Is Source Code Film's Interpretation of Quantum Physics Flawed?

[TheStatutoryApe]

If I understand correctly, the "source code" is not simply a simulation, it is taking advantage of alternate parallel realities. So, when she pulled the plug, she severed his connection to this reality, but since he didn't die in the other reality, he lived on there.

What's confusing me is how he was able to send texts, phone calls and receive content within the capsule. What's the cross-universe http protocol look like?

All of that was apparently received by people in the alternate realities which he was immersed in. He used the alternate reality's internet to look up himself. He called an alternate father. He e-mailed his handler in the alternate dimension who was handling an alternate him.

 

[DaveC426913]

All of that was apparently received by people in the alternate realities which he was immersed in. He used the alternate reality's internet to look up himself. He called an alternate father. He e-mailed his handler in the alternate dimension who was handling an alternate him.

Right. So the time on train was not in fact, in his head, it was real - just in an alternate real. I see.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Right. So the time on train was not in fact, in his head, it was real - just in an alternate real. I see.

This would seem to be the idea considering what happens in the film though the lead scientist on the project insisted it was not the case. Of course he is also portrayed as the scientist desperately wanting to put his discovery to use and get results to receive more funding despite not necessarily knowing all there is to know about it.

 

[DaveC426913]

film though the lead scientist on the project insisted

The one played by Cheech Marin you mean?

 

[BobG]

did you get exactly how the process worked? My take was the dead guys memory was stored as digital data? they appeared to be following the injured guys life on a computer screen as code. So what exactly did they recover from the dead guys brain? the only way i can see this working is if they kept the memory in its original form which would be what? some sort of electromagnetic field? even if you go with it and say ok they stored that memory complete as it was in the dead guys brain..

This kind of bothered me, too. The proposition seemed to be that the dead guy's memories captured the entire world during those 8 minutes, even if the dead guy was only conscious of a tiny slice of it. The injured guy was able to learn details about a bomb the dead guy never even saw.

It was an exciting, action adventure version of "Ground Hog Day" - no more, no less. But that didn't make it any less entertaining to me. As for the ending - who cares? He saved everyone on the train and got the girl and that was what was important - even if that part only happened in his head during his last few seconds of life.

 

[DaveC426913]

This kind of bothered me, too. The proposition seemed to be that the dead guy's memories captured the entire world during those 8 minutes, even if the dead guy was only conscious of a tiny slice of it. The injured guy was able to learn details about a bomb the dead guy never even saw.

I wondered about this too. If this were a simulation, he could never learn any facts that he did not personally experience.

But Bob, it's not a simulation and did not occur only in his head. It's an alternate parallel world. It's real. That was the revelation halfway through, and that was the point of the ending. He really did save those people and really did reach Chicago.

 

[BobG]

Well, actually, he ceased to exist as soon as the movie ended. Well, at least he ceased to exist until the next show started. Man, that guy was forced to relive that two hours over and over for weeks!

 

[DaveC426913]

Well, actually, he ceased to exist as soon as the movie ended. Well, at least he ceased to exist until the next show started. Man, that guy was forced to relive that two hours over and over for weeks!

No, he simply ceased to inhabit the guy's body.

Or were you making a joke?

 

[BobG]

I guess the point is that what he did on and around the train didn't have to be any more real than the capsule he was in when he was talking to his contollers. The movie was more like poetry than a sci-fi movie. How he felt was more important than whether any of it was possible or not.

It was better than "Johhny Got His Gun"!

(Funny - most people saw that as an anti-war novel, but I kind of felt that was just something tacked on to the end of a really good book because he needed some kind of ending?)

 

[DaveC426913]

I guess the point is that what he did on and around the train didn't have to be any more real than the capsule he was in when he was talking to his contollers.

What do you mean by "didn't have to be"?

(At the risk of repeating myself) The premise of the film is that those 8 minutes on the train were not simulations, and were not in his head, they were real events in the real world - just not this world. (but a world every bit as valid as this one).

The point is that, he really actually did save the people on that train, and really did reach Chicago, and really did go on to get the girl and live a happy life.

The story speaks to the idea that his actions, his choices, really did alter his world for the better. This is food for thought.

 

[MATLABdude]

I thoroughly enjoyed Source Code. Protagonist saves the day, nails the bad guy, and gets the girl (not necessarily in that order, nor in the same universe). But...

Spoiler

I remember a Cracked article I read a while ago entitled something along the lines of "Movies with the most twisted implications" (or some such--can't find the article there). Sure, Jake Gyllenhall's character does all the above, all while being trapped in his mind in a body barely kept alive, and forced to do the bidding of a shadowy military organization (noble though it may be), but he's also wiped out the guy he replaced!

If we accept the movie's premise that he's in a new spin-off reality, the teacher / train passenger no longer exists in that reality. Or maybe even worse, he's still in there somewhere, watching(?) Jake Gyllenhall's character living his life! Maybe he's the one that's the real hero, sacrificing himself to allow someone else to save the train?

And if he just took over the life the teacher had been living, isn't that the ultimate in identity theft? Probably for the best that was left untreated and not morally ambiguous!

 

[wuliheron]

I thoroughly enjoyed Source Code. Protagonist saves the day, nails the bad guy, and gets the girl (not necessarily in that order, nor in the same universe). But...

Exactly, the movie resembles others like "The Matrix" that jumble philosophies and scientific theories almost at random as a plot device to keep the shallow comic book plot moving and encourage the audience to suspend their disbelief. Boy fights evil, falls in love, saves world, lives happily ever after. At least with movies like "The Matrix" the holes in their logic are somewhat more subtle and rely more on cultural biases and preconceptions then the audience suspending their disbelief.

 

[boffinwannabe]

i could at least see how the matrix tied in with bits of creditability and at the surface level made some sense. The source code made no sense at any point, it wasn't even clever because they didnt even attempt to explain any of it. I mean in his new reality the teacher hadnt even died so how on Earth was he now inside a living person? Where did the teachers mind go?
However having just seen The Adjustment Beaurou i have to say that source code is no longer the low point in credibility.

 

[boffinwannabe]

All of that was apparently received by people in the alternate realities which he was immersed in. He used the alternate reality's internet to look up himself. He called an alternate father. He e-mailed his handler in the alternate dimension who was handling an alternate him.

but he emailed the handler before the experiment had taken place in her reality.

 

[wuliheron]

i could at least see how the matrix tied in with bits of creditability and at the surface level made some sense. The source code made no sense at any point, it wasn't even clever because they didnt even attempt to explain any of it. I mean in his new reality the teacher hadnt even died so how on Earth was he now inside a living person? Where did the teachers mind go?
However having just seen The Adjustment Beaurou i have to say that source code is no longer the low point in credibility.

At the end of the first movie Neo is outside the matrix, yet stops the machines using his new found supernatural powers. I don't know about you, but such things don't make even superficial sense to me. It is at least as big a cop out as the ending of The Adjustment Bureau.

 

[BobG]

but he emailed the handler before the experiment had taken place in her reality.

And based on what he emailed her, he wasn't sent to an alternate reality, but was transported in time in the same reality and changed it - apparently avoiding some kind of paradox since it was actually the guy who's body he inhabited that changed it?

If you're looking for some kind of realism or logic, the movie was crap. Or at least sent viewers going different ways trying to fit it into an acceptable frame - he changed the past, he changed an alternate reality, what he thought he did was actually all in his head, it didn't matter because the movie was more about how he felt than reality.

I hold the latter view. Some movies are better if you don't take them too literally. Black Swan, for instance.

 

[boffinwannabe]

havent seen black swan but looks interesting will have to check it out.

 

[boffinwannabe]

but he emailed the handler before the experiment had taken place in her reality.

having thought about that again he could have emailed right after he survived the train bombing which means it would have actually have been before the experiment started. But it could only have been the commander in his new reality. We don't know that it wasnt, we just saw the clip of her receiving the email, there was no pointer to which reality it was. However at the time i got the feeling that the suggestion was that it was some sort of time loop and the original commander right at the start may also have had the email. I guess at a stretch there's no reason that any time line must have a chronological start in the same way the big bang not have happened till we came up with the equations to create that timeline from the sum of all possible histories that would have existed till one possibility became the history.

 

[boffinwannabe]

At the end of the first movie Neo is outside the matrix, yet stops the machines using his new found supernatural powers. I don't know about you, but such things don't make even superficial sense to me. It is at least as big a cop out as the ending of The Adjustment Bureau.

I meant the premise of the film being much like the brain in the vat idea, the bigger picture makes some sense and you can fill the gaps with your own take. The Adjustment Bureau was nuts from start to finnish. It would also involve throwing everything we know about quantum physics out of the windows, all of it. Thats just too much to ask :) Then of course there's the religious and spiritual angles, long as you believe in angels that don't die or get injured but yet feel pain then i guess you have a head start. Anyway, as for that film, a script is written and relies on chance?

 

[boffinwannabe]

Some people have opined that the secret of consciousness, and particularly free will, may be found somewhere in the "quantum states" of the brain though I do not think that this opinion has much actual scientific traction or fact behind it..

I don't think anyone with any credibility has said that. Neurologists will tell you that our best science says that consciousness is nothing more than something that arises from brain function. Free will? Again we can show that all thoughts are created some moments before we ever become consciousness of them. You can not make case for consciousness being the thing that determines free will on that basis. You also cannot talk about quantum physics and consciousness as though quantum physics says anything about consciousness because it doesnt. I know some people have made a living from bringing them together but they are talking philosophy and wrapping it as science.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

but he emailed the handler before the experiment had taken place in her reality.

Yup. And unless I was mistaken the clip where she receives it was when she had just arrived for work that morning and the scientist fellow was on the phone discussing the chance to try his new tech.

I don't think anyone with any credibility has said that. Neurologists will tell you that our best science says that consciousness is nothing more than something that arises from brain function. Free will? Again we can show that all thoughts are created some moments before we ever become consciousness of them. You can not make case for consciousness being the thing that determines free will on that basis. You also cannot talk about quantum physics and consciousness as though quantum physics says anything about consciousness because it doesnt. I know some people have made a living from bringing them together but they are talking philosophy and wrapping it as science.

That is why I said that I do not believe it has any scientific traction. Its fairly common crystal waver pseudoscience though. New agers try to explain everything with quantum physics now. I do not mention it because I think it is at all creditable, I mention it because I see in it a glimmer of where the writer got their inspiration and it seems to partially explain the "science" in the film.

 

[boffinwannabe]

it seemed to me the writer took a few separate ideas and then proceeded to write a story around them without any attempt at binding them together. He took the idea of all possibilities existing until the wave is collapsed, the idea of a computer simulated world, the idea of implanting memories into a brain and of course the idea of multiple/parallel universes. How they came together and what they really meant he didnt seem to care.