Some scenes in cinema work as genuine thought experiments. The opening sequence of Wild Tales is one of them. Everything begins inside an airplane with a seemingly trivial conversation between passengers. One of them mentions someone called Gabriel Pasternak. Another passenger knows him too. A third one as well. Gradually, almost everyone on board realizes that, in one way or another, they have had some connection with him. What initially appears to be an improbable coincidence slowly turns into an unsettling story. Eventually the revelation arrives: Pasternak is the pilot. And that airplane is not just another flight.
This scene is powerful because it confronts us with a question that often arises when we think about the universe, life and our personal trajectories: are the events in our lives the result of chance, or do they respond to a deeper form of causality?
In the experiences of Astronomy and Territory, we often explore this question while trying to understand the complexity of quantum physics. Quantum mechanics describes a universe where reality is not rigidly determined from the beginning, but rather emerges from a set of possibilities. These possibilities are represented by the wave function ψ, and the probability of observing a specific outcome is calculated through a very simple relation:
P = |ψ|²
This means that what we observe is only one of the possibilities contained within the wave function. In other words, the reality we experience is the result of a process in which many potential alternatives gradually reduce until a single outcome emerges.
Narratively, the story inside the airplane works almost like a metaphor for this quantum process. At first there are many possible interpretations of the coincidence among the passengers. Each new piece of information reduces the alternatives until a single coherent explanation appears. The moment we discover that Pasternak is the pilot represents, in a way, a collapse of possibilities.
Yet there is another intriguing detail. When the passengers begin telling their stories, each of them believes their connection with Pasternak is independent. Only gradually do they realize that they are all part of the same narrative.
In quantum physics there is a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement. In such cases, two particles belong to the same system and cannot be described independently. A simple example of this type of state is:
|ψ⟩ = (1/√2)(|00⟩ + |11⟩)
This expression means that both particles share the same wave function. What happens to one is related to the other because they belong to the same physical system.
The metaphor becomes inevitable. On the airplane, the passengers believe they are independent stories, but in reality they are part of the same narrative structure, which only becomes clear at the end. The discovery of the pilot is the moment when the complete system finally becomes visible.
In real life there is probably no hidden pilot directing our trajectories. Yet we do not live in a completely random universe either. Our lives unfold within complex networks —familial, cultural, professional— where trajectories intersect again and again. Just as in the cosmic web of galaxies or in the neuronal network of the brain, these structures make certain coincidences far more likely than they appear.
Perhaps that is why this scene feels so disturbing. Because it suggests that what we call coincidence might actually be the reflection of a deeper coherence that we do not yet fully understand.
After all, all of us —people, galaxies and consciousness— share the same origin in that first instant of the universe. And perhaps it is precisely this common origin that occasionally allows our trajectories to become entangled once again in unexpected ways.
Kílian Víndel 09/03/2026
