Knowing Nothing

I caught up with Knowing (2009), the Nicolas Cage science fiction film.  It was slammed by the critics (though Ebert liked it--perhaps he was blinded by his love for director Alex Proyas) and didn't perform that well at the box office.  I can see why.

The premise is okay.  Fifty years ago, a girl in grade school writes down a bunch of numbers that are put into a time capsule.  When it's dug out, Cage figures out she's predicted all the disasters of the past half century, with a few left to go. Fine, we got a story.  From this moment on, however, the movie gets dopier and dopier.

The plot is dumb, but I don't want to get into it.  It's just another bad sf film.  What really annoyed me was an early scene that introduces, rather too obviously, a theme of the film.  Cage, a professor at MIT (!), talks to his class about determinism versus randomness.  See, Cage's wife died in an accident, and since then everything seems pointless to him and I'm falling asleep just writing this.

But the film doesn't understand what determinism is.  Determinism means the state of things at any given point is determined by the state of things previously.  Presumably, with enough information, you could predict absolutely everything that will happen.  However, the way Cage discusses it, you'd think determinism means there's a purpose to everything.  That everything has meaning.  But having everything predetermined doesn't create meaning.  If anything, free will--which is usually what's contrasted with determinism--gives things meaning.