Waking Life Page #3

- figure out the same thing.

- Mm-hmm.

They did this study. They isolated

a group of people over time,

and they monitored their abilities

at crossword puzzles...

in relation to

the general population.

And then they secretly gave them

a day-old crossword,

one that had already been answered

by thousands of other people.

Their scores went up dramatically,

like 20 percent.

So it's like once the answers

are out there,

you know, people can

pick up on 'em.

It's like we're all telepathically

sharing our experiences.

I'll get you motherfuckers

if it's the last thing I do.

Oh, you're gonna pay

for what you did to me.

For every second

I spend in this hellhole,

I'll see you spend

a year in living hell!

Oh, you fucks are gonna

beg me to let you die.

No, no, not yet.

I want you cocksuckers

to suffer.

Oh, I'll fix your

f***in' asses, all right.

Maybe a long needle

in your eardrum.

A hot cigar in your eye.

Nothin' fancy.

Some molten lead up the ass.

Ooh!

Or better still,

some of that old

Apache sh*t.

Cut your eyelids off.

Yeah.

I'll just listen

to you fucks screamin'.

Oh, what sweet music

that'll be.

Yeah. We'll do it

in the hospital.

With doctors and nurses so you pricks

don't die on me too quick.

You know the best part?

The best part is you dick-smokin'

faggots will have your eyelids cut off,

so you'll have to watch me

do it to you, yeah.

You'll see me bring that

cigar closer and closer...

to your wide-open eyeball...

till you're almost

out of your mind.

But not quite...

'cause I want it to last

a long, long time.

I want you to know

that it's me,

that I'm the one

that's doin' it to you.

Me!

And that

sissy psychiatrist?

What unmitigated

ignorance!

That old drunken fart

of a judge!

What a pompous ass!

Judge not lest ye be judged!

All of you pukes are gonna die the day

I get out of this shithole!

I guarantee you'll regret

the day you met me!

In a way, in our

contemporary world view,

It's easy to think that science

has come to take the place of God.

But some philosophical problems

remain as troubling as ever.

Take the problem

of free will.

This problem's been around

for a long time,

since before Aristotle

in 350 B.C.

St. Augustine,

St. Thomas Aquinas,

these guys all worried

about how we can be free...

if God already knows in advance

everything you're gonna do.

Nowadays we know that the world operates

according to some fundamental physical laws,

and these laws govern the behavior

of every object in the world.

Now, these laws, because

they're so trustworthy,

they enable incredible

technological achievements.

But look at yourself.

We're just physical systems too.

We're just complex arrangements

of carbon molecules.

We're mostly water,

and our behavior isn't gonna be

an exception to basic physical laws.

So it starts to look like whether it's

God setting things up in advance...

and knowing everything

you're gonna do...

or whether it's these basic

physical laws governing everything.

There's not a lot of room

left for freedom.

So now you might be tempted

to just ignore the question,

ignore the mystery

of free will.

Say, " Oh, well, it's just an historical

anecdote. It's sophomoric.

It's a question with no answer.

Just forget about it. "

But the question keeps staring you

right in the face.

You think about individuality,

for example, who you are.

Who you are is mostly a matter

of the free choices that you make.

Or take responsibility.

You can only be held responsible,

you can only be found guilty

or admired or respected...

for things you did

of your own free will.

The question keeps coming back, and we

don't really have a solution to it.

It starts to look like all your

decisions are really just a charade.

Think about how it happens. There's

some electrical activity in your brain.

Your neurons fire. They send

a signal down into your nervous system.

It passes along down

into your muscle fibers.

They twitch. You might, say,

reach out your arm.

Looks like it's

a free action on your part,

but every one of those...

every part of that process...

is actually governed by

physical law:

chemical laws,

electrical laws and so on.

So now it just looks like the Big Bang

set up the initial conditions,

and the whole rest

of our history,

the whole rest of human history

and even before,

is really just sort of the playing out

of subatomic particles...

according to these basic

fundamental physical laws.

We think we're special. We think we

have some kind of special dignity,

but that now

comes under threat.

I mean, that's really

challenged by this picture.

So you might be saying, " Well, wait a

minute. What about quantum mechanics?

"I know enough contemporary physical

theory to know it's not really like that.

"It's really

a probabilistic theory.

There's room. It's loose.

It's not deterministic. "

And that's gonna enable us

to understand free will.

But if you look at the details,

it's not really gonna help...

because what happens is you have

some very small quantum particles,

and their behavior is

apparently a bit random.

They swerve. Their behavior is absurd

in the sense that it's unpredictable...

and we can't understand it

based on anything that came before.

It just does something out of the blue,

according to a probabilistic framework.

But is that gonna help

with freedom?

Should our freedom just be

a matter of probabilities,

just some random swerving

in a chaotic system?

That just seems like it's worse.

I'd rather be a gear...

in a big deterministic,

physical machine...

than just some

random swerving.

So we can't just ignore

the problem.

We have to find room in our

contemporary world view for persons,

with all that that it entails;

not just bodies, but persons.

And that means trying

to solve the problem of freedom,

finding room for choice

and responsibility...

and trying to understand

individuality.

You can't

fight city hall, death and taxes.

Don't talk about politics

or religion.

This is all the equivalent of enemy

propaganda rolling across the picket line.

"Lay down, G.I.

Lay down, G.I."

We saw it all through

the 20th Century.

And now in the 21 st Century,

it's time to stand up and realize...

that we should not allow ourselves

to be crammed into this rat maze.

We should not submit

to dehumanization.

I don't know about you, but I'm concerned

with what's happening in this world.

I'm concerned

with the structure.

I'm concerned with

the systems of control,

those that control my life and those

that seek to control it even more!

I want freedom!

That's what I want!

And that's what

you should want!

It's up to each and every one of us to

turn loose and just shovel the greed,

the hatred, the envy and,

yes, the insecurities...

because that is the central mode of

control... make us feel pathetic, small...

so we'll willingly give up our

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