The Babel Fish Controversy
Created | Updated Sep 7, 2002
In his science fiction masterpiece, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams presents an argument against the existence of God involving the Babel Fish. It can be found at the beginning of Chapter 6 as the following quote:
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. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel Fish.
Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindboggingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a 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 needs 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, so therefore, by your own arguements, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
(Adams 42)
Simplified, this rather interesting theory can be stated as follows: "If the babel fish exists, it is a sure giveaway of God that he most not exist because he wants faith" (Theory). It seems perfectly logical and, at first glance, condemns God to that sorry state of nonexistence. Poor God.
But fear not, oh ye faithful, for an interesting loophole has been discovered!!! It goes something like this: "The thing is, how can something that does not exist want you to have faith in it?" (Loophole) Just as logic condemned God, so logic can raise Him from the dead!!! Logic must be great, indeed.
Sources
Adams, Douglas. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide. New York: Wing Books. 1962. 42.
Loophole, Interesting. conversation with Interesting Theory. the night of Thursday, 5 September, 2002 to Friday, 6 September, 2002.
Theory, Interesting. conversation with Interesting Loophole. the night of Thursday, 5 September, 2002 to Friday, 6 September, 2002.