53:03,450
And whole space in between
would be empty.

723
00:53:04,027 --> 00:53:05,618
- Wow, that's fantastic!
- That's weird.

724
00:53:05,691 --> 00:53:07,906
That's even weirder than poetry.

725
00:53:07,994 --> 00:53:12,313
So, what you're saying is
that if there were a sphere...

726
00:53:12,415 --> 00:53:14,642
...large enough to contain
this whole island...

727
00:53:14,722 --> 00:53:18,170
...it would actually consist of a
pebble and a few grains of sand?

728
00:53:18,249 --> 00:53:20,379
That's all this huge sphere contains?

729
00:53:20,547 --> 00:53:23,923
In other words, nothing?
It's empty?

730
00:53:24,922 --> 00:53:31,332
But if this rock is made of spheres
like that, then what makes it so solid?

731
00:53:31,427 --> 00:53:33,254
Why can't I pass my hand through it?

732
00:53:33,326 --> 00:53:37,238
-Why don't we fall through it?
-Why don't we fall through everything?

733
00:53:37,317 --> 00:53:43,077
This is the obvious question that
physicists had to ask.

734
00:53:50,870 --> 00:53:55,637
Now remember that all the newtonian
concepts were based on things...

735
00:53:55,716 --> 00:53:59,646
...that could actually be seen
or at least visualized...

736
00:53:59,694 --> 00:54:04,974
...but what they were now finding in
this strange and unexpected world...

737
00:54:06,142 --> 00:54:10,613
...were concepts that could
no longer be visualized.

738
00:54:11,133 --> 00:54:14,448
And when they went on battling
with these absurd phenomena of...

739
00:54:14,543 --> 00:54:17,270
...atomic physics, they were
forced to admit to themselves...

740
00:54:17,375 --> 00:54:20,790
...they didn't have a language,
not even an adequate way of...

741
00:54:20,894 --> 00:54:24,102
...thinking to describe
their new discoveries.

742
00:54:24,734 --> 00:54:28,511
They were forced to think
in entirely new ways.

743
00:54:28,606 --> 00:54:31,048
In terms of radically new concepts.

744
00:54:33,333 --> 00:54:42,176
To understand why matter is so solid they
had to question the conventional ideas...

745
00:54:42,256 --> 00:54:47,512
...about the very existence of matter,
and after many frustrating years...

746
00:54:47,607 --> 00:54:54,900
...they were forced to admit that
matter does not exist with certainty...

747
00:54:54,988 --> 00:55:02,165
...in definite places, but rather
shows tendencies to exist.

748
00:55:02,228 --> 00:55:04,012
Tendency?
What's that mean?

749
00:55:04,091 --> 00:55:08,581
Let's say we want to observe
an electron out there.

750
00:55:08,687 --> 00:55:13,317
We cannot say it is in a definite
place, we can rather say it...

751
00:55:13,396 --> 00:55:17,998
...has a tendency to be out there
in the front, rather that in...

752
00:55:18,070 --> 00:55:23,432
...the back, or here to the left,
rather that over there to the right.

753
00:55:24,209 --> 00:55:28,737
In scientific language we actually
don't speak about tendencies...

754
00:55:28,809 --> 00:55:31,402
...we speak about probabilities.

755
00:55:31,649 --> 00:55:36,030
I seem to remember voting for a bill that
gave some physicists a lot of money for...

756
00:55:36,110 --> 00:55:39,802
...a detector that they said would
tell them exactly where an electron is.

757
00:55:39,889 --> 00:55:42,449
- Were we being gypped?
- Not at all.

758
00:55:42,545 --> 00:55:49,765
The strange thing is that when you actually
make a measurement of the electron...

759
00:55:49,862 --> 00:55:55,647
...it is in a definite place, but between
measurements you can not say...

760
00:55:55,734 --> 00:56:00,906
...that it is in a definite place
or that it has traveled...

761
00:56:00,994 --> 00:56:05,874
...a definite path from one
place to another.

762
00:56:06,226 --> 00:56:08,972
You mean when you want to measure
it, it just sort of shows up?

763
00:56:09,067 --> 00:56:10,788
Yeah.

764
00:56:10,952 --> 00:56:14,458
Like out-of-work actors or presidential
candidates like Jack Edwards.

765
00:56:14,545 --> 00:56:16,568
What do you think?
What do you think?

766
00:56:17,650 --> 00:56:19,727
- Hey tough guy.
- Yeah.

767
00:56:22,457 --> 00:56:24,245
Oh, my knees hurt.

768
00:56:25,028 --> 00:56:27,094
O.K. Let me get this straight.

769
00:56:27,189 --> 00:56:32,768
You measure and the electron is
there, it shows up, like Tom said.

770
00:56:33,280 --> 00:56:37,577
But in between measurements,
you can't say for sure that it's...

771
00:56:37,657 --> 00:56:41,014
...in a definite place or
even that it went on...

772
00:56:41,086 --> 00:56:43,206
...a definite path from
one place to another.

773
00:56:43,741 --> 00:56:47,936
So how does it go from here to there?
It moves, doesn't it?

774
00:56:48,064 --> 00:56:50,239
No.

775
00:56:50,776 --> 00:56:54,262
- You mean it stays in the same place?
- No.

776
00:56:55,184 --> 00:56:57,958
Either the electron moves,
or it doesn't move.

777
00:56:58,583 --> 00:57:00,302
Well, you can't say that.

778
00:57:00,398 --> 00:57:05,528
Well, are you getting a feeling now
of what these physicists felt?

779
00:57:05,599 --> 00:57:09,658
You see, an electron doesn't
move from place to place.

780
00:57:09,752 --> 00:57:12,016
And it doesn't stay in
one place, either.

781
00:57:12,529 --> 00:57:18,725
It manifests itself as probability
patterns spread out in space.

782
00:57:18,829 --> 00:57:23,924
And the shape of these probability
patterns changes with time...

783
00:57:24,052 --> 00:57:27,933
...something which might seem like
movement to human perception.

784
00:57:28,029 --> 00:57:33,377
Are you saying that the electron
gets smeared out over a large...

785
00:57:33,458 --> 00:57:37,289
...region and then when you measure
it with the measuring gun...

786
00:57:37,370 --> 00:57:39,371
...it collapses into a small point?

787
00:57:40,098 --> 00:57:41,795
You got it.

788
00:57:42,922 --> 00:57:46,762
All subatomic particles,
electrons, protons, neutrons...

789
00:57:47,318 --> 00:57:55,196
...manifest this strange existence
between potentiality and reality.

790
00:57:55,282 --> 00:58:01,267
So at the subatomic level,
there are no solid objects.

791
00:58:01,810 --> 00:58:04,364
No, there are not.

792
00:58:04,453 --> 00:58:07,587
Well, if there are no solid objects
at the subatomic level...

793
00:58:07,667 --> 00:58:10,959
...how are there solid
objects at any level?

794
00:58:11,047 --> 00:58:12,767
That's the amazing thing.

795
00:58:12,905 --> 00:58:17,944
This simple question, what
makes this rock so solid?

796
00:58:18,024 --> 00:58:21,172
...goes way beyond our
power of imagination.

797
00:58:21,244 --> 00:58:25,260
I mean, I cannot explain
this to you in visual terms.

798
00:58:25,340 --> 00:58:27,781
Of course I can do it in
mathematical equations...

799
00:58:27,851 --> 00:58:30,380
...but there's no metaphor for it.

800
00:58:30,453 --> 00:58:33,741
How can you live in a
world that's unmetaphorical?

801
00:58:33,812 --> 00:58:37,539
I mean, you have to
perceive reality in some way.

802
00:58:37,642 --> 00:58:40,242
I mean, this is solid.

803
00:58:41,197 --> 00:58:43,476
O.K.

804
00:58:43,597 --> 00:58:48,385
Let's take an atom from
within this granite...

805
00:58:48,465 --> 00:58:51,518
...the silicon atom with
its 14 electrons.

806
00:58:51,623 --> 00:58:59,794
The probability patterns of these
electrons arrange themselves...

807
00:58:59,873 --> 00:59:05,574
...like shells around the nucleus,
each shell containing several electrons.

808
00:59:05,654 --> 00:59:10,821
Within the shells the electrons are
every where at the same time...

809
00:59:10,887 --> 00:59:15,723
...so to speak, but the probability
patterns that resemble shells...

810
00:59:16,267 --> 00:59:21,125
...are extremely stable and
very hard to compress.

811
00:59:21,628 --> 00:59:27,385
Matter is solid because probability
patterns are difficult to compress?

812
00:59:27,477 --> 00:59:30,215
That's as good as it gets.

813
00:59:30,304 --> 00:59:33,467
So I was right to sleep
through Mr. Gides' physic class...

814
00:59:33,539 --> 00:59:36,108
...that model he made me out
of tinker toys with sticks...

815
00:59:36,187 --> 00:59:38,956
- ...and balls that was wrong, right?
- Right, wrong.

816
00:59:39,538 --> 00:59:44,831
Yeah, it's a lousy visualization,
but then, no one did it any better.

817
00:59:44,838 --> 00:59:48,069
"If the doors of perception were
cleansed everything would...

818
00:59:48,074 --> 00:59:51,629
...appear as it is, infinite."
William Blake.

819
01:00:16,254 --> 01:00:21,693
So, Sonia, life's a bunch of
probability patterns running around.

820
01:00:22,133 --> 01:00:26,560
- Probability patterns of what?
- Of interconnections.

821
01:00:27,320 --> 01:00:29,536
What?

822
01:00:29,962 --> 01:00:34,854
Well, what I'm trying to say is
that this probabilities are not...

823
01:00:34,942 --> 01:00:40,753
...probabilities of things, but
probabilities of interconnections.

824
01:00:40,818 --> 01:00:43,165
See, Jack. That's what
she was trying to tell you.

825
01:00:43,213 --> 01:00:48,191
See, we tend to think of subatomic
particles are some kind of small...

826
01:00:48,255 --> 01:00:51,719
...billiards balls or small grains of sand.

827
01:00:51,759 --> 01:00:55,810
But for physicists a particle
has no independent existence.

828
01:00:56,387 --> 01:01:02,805
A particle is essentially a
set of relations that reach...

829
01:01:02,908 --> 01:01:06,335
...outward to connect
with other things.

830
01:01:06,423 --> 01:01:08,153
What are those other
things, please?

831
01:01:08,225 --> 01:01:11,721
They're interconnections of
yet other things which also...

832
01:01:11,802 --> 01:01:14,890
...turn out to be interconnections,
and so on, and so on.

833
01:01:14,946 --> 01:01:19,009
In atomic physics we never
end up with any things at all.

834
01:01:19,489 --> 01:01:26,855
The essential nature of matter lies
not in objects, but in interconnections.

835
01:01:29,705 --> 01:01:33,352
Everybody knows the chord, it's a
third, the most basic of harmonies.

836
01:01:33,440 --> 01:01:35,942
It carries with it a very
distinctive feeling, no?

837
01:01:36,047 --> 01:01:40,502
And yet it's individual notes
carry none of that feeling.

838
01:01:41,030 --> 01:01:45,185
Therefore, the essence of
the chord lies in its--

839
01:01:45,257 --> 01:01:47,609
Lies in relationships.

840
01:01:47,865 --> 01:01:51,926
And then the relationship
between time and pitch...

841
01:01:52,888 --> 01:01:55,359
- Makes melody.
- Makes melody.

842
01:01:57,279 --> 01:02:02,655
- Relationships make music.
- Relationships make matter.

843
01:02:02,753 --> 01:02:06,304
- Music of the spheres.
- As Kepler said.

844
01:02:06,376 --> 01:02:10,547
- And Shakespeare before him.
- And Pythagoras before him.

845
01:02:10,995 --> 01:02:13,964
Now, this vision of the universe
arranged in harmonies of...

846
01:02:14,043 --> 01:02:17,347
...sounds and relations
is no new discovery.

847
01:02:17,802 --> 01:02:21,146
Today, physicists are simply proving
that what we call an object...

848
01:02:21,226 --> 01:02:28,146
...an atom, a molecule, a particle,
is only an approximation, a metaphor.

849
01:02:28,209 --> 01:02:32,507
At the subatomic level, it
dissolves into a series of...

850
01:02:32,554 --> 01:02:37,539
...interconnections like chords
of music. It's beautiful.

851
01:02:37,635 --> 01:02:40,140
Yeah, but there are
boundaries, aren't there?

852
01:02:40,220 --> 01:02:43,826
I mean, between you
and me, for instance.

853
01:02:44,523 --> 01:02:50,679
We are two separate bodies, aren't
we? That's not an illusion. Is it?

854
01:02:52,624 --> 01:02:57,208
Are you saying that there
is a physical connection...

855
01:02:57,295 --> 01:03:01,470
...between you and me, and
you and the wall behind you...

856
01:03:01,526 --> 01:03:06,005
- ...and the air and this bench?
- Yes.

857
01:03:08,749 --> 01:03:13,247
At the subatomic level there
is a continual exchange of...

858
01:03:13,327 --> 01:03:17,190
...matter and energy between
my hand and this wood...

859
01:03:17,655 --> 01:03:23,966
...between the wood and the air,
and even between you and me.

860
01:03:24,054 --> 01:03:27,814
I mean a real exchange of
photons and electrons.

861
01:03:27,880 --> 01:03:31,022
Ultimately, whether
we like it or not...

862
01:03:31,086 --> 01:03:36,438
...we're all part of one
inseparable web of relationships.

863
01:04:02,797 --> 01:04:08,528
- How does all this explain light?
- Yes, finally, light.

864
01:04:09,472 --> 01:04:12,555
Light doesn't need a medium
because although it...

865
01:04:12,635 --> 01:04:16,333
...travels in waves, it also
travels as particles.

866
01:04:18,678 --> 01:04:21,093
Light is both particles and waves?

867
01:04:21,158 --> 01:04:25,998
Yes, but the particles of light,
which we call photons...

868
01:04:26,382 --> 01:04:29,033
...are of a very special kind.

869
01:04:29,472 --> 01:04:32,329
Unlike other particles,
they never stands still.

870
01:04:32,738 --> 01:04:35,184
They never speed up,
they never slow down.

871
01:04:35,272 --> 01:04:38,921
They always travel at the same
speed. The speed of light.

872
01:04:39,023 --> 01:04:43,379
And the waves are not
ordinary waves, like water waves.

873
01:04:43,459 --> 01:04:49,007
They're abstract patterns of
probabilities traveling in the form...

874
01:04:49,079 --> 01:04:52,119
- ...of waves.  -Patterns of
relationships like everything else?

875
01:04:52,207 --> 01:04:54,761
- Exactly.
- I get it...

876
01:04:56,243 --> 01:05:00,386
Well, I don't get it.
But I... I get it.

877
01:05:01,522 --> 01:05:03,537
Let there be light.

878
01:05:03,635 --> 01:05:08,740
And like light, a great variety of
other high-energy particles...

879
01:05:08,828 --> 01:05:11,463
...cosmic rays bombard the earth.

880
01:05:11,527 --> 01:05:15,275
All these particles colliding
with the air creating...

881
01:05:15,363 --> 01:05:18,396
...more particles, interacting
further, creating and...

882
01:05:18,467 --> 01:05:22,403
...destroying more particles, and we
are in the middle of this cosmic...

883
01:05:22,466 --> 01:05:27,423
...dance of creation and destruction.
All of us, all the time.

884
01:05:27,487 --> 01:05:30,983
- Shiva Nataraj.
- I beg your pardon?

885
01:05:31,080 --> 01:05:34,004
Shiva Nataraj.
The hindu god of dance.

886
01:05:34,067 --> 01:05:37,417
The hindus believe that Shiva's
dance sustains the universe...

887
01:05:37,488 --> 01:05:42,906
...that Shiva's dance IS the universe.
A ceaseless flow of energy going...

888
01:05:42,969 --> 01:05:46,318
...through a multiplicity of patterns
dissolving into one another...

889
01:05:46,390 --> 01:05:48,478
- That's physics.
- No, that's poetry.

890
01:05:49,358 --> 01:05:53,564
That's wonderful.
No, really. That's great.

891
01:05:53,654 --> 01:05:56,606
But I hope it doesn't bother anybody.

892
01:05:56,669 --> 01:06:00,366
What do you do with this?
What's it for?

893
01:06:00,431 --> 01:06:02,606
You don't do anything
with it, I don't think.

894
01:06:02,686 --> 01:06:04,512
You just think about it,
just contemplate it.

895
01:06:04,591 --> 01:06:08,078
You guys hungry? I'm hungry.
Let's go get something to eat.

896
01:06:20,014 --> 01:06:24,472
How can they do that here? I mean,
how can they do that anywhere?

897
01:06:24,535 --> 01:06:27,030
- It's your fault.
- What?!

898
01:06:27,664 --> 01:06:29,713
Well, O.K., it's not your fault.

899
01:06:29,792 --> 01:06:31,854
It's physicists' fault.
They made the bomb.

900
01:06:31,910 --> 01:06:35,735
Well, you can't blame
littering on the bomb.

901
01:06:35,824 --> 01:06:39,224
Why not? The bomb made
the whole planet disposable.

902
01:06:39,295 --> 01:06:42,042
Littering is an expression
of powerlessness.

903
01:06:42,115 --> 01:06:44,280
Like, "hey, what difference
does more crap make?"

904
01:06:44,376 --> 01:06:46,649
It's all going anyway.
Kaplooey!

905
01:06:46,736 --> 01:06:48,814
Maybe you're right.

906
01:06:53,656 --> 01:06:58,488
You know, I visited
Hiroshima 10 years ago.

907
01:06:59,272 --> 01:07:01,751
I went to the museums.

908
01:07:01,847 --> 01:07:05,457
I saw the photographs
of devastation.

909
01:07:05,544 --> 01:07:09,009
I went to the Peace Park.

910
01:07:09,753 --> 01:07:15,081
Looked at all the monuments...
the statue of a mother with a baby...

911
01:07:15,153 --> 01:07:19,642
...the statue of a goddess
enveloped in paper cranes...

912
01:07:20,282 --> 01:07:22,404
...Big Peace Bell.

913
01:07:24,572 --> 01:07:29,893
And then I saw a mound about
6 feet high covered with grass.

914
01:07:29,973 --> 01:07:32,297
It wasn't decorated in any way.

915
01:07:32,353 --> 01:07:36,394
It wasn't a symbol of
anything, no monument.

916
01:07:39,940 --> 01:07:44,978
It simply contained the ashes
of the atomic bomb victims.

917
01:07:45,507 --> 01:07:50,755
The actual remains of what was
left of tens, maybe hundreds...

918
01:07:50,819 --> 01:07:54,332
...and thousands of men and
women and children...

919
01:07:56,220 --> 01:07:59,114
...incinerated because
of our knowledge.

920
01:07:59,947 --> 01:08:07,988
A flash of light that burned them
and obliterated them and totally...

921
01:08:08,067 --> 01:08:12,924
...transformed the world.

922
01:08:13,619 --> 01:08:18,668
And as I stood in front of
that mound of ashes I...

923
01:08:19,829 --> 01:08:25,010
...felt that I was face-to-face
with the victims of--

924
01:08:27,492 --> 01:08:30,875
I can't say it. The victims of...

925
01:08:30,923 --> 01:08:35,115
...my work as a
scientist, as a physicist.

926
01:08:40,196 --> 01:08:42,229
I cried.

927
01:08:47,837 --> 01:08:50,734
When I was little, up on the
third floor with my brother...

928
01:08:50,823 --> 01:08:54,077
...we'd lay on our beds watching
the heat lightning flashes...

929
01:08:54,149 --> 01:08:55,714
...and he'd say "What's that?"

930
01:08:55,820 --> 01:08:59,852
And I'd say "That's it, that's the
big one, we're all going to die."

931
01:09:00,418 --> 01:09:04,406
You can't make yourself responsible
for Hiroshima, Sonia...

932
01:09:04,462 --> 01:09:06,654
...just because you do physics.

933
01:09:06,734 --> 01:09:09,886
You didn't invent the bomb. And
even if you had, somebody...

934
01:09:10,045 --> 01:09:12,787
...else decided to use
it, a politician.

935
01:09:13,740 --> 01:09:16,357
Oppenheimer said he felt he
had blood on his hands...

936
01:09:16,437 --> 01:09:18,645
...and he did invented it.
President Truman's answer was...

937
01:09:18,701 --> 01:09:20,405
"Who the hell does he think he is?

938
01:09:20,484 --> 01:09:22,990
I'm the one who ordered
them to drop the damn thing."

939
01:09:23,069 --> 01:09:25,077
Even Oppenheimer wasn't to blame.

940
01:09:25,150 --> 01:09:28,352
Scientists are supposed to figure
things out, the rest of us figure...

941
01:09:28,448 --> 01:09:30,848
...out what to do about it.

942
01:09:30,920 --> 01:09:33,272
I'm sorry, Sonia. I was kidding.

943
01:09:33,840 --> 01:09:37,631
Maybe littering is more an expression
of poor toilet training, hmm?

944
01:09:38,232 --> 01:09:42,117
I don't know, maybe we
could change the subject.

945
01:09:42,980 --> 01:09:47,732
There's no accountability for
scientists as there is for...

946
01:09:47,836 --> 01:09:49,637
...other professions.

947
01:09:49,709 --> 01:09:52,012
Why aren't we obliged, like
medical doctors, to not...

948
01:09:52,069 --> 01:09:54,973
...use our knowledge destructively?

949
01:09:55,037 --> 01:09:57,676
It's not that simple. I don't think.

950
01:09:57,748 --> 01:10:00,766
Oppenheimer said he had
blood in his hands.

951
01:10:00,836 --> 01:10:03,422
He had regrets after the fact.

952
01:10:04,021 --> 01:10:07,526
I have regrets because
of my x-ray laser.

953
01:10:08,142 --> 01:10:12,262
See, I'm responsible for the
consequences of my discovery.

954
01:10:14,199 --> 01:10:19,123
You know, we never talked about
responsibility at the university...

955
01:10:19,196 --> 01:10:22,315
...not in my time.
We never discussed ethics.

956
01:10:22,396 --> 01:10:25,172
We were never taught value thinking.

957
01:10:25,236 --> 01:10:30,252
No one induced upon us the
wisdom of the american...

958
01:10:30,324 --> 01:10:34,003
...indian tribes who made all their...

959
01:10:34,098 --> 01:10:37,445
...important decisions with the
seventh generation in mind.

960
01:10:39,188 --> 01:10:42,565
We were never taught to think
about the future that way.

961
01:10:42,653 --> 01:10:46,628
We were taught in our closed rooms
that we were doing pure science...

962
01:10:47,252 --> 01:10:55,638
...in pursuit of pure truth.
The noble pursuit of pure truth.

963
01:10:56,408 --> 01:10:59,581
Well, that's what science is, Sonia.
Don't be so hard on yourself.

964
01:10:59,678 --> 01:11:05,589
No, that's what science was maybe,
but pure science hardly exists today.

965
01:11:05,677 --> 01:11:09,237
The scientist isn't sitting in his
lab anymore choosing to work...

966
01:11:09,317 --> 01:11:13,300
...on what fascinates him most.
Science is expensive.

967
01:11:13,371 --> 01:11:18,022
The Pentagon, who pays most of it,
decides what is fascinating.

968
01:11:18,070 --> 01:11:25,220
70% of all science done in the United
States today is paid by the military.

969
01:11:25,284 --> 01:11:30,669
We give our knowledge away without
thinking about the values...

970
01:11:30,734 --> 01:11:33,710
...without thinking about
who is responsible.

971
01:11:34,174 --> 01:11:36,103
But there is oversight.

972
01:11:36,167 --> 01:11:38,396
I've served on some of those
oversight committees.

973
01:11:38,460 --> 01:11:43,460
Scientism is any rational belief
in the truth of science.

974
01:11:45,574 --> 01:11:48,307
It's become a religion today.

975
01:11:48,379 --> 01:11:52,543
It's not a good religion, but
it is a dominating religion.

976
01:11:53,126 --> 01:11:57,606
And people, of course, who see
what miracles physicists...

977
01:11:57,670 --> 01:12:01,983
...are able to achieve, like going to
outer space, splitting atoms...

978
01:12:02,046 --> 01:12:06,285
...or making bombs, believe that
scientists who are so powerful...

979
01:12:06,359 --> 01:12:10,830
...also must be very wise, and
so they don't question their...

980
01:12:10,910 --> 01:12:15,152
...work anymore and they leave
their own responsibility in the...

981
01:12:15,215 --> 01:12:21,135
...hands of these people they envision
to have this power of knowledge.

982
01:12:23,073 --> 01:12:25,951
And although they know that
scientists are doing scary...

983
01:12:26,032 --> 01:12:29,529
...things in the shadows, they just
hope that they will be careful.

984
01:12:30,672 --> 01:12:35,057
And then scientists hand
over THEIR responsibility...

985
01:12:35,121 --> 01:12:37,840
...to those who are paying them.

986
01:12:38,513 --> 01:12:43,041
And I know what happens when
you hand over your responsibility...

987
01:12:43,106 --> 01:12:47,596
...to those who pay you,
like I did with my laser.

988
01:12:49,541 --> 01:12:52,399
It broke my heart.

989
01:12:52,583 --> 01:12:55,503
If you're worried about the possible
dangers of genetic engineering...

990
01:12:55,566 --> 01:12:58,207
...you get advice from a scientist.

991
01:12:58,279 --> 01:13:00,528
He's the only one who understands.

992
01:13:00,584 --> 01:13:03,207
You pretty much have to
take his word for it too...

993
01:13:03,287 --> 01:13:06,878
...because often you don't
know even what questions to ask.

994
01:13:09,468 --> 01:13:13,279
Science should welcome your
questions, because science...

995
01:13:13,341 --> 01:13:15,711
...itself should question everything.

996
01:13:15,775 --> 01:13:19,205
You know, this oversight committees
hold hearings from time to time...

997
01:13:19,773 --> 01:13:24,812
...where the public is invited to
comment, maybe you should be there.

998
01:13:24,883 --> 01:13:27,717
Personally, you might be
able to do some good.

999
01:13:30,491 --> 01:13:33,531
He's still running. Only the
Terminator can stop him.

1000
01:13:34,269 --> 01:13:36,292
Should we get the check?

1001
01:13:36,388 --> 01:13:39,716
- I'll pay.
- Oh, no, no.

1002
01:13:47,000 --> 01:13:51,460
1968, Chicago.
Democratic Convention.

1003
01:13:51,521 --> 01:13:54,588
The cops are getting ready the charge
the demonstrator and I'm standing...

1004
01:13:54,654 --> 01:13:57,818
...next to this guy who I've never
before seen, and I say to him...

1005
01:13:57,861 --> 01:14:02,683
"Well, I'm going home". He says
"Don't go home, go into politics"

1006
01:14:02,750 --> 01:14:04,742
...and like a fool, I listened to him.

1007
01:14:04,794 --> 01:14:08,971
That guy was Jack who is today
a conservative democrat...

1008
01:14:09,031 --> 01:14:11,504
...whatever the hell that is.

1009
01:14:11,505 --> 01:14:14,964
I was working for a delegate,
I wasn't even a demonstrator.

1010
01:14:15,047 --> 01:14:18,891
I was just trying to get into the Hall.
Then the cops charged the crowd.

1011
01:14:18,948 --> 01:14:23,388
We all got tear-gassed, I broke my nose.
We spent the night in Mayor Daley's jail.

1012
01:14:25,007 --> 01:14:27,657
Whatever happened to all those people?

1013
01:14:27,721 --> 01:14:31,609
Jesse Jackson got most of them.
The rest went to sleep.

1014
01:14:31,680 --> 01:14:34,267
I don't mean politically, Jack.
The primaries are over.

1015
01:14:34,331 --> 01:14:37,951
Personally... whatever happened to them?
Where they live? What do they do?

1016
01:14:38,020 --> 01:14:39,505
I don't know personally.

1017
01:14:39,613 --> 01:14:42,024
But politically, the Green Party
got them, at least in Europe.

1018
01:14:42,097 --> 01:14:45,661
Peace activists, environmentalists,
the feminists, the students left...

1019
01:14:45,759 --> 01:14:48,814
...the Green Party got them all.

1020
01:14:48,864 --> 01:14:50,647
What happened to them really?

1021
01:14:50,715 --> 01:14:53,856
I think it proves that ecological thinking
is getting stronger and stronger...

1022
01:14:53,933 --> 01:14:58,941
...people who see the whole picture,
who see that all these questions...

1023
01:14:58,997 --> 01:15:01,159
...are related to each other.

1024
01:15:01,208 --> 01:15:04,860
- She's back.
- And Gorvachev?

1025
01:15:04,905 --> 01:15:08,108
Gorvachev? Was he at the
Chicago Demonstration?

1026
01:15:11,742 --> 01:15:14,870
Mom. I thought you
were with those men.

1027
01:15:14,930 --> 01:15:20,353
- I am. They're out there. Hello, Roman.
- Bonjour, Madame.

1028
01:15:24,916 --> 01:15:29,691
We're going to the beach.
I'm changing my shoes.

1029
01:15:33,718 --> 01:15:37,186
- What's the trouble?
- Nothing.

1030
01:15:38,370 --> 01:15:43,033
- Did I do something wrong?
- No, it's...

1031
01:15:43,078 --> 01:15:47,819
...just I can't stand you talking
about what's wrong with the world...

1032
01:15:47,892 --> 01:15:52,122
...and your new vision of reality,
when what I hear is that...

1033
01:15:52,200 --> 01:15:55,157
...you're talking about
your own problems.

1034
01:15:55,251 --> 01:16:00,028
How your self feel disconnected,
I mean, you can't even relate to me.

1035
01:16:02,491 --> 01:16:08,299
- Are you coming with us this time?
- Yeah. Come, Kit. Please.

1036
01:16:13,808 --> 01:16:17,251
- Do you mind if I go?
- No.

1037
01:16:17,890 --> 01:16:22,142
I like Jack. Be real with him.
Don't bore him to death.

1038
01:16:22,225 --> 01:16:26,207
- Kit, he's a married man.
- It could do you some good.

1039
01:16:39,774 --> 01:16:42,987
In the 1968, Richard Nixon
won the youth vote.

1040
01:16:44,358 --> 01:16:47,869
In 1980 and 1984 Ronald
Reagan did the same thing.

1041
01:16:49,896 --> 01:16:52,585
Majority of americans
are very conservative.

1042
01:16:54,450 --> 01:16:58,424
I think we are dealing with a historical
process that's so deep that...

1043
01:16:58,487 --> 01:17:01,326
...even americans won't be
able to resist it much longer.

1044
01:17:01,398 --> 01:17:05,829
When I look around in the sciences, I see
the same patterns emerging everywhere...

1045
01:17:05,871 --> 01:17:10,285
...the same notions of holism, the same
thinking in terms of processes...

1046
01:17:10,341 --> 01:17:14,650
...instead of structures. It's happening
in America too, because once something...

1047
01:17:14,700 --> 01:17:17,467
...takes hold in the sciences, it will spread.

1048
01:17:17,527 --> 01:17:20,370
It always has, whether we like it or not.

1049
01:17:22,065 --> 01:17:24,800
I'm glad to hear you say that.

1050
01:17:25,516 --> 01:17:28,078
I thought you'd given up on America.

1051
01:17:42,992 --> 01:17:45,279
What's wrong with him?

1052
01:17:46,370 --> 01:17:49,136
The color has probably caught him.

1053
01:17:49,720 --> 01:17:53,019
He's a poet.
He's got a license to be moody.

1054
01:17:54,928 --> 01:17:58,410
It's taken him miles from his
home, but it's kept him free.

1055
01:17:59,635 --> 01:18:05,867
I sometimes think he can change
his thoughts, his point of view...

1056
01:18:05,975 --> 01:18:08,046
...about anything anytime he wants.

1057
01:18:08,110 --> 01:18:10,641
When he meets someone like
you who sees things in a...

1058
01:18:10,706 --> 01:18:13,668
...completely new way, he's
totally free to go along with it.

1059
01:18:13,731 --> 01:18:18,183
And should you succeed in really
changing his views and win him over.

1060
01:18:18,239 --> 01:18:22,800
You can be sure, he'd put those
new ideas into a play or...

1061
01:18:22,846 --> 01:18:27,533
...a poem and people would
admire him for his flexibility.

1062
01:18:27,592 --> 01:18:32,567
And you... you feel
constrained by your constituency.

1063
01:18:33,215 --> 01:18:35,096
Yeah, kind of.

1064
01:18:36,557 --> 01:18:38,777
They want me to be the good
old conservative democrat...

1065
01:18:38,862 --> 01:18:42,012
...they voted for and
basically, that's what I am.

1066
01:18:42,773 --> 01:18:47,310
Anyway, I'm supposed to represent
them. It's not all up to me.

1067
01:18:48,188 --> 01:18:52,474
It's supposed to be the will of the people
that sets the course and the government...

1068
01:18:52,558 --> 01:18:55,845
...that finds the means, the best
way to give the folks what they want.

1069
01:18:56,531 --> 01:19:04,028
Of course, it's all a mess right now.
The problems are so complex.

1070
01:19:04,098 --> 01:19:07,572
There's so much crossover
from one problem to another.

1071
01:19:07,640 --> 01:19:10,191
It's hard for people to even
begin to think about them.

1072
01:19:14,783 --> 01:19:18,771
But still... I think Thomas Jefferson
was every bit as...

1073
01:19:18,835 --> 01:19:22,217
...great a mind as Isaac Newton was.

1074
01:19:22,272 --> 01:19:24,895
I doubt if there's been a better
form of government...

1075
01:19:24,975 --> 01:19:28,214
...anywhere in history ever and,
of course, getting into...

1076
01:19:28,278 --> 01:19:31,444
...politics is nothing to be ashamed of.

1077
01:19:31,508 --> 01:19:34,417
To me it's still the biggest
challenge there is.

1078
01:19:36,172 --> 01:19:39,581
But things are changing
faster and faster every day.

1079
01:19:40,375 --> 01:19:43,679
A few years back, the greenhouse
effect was just a theory...

1080
01:19:43,737 --> 01:19:46,449
...and now... we're
just not keeping up.

1081
01:19:46,541 --> 01:19:49,603
But, Sonia, the question is,
can you ideas change that?

1082
01:19:49,670 --> 01:19:52,045
Hasn't a lot of what we've
talked about been discussed...

1083
01:19:52,098 --> 01:19:56,720
...and recognized already, recognized
in all the environmental legislation?

1084
01:19:56,787 --> 01:20:01,343
Clean water in '72. Clean air in '77.
12, 14 years ago.

1085
01:20:01,406 --> 01:20:02,790
And we're still falling behind.

1086
01:20:02,859 --> 01:20:05,195
So can your ideas make
these things move faster?

1087
01:20:05,462 --> 01:20:08,630
I mean, if you're going
to wait for most of the...

1088
01:20:08,696 --> 01:20:11,400
people to be ready to go along
with you, before you move...

1089
01:20:11,464 --> 01:20:13,528
which is what you have to do...

1090
01:20:14,813 --> 01:20:17,407
I'm sure you're not a secret
lover of dictatorships, but...

1091
01:20:17,501 --> 01:20:22,996
...wouldn't it take some totalitarian
regime to put ideas as comprehensive...

1092
01:20:23,061 --> 01:20:29,141
...as yours into effect? So, how
does all this translate into politics?

1093
01:20:30,320 --> 01:20:33,431
Is this just going to be the best
conversation I've had in months or is...

1094
01:20:33,494 --> 01:20:36,060
...there still a chance you can get me
elected president? That's what I...

1095
01:20:36,144 --> 01:20:41,589
- ...want to know.
- You're still asking me for a program.

1096
01:20:41,653 --> 01:20:45,851
I'm trying to make you
embrace a vision...

1097
01:20:46,429 --> 01:20:49,515
...but you just want to know
what the packaging is.

1098
01:20:49,579 --> 01:20:53,461
I'm a practical man.
I'm from Missouri.

1099
01:20:53,509 --> 01:20:59,700
- I thought you were from the east coast.
- That's an expression. It means: Show Me.

1100
01:21:00,860 --> 01:21:04,049
Devising policies, that's your job.

1101
01:21:05,889 --> 01:21:09,978
I do think that as long as you
continue looking at things...

1102
01:21:10,047 --> 01:21:13,960
...through that old
patriarchal-cartesian-newtonian lens...

1103
01:21:14,024 --> 01:21:17,393
...you're going to miss out
on what the world really is.

1104
01:21:19,000 --> 01:21:24,878
You, we, all of us, we need a new vision
of the world and we need a more...

1105
01:21:24,979 --> 01:21:29,282
...comprehensive, more
inclusive science to support us.

1106
01:21:31,474 --> 01:21:36,039
There is a new theory emerging
now which places all the ecological...

1107
01:21:36,104 --> 01:21:41,710
...concepts we've talking about into
one coherent, scientific framework.

1108
01:21:41,779 --> 01:21:48,443
We call it Systems Theory,
the theory of living systems.

1109
01:21:48,496 --> 01:21:51,422
Living systems?

1110
01:21:51,487 --> 01:21:57,980
All living organisms as well as
social systems and ecosystems.

1111
01:21:58,996 --> 01:22:02,176
This theory would help us get
a much firmer grasp on...

1112
01:22:02,264 --> 01:22:04,745
...the sciences that deal with life.

1113
01:22:04,822 --> 01:22:09,109
Are these all your own ideas,
or do other people share them?

1114
01:22:09,173 --> 01:22:12,507
Has these been applied
in the sciences anywhere?

1115
01:22:12,562 --> 01:22:16,969
Am I a crank?
It's O.K., senator.

1116
01:22:17,509 --> 01:22:21,997
This is real science, and many
scientists, including some...

1117
01:22:22,077 --> 01:22:26,559
...Nobel laureates, have
been working on these ideas...

1118
01:22:26,644 --> 01:22:32,157
Prigogine, Bateson, Maturana,
just to mention a few.

1119
01:22:33,477 --> 01:22:38,555
Yes, it is science,
but of a new kind.

1120
01:22:39,392 --> 01:22:44,137
Instead of concentrating on
basic building blocks, the...

1121
01:22:44,217 --> 01:22:48,707
...systems view concentrates
on principles of organization.

1122
01:22:48,781 --> 01:22:53,055
Instead of cutting things to
pieces, it looks at the...

1123
01:22:53,129 --> 01:22:56,541
...living system as a whole.

1124
01:22:57,815 --> 01:23:01,815
How can you think usefully about
things in this holistic way?

1125
01:23:01,878 --> 01:23:06,884
You can contemplate them, you
can look at them, as Thomas says...

1126
01:23:07,445 --> 01:23:11,495
But if you want to do something,
if you want to get into specifics...

1127
01:23:11,535 --> 01:23:14,645
...by definition, don't you
have to take things apart?

1128
01:23:15,286 --> 01:23:19,692
How you can talk usefully about
a tree without talking...

1129
01:23:19,768 --> 01:23:23,174
...about its roots, or
its leaves or its bark?

1130
01:23:23,233 --> 01:23:27,325
Well, I could without even
naming the parts you mention.

1131
01:23:27,412 --> 01:23:31,771
A cartesian would look at
the tree and conceptually take...

1132
01:23:31,823 --> 01:23:35,869
...it to pieces, but then he
would never really understand...

1133
01:23:35,945 --> 01:23:38,189
...the nature of the tree.

1134
01:23:38,257 --> 01:23:41,925
A systems thinker would look
at the tree and see the...

1135
01:23:41,985 --> 01:23:46,553
...seasonal exchange between
tree and earth, earth and sky.

1136
01:23:47,114 --> 01:23:52,548
Would see the annual cycle,
which really is one big breath...

1137
01:23:52,613 --> 01:23:58,017
...the earth takes through its
forests, providing us with oxygen.

1138
01:23:58,093 --> 01:24:05,123
A breath of life, linking the earth
with the sky and us with the universe.

1139
01:24:05,201 --> 01:24:12,266
A systems thinker would look at the
tree and see the life of the tree...

1140
01:24:12,344 --> 01:24:16,148
...only in relation to the
life of the whole forest.

1141
01:24:17,296 --> 01:24:22,612
Would see the tree as a habitat
for birds, a home for insects.

1142
01:24:23,527 --> 01:24:29,636
But if you look at the tree and try to
understand it as something separate...

1143
01:24:29,692 --> 01:24:34,013
...you will be bewildered by the
millions of fruits it's producing...

1144
01:24:34,090 --> 01:24:40,121
...in its lifetime because only one or
two trees will grow from those fruits.

1145
01:24:40,803 --> 01:24:45,851
Though if you look at the tree
and see it as a member of a...

1146
01:24:45,946 --> 01:24:50,708
...larger living system, that
abundance of fruits will make...

1147
01:24:50,783 --> 01:24:55,646
...sense, because hundreds upon
hundreds of forest animals...

1148
01:24:55,721 --> 01:25:01,485
...and birds will survive because
of them... Interdependence.

1149
01:25:01,561 --> 01:25:05,413
And the tree cannot
survive on its own, either.

1150
01:25:05,487 --> 01:25:08,509
To draw water from the ground
it needs the fungus that...

1151
01:25:08,601 --> 01:25:12,295
...grows at the tip of each root,
and the fungus needs the...

1152
01:25:12,377 --> 01:25:15,997
...root to survive, and
the root needs the fungus.

1153
01:25:16,068 --> 01:25:18,321
If one dies, the other dies.

1154
01:25:18,384 --> 01:25:22,706
And there are millions of
relationships like this in our world...

1155
01:25:22,790 --> 01:25:25,551
...each depending on
each other for life.

1156
01:25:27,281 --> 01:25:32,626
The Systems Theory recognizes
this web of relationships...

1157
01:25:32,682 --> 01:25:36,236
...as the essence of all living things.

1158
01:25:36,304 --> 01:25:40,535
Only the uninformed would call such
a notion naive or romantic...

1159
01:25:40,602 --> 01:25:46,480
...because this dependency we
all share is a scientific fact.

1160
01:25:46,533 --> 01:25:48,545
A web of relationships?

1161
01:25:48,600 --> 01:25:53,906
Yes, but this time it is
the web of life itself.

1162
01:25:53,982 --> 01:26:01,617
The theory of living systems actually
provides you with an outline...

1163
01:26:01,706 --> 01:26:07,985
...of an answer to that eternal
question: What is Life?

1164
01:26:10,708 --> 01:26:14,853
O.K., Sonia. Let's hear it.
What's life?

1165
01:26:14,921 --> 01:26:22,260
In system language the answer would be...
The Essence of Life is Self-Organization.

1166
01:26:23,486 --> 01:26:26,805
- What's so funny?
- That's great.

1167
01:26:28,130 --> 01:26:33,761
What is life, ma'am? Is self-organizing,
I mean, that's very nice.

1168
01:26:33,804 --> 01:26:35,940
That's very, very, very, nice.

1169
01:26:36,000 --> 01:26:38,699
That's very nice, ma'am.
That's very, very nice.

1170
01:26:38,722 --> 01:26:42,857
I don't know, it sounds like something
out of Alice in Wonderland.

1171
01:26:43,449 --> 01:26:47,401
Maybe somebody down here speaks
your language... Jabberwocky?

1172
01:26:49,775 --> 01:26:52,457
You know, as Merlin once
said to King Arthur...

1173
01:26:52,505 --> 01:26:56,076
"Don't dishonor your feast by
rejecting what's come to it"

1174
01:26:56,153 --> 01:26:59,497
Well said.
What is life?

1175
01:26:59,555 --> 01:27:04,552
Life is self-organizing.
Well, that's just extraordinary.

1176
01:27:04,636 --> 01:27:09,766
Yes, it is.
And it means something specific too.

1177
01:27:09,798 --> 01:27:17,076
It means that a living system is
self-maintaining, self-renewing...

1178
01:27:17,140 --> 01:27:20,580
- ...self-transcending.
- What does self-maintaining mean?

1179
01:27:21,578 --> 01:27:26,574
Well, it means that a living
system, although depending on...

1180
01:27:26,651 --> 01:27:30,444
...its environment, is
not determined by it.

1181
01:27:30,512 --> 01:27:34,025
Take the yellow fields of rye
around this island, with all...

1182
01:27:34,116 --> 01:27:37,492
...the rain here those fields
should be green all year round...

1183
01:27:37,587 --> 01:27:41,127
...but every summer
they turn yellow, why?

1184
01:27:41,215 --> 01:27:48,345
Well, to use a metaphor, each plant
"remembers" that it originated...

1185
01:27:48,408 --> 01:27:51,503
...in the hot and dry climate of
southern Asia, it remembers...

1186
01:27:51,567 --> 01:27:57,566
...and not even a dramatically different
climate can change its inner workings.

1187
01:27:57,668 --> 01:28:02,487
- Self-maintaining, self-organizing.
- I see.

1188
01:28:02,557 --> 01:28:06,140
What about self-renewing?
What does that mean?

1189
01:28:06,202 --> 01:28:11,617
Take us. Like all living organisms,
we are constantly replacing...

1190
01:28:11,673 --> 01:28:17,727
...ourselves in continuous cycles,
much faster than you can imagine.

1191
01:28:18,529 --> 01:28:22,126
You pancreas, for example,
do you know that it replaces most...

1192
01:28:22,202 --> 01:28:25,103
...of its cells within 24 hours?

1193
01:28:25,176 --> 01:28:28,072
That means that you wake up with
a new pancreas each morning...

1194
01:28:28,134 --> 01:28:30,776
...and a new stomach lining as well.

1195
01:28:30,829 --> 01:28:34,865
And you skin, do you know that
your skin falls off at the rate of...

1196
01:28:34,938 --> 01:28:38,327
...100,000 cells a minute?

1197
01:28:38,400 --> 01:28:42,294
Do you know that most of the
dust in our homes consists of our...

1198
01:28:42,370 --> 01:28:44,928
...own dead skin cells?

1199
01:28:44,982 --> 01:28:49,249
That'll get into a poem.
Our households are filled with dead skin.

1200
01:28:50,458 --> 01:28:55,087
But at the same time, as all
these dead cells are being shed...

1201
01:28:55,158 --> 01:28:58,806
...just as many are dividing
and producing new skin.

1202
01:28:59,895 --> 01:29:01,467
That's self-renewing.

1203
01:29:01,535 --> 01:29:04,572
As Heraclitus once said "A man
can't step into the same river...

1204
01:29:04,646 --> 01:29:07,874
...twice", Sonia says a man can't
shake hands with the same man...

1205
01:29:07,942 --> 01:29:11,372
- ...twice with the same hand, right?
- Yes and no.

1206
01:29:11,443 --> 01:29:14,949
Though most of our cells are
being replaced, we do recognize...

1207
01:29:15,018 --> 01:29:19,594
...each other because the
pattern of our organization...

1208
01:29:19,684 --> 01:29:22,421
...is still the same.

1209
01:29:22,490 --> 01:29:25,870
That's one of the important
characteristics of life...

1210
01:29:26,395 --> 01:29:32,296
...continuous structural change,
but stability in the pattern...

1211
01:29:32,363 --> 01:29:35,970
- ...of the system's organization.
- And that's all there is to life?

1212
01:29:36,048 --> 01:29:40,267
No, there is self-transcending.

1213
01:29:40,331 --> 01:29:45,253
Self-organization is not
only the living systems...

1214
01:29:45,298 --> 01:29:50,301
...maintaining themselves and
continuously renewing themselves.

1215
01:29:51,039 --> 01:29:55,969
It also means that they
have an inherent tendency to...

1216
01:29:56,049 --> 01:30:03,489
...transcend themselves, to
reach out and create new forms.

1217
01:30:04,382 --> 01:30:09,933
That is one of the most exciting
parts to me that the basic dynamics...

1218
01:30:10,013 --> 01:30:15,027
...of evolution it's not
adaptation, it's creativity.

1219
01:30:15,094 --> 01:30:18,079
You mean living systems will
evolve just for the hell of it?

1220
01:30:18,148 --> 01:30:20,764
They'll go exploring whether
they need it for survive or not?

1221
01:30:20,826 --> 01:30:23,622
I'm not so far out of
step as I usually suppose?

1222
01:30:23,686 --> 01:30:30,150
No, you're not. Creativity
is a basic element of evolution.

1223
01:30:30,226 --> 01:30:34,408
Every living organism has
the potential for creativity...

1224
01:30:34,500 --> 01:30:38,130
...for surprising and
transcending itself.

1225
01:30:38,193 --> 01:30:42,522
- Creating what, for instance, beauty?
- Oh, yes, beauty too.

1226
01:30:42,598 --> 01:30:47,972
Evolution is so much more than
adaptation to the environment...

1227
01:30:48,037 --> 01:30:54,376
...because what is the environment
if not a living system wich evolves...

1228
01:30:54,444 --> 01:31:02,042
...and creatively adapts itself?
So, which adapts to which?

1229
01:31:02,788 --> 01:31:07,790
Each to the other,
they... co-evolve.

1230
01:31:08,403 --> 01:31:16,193
Evolution is an ongoing dance,
an ongoing conversation.

1231
01:31:16,277 --> 01:31:19,311
We are systems, and
the planet is a system.

1232
01:31:20,096 --> 01:31:25,442
We don't evolve on the planet,
we evolve with the planet.

1233
01:31:25,497 --> 01:31:30,843
Wouldn't it be extraordinarily
powerful if you could introduce...

1234
01:31:30,907 --> 01:31:34,139
...just that one idea into
the political dialogue?

1235
01:31:34,203 --> 01:31:36,590
Yeah, Jack. There might be
something in this for you to...

1236
01:31:36,665 --> 01:31:40,965
...renew you candidacy,
while as for Sonia and myself--

1237
01:31:41,005 --> 01:31:45,193
I beg you're going to say it was
my destiny to come here and...

1238
01:31:45,217 --> 01:31:50,602
...meet Sonia and listen to these ideas.
What am I going to do about this?

1239
01:31:52,066 --> 01:31:55,009
I come from a country where
they use 40% of the world's...

1240
01:31:55,080 --> 01:31:58,306
...resources to support 6% of
the world's population, which...

1241
01:31:58,374 --> 01:32:01,286
...makes the population so
happy and peaceful that we're...

1242
01:32:01,358 --> 01:32:03,598
...the world's biggest drug market.

1243
01:32:03,662 --> 01:32:07,151
Half our teenagers contemplate
suicide, one in five girls has tried it.

1244
01:32:08,127 --> 01:32:11,597
Would a system thinker give
nuclear energy a second thought?

1245
01:32:11,688 --> 01:32:14,267
We're up to our necks
in all of its waste.

1246
01:32:14,358 --> 01:32:17,779
And the most important issue of
what you've just been saying...

1247
01:32:17,871 --> 01:32:23,157
...is the obsessive pursuit of
growth. That has to stop.

1248
01:32:23,232 --> 01:32:26,261
I know, I know.
I've been over this a hundred times...

1249
01:32:26,355 --> 01:32:29,874
...obsessive growth, pathological
growth, destructive growth...

1250
01:32:29,967 --> 01:32:32,351
...but how are you going to
get anybody to accept it?

1251
01:32:32,445 --> 01:32:35,462
What am I going to do?
Where do you start?

1252
01:32:35,529 --> 01:32:40,744
We have to give importance to
the next generation, and the next.

1253
01:32:41,586 --> 01:32:45,549
It was only when we
failed to include them in...

1254
01:32:45,650 --> 01:32:49,179
...our scientific theories, and
in our pursuit of growth...

1255
01:32:49,271 --> 01:32:52,862
...that we placed all
living systems in jeopardy.

1256
01:32:52,914 --> 01:32:59,714
Just contemplate that horrifying
fact that we are leaving to our...

1257
01:32:59,808 --> 01:33:04,893
...children the most poisonous
of wastes: plutonium.

1258
01:33:05,362 --> 01:33:09,256
It's going to remain poisonous
for the next generation...

1259
01:33:09,300 --> 01:33:11,135
...and the next, and the next.

1260
01:33:11,211 --> 01:33:15,388
In fact, it's going to remain
poisonous for a half million years.

1261
01:33:15,458 --> 01:33:19,886
We should never have accepted
that theory "Knowledge is power".

1262
01:33:19,954 --> 01:33:22,663
We should never have accepted
the idea that what's good for...

1263
01:33:22,728 --> 01:33:29,067
...General Motors is good for America.
We need a sustainable society.

1264
01:33:29,121 --> 01:33:32,857
One in which our needs are being
satisfied without diminishing...

1265
01:33:32,959 --> 01:33:36,671
...the possibilities of
the next generation.

1266
01:33:36,747 --> 01:33:40,777
You're asking me--
You're asking me what should you do?

1267
01:33:40,848 --> 01:33:43,396
I don't know what you should do.
You know what you should do.

1268
01:33:43,452 --> 01:33:47,648
I know that what worked for me
was to come here, be quiet...

1269
01:33:48,633 --> 01:33:54,279
...and take one thing at a time,
think one thought to its end.

1270
01:33:54,334 --> 01:34:00,682
Now, that was my first real step...
Telling you was my second.

1271
01:34:00,744 --> 01:34:02,687
You can't pass the buck that easily.

1272
01:34:03,897 --> 01:34:07,193
How about doing something
direct about this?

1273
01:34:07,245 --> 01:34:11,245
How about helping me?
How about joining my staff?

1274
01:34:11,957 --> 01:34:14,501
What--
What do you mean?

1275
01:34:14,566 --> 01:34:16,036
I don't know...

1276
01:34:16,103 --> 01:34:19,524
Finding a way to get these ideas of
yours into the political mainstream.

1277
01:34:20,174 --> 01:34:23,978
You say the ideas are practical,
I'll give you a chance to prove it.

1278
01:34:24,045 --> 01:34:28,378
It would be a frustrating work,
you'd have to watch a lot of lying...

1279
01:34:28,456 --> 01:34:31,968
...and wheeling and dealing and
learns how to compromise, too.

1280
01:34:32,025 --> 01:34:35,200
You'd have to get your hands dirty.

1281
01:34:36,953 --> 01:34:43,211
I get them dirty the way I
want here, in my Ivory Tower...

1282
01:34:43,291 --> 01:34:47,212
...where I can sit and think.

1283
01:34:47,936 --> 01:34:51,658
Jack, with his tenacious
pursuit of the common good, not...

1284
01:34:51,726 --> 01:34:55,205
...to mention his own career,
just doesn't seem to understand...

1285
01:34:55,254 --> 01:34:57,517
...how an individual
could want to get away...

1286
01:34:58,042 --> 01:35:01,611
...a long, long way away,
thousands and thousands and...

1287
01:35:01,672 --> 01:35:03,927
...thousands of miles away.

1288
01:35:03,980 --> 01:35:07,153
So you can be a voice crying
in the wilderness instead...

1289
01:35:07,225 --> 01:35:11,606
...of being one of many voices trying
to be heard over the clamor?

1290
01:35:12,123 --> 01:35:16,744
Believe me, I can
appreciate being here...

1291
01:35:17,285 --> 01:35:20,570
I can understand why
that would be nice...

1292
01:35:23,084 --> 01:35:27,095
I see the pedestrian
nature of political work, but...

1293
01:35:27,657 --> 01:35:33,494
Look, if you're going to say no,
don't say anything just think it over.

1294
01:35:47,392 --> 01:35:49,710
What time does the tide actually come in?

1295
01:35:49,771 --> 01:35:54,339
It will be soon now. It's going
to reach its all-year high today.

1296
01:35:54,392 --> 01:35:59,578
We can go closer.
Come.

1297
01:36:01,391 --> 01:36:03,744
Thomas must like you.

1298
01:36:04,316 --> 01:36:09,021
He doesn't usually have this much
time for other people's ideas. Do you?

1299
01:36:09,105 --> 01:36:15,570
Not yours, maybe.
No, that's not nice.

1300
01:36:15,639 --> 01:36:18,297
Yes, I like her.
I like you.

1301
01:36:18,351 --> 01:36:23,098
You have a lot of guts to
come here, isolate, stay put...

1302
01:36:23,165 --> 01:36:25,839
...determine to figure things
out until you had something...

1303
01:36:25,907 --> 01:36:29,944
...to offer a couple of
sods like you and I.

1304
01:36:30,522 --> 01:36:33,189
A lot of people talk about
doing thins like that.

1305
01:36:33,265 --> 01:36:36,038
But how many people actually do it?

1306
01:36:36,110 --> 01:36:38,825
You could have stayed as long,
read as much, and decided...

1307
01:36:38,863 --> 01:36:41,122
...you have nothing to offer.

1308
01:36:41,191 --> 01:36:44,996
An isolation in and of itself
is a very scaring thing, Jack.

1309
01:36:45,068 --> 01:36:48,267
So, yeah, I like you.
I like you, too.

1310
01:36:48,323 --> 01:36:51,768
It was very brave of you to listen. I'd
have been disappointed if you hadn't.

1311
01:36:52,967 --> 01:36:58,725
But you know, Jack, I'm not
so sure that strong-arming her...

1312
01:36:58,789 --> 01:37:02,540
...into a washingtonian office is
exactly where she needs to be right now.

1313
01:37:02,588 --> 01:37:05,707
In fact, it may be exactly
where she doesn't need to be.

1314
01:37:05,791 --> 01:37:08,086
What's eating you?

1315
01:37:09,052 --> 01:37:12,730
Yeah, you're right.
What is this, group therapy?

1316
01:37:17,191 --> 01:37:20,553
All this is covered in water
when the tide comes in, isn't it?

1317
01:37:20,604 --> 01:37:22,340
Oh, yes.

1318
01:37:22,408 --> 01:37:25,667
Including the pastures, must
take a special breed of sheep...

1319
01:37:25,743 --> 01:37:28,779
...to be able grazing here
around with all this salt.

1320
01:37:28,830 --> 01:37:32,776
And how could the grass grow
without the manure and the...

1321
01:37:32,824 --> 01:37:34,563
...sheep grazing on it?

1322
01:37:34,635 --> 01:37:38,255
I wouldn't be surprised if the people
here have a taste for salty lambs...

1323
01:37:38,339 --> 01:37:45,403
...so the people are in it too... the
sea, the grass, the people, the sheep.

1324
01:37:47,384 --> 01:37:54,037
<i>�You asked me what the lobster is
weaving down there with its golden feet?</i>

1325
01:37:54,100 --> 01:37:57,827
<i>I tell you, the ocean knows this.</i>

1326
01:37:58,645 --> 01:38:03,607
<i>You say, who is the ascidia
waiting for in its transparent bell?</i>

1327
01:38:04,653 --> 01:38:08,874
<i>I tell you, it's waiting
for time, like you.</i>

1328
01:38:09,855 --> 01:38:14,278
<i>You say, who does the
Macrocystis algae hug in its arms?</i>

1329
01:38:14,362 --> 01:38:20,385
<i>Study it, study it at a certain
hour, in a certain sea I know.</i>

1330
01:38:21,101 --> 01:38:24,680
<i>You question me about the
wicked tusk of the narwhal...</i>

1331
01:38:24,744 --> 01:38:28,086
<i>...and I respond by describing
to you how the sea unicorn...</i>

1332
01:38:28,134 --> 01:38:32,739
<i>...with a harpoon in it dies.</i>

1333
01:38:33,465 --> 01:38:37,417
<i>You inquire about the
kingfisher's feathers which tremble...</i>

1334
01:38:37,487 --> 01:38:41,114
<i>...in the pure springs
of the southern shores...</i>

1335
01:38:41,954 --> 01:38:45,059
<i>I want to tell you that
the ocean knows this...</i>

1336
01:38:45,161 --> 01:38:50,674
<i>...that life in its jewel boxes
is endless as the sand...</i>

1337
01:38:50,749 --> 01:38:55,730
<i>...impossible to count, pure, and that
time among the blood-colored grapes...</i>

1338
01:38:57,416 --> 01:39:01,235
<i>...has made the petal hard
and shiny, filled the...</i>

1339
01:39:01,305 --> 01:39:04,740
<i>...jellyfish with light, untied its
knot letting its musical threads...</i>

1340
01:39:04,797 --> 01:39:09,086
<i>...fall from a horn of plenty
made of infinite mother-of-pearl.</i>

1341
01:39:09,828 --> 01:39:13,600
<i>I'm nothing but the empty net which
has gone on ahead of human eyes...</i>

1342
01:39:13,676 --> 01:39:17,018
<i>...dead in the darknesses, of
fingers accustomed to the triangle...</i>

1343
01:39:17,090 --> 01:39:20,170
<i>...longitudes on the
timid globe of an orange.</i>

1344
01:39:20,805 --> 01:39:24,877
<i>I walked around like you
investigating the endless star.</i>

1345
01:39:26,396 --> 01:39:30,563
<i>And in my net during the
night I woke up naked.</i>

1346
01:39:31,533 --> 01:39:40,792
<i>The only thing caught?
A fish trapped inside the wind.�</i>

1347
01:39:44,134 --> 01:39:46,777
Pablo Neruda.

1348
01:39:48,980 --> 01:39:52,201
Pablo Neruda!

1349
01:39:53,158 --> 01:39:55,786
That remind you of anything?

1350
01:39:55,878 --> 01:39:59,648
"Walked around investigating the
endless star?"

1351
01:40:00,179 --> 01:40:02,699
Isn't that what you do, Sonia?

1352
01:40:02,742 --> 01:40:05,955
"And in my net during the night, I
awoke naked--" Isn't that what you do?

1353
01:40:06,018 --> 01:40:09,374
Don't you take your net and
throw it into these far-out places...

1354
01:40:09,421 --> 01:40:11,826
...of quantum physics
and systems theory?

1355
01:40:12,852 --> 01:40:15,630
And don't you find that the
only thing you ever catch...

1356
01:40:15,705 --> 01:40:17,788
...is your own self back again?

1357
01:40:19,735 --> 01:40:23,912
Like a fish trapped inside the wind?

1358
01:40:26,327 --> 01:40:32,522
Where are the other people in your
system, Sonia... the ones you love?

1359
01:40:33,918 --> 01:40:37,329
And what about this tourists
here that we feel so superior to?

1360
01:40:37,393 --> 01:40:41,337
Aren't they, too, like fish
trapped inside the wind?

1361
01:40:41,398 --> 01:40:44,361
And, I don't know, maybe even the
feeling's more terrible for them...

1362
01:40:44,418 --> 01:40:48,148
...because they don't
have words to describe it.

1363
01:40:49,617 --> 01:40:53,746
So, tell me Sonia, where
are all of us in there...

1364
01:40:54,387 --> 01:41:01,697
...the real people with their qualities,
their longings, their weaknesses?

1365
01:41:03,130 --> 01:41:08,120
Where are you inside there, Sonia?
Where's Kit?

1366
01:41:08,168 --> 01:41:11,880
You know, scientists can tell
us what life's internal...

1367
01:41:11,966 --> 01:41:15,542
...metaphors are, whether
they're computer chips or clocks.

1368
01:41:15,618 --> 01:41:19,331
Politician can tell us what
forms our lives should take...

1369
01:41:21,232 --> 01:41:23,619
But, uh...

1370
01:41:23,692 --> 01:41:29,290
I feel just as reduced being called a
system as I do being called a clock.

1371
01:41:29,350 --> 01:41:34,338
Life's just... just
not condensable.

1372
01:41:37,324 --> 01:41:40,392
One group of people uses
one set of words to change...

1373
01:41:40,467 --> 01:41:44,080
...the world, then another
set of people come along with a...

1374
01:41:44,147 --> 01:41:49,581
...different set of words to change it.
And I don't mind, you know?

1375
01:41:49,644 --> 01:41:53,548
It's all the same to me.
I don't mind a bit.

1376
01:41:53,565 --> 01:41:57,676
It's like the seasons
changing, and I like you.

1377
01:41:57,744 --> 01:42:00,518
I like your timorous courage.

1378
01:42:00,582 --> 01:42:03,092
I like the fact that you want to
make the world a better place.

1379
01:42:04,509 --> 01:42:08,390
And I like my silly friend Jack
who's crazy enough to think...

1380
01:42:08,470 --> 01:42:12,393
...that he wants to be the
president of the United States.

1381
01:42:12,481 --> 01:42:17,678
And as for me... don't mind me.
I'm a... fool.

1382
01:42:17,750 --> 01:42:22,143
But remember...

1383
01:42:22,216 --> 01:42:29,092
Life feels itself.
Life feels itself.

1384
01:42:31,317 --> 01:42:34,928
Differently, perhaps, than all your
words for how to manage it.

1385
01:42:35,606 --> 01:42:39,425
And even with the best intentions in the
world you'll go wrong if you forget...

1386
01:42:39,481 --> 01:42:42,599
...that life-- life-- life--

1387
01:42:42,679 --> 01:42:48,202
...life is infinitely more than yours
or my obtuse theories about it.

1388
01:42:48,640 --> 01:42:55,650
Healing the universe is an
inside job, and you've helped me.

1389
01:42:57,035 --> 01:42:59,508
And I love you.

1390
01:43:00,310 --> 01:43:05,208
And I love you too.
I love you both.

1391
01:43:07,512 --> 01:43:10,021
Water!

1392
01:43:11,100 --> 01:43:15,069
What a day!
What a day!

1393
01:44:12,866 --> 01:44:17,627
Well, if we're going to go,
we better leave now.

1394
01:44:17,699 --> 01:44:20,094
Why don't you just stay?

1395
01:44:20,168 --> 01:44:25,423
I don't know. Why don't you
just come? Anyway, thanks.

1396
01:44:27,935 --> 01:44:30,012
Thank you.

1397
01:44:30,069 --> 01:44:35,836
Don't thank me, I loved the day.
I hate goodbyes.

1398
01:44:35,909 --> 01:44:39,958
Maybe it's not goodbye.
Please think about what I said.

1399
01:44:41,251 --> 01:44:45,661
- Let us know how the water raises.
- Does that matter?

1400
01:44:45,722 --> 01:44:50,476
Of course it matters.
Let it get all the way back the line.

1401
01:44:50,542 --> 01:44:55,127
Let it renew itself. Right, Sonia?
Maybe come to Paris to let me know.

1402
01:44:55,229 --> 01:44:59,479
- Or Washington.
- Or New York.

1403
01:45:38,292 --> 01:45:44,675
<i>Where are the other people in your
system, Sonia... the ones you love?</i>

1404
01:45:47,497 --> 01:45:54,752
<i>The real people with their qualities...
their longings, their weaknesses.</i>

1405
01:45:54,809 --> 01:45:57,119
Mom, are you O.K.?

1406
01:45:57,195 --> 01:46:01,710
<i>Where are you inside there, Sonia?
Where's Kit?</i>

1407
01:46:10,516 --> 01:46:13,755
What are you thinking?

1408
01:46:20,285 --> 01:46:23,758
Shall we go home?

1409
01:46:43,253 --> 01:46:47,374
<i>I feel like my long weekend in France
has just come to a close.</i>

1410
01:46:48,043 --> 01:46:51,814
<i>Maybe I, too, am tired of being
a stranger, of being outside...</i>

1411
01:46:51,886 --> 01:46:57,185
<i>...a language environment which lived,
which resonated inside me...</i>

1412
01:46:57,669 --> 01:47:02,840
<i>...our emotional system, as she might
say, needs a larger system to nurture it.</i>

1413
01:47:08,464 --> 01:47:09,998
<i>Doesn't make any difference.</i>

1414
01:47:10,057 --> 01:47:13,126
<i>You're locked in with the people you know,
you need to belong somewhere.</i>

1415
01:47:13,192 --> 01:47:16,438
<i>- He's right, of course,
about damn near everything.</i>

1416
01:47:16,999 --> 01:47:20,696
<i>Even the parts I didn't
understand felt right.</i>

1417
01:47:21,770 --> 01:47:27,444
<i>So... should
I just go with it?</i>

1418
01:47:29,095 --> 01:47:31,705
<i>Is this one of those turning points?</i>

1419
01:47:38,090 --> 01:47:44,817
<i>�You the woman, I the man, this the
world, and each is the work of all.</i>

1420
01:47:45,385 --> 01:47:48,652
<i>It is the muffled step in the sand,
the stranger, the crippled wren...</i>

1421
01:47:48,731 --> 01:47:51,772
<i>...the nun, the dance of the angels,
winging over the walkers in the village.</i>

1422
01:47:51,844 --> 01:47:55,600
<i>And there are many beautiful arms
around us and the things we know...�</i>

1423
01:47:57,000 --> 01:48:01,379
<i>I don't know how the
rest of that damn poem goes.</i>