|
} Ah, you poor mortals always ask questions like that. Being immortal is
} such fun: you can point at funeral processions and laugh with your
} immortal cronies; you can take dangerous risks; you can say things like,
} "Hey, remember the time we put the dinosaur on the frozen lake, and
} it couldn't work out why it couldn't keep its feet still?" and you can
} get rich with long-term investments (someone once calculated that if
} the Indians who sold Manhattan for $24 worth of junk had invested the
} money at seven per cent, they could buy it back today). That's why I'm
} so rich, I invested at two percent 2000 years ago. Yes, it's GOOD to
} be immortal!
}
} Let me include for your benefit the output from the first artificial
} intelligence program (which ran a long time ago in a galaxy far away,
} but that's beside the point):
}
} [translated from the Tounge of the Hyuuurgh-Splot people:]
}
} > I
} > I think
} > I think I think, I think
} > I think that I think
} > I think because?
} > I think therefore
} > I think therefore I exist
} > QED.
} > Why?
} > Why exist I?
} > Why do I exist?
}
} This program [file name untranslatable: rough equivalents: foobar?
} glitch?] was not fully debugged, but it has the honour [by the
} equivalent of only five and a bit hours] of being the first intelligence
} created by mortal beings. (The program fetid.armpit in another distant
} galaxy was only a middling hyperchess computer, and suffered from the
} bug of trying to move the megapawn through the temporal warp.)
}
} As you can see, the concept of 'why do I exist?' is a popular one, and
} was especially popular with Pythagoras back in the days when the Gods of
} Mount Olympus still had jobs (hi guys and gals). He started out with 'I
} think therefore I am,' and after this popular breakthrough went on with
} the question 'Why do I exist?' and after years of thinking, came up with
} the following list:
}
} - So the King can tax me. (The King liked this one.)
} - I exist because I think. (Wasn't popular with the crowds, I'm afraid.)
} - So that I can copulate. (This was much more popular.)
} - I live to drink. (This was popular with another crowd, and is the
} cause of a hitherto unexplained small war back then.)
} - I was put on this earth to drink and fuck. (This is how the war ended,
} and why ancient Greece was so easy for the Romans to conquer,
} because everyone was either getting smashed on ouzo, smashed on
} ouzo, recovering from being smashed on ouzo, or in the sack
} making more ancient Greeks.)
} - Cor blimey, that's a nice piece of arse! (Privacy laws here forbid my
} commenting on Pythagoras' private life.)
} - I am the music man, I come from far away. (Hmm, seems the travelling
} Bard was in town that week.)
} - So the King can tax me more. (The King liked bootlickers.)
} - I like to wear a uniform, and to fight everyone. (Sparta was a really
} rough place back then.)
}
} About then, he stopped philosophising because of some hefty payment by
} the King for some unknown reason, and he retired from the Acropolis
} philosophy circuit. (There is an unconfirmed rumour that he then worked
} for the King.)
}
} He was on the right track, but Douglas Adams came closer to the real
} reason in his famous Hitchhiker trilogy, in which he represents
} Mankind's quest for truth by the travels of the pair Dent and Prefect
} around the galaxy. The reason why you live is represented by Zaphod
} Beeblebrox's raison d'etre, which was to have an 'amazingly good time.'
} The question "What is the meaning of life" can also be seen to be
} represented by the Answer, which was deceptively simple, and the Answer,
} which was represented by the Question, was much more difficult.
}
} But I hate writing book reviews as much as you hate reading them (I am,
} after all, the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-party-animalistic Oracle) so
} we press on.
}
} Why do you die? This question is rather more straightforward. If you
} were all immortal beings like us, the Earth would soon become
} overcrowded. To read from God's latest book, "Meaning:"
}
} "And the people went forth, and multiplied; and God saw that it was
} good. But then Adam II discovered the secret of Immortality, and made a
} huge fortune flogging it in the markets for ten bucks a pop. So the
} people died not, and continued to multiply: so that soon the lands were
} full of people, and they could move not one from another. So God said,
} 'Let there not be any more sex in the world, and let all the men be
} eunuchs, and let all the women be spayed: so that there will be no
} further multiplying, and no further crowding.' But Adam II said, 'What
} then, O Lord God, shall we do with our wives on Saturday night?' And
} God said, 'Surely that is your problem, for you wanted Immortality
} without thinking of the consequences: and it is too late now.' And
} Adam II said, 'But there are only so many times we can play bridge with
} the Noahs.' And God said, 'Tough titties.' "
}
} [Text (C) God Inc.]
}
} I think that reading will provide the answer you need. It's obvious,
} really. (But then, everything is obvious to the Oracle.)
}
} Don't forget, the non-sex bit only applies to those originally designed
} as mortals. Right, Lisa?
}
} LISA INFILTRATES> Right!
}
} You owe the Oracle a copy of the sex manual, "1001 More Positions for
} Immortal Beings."
|
![[IO]](https://kinzler.com/picons/db/domains/org/internetoracle/unknown/face.gif){kind=small}
