Klarinet Archive - Posting 000807.txt from 2000/08

From: Neil Leupold <leupold_1@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Tower of Babel / Babelfish
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 11:10:03 -0400

The "Tower of Babel" is the name of the building mentioned in Genesis 11:1-9
of the Christian Bible.

History of the Tower

The descendants of Noe had migrated from the "east" (Armenia) first southward,
along the course of the Tigris, then westward across the Tigris into "a plain
in the land of Sennar". As their growing number forced them to live in locali-
ties more and more distant from their patriarchal homes, "they said: Come, let
us make a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven; and let us
make our name famous before we be scattered abroad into all lands." The work
was soon fairly under way; "and they had brick instead of stones, and slime
(asphalt) instead of mortar." But God confounded their tongue, so that they
did not understand one another's speech, and thus scattered them from that
place into all lands, and they ceased to build the city.

In Douglas Adams's 'trilogy' (there are actually four books) "The Hitch-
hiker's Guide to the Galaxy," he elaborates on a very strange creature,
the babelfish, which is capable of translating any form of speech, in any
language, into sounds that you can understand...the practical upshot of
which is, if you stick one in your ear, you can instantly understand
whatever is being said to you.

Adams goes on to say that, what with extreme unlikelihod that something
so wildly useful as the babelfish could have evolved entirely on its own,
it has been used in some philsophical circles as final and conclusive
proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like
this:

"I refuse to prove I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without
faith I am nothing."

"But..." says the philosopher, "the babelfish is a dead giveaway, *isn't* it?
It PROVES you exist, and so therefore you don't. Q.E.D."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly disappears in
a puff of logic.

Neil

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