There are instances in life when you know something, but cannot make sense of it in a neat, nice and tidy way. Below are the 10 hand-picked documentaries which will take you to places from the ruthless scientific investigations, to fringes of culture and politics, and to the heartfelt emotions, self and psychology.
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| Credits to http://worldofwonder.net/tag/secrets-of-the-living-dolls/ |
1) The Secret Life of Chaos
Can science explain the springing of life? Can it explain chaos, disorder and uncertainty? Till now, science has been expected to explain the order and precision of the natural world. Many other phenomenon such as creation of life, division of cells, movement of sand dunes, unpredictable weather, formation of shores, and economic and financial disasters are seen as areas where science does not have much to say. However, Jim Al-Khalil explores the beauty and neatness of the chaos theory. He uses it to answer questions such as how does order emerge out of chaos? And how come nature has such seamless, and charming patterns, which could only be seen as an act of a Greater Artist.
2) Is Seeing Believing?
This is a sister documentary to “Do you see what I see?”, and covers the mind-gasming topic of reality and perception. It takes us on the journey of various visual and auditory illusions which basically shows how vulnerable our perception is. If you want to understand the contemporary insights of brain and consciousness, this documentary is for you. The world surely will make more sense after watching these two documentaries.
3) Fractals: Hunting the Hidden Dimensions of the Universe
What explains the repetitive shapes of snow flakes, spider-webs, sea stones, sand dunes, and galaxies? There is a neat mathematics, underpinning all seemingly random yet recurring patterns of everyday life. Find out the mathematics of irregular, disorderly solids, and appreciate the power of science.
4) Born Good? Origins of Morality
Are we born good or bad? What explains altruistic behavior in humans possessed by no other species known? What explains psychopathic behavior, discrimination, tribalism and violence? This documentary looks at centuries-old argument, which has kept both philosophers and scientists awake at nights.
Evolution equips us with both social behaviors of cooperation and empathy, and tribalistic instincts of us-versus-them. Cooperation and empathy are common in-group behaviors, while tribalism is expressed as an out-group behavior. People who look like us, think like us, and lead lives like us, are more likely to attract empathy and altruism from our side. Hence, empathy has limitations. And many of our earlier notions about human kindness and love seems to be wrong all this time.
5) Middle sexes: Redefining He and She
What happens to children whose genital inspection fail to categorize them as either male or female? How do ambiguous genitals look like, and how doctors assign the sex of a child at birth? In India, the State has long recognized such people as Hijda, third-sex but the Western world still harbors taboo attitudes towards the “Middle sexes”. The documentary takes us through the personal lives of many people, which includes those whose genitals had been declared ambiguous by doctors at birth, those who had undergone surgeries because of that, and those whose hormonal dynamics after hitting puberty led them to live as a different gender than what they were born and socialized in.
The documentary also looks at an experiment to determine people’s acceptability and tolerance towards such members of society. The results found that men and women who are insecure about their own sexuality are more likely to be discriminatory and harbor phobic attitudes towards the middle-sexians.
6) An Inconvenient Truth
Climate change is real, it’s man-made and it’s going to impact our economic, technological, and social prospects. Al-Gore explores the mismatch between scientific consensus and popular media, and looks at reasons of skepticism among politicians, economists, business owners and the wider public.
7) Secrets of Living Dolls
This is probably the most psychologically exoteric documentary one could watch. It shows men, who choose to live their lives as female dolls. An epic case of cross-dressing and trans-genderism.
8) Nice Guys Finish First
This documentary is a reply by Richard Dawkins to his infamous book, “The Selfish Gene”. He explores cooperative and altruistic behavior, which seems to be at odd with natural selection and cut-throat competitive machine of evolution. He incorporates insights from game theory, prisoner’s dilemma, and some common social behavior examples. Dawkins explains how, even self-less and altruistic individuals, contribute to the survival and propagation of genes of the whole species.
9) The Cost of Free
Google is free, and so is Facebook..or maybe not. The cost of free investigates the hidden price we all pay for using social media and how the age of Internet is re-wiring our brain and feeding onto our evolutionary traits.
10) Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness
It is a series by philosopher Alain De Botton, who looks at various Greek and Roman philosophers and their perspectives of life. The series reminds us how philosophy is still relevant to different spheres of our lives whether it is Socrates on self-confidence, Epicurus on happiness, and Nietzsche on hardship, all can teach us something.
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