In the philosophically-provocative film, Waking Life (which also explores the idea of stream-of-consciousness mentioned the other day), an animated Ethan Hawke teaches us about a fascinating crossword-puzzle experiment. This anecdote was based off a real London study that proved a person's ability to solve a crossword puzzle is statistically affected by whether or not other people have already solved the same puzzle. Does this imply that, once information is out there, people can pick up on it? This idea has already been popularized with countless inventions and vaccines having been simultaneously created in separate parts of the world within a 3-month period. So, the question becomes, once someone thinks something up, is everyone else just picking up on that? Or is the original idea not coming from the human level in the first place? Ok, I warned you this was going to be "weird week". But, here's the way this becomes less weird to me. We can create these little dinky, incredibly simplistic remote controls that can influence an electronic device from across the room. Why are we opposed to the idea that the incredibly complex human brain can do something similar?