Babel Fish
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| − | The '''Babel [[Fish]]''' is an invention of writer [[Douglas Adams]], who used it in his series of books called [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]. It is a small creature, whose existence the Guide calls "the oddest thing in the universe". If worn in the ear, it feeds on the user's brainwaves and excretes a matrix which encodes every known language, thus allowing the person immediately to understand anything in ''any'' language - as illustrated in the ''Hitchhikers'', film where someone milking a cow manages to hear the cows thoughts on the matter. | + | The '''Babel [[Fish]]''' is an invention of writer [[Douglas Adams]], who used it in his series of books called [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]. It is a small creature, whose existence the Guide calls "the oddest thing in the universe".<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcncPpQ8loA TV series version]</ref> If worn in the ear, it feeds on the user's brainwaves and excretes a matrix which encodes every known language, thus allowing the person immediately to understand anything in ''any'' language - as illustrated in the ''Hitchhikers'', film where someone milking a cow manages to hear the cows thoughts on the matter.<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1ctoT7ezTE Film version]</ref> |
==Disproving God== | ==Disproving God== | ||
Revision as of 12:16, 25 July 2010
The Babel Fish is an invention of writer Douglas Adams, who used it in his series of books called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It is a small creature, whose existence the Guide calls "the oddest thing in the universe".[1] If worn in the ear, it feeds on the user's brainwaves and excretes a matrix which encodes every known language, thus allowing the person immediately to understand anything in any language - as illustrated in the Hitchhikers, film where someone milking a cow manages to hear the cows thoughts on the matter.[2]
Contents |
Disproving God
Douglas Adams was explicitly an atheist (Richard Dawkins refers to him as his "tallest convert") and was quite a provocateur when it came to religion. This is well illustrated in the case of the Babel Fish entry in the Hitchhiker's Guide, which is repeated in most of the incarnations of the story. A reference is made to how Oolon Colluphid, author of books such as Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes, Who is this God Person Anyway? (perhaps a strong foreshadowing of the New Atheism trend of publish), used the existence of the Babel Fish to argue for the non-existence of God:
“”"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It proves you exist, and so therefore you don't. QED." |
Origin of the term "Babel Fish"
Babel in Adam's Babel Fish has origins with the Tower of Babel story contained in Genesis. Specifically, the name references the fall of the tower which caused the existence of the multiple languages of the Earth.
Hoax spawned by this story
An amusing hoax was spawned by this story which appeared for a time on both wikipedia and conservapedia. It referred to a certain concept called "Khalufid's Fork", which was allegedly conceived by an "Arabian philosopher" called "Ul-an Khalufid". The argument was suspiciously similar to that presented by "Oolon Colluphid". Before we get too smug though, we must remember that we were also taken in for a while. The article on Conservapedia is in the running for the longest surviving hoax article. It was posted on 5th April 2007 and finally deleted on June 12th 2008, having been edited by six different people (in addition to the original author).
Actual real world appropriation
Yahoo's translation site is called "babelfish".