HUMOR AND THE MEANING OF LIFE

by Michael Bleiweiss

14 January 1990

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy - by Douglas Adams

Most of my lecture today is taken from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; which is the name given to a series of extremely popular Science Fiction novels by Douglas Adams. They tell the story of the 2 sole survivers of the Earth after it is destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

It is also the name given a travelers' guide that is also extremely popular - partly because the words "DON'T PANIC," are written in big letters on the front cover and also because it contains a great deal of information, some of it actually useful to people travelling around the Galaxy on a budget. For example, it talks about the Babel fish.

pg. 42: Babel Fish and proof of non-existence of God.

"The Babel Fish," says the Hitchhiker's Guide, "is probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier, but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear, you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language."

"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as final and clinching proof of the nonexistence of God.

"The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing.'
"'But,' says Man, 'the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist and so, therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
"'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing."

pg. 6: Used by Oolon Coluphid's as the centerpiece in the last of his series of theological treatises:

Where God Went Wrong
More of God's Greatest Mistakes
Who Is This God Person Anyway? and
Well That About Wraps It Up for God.

God is dead - Neitche
Neitche is dead - God
I told him not to go around saying that - Mrs. Neitche

As an aside, (pg. 42.)

"The poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."

pgs. 108-115, 117-122: Answer to life, the Universe & everything = 42.

Over the ages, people throughout the world have sought the Answer to the meaning of life and, according to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this quest is not restricted to the people of the planet Earth. In fact, there is a race of pan-dimensional beings who in their quest for the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything built a great computer that they called Deep Thought. However, when they finally powered up the computer and asked it the Question, the members of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons demanded that the computer be turned-off.

"What's the problem?" asked the operators.
"I'll tell you what's the problem, mate. Demarcation, that's the problem. You just let the machines get on with the adding up and we'll take care of the eternal verities, thank you very much. You want to check your legal position do you, mate. Under law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually finds it and we're out of a job, aren't we?. I mean, what's the use of our sitting up half the night arguing that there may or may not be a God if this machine only goes and gives you his bleeding phone number the next morning? We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"

"Might I make an observation at this point?" inquired Deep Thought. "My circuits are now irrevocably committed to calculating the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life the Universe and Everything, but the program will take me a little while to run."

"How long?" they asked.

"Seven and a half million years. And it occurs to me that running a program like this is bound to create an enormous amount of popular publicity for the whole area of philosophy in general. Everyone's going to have their own theories about what answer I'm eventually going to come up with, and who better to capitalize on that media market than you yourselves? So long as you can keep disagreeing with each other violently enough and maligning each other in the popular press and so long as you have clever agents, you can keep yourselves on the gravy train for life. How does that sound?"

"Now that's what I call thinking." So saying, the philosophers turned on their heels and walked out of the door and into a life style beyound their wildest dreams.

Seven and a half million years pass. Finally, the program finishes running.
The people ask, "Do you have the answer?"

"Yes I do," answers Deep Thought.
"There really is one?"
"There really is one."
 

To Everything? To the great Question of Life the Universe and Everything?"
"Yes. Though I don't think that you're going to like it."
"It doesn't matter. We must know it! Now!
"All right, but you're really not going to like it."
"Tell us!"
 

"All right. The Answer to the Great Question of Life, the Universe and everything is...42.
 

"42!" yelled the people, "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years work?"
 

"I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, " and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."
 

"Can you tell us the question?"
 

"The Ultimate Question of Life the Universe and Everything?"
"Yes!"
Deep Thought pondered for a moment. "Tricky," he said.
"But can you do it?"
 

"No. But I'll tell you who can. I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me. A computer that can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its 10 million year program. And I shall name it also unto you. And it shall be called... the Earth.

And so the Earth was contracted for and built and the projections of the pan-dimensional beings into the world were in the form that we know as mice. And such was the subtlety of the program that when our scientists thought that they were doing experiments on mice, they were actually doing experiments on us.

Two rats are in a cage in a laboratory.
One rat says to the other "I have these scientists really well trained.
Every time a press this lever, they feed me."

The program runs smoothly for 5 million years. And then, Murphy's Laws cut in.

Murphy's Laws

Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

O'Toole's Commentary: Murphy was an optimist.

An optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds.
The pessimist fears this is true.

Sodd's Second Law:
When a person attempts a task, he or she will be thwarted by the unconscious intervention of some other presence (animate or inanimate). Nevertheless, some tasks are completed, since the intervening presence is itself attempting a task and is, of course, subject to interference.

Colvard's Logical Premise:
All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won't.

Gelb's Commentary:
Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you.

The 3 Laws of Thermodynamics:

1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't get out of the game.

Capitalism is based on the assumption you can win.
Socialism is based on the assumption you can break even.
Mysticism is based on the assumption you can get out of the game.

Hoare's Law of Large Problems:
Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.

Schainker' Converse:
Inside every small problem is a large problem struggling to get out.
Also known as the Can of Worms Rule:
If you open a can of worms, you need a larger can to put them back in.

Peter's Law of Substitution:
Look after the molehills and the mountains will take care of themselves.

Sigstad's Law:
When it gets to be your turn, they change the rules.

Olivier's Law:
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

Oliver's Law of Location:
Now matter where you go, there you are.

** Jaffe's Precept:
** There are some thing that are impossible to know, but it's impossible to know
** these things.


And now back to our story.

pgs. 269-274,301-306: Golgafrinchams crash on Earth.

The people of Golgafrincham put all of their hair dressers, television producers, insurance salesmen personnel officers, security guards public relations executives, management consultants, advertising executives, telephone sanitizers and other useless people on a spaceship under the pretext that the world is about to be destroyed by some catastrophe and have it crash-land on Earth.

As an aside, the population of Golgafrincham were eventually wiped out by a virulent disease caught from an unsanitized telephone.

Now, it happens that the Earth was destroyed just 5 minutes before the program was to finish running. It also happens that one of the 2 survivors, Arthur Dent, winds up on Earth at the time the space ship crashed on Earth. Feeling that the Question might be locked in his brain, he makes up a set of Scrabble blocks, puts them in a bag, and pulls them out randomly.

They spell out: "What do you get when you multiply 6 x 9?"

pgs. 459-465: Truth serum overdose - can't know both question & answer.

At the end of the story, Arthur Dent and his companions wind up in a courtroom where a man who was a witness in a trial was accidently given a massive overdose of truth serum and instructed to, "Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." Unfortunately, he kept on telling the truth long past matters relevant to the trial. Eventually, the judge had to order the courtroom cleared since too much truth is a dangerous thing. Arthur Dent and his companions find him laughing hysterically and ask him about the Ultimate Question.

He says that it is impossible to know both at the same time. If anyone ever does learn them both, then the Universe disappears and is immediately replaced by one that is even more confusing.
It is possible that this has already happened.

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish by Douglas Adams
This is the fourth book in the Hitchhiker's trilogy.

However, he did know:

pg. 195, 201-2 God's last message to the Universe:

Written in 30' high flaming letters in the Quentulus Quazgar Mts. in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the planet Preliumtarn around the star Zarss:

"We apologize for the inconvenience."


Venus on the Half Shell by Philip Jose Farmer under the pen name Kilgore Trout (the fictitious science fiction author quoted by Kurt Vonnegut in his novels).

This book tells the adventures of the last survivor of Earth who wanders the Universe seeking the answer to the question:

"Why were we born, only to suffer and die?"

He finally arrives at the home planet of the first beings in the Universe - a race of 6 foot cockroaches who had colonized the Universe in the distant past. In fact, all other life is evolved from the garbage they left behind on the other planets. He asks the head cockroach his question and he replies:

"Why not?"


Woody Allen - Annie Hall

A man goes to a psychiatrist and says, "You've got to help us. My brother thinks that he's a chicken."
The psychiatrist asks, "How long has he had this delusion?"
The man replies, "Oh, about 8 years."
Psychiatrist: "Why did you wait so long to come to me?"
Man: "We needed the eggs."

Two women are eating at a resort in the Catskills and talking about the food.
First woman: "This food is terrible. It's the worst food I've ever eaten!"
Second Woman: "Yes, and such small portions too!"