Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Dark Jedi · 09-17-2002, 07:27 PM

Whoa.

Really.
I had seen excerpts of it, and liked them. Read the whole thing today. Impressive reasoning, that.

<a href="http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/" target="_blank">Find it here</a>

My favorite excerpt:

"This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, �This is an interesting world I find myself in�an interesting hole I find myself in�fits me rather neatly, doesn�t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!� This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it�s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything�s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise."

Demigawd · 09-18-2002, 09:49 AM

Thanks for the link. That was an excellent speech.

Abacus · 09-18-2002, 11:00 AM

Cool reading! Thanks for sharing.

BigJim · 09-18-2002, 03:55 PM

Cool speech, and yes I agree that there is an artificial God.

I've gotten into debates with religious people and they'll say "God is real, and has an impact on my life."

I agree that God has an impact on people's lives, but not that He is real, therefore, I agree with Adams' premise of the existance of an artificial god.

diana · 09-18-2002, 06:44 PM

Great stuff, Dark Jedi! Thanks for sharing. I'm a hopeless Adams fan.

I found this particularly amusing, although it really doesn't illustrate much at all:

Quote:

But the fourth, the many-to-many, we didn�t have at all before the coming of the Internet, which, of course, runs on fibre-optics. It�s communication between us that forms the fourth age of sand. Take what I said earlier about the world not reacting to us when we react to it; I remember the first moment, a few years ago, at which I began to take the Internet seriously. It was a very, very silly thing. There was a guy, a computer research student at Carnegie Mellon, who liked to drink Dr Pepper Light. There was a drinks machine a couple of storeys away from him, where he used to regularly go and get his Dr Pepper, but the machine was often out of stock, so he had quite a few wasted journeys. Eventually he figured out, �Hang on, there�s a chip in there and I�m on a computer and there�s a network running around the building, so why don�t I just put the drinks machine on the network, then I can poll it from my terminal whenever I want and tell if I�m going to have a wasted journey or not?� So he connected the machine to the local network, but the local net was part of the Internet�so suddenly anyone in the world could see what was happening with this drinks machine. Now that may not be vital information but it turned out to be curiously fascinating; everyone started to know what was happening with the drinks machine. It began to develop, because in the chip in the machine didn�t just say, �The slot which has Dr Pepper Light is empty� but had all sorts of information; it said, �There are 7 Cokes and 3 Diet Cokes, the temperature they are stored at is this and the last time they were loaded was that�. There was a lot of information in there, and there was one really fabulous piece of information: it turned out that if someone had put their 50 cents in and not pressed the button, i.e. if the machine was pregnant, then you could, from your computer terminal wherever you were in the world, log on to the drinks machine and drop that can! Somebody could be walking down the corridor when suddenly, �bang!� � there was a Coca-Cola can! What caused that? � well obviously somebody 5,000 miles away! Now that was a very, very silly, but fascinating, story and what it said to me was that this was the first time that we could reach back into the world. It may not be terribly important that from 5,000 miles away you can reach into a University corridor and drop a Coca-Cola can but it�s the first shot in the war of bringing to us a whole new way of communicating. So that, I think, is the fourth age of sand.

d

Dark Jedi · 09-18-2002, 09:50 PM

If you folks hadn't noticed, I am on a bit of an Adams kick at the moment.
I tend to delay reaction to shocking or hard news, and it all came flooding back this May...

So I am re-reading the complete works, including all his posts on douglasadams.com. As a result, I keep coming across such gems that I had long forgotten, and some I had never seen.

The world lost a great author, and a great mind.

09-17-2002, 07:27 PM	#1
Dark Jedi Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Afghanistan Posts: 4,666	Has anyone read Dougls Adams' "Artificial God" speech? Whoa. Really. I had seen excerpts of it, and liked them. Read the whole thing today. Impressive reasoning, that. <a href="http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/" target="_blank">Find it here</a> My favorite excerpt: "This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, �This is an interesting world I find myself in�an interesting hole I find myself in�fits me rather neatly, doesn�t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!� This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it�s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything�s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise."

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

09-18-2002, 09:49 AM	#2
Demigawd Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place Posts: 2,254	Thanks for the link. That was an excellent speech.

09-18-2002, 11:00 AM	#3
Abacus Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: South Dakota Posts: 2,214	Cool reading! Thanks for sharing.

09-18-2002, 03:55 PM	#4
BigJim Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Stepford, CT Posts: 4,296	Cool speech, and yes I agree that there is an artificial God. I've gotten into debates with religious people and they'll say "God is real, and has an impact on my life." I agree that God has an impact on people's lives, but not that He is real, therefore, I agree with Adams' premise of the existance of an artificial god.

09-18-2002, 09:50 PM	#6
Dark Jedi Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Afghanistan Posts: 4,666	If you folks hadn't noticed, I am on a bit of an Adams kick at the moment. I tend to delay reaction to shocking or hard news, and it all came flooding back this May... So I am re-reading the complete works, including all his posts on douglasadams.com. As a result, I keep coming across such gems that I had long forgotten, and some I had never seen. The world lost a great author, and a great mind.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.