I know the movie is a Pocahontas knock off but it does bring up the old problem of exploring new areas and keeping things civil. So my question is, what are our responsibilities of a stronger more rational species.

Here's the trailer.

http://www.avatarmovie.com/

Anybody here yet seen the movie? I'm debating about seeing it, but if it is primarily a love story, I really don't want to waste money on a sci-fi version of Titantic.

One reason I would want to see it though, is because of the supposedly amazing special effects.

After seeing The Watchmen though, I'm worried that Avatar is gonna be full of blue penises. Top of the line blue, 3D penises.

Yes, I saw the movie. The CGI is easily the best I have ever seen, by far. But critics who say the story is just Dances With Wolves are mostly right: I would say it's Dances With Wolves cross-pollinated with The Matrix--but both of those movies were far better on their own.

As for our responsibilities in being a "stronger more rational species"--which is a relative definition--Avatar is an argument that the underlying interconnectedness of ecosystems necessitates careful respect for causes and effects that may be beyond our current knowledge. It fits in the stream of thought that holds that, while we are studying the universe analytically, by taking things apart, isolating variables, and so on, we also need to spend a good deal of time thinking synthetically about how those small parts fit together and interact, often in ways that may be "counterintuitive," based on what we've learned from analysis. That seems like a good idea to me, but the practical tools for actually doing it are unwieldy compared to our practical tools for analysis (i.e., the scientific method).

Although I saw the movie a month ago, I thought I'd share my impressions by it.

As Peter alluded to, the CGI was absolutely amazing. As for the story of the film, while I was watching it in the theater, I remember being pleasantly surprised that the story was not primarily a romance. I feel that there was plenty of action, science, and fantasy to balance out the romance. So thus, I feel that the movie was well-rounded.

The most important question that the movie has raised in my mind, is: Was both the process by which the Navi connected with their ancestors and their deity, and the deity itself supernatural? If not, was the practicing of such acts justified?

It seems to me that if Eywa was merely a metaphor for life itself, and if the process of connecting that the Navi employed was natural, then the practicing of their religion would be justifiable.

In essence, a "natural" spirituality. Or am I wrong?

I had the strong impression that there was no supernaturalism anywhere in the movie. There was exposition about how the interconnectedness of the forest on Pandora was susceptible to scientific examination and there were depictions of the physiological connection between individuals and other animals. My impression is bolstered, I think, by the fact that humans interacted with the Na'vi through technological mind-computer-body interfaces, which, in my view, was intended to show a kind of imaginary-Earth-technology parallel to the Na'vi connection with other life on their planet. In experiencing ostensibly Na'vi bodies operated by absent humans, the Na'vi are forced to deal with an invisible interconnection that is nevertheless explainable by natural means. From the other direction, the manifestation of humans in Na'vi bodies--and the explicit use of the word "avatar" for that technique--is, in my opinion, supposed to illuminate what the Na'vi experience with their interconnectedness, and with Eywa: all of them are avatars because all of them, as individuals, are manifestations of the Pandoran whole.

So I think that Eywa was something like "a metaphor for life itself." And I would go further and suggest that the Na'vi were an example of what Carl Sagan would have called "star stuff contemplating the stars"--consciousness and curiosity arising from an otherwise "unthinking" universe.

But I don't really see the point of asking whether "the practicing of such acts [would be] justified" for the Na'vi, any more than I would ask whether we are "justified" in observing with Sagan that we are "star stuff contemplating the stars." That apparent truths about the universe are expressed in poetic, emotional, or ritualistic form does not seem at all objectionable to me; it is the propagation of such "truths" in the absence of evidence that is objectionable, and what religious people around the globe do every day.

To answer my own question, "is the practicing of such acts justified?" I would have to say, no, worshiping Eywa as if she is a real, separate, intelligent entity is not justifiable.

I guess that now I agree with you Peter, in that there was nothing supernatural in the movie. Whenever Jake (the main male character) asked the tree of souls for help, I suspect that how that might have been merely natural was that his petition was heard or transmitted to the rest of the Pandoran ecosystem, via the means of inter-connectedness.

However, I can't quite remember how it was explained that the Na'vi's ancestors were able to be communicated with. Something like, "due to the inter-connectedness, after death, their essence or even their soul perhaps is uploaded into the Pandoran database?"

The reason why I wrote that perhaps, "Eywa was merely a metaphor for life itself," is because I made that observation as an outsider to the Navi religion. Theoretically, if I were to convert to it, I would probably practice a very liberal interpretation of it, as is evidenced by my quote above. Also, James Cameron would naturally have to become The Pope of the Pandoran Church.

In regard to the varying degrees of positive affirmation of the existence of the supernatural, I would have to say that Buddhism is definitely low on the list, and my very liberal interpretation of the Navi religion would be even lower than the teachings of The Enlightened One. The reason why I mention Buddhism is because I'm attracted to it because of its neutral, or even emotion-less approach to meditation/prayer, as opposed to the sit and have a seizure approach of the Na'vi.

I guess the only sort of spirituality that I could ever rationally justify practicing, would be Sagan's star contemplation or what Peter referred to as "contemplating the essence of being."
Thank god that there's still nature on this planet, for nature is the only place where I feel closest to the divine.

I don't thing anything in the movie fits my definition of "worship," which is another reason why I think the "is it justified?" question doesn't make a lot of sense.

"Worship" does not involve a natural mechanism of cause and effect. Religious people will not tell you they believe that, by worshiping their deity, they are setting causes in motion that necessarily will result in some action by the deity. Even if they seem to act that way (e.g., by suggesting that a failure to worship their deity will have negative consequences, so that worship is a way to avoid those consequences), when you try to pin them down, they will always admit (or at least they always have when I've done it) that their deity is not constrained by their worship.

For the Na'vi, however, it appears that there are natural causes and effects when they, for example, communicate with or through the Tree of Souls, or with their ancestors, whose knowledge and consciousness appears to be taken up by the ecosystem through a natural, not supernatural, process. While someone observing them with a human understanding of "religion" and "worship" might interpret their activity as "worship," so that they are trying to capture a state of mind that will connect them with the divine, I think it makes far more sense to recognize their conduct as a kind of mental skillfulness in interacting with the network of information that flows through their ecosystem.

Okay Peter, so my statement that "worshiping Eywa as a supernatural being is unjustified", implied to you that I was getting at "worshiping Eywa as a natural being (metaphor for life itself) could be justified", but since "worship" seems to be applicable only to the supernatural, therefore one cannot worship Eywa as a natural being?

And, did you interpret my question of "is it justified" to mean that "is the practicing of all such acts in exactly the same manner as the Na'vi did them, (assuming of course, that the Na'vi believed that Eywa was supernatural) justified?"

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough when I first posed that question. After I initially posed it, I gravitated towards a more liberal interpretation of Eywan-ism, which, if all super-naturalism is eliminated from, I guess would not be able to incorporate worship.

I just want to be clear.



Also, by the statement above did you mean that I shouldn't feel reluctant to embrace that which is true in religion? If so, I admit that my feelings of reluctance are simply due to the fact that that which is true in religion, is associated with that which is false in religion, just because they both inhabit the same human tradition, which is religion.

Shane, to answer your original question of "how to keep things civil when exploring new areas" I would say that hopefully humanity never will put itself in the situation of having to explore new areas in search of resources beneficial to survival because humanity depleted the earth of all its resources.

If however, humanity ever does unfortunately find itself in that position, I would say, that first of all: in the context of the film, is the element or resource unobtanium, absolutely necessary for the human's survival? Regardless of whether or not it is, it seems that the situation of having to exploring new planets in order to find necessary resources should be conducted as civilly as possible.

To learn from the film, the humans should have respected the Na'vi's religion, i.e. not destroying sacred trees. Again, if the unobtainum was absolutely necessary for the human's survival, and since a large, and possibly immediately accessible deposit of it was located directly underneath Home Tree, and since the natives would never abandon it, I guess in the situation of the humans needing the element as soon as possible, it seems that a conflict was inevitable.

That's not what I said. I suggested that "worship" is not a technical act of putting in motion a cause to achieve a desired effect, like, say, flipping a light switch, aiming a rifle to hit a target, or concentrating to succeed in a sporting event. Worship is an act with no causal mechanism, but that's not to say it couldn't be directed to a naturally occurring phenomenon: you could worship any natural phenomena as "gods," expecting that, by your oblation, you would obtain their approval and the attendant benefits.

If you want to ask whether worship, by my definition, is "justified," then the answer will always be "no" because I have defined it to mean, essentially, irrational behavior. I have heard Christians argue that "worship" just means "worth-ship" (and they are etymologically correct), but that is not what they actually do when they engage in the acts they label "worship." And for that etymologically correct definition, I think we have plenty of other good words that do not come with the same social baggage as "worship": esteem, value, appreciate, prize.

With the Na'vi in Avatar, however, the conduct that you are labeling as "worship" appears to me, based on the natural mechanism of information flow throughout their ecosystem, to be much more like a technical act of putting into motion a cause to achieve a desired effect, like flipping a switch, aiming a rifle, or concentrating to succeed at a physical or mental feat.

Peter, since I have nothing more to argue about in regard to the topic of "worship", I desire to discuss a new topic.

Although this is an obvious one, the film raises the question of, "when and how will we discover alien life?"

For the most primitive kind of alien life, there might be some that currently exists in our own solar system, such as on the moons of Europa and Enceladus.

We might discover these aliens within this century, maybe even with our current technology.

As to discovering alien life that is as intelligent as us, or more intelligent than us, that will probably require the kind of technology that will enable humans to travel extremely large distances in space, such as being able to open a worm hole that space explorers could travel through, that would take them near their desired location.

The exact birth date of this kind of technology is left to speculation.

Or who knows? Maybe Earth is the only planet in the entire multiverse that has life on it. If this is the case, then preserving the life on this planet should be every human's sworn duty.