[Yesterday’s run: 7 miles; today: 0]
We watched a new movie yesterday, from the RedBox rental, called Lucy and starring Scarlett Johansson, and Morgan Freeman.
It was an interesting movie. It is rated R for violence and some sex. I didn’t think it was over the top or abusive on the sex side but probably was on the violence side.
Anyway, not one for the kiddies. The reason I’m bringing it up is the conclusion.
The story is like this: Johansson as Lucy is forced to be a drug mule. But she gets beat up and the drugs get into her system. That gives her super-hero type abilities. And the formative question of the movie is what she should do with these abilities. Morgan Freeman’s character tells her that learning and sharing knowledge is the purpose of life. Lucy pretty much takes that and runs with it.
I enjoyed the fact that they brought the issue up. Spiderman wrestles with what he should do with his spider powers. Some of the superheroy types seem to care and some don’t.
I thought Johansson did a great job in the acting. In the first part she is clearly terrified. She does terrified really well. The second part she is kind of an automaton: not much emotion, giving the impression that she is dealing with a completely foreign situation. In one scene the director has her go back to her apartment and talk to her roommate. You get the sense that she used to be exactly like that, but now she is tremendously changed.
But back to the meaning of life… Solomon said that finding and sharing knowledge is not the purpose of life. And that is sensible if you admit the less-knowledgeable can have a purposeful life.
One of the ways I think you can compare world-views, philosophies about the meaning of life, is to consider those not at the pinnacle of achievement. Do you allow that they have purpose in addition to just being a step stool for the people at the “top” (wherever we define the top to be)? I think that feature is one of the distinguishing marks of Christianity: dummies are allowed, the child-like are important.
Another interesting statement in the movie is that existence is defined by time. I’m not sure if I buy that but I found it interesting. I’m on a mailing list for people who measure time, which I got on to while working in my GPSDO. There are some people on there who are on the bleeding edge of the time-measurement world. I’m told that time is the most precisely measured fundamental dimension of our world. Many other “standard” measurements are derived from time. So that hit my interest, but I don’t think I agree that it is the definition of our existence.