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

...and it makes me sad. He was such a brilliant man. He was absolutely one of my favorite humorists of all time, beyond Mark Twain, beyond soo so many. And always such a good read.

Then came the hidden things on his computer. The Salmon of Doubt, which I haven't actually gotten to yet in the final compilation but which contains some absolutely wonderful inside tracks into Mr. Adam's perceptions of the life, the universe, and truly almost everything around him. Such a broad field of vision. And so close. So very close.

Yet hugely off the mark.

He speaks in the treatise 'Is There an Artificial God' about so many aspects of why he had concluded there was not one. I purchased the book in ebook format and mention this only to reference page numbers. The page which follows the title above is page 666. No. I don't believe Douglas was the antichrist. I just now discovered that in order to make the point that I have not yet been able to finish this piece. I have only made it to page 839 on my Palm. I don't know where that is in relation to the finish line because I haven't crossed it yet. But as far as I have managed to come, I find myself mourning the loss of his insight for all time.

Don't get me wrong. I do believe in God. But I am sad that he did not come to the realization that the infinite clockwork of the universe around him did not lead him to realize that the odds for such perfection to have stumbled out of chaos is beyond any odds anyone has ever contemplated.

I am a nurse. I am only a servant. That is my profession. I am not brilliant. But I remember a discussion which would have so much dovetailed into Douglas' universe from something simple to something complex' theme. Consider that the autoimmune system has, if I am not mistaken - and I could be on the number of elements as it has been sometime since I studied the science of this so please just follow along with a generalized presentation - something like 5 integral units. From the evolutionary standpoint in conjunction with the study of the function of each of these elements, it is conceded by medical scientists that if any one of these elements were in existance before the others, the others simply never would have had a chance to 'evolve'. In fact, the interplay of these elements of the immune system is so complicated and interwoven that there is simply no explanation for their combined existance except to have been constructed at once and as a whole, a working unit, like an infinitely complex Swiss watch.

Mull that over. It is not a point one should lightly disregard or dismiss. Without that system, life could not exist as we know it on this planet. But it would have eaten its own competing elements before ever allowing itself the time to peacefully evolve.

To say that science does not support a planned construction of the universe is to dismiss so many things that stare us all in the face every day so much so that we tend to gloss over the complexity of the simple building blocks which allow life to exist on this planet.

Dearest Douglas. I will miss you.