SHERDOG MOVIE CLUB: WEEK 114: Coherence

[MusterX]

When the comet passed, people could only interact with realities in that specific moment of time with other realities that were very similar to their own. I think of it like a petri dish containing a moment of reality (such as having a dinner party with a group of specific people at a house belonging to Mike and Lee) being sorted with other petri dishes containing moments of realities that are almost parallel, and these petri dishes are only allowed to interact with each other.

You are thinking like I did for the first couple viewings. This was my 3rd viewing. At first it appears to follow the "many worlds" doctrine which is basically what you are saying about parallel universes. Basically there is an infinite number of worlds, so there is an infinite number of you's doing stuff on those worlds. With my 3rd viewing though I'm not sure this is exactly the case. The movie centers around the idea of quantum physics.

Coherence, Decoherence, Schrodinger's Cat, these things have to do with quantum physics and specifically Superposition, the state of being both spinning or still simultaneously, or alive and dead at the same time in the case of the cat. Atoms behave in this way. It may surprise you to find out that nobody has ever seen an atom, or an electron for that matter. We have Electron microscopes but we don't really see the atom as it really is.

We know there are electrons orbiting the nucleus but we cannot know where they are. Rather than the standard model that was believed for so long, which shows an atom with a nucleus and with electrons orbiting it, like planets orbiting a star, we now know, through quantum mechanics, that the atom and its electrons is more like a cloud. Its just a cloud of infinite possibilities. It is only when we try to measur eit, or to see it, that the cloud of possibilities collapses into more of a standard model of a particle with electrons orbiting.

Cloud of possibility. The electrons could be anywhere in that cloud, all possibilities are.....possible.

So once again, this is like the cat being both alive and dead at the same time, and its only when you open the box that reality collapses into either alive, or dead. Atoms behave in that way. The electrons in the atom are everywhere, simultaneously, in a cloud of possibility, and its only when we observe this cloud that it collapses into reality and appears as a particle instead of a cloud. In the movie, all the varies infinite realities you speak of, are the cloud of possibilities. ALL possibilities are possible but once observed they collapse into single timelines.

So what is it I'm saying? You may be thinking, ok here is a universe, and here is a universe, and there are infinite universes, which is the many worlds theory, but the movie points more toward a cloud of possible universes that all exist simultaneously, like Superposition, both alive and dead, but not all of those possibilities actually happen, they are just possibilities, like an atom cloud where the electrons could be anywhere and we just see a cloud of possible positions.....until we measure it.

 

[MusterX]

Thanks. Sounds like she was a genius to pick up on all that shit so quickly. Or not, since it didn't work. lol. Also, what stops it from being the case that she (live original blondie) collapses into the dead blondie?

Well, it gets gdamned complicated man. That' why I said this film is one of the most thought proving films of the last decade. People think they understand it when really they probably don't. I've watched it three times now and I'm barely grasping the ideas. There were two main theories that Hugh's brother wrote about. The Schrodinger's Cat theory which basically means all things are possible until we observe the and at the moment we observe them they collapse into a single reality, meaning the cat is both alive and dead at the same time in the box, Superposition, but when we open the box reality collapses into one reality, the Cat is either alive or he is dead.

The other theory was Decoherence which is the loss of quantum coherence and this one gets more complicated. Here is the thing, it would be long and complicated for both of us to try to explain the difference between quantum coherence and decoherence. I will give a short explanation based on my limited understanding.

Decoherence can be viewed as the loss of information from a system into the environment (often modeled as a heat bath),[3] since every system is loosely coupled with the energetic state of its surroundings. Viewed in isolation, the system's dynamics are non-unitary (although the combined system plus environment evolves in a unitary fashion).[4] Thus the dynamics of the system alone are irreversible. As with any coupling, entanglements are generated between the system and environment. These have the effect of sharing quantum information with—or transferring it to—the surroundings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence

What does that mean? The main idea here that matters in relation to the film is quantum entanglement. That is basically when you have two atoms that are entangled, and what happens to one, happens to the other simultaneously, irregardless of distance between the two objects. You could have one atom here and one on the other side of the universe and what happens to one, happens to the other. This is tough stuff because even at the speed of light no instruction could arrive from one to the other if they were on opposite sides of the universe, they are truly entangled.

Remember at the end of the film, when Emily drugged the other Emily and then later left her in the bathtub after she hit her in the head? Then she walked out to the party but she fainted and was out until the next day? Why did she suddenly faint? She became entangled with the other Emily, what happens to one, happens to the other. She became drugged and pummeled because the other Emily was drugged and pummeled. They became linked to one another, forever.

Remember what Hugh warned about in the film? He said, "My brother said we shouldn't do anything, we shouldn't interfere or have contact with the "others". Emily didn't listen.

So Emily thought Schrodinger's Cat, collapse into one reality, but what happened was decoherence and entanglement.

 

[the muntjac]

It's like Detention in my view. No real hard & fast rules to make sense of the mindfuck, but a lot of fun.

In the film the original group referred to the other group as evil and that's why I referenced it that way. The point was that I kept waiting for it to be revealed that we were watching the doubles, as a way to fuck with the audience for caring more about one incarnation than another.

Ah, gotcha. Thee ol' switcheroo.

 

[MusterX]

Seems like it would have to affect areas and it's a bit of a flaw that nobody else came out of their houses or was out driving. But that would be endlessly complicated so best to just pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist.

Or.....

House A became entangled with House B, the really dark zone between them was the tether between the two. What they thought of 2 blocks over could have actually been the other side of the universe. It very well could have affected the entire world but the film centered on only one such entanglement.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Decoherence can be viewed as the loss of information from a system into the environment (often modeled as a heat bath),[3] since every system is loosely coupled with the energetic state of its surroundings. Viewed in isolation, the system's dynamics are non-unitary (although the combined system plus environment evolves in a unitary fashion).[4] Thus the dynamics of the system alone are irreversible. As with any coupling, entanglements are generated between the system and environment. These have the effect of sharing quantum information with—or transferring it to—the surroundings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence

Sorry, due to my lack of science background and interest in it, this is gibberish to my brain.

Remember at the end of the film, when Emily drugged the other Emily and then later left her in the bathtub after she hit her in the head? Then she walked out to the party but she fainted and was out until the next day? Why did she suddenly faint? She became entangled with the other Emily, what happens to one, happens to the other. She became drugged and pummeled because the other Emily was drugged and pummeled. They became linked to one another, forever.

Remember what Hugh warned about in the film? He said, "My brother said we shouldn't do anything, we shouldn't interfere or have contact with the "others". Emily didn't listen.

So Emily thought Schrodinger's Cat, collapse into one reality, but what happened was decoherence and entanglement.

Well she clearly miscalculated. So now there's two Blondies in one reality (presumably another where one disappeared) and they're like the Corsican Sisters now? Is it due to the physical contact, and not just something as simple as when the groups crossed paths on the street?

Spoiler

You think hubby will get his twins fantasy fulfilled?

 

[MusterX]

For sure. Still can't really make sense of the victim going from the tub to the phone.

Bad Emily, we'll call her Emily #1 became entangled with Emily #2. When Emily #1 woke up the next day on the couch, Emily #2 also woke up, they are entangled. What happens to one happens to the other.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Or.....

House A became entangled with House B, the really dark zone between them was the tether between the two. What they thought of 2 blocks over could have actually been the other side of the universe. It very well could have affected the entire world but the film centered on only one such entanglement.

Ok, but how does physics know where one person's yard ends and another's begins? I mean, what if somebody tried to go to their neighbor's house for a flashlight or some candles.

Reminds me. A clue that things had shifted was when lady K (I think) suggested turning on the generator after there being no mention of one previously when the lights initially went out.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Bad Emily, we'll call her Emily #1 became entangled with Emily #2. When Emily #1 woke up the next day on the couch, Emily #2 also woke up, they are entangled. What happens to one happens to the other.

Well one was on the phone and the other wasn't.

 

[MusterX]

Yeah, for the sake of the story to not get way too complicated, it’s probably easier to just assume this phenomenon is only affecting this group, but then why would a comet that’s passing the entire Earth only effect one particular group’s realities? It would make more sense to me if it was affecting the entire world. But since we never see any other neighbors from the neighborhood, it makes you wonder where they all are.

Coherence in systems requires that the environment has no interference or what you could call background noise. This is one problem with quantum computers such as the D-Wave. They can only do calculations if there is no interference from other systems, or quantum particles. They have to be in a very "quiet environment" to function. By quiet I mean if you take 2 atoms and entangle them, then because of superposition + entanglement, one atom can be both spinning and still at the same time, think of it as the 1 and 0's of binary code. It can only do this if there is no interference from other subatomic particles. Thus, a "quiet environment."

In the film House A and House B become entangled, or if you like, House Guests A and House Guests B......BUT......its in a "quiet environment", the rest of the world fades out as background noise so they are free of interference. It very well could have affected the entire world but we were inside of one of those quiet environments with possible entanglement, like a bubble.

 

[sickc0d3r]

Reminds me. A clue that things had shifted was when lady K (I think) suggested turning on the generator after there being no mention of one previously when the lights initially went out.

Nice catch. Also if you noticed after the lights came on they said "did they rest of the neighborhood turn on? No, it's just us.". So that was the lit house they saw at the beginning.

 

[the muntjac]

What Emily did may have been even darker than you think. She wasn't trying to Kill the other Emily IMO.

Mother of God...

...you're talking about...

...a deletion!

She knocked her out and placed her in the trunk. She was trying to get her out of the picture until morning because she believed if that occurred the other Emily would simply cease to exist. The timeline would collapse into a single coherent reality which was the reference to Schrodinger's Cat in the film. The Cat is both alive and dead until you look in the box and then the cat becomes either alive, or dead, but not both. Emily felt the box would open and reality would collapse into basically her being alive and the other Emily either being dead or simply not being at all.

So...she was wrong since both her and the other Em still existed in the same reality? I took the whole Schrodinger's Cat angle in the film as a way for the characters to understand why they were seeing and coming into contact with another reality of theirs. At first they feared, or at least some of them did, mainly Mike, that the other versions of themselves were going to dole them out of existence where they would be the dead reality, and the other reality would be the alive one. But later we see that it's actually bigger than just the Schrodinger's Cat theory because there are multiple realities happening, and they're all affecting each other since the comet opened a portal for all of the realities to step through. Basically, the comet grabbed the earth (or just their particular realities) like a snow globe and shook it up. Em realizes this when she says to Mike, "Stepping into the dark zone is like entering a roulette machine." Meaning you could end up in any random reality. She decides to bail on her messed up reality and tries to sneak into another one by offing the Em in that reality. The way I interpreted her stuffing the other Em in her car was a way for her to deal with dumping the body a later time. She was just hiding it for now.

As far as the comet affecting the entire world or just that house we have a couple ways of looking at it. On the one hand it could have affected the entire world but we don't know. We only know that there was a "dark zone" between the two identical houses and their dinner party participants. The zone that was somehow darker than dark seemed like a wormhole type of thing or what Einstein called Rossenberg Bridges.

Oh, I've burnt a couple Rossenberg Bridges in my day, don't get me started.

I guess this is the one thing the film is murky about is if it only affected the realities of the dinner party, or if all realities were affected on Earth. I guess for the multiverse way that I'm looking at it, it makes more sense to me that all realities have been effected, but they're only splintering off and intermixing with their own realities that are parallel to theirs. For example, I'm at my computer right now writing to a dude I know as MusterX, so at this moment of time, this is my reality. This reality of mine has no effect on say somebody surfing in Australia right now, hence why these two separate realities wouldn't connect in the roulette machine and intermix with each other. I would only be intermixing with realities of me writing to MusterX about this movie...

...or to MusterZ!

Who are you really, man?!

 

[the muntjac]

I watched this one twice the same night, which I think meant I had actually been thrust into an alternate reality by the coherence roulette wheel myself. When have I had the time to watch a movie twice in a row? But, after the first viewing I knew I had missed a lot of details. What a ride.

On the first go around I was caught up early on by the character building, which was very well done. Especially given the mostly improvised nature of the film. Huge props to the cast. Mike especially gave us a really interesting, outside of the box (no pun intended) flawed character.

And, I mean, come on. Wine, cheese, and special k! That's a party.

When it was over I was impressed and entertained, but I hadn't pieced it all together. I think by the end when Em started seeking her perfect house, almost nobody was the original copy, and that almost everybody was now playing a game of musical chairs with different realities, scrambling to land somewhere good before the music stopped. Many had realized this was their chance to cheat their way out of the bad decisions, and find the best version of themselves. Each appearance was a new evaluation of a slightly different world and character.

But, where did it start? What was really the first clue? I wanted to track this shit. And to be honest, I still need about 2 more viewings. I took the director's advice and followed Em through the second viewing.



When Em's cell phone cracked as she was parking the car, I think she was snagged by the coherence right there. I do not believe she ever entered the house that existed in her reality. My guess is HER house is the house with all the lights on that they see during the firt power outage. She was outside in the roulette wheel, and the cell phone cracked because she was talking to Kevin back in her dimension.

The group that was already there probably beat the comet, so they were good. But Amir, Hugh, and Laurie must have been imposters because they arrived late. Hugh's cell phone cracked when he tried to call his brother. And at the table Laurie and Mike didn't seem to really know each other. She was a fan of his show (Roswell!) and didn't recognize him. He thought she was a yoga teacher.

The cuts to black seemed to mean dimensions were being created. They tended to come usually after some question was asked or decision was made. And Em told Kevin she wasn't sure about going with him to wherever he was going, and he said "if you don't say yes it becomes a no", which would indicate indecision also does it.

Em's story about the understudy taking her life's work was another example of a poor choice costing her. I think it's why in the end she was motivated enough to kill for a better life. She also said with regards to alternate realities, "it's a chance to find a better version of ourselves".

After the power outage things move fast, but we know the people that leave are lost to the void. Their dopplegangers who made the same decision somewhere else replace them. They run into some of those buggers with the red glowsticks.

Em is figuring out nobody who leaves ever comes back. She refuses to let Kevin leave. At this point I think Kevin, Em, Lee, and Beth are the only ones who never left the house.

When their cars get broken into and they all go outside, Em puts on her ring as a Kevin detector. Outside he gives the right answer about it, and hugs her. She says "was anything stolen" and they realiz they were tricked into going outside. Later, inside, he is no longer her Kevin because she asks again about the ring and he hrumph's it away.

I think at that point Em decided to go look for a perfect reality, or maybe just the one where all the people are originals (NO BOX, lights on, pre comet gazing), because the one she's stuck in sucks. She confides in Mike but he's already given up. I think he has been looking to steal a life since early on, but he's found he's made the same mistakes in every version of himself. He confesses to Hugh that if there are a million realities he banged Hugh's wife in every one of them.

The ending is most confusing. She gets the ketamine and creeps around the tesseract (yeah, reminded me of Interstellar) to find the perfect house. When she does she waits for herself to come out to get her ring, drugs the other Em (or suffocates her?) and throws her in the trunk.

She walks in through the door to nowhere with that Em's sweater on. But then finds the drugged girl crawling into the bathroom, and--with no sweater on now--bashes her head in. Then she walks out to the living room and feints. Why did she feint? What happened to the sweater?

At the end I guess the drugged girl was still in the trunk calling Kevin, so the Em in the bathroom was another Em, maybe trying to steal a spot herself? Was her dead body removed by the decoherence? Or was it the bathtub Em who somehow survived and decided to call Kevin instead of, like, walking up to them? Maybe she was in the hospital.

I loved the movie. One of the better mind teasers I've ever seen and with all I just wrote there are about a million details and clues I didn't talk about. I'm sure we'll get to a lot of those. Great pick!

Good finds. I'm seeing I would probably have to watch this again to pick up on more things. Maybe another version of me in another reality might get to it someday.

As for the different clothes on the Ems, what if, hear me out now, more than one version of the Invading Em (trademarked) decided to crash that reality. As in, the Em that our Em ketamines, was an original Invading Em that tried swapping out the Em we see in the bathroom. Now our Em bashes that Em in the head with the toiler cover. I mean, there had to be many other realities of an Em that had the thought of deleting another Em, so perhaps a couple Invading Ems tried going for the same reality.

The actors actually had no idea those bangs and lights cutting off were coming, so the first day they were pretty jumpy.

Great thought. My guess is it could be contained to one area since it is a gravitational anomaly. Maybe it only has like a one in a billion chance to cause coherence. But it would be cool if the whole world got all mixed up and I became a top gun fighter pilot like I wanted to when I was 15.

double

Sweet God! Double posts are happening! Realities are colliding!

*Goes to kill another version of self in a happier reality*

 

[MusterX]

I watched this one twice the same night, which I think meant I had actually been thrust into an alternate reality by the coherence roulette wheel myself. When have I had the time to watch a movie twice in a row? But, after the first viewing I knew I had missed a lot of details. What a ride.

I've watched it 3 times now and I've picked up on more each time I've viewed it.

On the first go around I was caught up early on by the character building, which was very well done. Especially given the mostly improvised nature of the film. Huge props to the cast. Mike especially gave us a really interesting, outside of the box (no pun intended) flawed character.

Yea its pretty incredible that most of the film was done by improvisational actors. They made up most of that stuff as they went. They were given daily plot points but then set free on the dialogue to get there. Mike was the classic Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. One of the most hilarious parts of the movie to me is when Mike busts in the door and punches his own self in the face about 4 times then grabs his glow stick and runs out the door. That Mike had a green glow stick BTW.

And, I mean, come on. Wine, cheese, and special k! That's a party.

That's an adult group with adult problems for sure. They drank, did drugs, and occasionally did some banging between group members. Mike banged Hugh's wife and Laurie was with Kevin before Emily was and was still trying to seduce him back.

But, where did it start? What was really the first clue? I wanted to track this shit. And to be honest, I still need about 2 more viewings. I took the director's advice and followed Em through the second viewing.

When Em's cell phone cracked as she was parking the car, I think she was snagged by the coherence right there. I do not believe she ever entered the house that existed in her reality. My guess is HER house is the house with all the lights on that they see during the firt power outage. She was outside in the roulette wheel, and the cell phone cracked because she was talking to Kevin back in her dimension.

The group that was already there probably beat the comet, so they were good. But Amir, Hugh, and Laurie must have been imposters because they arrived late. Hugh's cell phone cracked when he tried to call his brother. And at the table Laurie and Mike didn't seem to really know each other. She was a fan of his show (Roswell!) and didn't recognize him. He thought she was a yoga teacher.

Its interesting to see you pull these details out, here is an excerpt from my personal notes on the film.

The opening scene shows out of focus lights in the distance like quantum particle effects. Then when she arrives at the party she says she has to "parrallel park", foreshadowing parrallel universes or realities.

During dinner Laurie is talking to Mike and he says he was on the T.V. show Roswell for four years. Laurie asys, "oh really, what episodes?" and he replies all episodes, that he was one of the main characters. Laurie is incredulous and says "Which guy? Did you have different hair or something?" I think this indicates the point in time where characters are already passing into different realities, dimensions, time lines, whatever you want to call it, because in Laurie's world he doesn't star on Roswell and likewise he keeps asking her about Spanish Yoga and she keeps saying I don't do Spanish Yoga but he's convinced that she does. So at the dinner party its already apparent that the switching of places has started.

Basically you are on the same page here. The entire thing actually starts BEFORE we know its started and while we think there is just character building going on in the first 30 minutes, there is more going on from the start.

The cuts to black seemed to mean dimensions were being created. They tended to come usually after some question was asked or decision was made. And Em told Kevin she wasn't sure about going with him to wherever he was going, and he said "if you don't say yes it becomes a no", which would indicate indecision also does it.

Great catch, 3 viewings and I had not put that one together yet.

 

[MusterX]

Em's story about the understudy taking her life's work was another example of a poor choice costing her. I think it's why in the end she was motivated enough to kill for a better life. She also said with regards to alternate realities, "it's a chance to find a better version of ourselves".

This speaks to what I was trying to explain in post #21. I know post people are going to avoid the posts I make about quantum mechanics but it really is the key to this film. Its all about the "possibility cloud." Within the cloud all possibilities are infinite, all things are possible. Its only when you focus in and try to grab one of those possibilities that they become a real part of the material universe. Its the difference between a particle and a wave. The infinite possibilities are the cloud, or the wave, but when we focus in and try to find something in that cloud, then it is no longer a wave pattern, its a particle pattern.

They all existed simultaneously, but also didn't exist simultaneously. This is the "spooky factor" to quantum mechanics and superposition. Its not that there are a trillion universes and a trillion you's. Its that there is a cloud of possibilities where all those you's are possible and you have pulled this one into reality, out of the cloud, and now you are not part of the possibility cloud, you are part of the material plane of existence, or a particle instead of a wave.

This is not my theory on the film, this is how our reality functions.

 

[MusterX]

Coherence in a nutshell

I'll give you a like for this because its hilarious but at some point I'm not going to let you off the hook on this film so easily.

 

[europe1]

One thing I was thinking off...

So the multi-verse is separated based on options and events. In one Dimension the mobile is cracked, the other it isn't. All options spawn their own forks in the space-time continium.

If that is the case... shouldn't we see more extreme shifts in character between different copies?

In reality, people behave fairly consistantly due to the personalities they have cultivated. With multi-dimensions spawned by different options availible, all that goes out the window. *Every* option becomes an eventuality that gets its own dimension. So therefore, shouldn't we see more radical changes in personality? A character becomes a misogonist or one becomes suicidal or desponent or crazy or what have you. Instead, the alternative-reality copies they encounter have very minor and trivial differences. A cracked phone. A diffrent color on the night-bulbs. Unlikely and non-consequential stuff when considering all the crazy things that *could* happen. I could suddenly start liking the Transformers movies, its a possibility, and therefor there is a dimension for it. If every possible option spawns an reality, it would be absolute chaos as to what kind of person you're set to encounter, since character-consistency would go straight-out the window between the different dimensions.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Nice catch. Also if you noticed after the lights came on they said "did they rest of the neighborhood turn on? No, it's just us.". So that was the lit house they saw at the beginning.

Now if someone can just figure out what all the out of focus stuff was about. There were a number of instances and surely no accident of filming.

 

[MusterX]

Great thought. My guess is it could be contained to one area since it is a gravitational anomaly. Maybe it only has like a one in a billion chance to cause coherence. But it would be cool if the whole world got all mixed up and I became a top gun fighter pilot like I wanted to when I was 15.

Absolutely, the name of the book they found in Hugh's car was called "Gravitation, An Introduction to Current Research." This goes back to Einsteins work especially on time and space being relative as well as the effect of gravity on things like light from distant stars. We call them wormholes now but Einstein is the one that came up with that shit and he called them Rossenberg Bridges. That is the neat thing about this film is it really is heavy on Sci in Sci-fi and the science of it all is freaky and hard to understand.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

If that is the case... shouldn't we see more extreme shifts in character between different copies?

Even more simply, shouldn't we see different dinner guests if different choices were made by each person in the past?

 

[europe1]

Even more simply, shouldn't we see different dinner guests if different choices were made by each person in the past?

Or not hold a dinner party at all.

Or one where the Cold War turned Hot.

Or one were the Dinasaurs survived to the modern age alongside humans and now work mostly in accounting.