Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice. Beyond Me. What the Bleep Do We Know!? This hard-to-describe movie, which combines talking-head documentary footage with a fictional narrative, attempts to explain quantum physics in terms most audiences can understand. The extent to which it succeeds will largely be the extent to which a viewer grasps the complex theories being addressed in those terms. Does matter exist? Does time flow in one direction? This documentary is a radical departure from convention. It demands a freedom of view and greatness of thought so far unknown, indeed, not even dreamed of since Copernicus. It's a documentary. It's a story. This documentary is available for preview only. Vivek - Homeless Prophet. Life Philosophy of the Homeless Genius. What You Don't Know ... 1+1= Laws of Gravity. Quasi Stellar Sources and My Mother. American Philosopher.
Examined Life. Avital Ronell She starts by questioning the value of meaning. Meaning is imposed on reality and if we only look at reality and not impose meaning then we can do little more than observe it as we move through it. She uses that to question authority - religion - social structures as they offer imposed meaning and to her deny the simple fact that reality just is . She advocates for a political stance against those that offer simple meaning or fast found for the soul. She sees the active acceptance of the lack of meaning in life as an impetuous for a proper ethical anxiety/vigilance when it comes to trying to make the right decision in a moral situation.
Peter Singer The basis of this argument was essentially a christian philosophy - do unto others as you would have them do unto you - which I always found to be a troubling and weak position. He goes on to suggest a moral confluence between engaging in consumerism and the suffering of others. Kwame Anthony Appiah A more rounded approach. Waking Life. From the free-spirited abandon of Slacker and Dazed and Confused to the Oscar-nominated odyssey Boyhood, writer/director Richard Linklater has long been one of the most adventurous, thoughtful and innovative filmmakers in the world of independent cinema.
His 2001 effort titled Waking Life is a shining illustration of his singular voice. It also contains many of the elements that have preoccupied him throughout his career; mainly in its use of non-actors, its exploration of complex themes like existentialism, and its boldly imagined challenge to traditional narrative form and structure. The story - or what there is of it - concerns a young unnamed protagonist who questions the reality of his existence. Is he awake, or is he living an endless dream? Some viewers may find this exercise ponderous and dull.
But those attuned to its curious and searching tone will find much to relish. The story may be light in incident and action, but it's enormously rich in ideas.
3 minute philosophy. The Great Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy. Slavoj Žižek@Bozar. Dangerous Knowledge. In this one-off documentary, David Malone looks at four brilliant mathematicians - Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing - whose genius has profoundly affected us, but which tragically drove them insane and eventually led to them all committing suicide. The film begins with Georg Cantor, the great mathematician whose work proved to be the foundation for much of the 20th-century mathematics. He believed he was God's messenger and was eventually driven insane trying to prove his theories of infinity. Ludwig Boltzmann's struggle to prove the existence of atoms and probability eventually drove him to suicide. Kurt Gödel, the introverted confidant of Einstein, proved that there would always be problems which were outside human logic. His life ended in a sanatorium where he starved himself to death. Finally, Alan Turing, the great Bletchley Park code breaker, father of computer science and homosexual, died trying to prove that some things are fundamentally unprovable.
Part 1. The Four Horsemen HD: Hour 1 of 2 - Discussions with Richard Dawkins, Ep 1. YouTube. Philosophy and the Matrix: Return to the Source. This documentary goes over many philosophical concepts that inspired, and are presented in, the trilogy. They spend the first half on the original film, and the rest of the time then goes over parts 2 and 3, with a couple of things on the Animatrix shorts. It consists of clips of aforementioned releases and interviews. It does a good job of informing the audience about the various thoughts, although it would obviously take far longer to go over all the symbolism in them, and one can ask the very appropriate question if something anywhere near that definite and final is even desired, by viewers or the Wachowskis alike.
That does mean that this is limited, but it is likely enough to enlighten and provide food for thought. In line with the series, this may provoke debate, rather than give answers set in stone. Obviously, it also makes a difference if one particularly wants to think about the meanings one could possibly take out of them.