“Life,” Said Marvin, “Don’t Talk To Me About Life.”
“You know,” said Arthur thoughtfully, “all this explains a lot of things. All through my life I’ve had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was.”
“No,” said the old man, “that’s just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.”
“Everyone?” said Arthur. “Well, if everyone has that perhaps it means something! Perhaps somewhere outside the Universe we know …”
“Maybe. Who cares?” said Slartibartfast before Arthur got too excited.
“Perhaps I’m old and tired,” he continued, “but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied.”
6 thoughts on ““Life,” Said Marvin, “Don’t Talk To Me About Life.””
This is actually really helpful. I’m supposed to teach a bunch of little kids about cells on Friday, and haven’t quite gotten around to my lesson plan yet.
Think I’ll skip the part where they blur the line between living and dead, though. Their little heads might explode, and then I wouldn’t be asked to teach again…
Hi Julie, thanks for reading and commenting!
I would agree that the video offers some interesting points when it comes to life, but they seem to take a very bizarre and nihilistic view on death.
Yes, exactly. Just because living beings are made of matter, does not mean that there is no appreciable difference between man, mouse, or mound of mud. The very fact that we are able to watch that video ought to be miraculous enough to clue them in that there is indeed something very special about life in general, and human life in particular.
It is as though they deny the meaning of a master painting because a microscopic examination reveals that it consists simply of splotches of paint.
The producers of the vid went off the rails pretty early.
The analogy of ordering your downloads folder is interesting, but of course, it suffers from begging the question, since someone is expending the energy and creating the order for to some purpose.
Claiming that every living thing on the planet is composed of cells is full of hubris. The fact is that nobody knows about all the living things on this planet.
Also, a cell isn’t subject to evolution. By definition, evolution occurs in populations not individuals.
Sorry for the double post, but I think it’s funny that the vid producers come right up to the edge of recognizing their Monism at the end of the video, but don’t acknowledge it.
Add in their usual glop about “everyone thought magical thoughts before Darwin”, completely ignoring other Monist materialist/nihilistic philosophies of centuries past, and all the upbeat music in the world can’t make the video (eh-hem) come alive.
Hi Mr. Fonsi, thanks for reading and commenting
I get the feeling that they were more concerned with making a pretty video that will attract rubes like me, instead of providing interesting and factual information. It all reeks of, “I’m the narrator, and the narrator is always right.”