h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Elsewhere on the net Douglas Adams has written of a theory that as soon as anyone fully understands the nature and purpose of the Universe it ceases to exist in that form and becomes something stranger that again can't be understood.

Does anyone know whether he made this up or whether such a theory is current? And where to get the details and sources?

I remember reading a short SF story many many years ago - it was called something like "The Names of God" - basically thye built this giant computor to calculate every possible variant of a name for God. As the computer neared the end of its task of producing million upon million of names, the engineers looked out of the window and noticed that one by one, the stars were blinking out.

I vaguely remember that the cornerstone of the story was similar to the theory that DA uses, so I guess that the origins are very old. It might be worth searching among Eastern religions for more info.

I guess that DA's theory, which is simialr to one postulated in the "Names of God", is probably very old.

The names of god might have been by Arthur C Clarke (but I'm not sure), but the theory sounds similar to the one that if we had the capacity to understand our minds, our minds would have evolved to such an extent that we wouldn't be able to comprehend them. Anyone else heard of that, or did I make it up trying to explain brains to my daughter?

I also like the idea that hell is based on the prevalent idea of hell, thus at the moment, it looks like that described by in Dante's inferno.

Thanks. I remember that story but also not sure who wrote it.

Both replies suggest a strong link between reality and our concept of reality. Either we only sense what we can understand, even if only slightly, or we actually create it all. Two ideas worth exploring. Aother explanation is that the Universe is complex to infinity! In which case we can never stop looking and no explanation can ever be complete.

Is DA out there somewhere? I'd like to ask him what he meant.

Curious - my last message went with someone else's moniker on it.

"There is a theory that if anyone ever discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will immediately disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened...

There is yet a third theory which states that both the first two theories were concocted by a wily editor of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in order to increase the universal level of uncertainty and paranoia, and so boost sales of the guide."

I haven't asked him, but I'm fairly sure that Douglas made this up.

"The Nine Billion Names of God" by (as suggested) Arthur C Clarke.

Yeah, that´s the story. There´s some monks there who believe that their mission is to find those names of God. When they do, the Universe will cease to exist. Not because of DA´s theories, but because of something religious. I personally don´t think that the Universe is infinitly complex because then it would all be chaos. Then what goes up wouldn´t come down, instead you wouldn´t know what would happen to it.

About the brains, the thing quoted here was wrong. Which is too bad because it´s a really great quote. But I can´t remember it myself. Something along the lines of "If the brain was so simple we could understand it, we would be too stupid to do so."

I rather like your version of the quote; I can't remember it either but yours sort of makes sense! (or it doesn't, which is the whole point!)

The mind is not infinatley complex or infinatley simple, but it's somewhere in the upper regions of complex to my understanding.

But that's just my oppinion

My theory is that the universe was created for one person to do one thing, and once the person has done it, they will go back to 'real reality' and we will simply disappear.

Another of my theories is that we are living somewhere in the middle of infinity. Every molecule is a universe/planet/star (I haven't decided yet), thereby making sense of how galaxies form into weird shapes, perhaps we're moving incomprihensibly fast, time wise, and we are in the midst of a small eddie due to a closing door, or something going on in a lake.

Yet another of my theories is that the universe was built by the same people who programme Digital cameras, Video recorders's clock setting procedures and Windows. It's just too incomprehesible to be made by anyone else (And they do have years of experience in making things incomprehensible).

The final one of my theories, is that it wasn't ment to make sense, so it doesn't. It just appeared due to a glitch with the infinitley dense ball of matter that was there before the big bang, and will eventualy return to that state due to the force of gravity, however small, on every molecule. It will do so in a mind numbingly/bendingly large number of years, and so therefore you are alowed to wimper in a corner, and perhaps rock a litle, when you start to get past the bilions of bilions of bilions of years whilst working it out.

Ok, so i lied, the final one of mt theories is that the universe was created by weird beings, and is being used as a play area for their young. All these warm, bright balls to play with (OI! keep your mind off of that dirty track!), and the little colder ones to mash together into browny shades of brown. Come on! haven't you ever seen a baby with playdough? All they can seem to make is brown whenever they get hold of them. Some of them may get bored halfway through, and as a result end up with purple or puke-green, but give them enough time and all playdough will eventualy become mixed into a swirly brown colour. It might even be enough to make a new planet with! Immagine the life that sphere would greate! They could excrete the playdough they had allready ingested into colourfull shaped tubes (Stars, Circles, Squares, Rectumangles, that sort of thing. You've seen the advert!) But mabe I'm straying just a little from the subject of the conversation....

Re: "There is a theory..."

Silly me. Of course DA made it up. It was the fact it was up as a guide article threw me. Mind you - it does sound remarkably plausible.

That thing with the playdough, sounds like the ending of MIB.

In my experience Play Doh tends towards grey with repeated playing, so it ends up looking more like brains than other stuff.

Note: I have no idea what brains looks like, but I can imagine.