Observing entropy - #20 Waking Life "Telepathy"

Source An example of Entropy: (Light Waves through a Prism)

They haven't given us any other
options, outside the occasional...

...purely symbolic,
participatory act of "voting."

Do you want the puppet on the right
or the puppet on the left?

The time has come to project my
inadequacies and dissatisfactions...

...into the sociopolitical
and scientific schemes.

Let my own lack of a voice be heard.

I keep thinking about
something you said.

• Something I said?
• Yeah.

"About feeling like you
observe your life...
...from the perspective of
an old woman about to die. Remember?"

Yeah. I still feel that way sometimes.

Like I'm looking back on my life.

Like my waking life is her memories.

Exactly.

I heard that Tim Leary said
as he was dying...

...he looked forward to when his
body was dead but his brain was alive.

Those six to 12 minutes of brain
activity after everything shuts down.

And a second of dream consciousness
is infinitely longer than a waking one.

• Know what I mean?
• Yeah.

Like, I wake up at 10:12.
Then I go back to sleep...

...and have long, intricate dreams that
seem hours long. Then I wake up and...

...it's 10:13.

Exactly. So in that six to 12 minutes
of brain activity...

...that could be your life.

You are that woman,
looking back over everything.

If I am? What would you be in that?

Whatever I am now.

I mean, maybe I only exist
in your mind.

I'm still just as real
as anything else.

Yeah.

I've been thinking about
something you said.

What's that?

About reincarnation, and where
all the new souls come from over time.

Everybody always...

...says they're the reincarnation
of Cleopatra or Alexander the Great.

You know they were a dumb fuck
like everyone else.

I mean, it's impossible.

The world population has doubled
in the past 40 years.

• So if you believe in one eternal soul...
• Uh-huh.

...you have a 50% chance of your soul
being over 40.

For it to be over 150 years old,
it's only one out of six.

Are you saying reincarnation doesn't
exist? Or we're all young souls?

• Half of us are first-round humans?

• No, no.

• What I'm saying...

• What's your point?

I believe reincarnation
is a poetic expression...

...of what collective memory is.

• I read an article by a biochemist.
• Right.

He said when a member
of a species is born...

...it has a billion years
of memory to draw on.

This is where we inherit
our instincts.

I like that. Like there's...

...this telepathic thing going on
that we're a part of...

...whether we're conscious of it
or not. That would explain these...

...seemingly spontaneous, worldwide,
innovative leaps in science and art.

Like the same results popping up
everywhere, independent of each other.

A guy on a computer figures something
out and simultaneously...

...a bunch of people
figure out the same thing.

They did this study.
They isolated a group over time...

...and they monitored their abilities
at crossword puzzles...

• Uh-huh.
  ...in relation to the population.

Then they secretly gave them a day-old
crossword. One already done by people.

Their scores went up dramatically.
Like 20%.

It's like once the answers are out
there, people can pick up on them.

It's like we're all telepathically
sharing our experiences.